Public Employee Press

Activists protest high unemployment

DC 37 activists outraged over the high U.S. unemployment rate joined 5,000 protesters March 6 in "The Line," a silent protest that extended from the bull sculpture in the financial district to Union Square.

The event lasted from 8:14 to 8:28 a.m.one minute for each of the 14 million Americans officially out of work.

"I don't think we are going to get any kind of economic recovery without a massive jobs creation program," said SSEU Local 371 retiree Bill Davis. "This is more severe than any other jobs crisis in my lifetime. It's similar to the Depression of the 1930s."

Under the Obama administration, the official unemployment rate has fallen from 10 percent to 8.3 percent but the actual rate is around 20 percent when part-timers who need full-time jobs and those have given up on finding work are included.

Economists predict that the unemployment rate will not return to the pre-Great Recession rate of about 5 percent for at least four years. Most of those out of work, particularly young workers, face a permanent decline in their living standard.

"The Line is a call to action and a demand for attention," said Mark Plesent of the Working Theater, which backed the demonstration with about 50 arts, immigrant, community and labor groups. "We want corporations to stop outsourcing our jobs and take responsibility for bringing work back to America."

DC 37 activist Georgia Weaver joined the New York City Labor Chorus at the silent protest. Chorus members were among 90 people who gathered at Zuccotti Park in the financial district, the birthplace of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"A lot of young people coming out of high school and graduate school are looking at bleak prospects," Weaver said. "Unemployment is also hitting women drastically. So many women need work and they don't earn as much as men."

"Unfortunately, high unemployment won't be going away any time soon, so we have to continue to support protests like The Line," DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said.