Posted on 06/13/2012 10:41:50 AM PDT by Hunton Peck
America’s jobless are unionizing, or at least furthering an agenda of one of the nation’s biggest unions.
An organization aimed at giving the unemployed more influence has announced it now has more than 100,000 jobless activists in their ranks.
The Union of Unemployed (UCubed) Activists is an Internet-centric “community service project” of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) — one of the country’s largest industrial trade unions.
“Our objective is to pull together unemployed Americans in a way that allows them to connect, communicate and press their political leaders for policies that will get them back to work,” Rick Sloan, UCubed’s executive director and IAM communications director, told The Daily Caller.
According to the group’s website, jobless “Jobs Activists” assert their influence through coordinated communication with public officials.
“Jobs Activists, organized by their zip codes, advocate for sound public policy, emailing public officials to alert them about policies that directly impact the jobless,” the website explains.
Among those policies the group advocates is a second Works Progress Administration or WPA 2.0. Ads by Google
“We’d like to see [policymakers] recreate the Works Progress Administration, WPA 2.0. Which in the 1930s put between 6.5 and 8 million people back to work,” Sloan said.
The WPA was a New Deal program instituted by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935 to put Americans to work on public infrastructure projects during the Great Depression.
The group is currently pushing passage of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s recent “21st Century WPA Act” to reinstate the New Deal employment program, and Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s attempt to rejuvenate another New Deal program with her “21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Act.”
Lautenberg’s bill would cost $250 billion through 2013; Kaptur’s would cost $16 billion annually through 2015. Both bills are pending in committee.
UCubed is also interested in supporting extensions of long-term unemployment benefits.
“Those 100,000 online activists regularly share posts with their 26.6 million Facebook friends, giving the unemployed a power that far exceeds their numbers,” Sloan added in a statement. “UCubed connected with jobless Americans by asking a simple question: Where’s a job for me, Mr. President? And by advocating for a new Works Progress Administration — a WPA 2.0 — to put Americans back to work ASAP.”
Are they planning to skim union dues from unemployment checks?
If the unemployed go on strike, does that mean they go to work?
I wanted to join, BUT I COULDN”T AFFORD THE DUES!
How do they pay dues?
When they get a job, wouldn’t you drop out because you aren’t unemployed anymore?
Can this be more stupid?
Another Shake Down of those willing to work...extortion in excess. Anything but successful this "Making Jobs" during Obama's 1st and second year in office in the form of Shovel Ready Jobs...mainly for union workers...bailout or pay back? Now Chinese/American companies have taken over the refurbishment of some US infrastructure i.e., shovel ready jobs....This Union extortion is just another 'protest' against Capitalism lead by the same Union organizers who have organized the other protests...unrest is the engine with revolution the goal and Welfare/slavery the end.
So when they strike does that mean they’ll go out and find a job?
Just the return of an old idea that refuses to die. It’s Father Coughlin’s March of the Unemployed and Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s March on Washington all over again. Just enlisting the downtrodden for political purposes.
United brotherhood of deadbeat liberals.
The Unions are looking for some cannon fodder for their Occupy Wall Street movement.
Unemployed can pay dues out of unemployment benefits.
Blacks can pay dues out of welfare checks.
Inmates can pay dues out of work stipend.
Detroit can pay dues out of salvage.
California can have an illegal worker tax to pay dues.
DC can have a dumbass tax to pay dues.
Its a start and sounds pretty good to me.
Why not?
It's pocket money to the FedGov.
Print some more Baraqqi/Bernanke/Geithner mini-bucks.
I read about it a while ago. They’d do more good organizing community gardens (work to grow your own food), childcare coops (organize childcare for free while others look for work) and other “community” activities that would actually do some good. Instead, they are more like OWS than anything else.
“It’s pocket money to the FedGov.”
And, as always, not even their pockets.
Where do I sign up under several different names? Sarcasm and irony. We are married and unemployed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.