10-31-08, 10:15 am

Two responses to the crisis seem most important for us. First, a movement of, and on behalf of, the unemployed and homeless to protect themselves, and to demand work or income. Second, a campaign to reverse the decline in working class incomes.

With respect to the first, unemployed committees can be a powerful foundation for a broad based recovery movement. They can be the fire on the feet of elected representatives and officials through public forums linked to community or pot-luck suppers or rallies. They can draw communities together through food banks, shared child and sick care, carpooling, job banks. Given the They can become the driving force for extended unemployment benefits, for extending unemployment for the duration of a college or technical degree program and subsidizing its tuition, and for regional and national service. Not least, in the midst of significant political and economic restructuring of national and world institutions, these committees will be a true and real-world school of socialism – a school in which we ourselves must be conscientious students, as well as a resource – after all, we've done this kind of thing before. Extending unemployment is essential. The steepness of the real economic crash now underway, coming on the heels of over nine months of job losses and three months of mounting home foreclosures, makes this an emergency matter. There is strong momentum toward doing this in Congress now. Creating strong incentives and subsidies for crisis victims to successfully retrain to higher skills and degrees will be mandatory for a rapidly changing, increasingly mobile, increasingly multinational, high-tech driven labor force to recover on higher ground than before. Unemployed committees can have a direct influence on expanding regional educational services and resources. Establishing a National Service Program is a component of the Obama Campaign program. He calls for: * Expanding AmeriCorps from 75,000 slots to 250,000 slots and establish five new 'corps,' including: Classroom Corps, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, Veterans Corps and Homeland Security Corps. * Increase the engagement of retired Americans in volunteer service. * Establish a goal of having students in middle school and high school contribute at least 50 hours a year to community service. * Create a new American Opportunity Tax Credit to ensure the first $4,000 of a college education is free for Americans willing to complete 100 hours of public service a year.

This the most important long range, major achievement of which an unemployed movement could claim a key role in winning. The WPA of the 1930's was an early experiment in National Service (other than Military Service). Successors included the Peace Corp and Volunteers In Service To America (VISTA). Winning National Service must be the combined effort of youth, senior, and unemployed people and their organizations. It must be a grass roots effort as it will have a host of well-known enemies who know this program for what it potentially is: The beginning of government serving as the-employer-of-last-resort – which would be a profound step forward in both stabilizing financial crises and raising the working class share of what they produce. Such 'redistribution' would indeed give a whole new birth to 'demand-side' economics – an economics in which unemployment, the most pernicious evil of capitalism, is substantially socialized. Unemployed Committees are in a unique position to promote National Service, assuming they can avoid the temptations of sectarianism, and embrace a very broad-based and democratic posture. For example, many public works projects already designed but sitting on the shelves of county and state development commissions for lack of funding, could quickly become hot public interest debates through forums. In the 1980's recession, local unions in Vermont sponsored unemployed committees that actually did an inventory of needed public works in neighboring communities as preparation for proposals for WPA-type employment projects. The expected severity and length of the current recession/depression justify National Service on an unprecedented scale. There is a potential conflict between an indepedent unemployed movement and some natural tendencies in the trade union movement. The potential conflict is simple – what will be the rate for National Service? Unemployed workers will more-often-than-not accept work at a lower rate than workers already working at a higher rate. Neither side of this conflict is wrong, or right. In fact it is a secondary purely 'interest' conflict which bargaining can resolve in the public debate over what National Service occupations should pay. A national service rate scale would, at its bottom, and at numerous skill levels, define a new wage floor, even a new poverty floor, for the entire economy, especially as the service programs move closer to being 'employers of last resort.' The outcome of the public debate and bargaining will determine what the highest possible floor will be. But in any event all working class interests are united by the overall very positive impact that virtually full employment will have on labor markets, on consumer demand, and on financial stability. The latter is achieved primarily by lowering the ratio of investment to consumption. This has the effect, as one might expect, of lowering risk, especially systemic risk. It may also lower growth, although not all models support this. Full employment should be a powerful natural stimulus to innovation. At the same time, some argue that if investment's portion of the economy is lowered, funding, especially for non-public capital intensive projects, may be harder to obtain. It is a balance the new 'demand-side' economics will find. At a minimum, beyond what ever national or regional rate scale is established, health coverage, retirement contribution, and GI-like education benefits must be part of a package that fulfills the employer of last resort role that the next phase of social transformation should require government to play. Direct public employment is also the FAST-TRACK to acceptable universal health coverage standards, since it compels government to establish such a standard for its own employees. The latter in itself makes one of the largest across-the-board upward income pressures of any major reform. Nationalizing retirement is already underway via steps taken by the Treasury Department in seizing stakes in major banks. Making retirement programs more secure is another big push upward on working people's income. Re-Legalizing collective bargaining and union organization through the Employee Free Choice Act holds the promise of workers freely choosing to involve themselves directly in the legal bargaining process over income and conditions of employment.