San José, CA – On Friday, May 7, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that businesses added 266,000 workers. This was only one-quarter of the additional 1 million jobs that economists had predicted. This left the economy down more than 8 million jobs from February of 2020, right before the economic crisis started. At the current rate it will take the economy more than two and half years to gain back the lost jobs Women have been harder hit by the recession, and the gap with men widened in April as all of the net new jobs went to men.
San José, CA – On Friday, May 7, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that businesses added 266,000 workers. This was only one-quarter of the additional 1 million jobs that economists had predicted. This left the economy down more than 8 million jobs from February of 2020, right before the economic crisis started. At the current rate it will take the economy more than two and half years to gain back the lost jobs Women have been harder hit by the recession, and the gap with men widened in April as all of the net new jobs went to men.
International Workers Day is celebrated on May 1. Around the world, workers have accomplished many great things over the past year that we can be proud of. The ruling class, made up of monopoly capitalists, have tried their best to keep profits high at the expense of the people during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we’ve seen time and time again that the people can rise above the obstacles created by the 1% and bring about real change. On May Day 2021, it is important to reflect on the past year. We must also renew our efforts to end the rule of the monopoly capitalists and replace their broken, failed system with a system that benefits not the few but the majority of people – socialism.
On March 30 voting ended for Amazon workers who were hoping to join the Retail, Wholesale, Department Store Union (RWDSU) at the Bessemer Alabama Distribution Center. While the mail-in vote ended on March 30, the vote count took over a week to complete, and included hundreds of challenged ballots, mostly from Amazon challenging the vote. In the end, the union lost the vote by more than a two-to-one margin, with 738 workers voting to unionize and 1798 voting not to.
Lansing, MI – A group of 40 stagehands from across Michigan gathered at the State Capitol building in Lansing, March 17. The IATSE union stagehands are marking one year without work and demanding the extension of unemployment benefits until it is safe to return to their jobs.
$1.9 trillion COVID relief is badly needed, but more needs to be done
San José, CA – This past week, on March 11, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and White House passed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 rescue law without the support of a single Republican in the House or the Senate. The law provides much-needed relief for millions of people whose finances have been wounded by the pandemic. Yet much more needs to be done, especially in the fight against the growing economic inequality.
San José, CA – The number of people receiving unemployment aid from federal and state governments remained very high in February. Most newspapers and media hailed the decline in the number of new applications for the regular state unemployment insurance and the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, for self-employed and gig workers for last week. However, the latest week reporting the number of people receiving aid for all programs – including UI, PUA, the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation or PEUC, and the state Extended Benefits – showed an increase of 700,000. The national total is nine times what it was before the start of the recession a year ago.
A Texas weather emergency spiraled out of control on February 14. This emergency has resulted in over 60 deaths, power outages affecting millions, and more than 13 million currently without access to water. What led to the emergency can be blamed mostly on natural gas and coal companies like Comstock Resources Inc, who sought only to make profits during the crisis. These companies never properly maintained these plants and, when the temperatures in Texas dipped, the plants froze and became inoperable.
San José, CA – Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to subside during mid-February, layoffs were on the rise, showing that we are nowhere near the end of the tunnel for workers in this country. For the week ending February 13, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that there were 861,000 new applications for regular state unemployment insurance, an increase of 13,000 over the previous week. Applications for the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for gig workers and the self-employed rose by a much larger 174,427 the same week, to 516,299 new claims. Together, this meant that almost 190,000 working people had to file for government aid because of layoffs and business closures.
Restore the $600 per week unemployment supplement!
San José, CA – On February 13, the Northern California Unemployed Committee (NCUC) held its first protest in San José. The protest was called for the day after the IRS began accepting 2020 tax returns, to demand that the federal government stop taxing benefits for the unemployed. The protest also called for the restoration of the $600 weekly unemployment supplement.
