Archive: Business & Technology

The Tompkins County Workers' Center and one of its leadership groups, the Community Union Organizers, announces the formation of a weekly support group to meet every Thursday from 4:30-6 p.m. to support, advocate for, and empower unemployed and underemployed workers. Recognizing some of the unemployment and under-employment problems troubling many of our community members has led to this participant-driven weekly support meeting for unemployed and under-employed workers.

 

The issues:

The United States Senate has yet to act on the pending jobs bill in the US Congress. While local unemployed workers anxiously await word about when and if they will be paid additional unemployment benefits (hundreds of thousands of people nationally), the Community Union Organizers of the Tompkins County Workers' Center are taking action to support both under-employed and unemployed workers.

National job recovery figures from April show modest gains due to the 411,000 temporary workers hired by the federal government to complete the census. These jobs will go away by September.

The need for training for jobs that pay a living wage and funding for education remains at an all time high. Local people are working more than one part-time job just trying to get by and plenty of our unemployed people have been actively seeking work for a year or more!

Temporary work distorts the picture of unemployment and under-employment and feeds upon people who are making desperate efforts to support themselves and their families. It is an egregious trend in our global economy that aids employers who are escaping from participating in responsible employer/employee relations. 

 

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