PEP, May 2014: Mail and Media

Public Employee Press

Mail and Media

Republicans ignore the American nightmare

It's clear that unemployment is high and not likely to lower significantly anytime soon.

There are just not enough jobs to go around, with outsourcing (manufacturing jobs lost, never to return) and automation (EZ pass, self-checkout counters, ATMs) leading to permanent job loss.

Yet Republicans feel justified in refusing to extend unemployment insurance benefits. Corporate welfare is OK with them, and no one mentions the costs of additional folks going on welfare and Food Stamps as their unemployment benefits expire. Haven't the Republicans tried to cut Food Stamps as well? Removing one of society's "safety nets" is only going to lead to something worse, but half this country doesn't seem to care.

There's no prospect of Congress passing a jobs bill (such as a program to rebuild city infrastructure or something like President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Public Works Administration, which put the unemployed to work building 34,000 dams, bridges, schools, hospitals and roads. The Republicans would never let such a bill see the light of day.
Each day, Washington is further removed from the needs of everyday America, and the chasm is killing the American dream as the poor and disenfranchised grow more discouraged.

France just passed a tax of 75 percent on those making over one million Euros a year. The rich in America never had it so good. How vast do the excesses have to get before the broken system resets or adjusts?

As my wife likes to say, "How do the politicians sleep at night?"

— Mark Shoenfield
Local 2627

Praise to DC 37 for backing de Blasio

It's beginning to look like backing Bill de Blasio for mayor was the smartest thing our union could have done. Right on, Lillian Roberts!

Bloomberg was a mayor for business and the rich, contracting out public work for private profits for the elite. Now we see de Blasio canceling layoffs that Bloomberg planned for our brothers and sisters and contracting IN instead of out. Yes!

And I am thrilled to see our union working to rebuild the labor-religion coalition that was the source of great strength in the civil rights movement. Right on, Lillian Roberts and Field Director Barbara Edmonds!

— Sarah Green
Local 1549

Thanks for Gentile obit tribute

My family and I wish to thank you for writing and printing the wonderful tribute to our Mike, Mike Gentile, ‘scrapper' for court workers, about the former president of Local 1070, who passed away in 2013, in the March Public Employee Press.

We sincerely appreciate the article, and so does everyone I sent a copy to. Thanks again and God bless you. The union was Mike's second home.

— Louise Gentile

Correction

PEP's article on the union's participation in the state Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Caucus (April PEP, page 8) omitted the roles of Local 1549 Executive Board member Natasha Isma and DC 37 Political and Legislative Analyst Sybil McPherson. McPherson moderated the panel that kicked off the caucus's budget workshop and Isma served as a panelist.