The Struggle for Peace and Freedom  "UBUNTU: George M. Houser and the Struggle for Peace and Freedom on Two Continents," by Sheila Collins, Ohio University Press, 2020. The most important people in the world are often those who work quietly in the background of events, devoting their skill, commitment, and lives to the causes they believe in. They receive no acclaim, but without them, there would be no triumph. George Houser is such a man, and his service has been given whole-heartedly and without reserve to the cause of human freedom and human equality . . . – Julius K. Nyerere, first president of Tanzania How does someone take an idea and an ideal and realize it without major government or foundation funding and without creating an institution that might smother the ideal? This is the story of one man who did that. George M. Houser, a white Methodist minister, was one of the most significant, if relatively little known, peace and anti-racist activists of the twentieth century. An early founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), he pioneered, as early as the 1940s, the civil disobedience campaigns that became a model for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. He later founded the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), which became a major U.S. support base for ending the colonial era and organizing the anti-apartheid movements, initiating the iconic campaigns that helped prepare the ground for the toppling of the South African apartheid regime. Houser's organizing style provides many useful insights for those working today for racial, economic, and gender justice. – Sheila D. Collins By WINIFRED ARMSTRONG "UBUNTU," tells a story of who and what propelled the uneven march to independence in Africa in the 1950s-1980s in a way that one better understands African and American choices made and not made and outcomes, which continue to shape current choices. It describes the wrenching discussions of both George Houser and the American Committee on Africa (ACOA) with nationalist leaders, particularly in Southern African countries—discussions about whether to adopt non-violent direct action as a principal strategy and how violence would be a necessary tactic while fearing the longer-term legitimization of violence—again a consequence still with us.
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| | Infrastructure Investment
vs. Job Guarantee
By PHILIP HARVEY
What is the difference between job guarantee and infrastructure investment? And to what extent would infrastructure investment and a J.G. program serve the aims of the other?
The goals of a job guarantee (J.G.) and the infrastructure spending legislation like the American Jobs Plan (AJP) proposed by the Biden Administration or the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (H.R.) currently under debate in the U.S. Congress are different.
-> The purpose of J.G. legislation is to close the economy's job gap through direct job creation and to administer the job creation program to ensure all job seekers access to proper employment providing fair and adequate wages along with safe and healthful working conditions.
-> The purpose of infrastructure investment legislation is to develop and maintain society's physical and social infrastructure, usually by contracting with private business firms, to perform the work and often stimulate economic growth and create jobs.
 Achieving Full Employment
J.G. legislation aims to achieve full employment. Securing everyone's "right to a useful and remunerative job" was the first entitlement in Franklin D. Roosevelt's agenda-setting Second (or Economic) Bill of Rights. Direct job creation is necessary to achieve this goal because market economies rarely create as many jobs as needed. Many economists no longer believe that this "job gap" can be closed by promoting economic growth.
Whether it is the result of market forces or a product of macroeconomic manipulation, the commonly accepted view is that economic growth will generate politically unacceptable and economically destabilizing increases in the rate of inflation long before it achieves full employment. In contrast, the direct job creation strategy can be configured to combat inflation while simultaneously creating enough jobs to provide useful and remunerative jobs for everyone who wants paid work.
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| | The July Jobs Report:
Not Enough Good News
By FRANK STRICKER
 The latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report, published Aug. 6, was on the whole positive. But Blacks and people with disabilities continue to be hit by persistently high unemployment, and true unemployment remains higher than the official government statistics indicate.In July, 943,000 nonfarm jobs were added, and the June additions were revised upward to 938,000. The information from the household survey was positive too. The unemployment rate fell by half of a percent to 5.4%. For whites, the rate dropped to 4.8%. That's close to conventional definitions of full employment as 4% unemployment. But the rates were still very high for Black people (8.2%) and disabled workers (12.1%). Also, as the National Jobs for All Network's Full Count shows, actual unemployment is much higher than official estimates. While the official unemployment rate was 5.4%, NJFAN's estimate is 11.7%. This higher number includes 6.5 million people who said they wanted a job but had not recently searched. In fact, there are always millions of people just outside the labor force on the alert for good job opportunities. Some are waiting for changes–personal (such as child-care obligations) or societal (COVID infection surges). Generally, labor markets are tightening, but not as much as some commentators think. On Aug. 9, we learned from the survey of job openings and separations that there seemed to be more job openings than unemployed people in June. But if we include the hidden unemployed, there are twice as many unemployed and looking for jobs as there are openings.
The jobs report is based on information collected early last month, so it does not reflect the latest COVID spikes.
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| |
The Full Count: July 2021
Unemployment Data
 Officially unemployed: 8.7 million (5.4%)
Hidden unemployment: 11.0 million
(Includes 4.5 million people working part-time
because they can't find a full-time job;
and 6.5 million people who want jobs,
but are not actively looking) Total: 19.7 million (11.7% of the labor force) There are 2.0 job-wanters for each available job! For more information and analysis, visit: www.njfac.org Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | | | | | | Employment Statistics
Since its founding in 1994, the National Jobs for All Network (previously Coalition) has been "telling the whole story" about unemployment.*
Our founders recognized that the official unemployment rate reported monthly by the U.S. Labor Department leaves out more jobless and job short workers than it includes. To be counted as unemployed, one must work less than one hour a week in paid employment and be actively seeking employment. As the above figures show, more than half the unemployed or underemployed are left out of the official count. Consider the political consequences of this undercount—of a problem perceived by the public as less than half as widespread as it really is.
*See "Unemployment Statistics: Let's Tell the Whole Story" by NJFAC founders Helen Lachs Ginsburg, Bill Ayres, and June Zaccone, Employment Statistics: Let's Tell the Whole Story - NJFAC
| | Get Involved!
The National Jobs for All Network is dedicated to the proposition that meaningful employment is a precondition for a fulfilling life and that every person capable of working should have the right to a job. As part of our mission, the NJFAN promotes discussion, encourages networking, and disseminates information concerning the problem of unemployment, the struggle for workers' rights, and the goal of guaranteeing decent work for everyone who wants it.
NJFAN relies on your support. If you find our material useful, please make a tax-deductible donation. We are all volunteers, except for a part-time coordinator and a part-time administrator.
We are publishing this newsletter to provide a public forum where the multiple groups and countless individuals interested in promoting this goal can learn what others are doing to promote the jobs guarantee idea, build public support for it, and pursue legislative initiatives to implement it.
We invite our readers to: - Help us establish a Jobs for All Action clearinghouse by informing us of publications, actions, and events that promote a jobs guarantee and related economic justice goals to share the information with other readers
- Comment on the contents of this issue of the Jobs for All Newsletter
- Submit ideas for articles in coming issues of the Jobs for All Newsletter
- Provide names and email addresses of individuals to whom we may send subsequent Jobs for All newsletter issues.
Please send your updates and contact suggestions to njfan@njfac.org. Thanks so much in advance for your help in building this important social movement.
The views expressed in the articles published in the Jobs for All Newsletter (including those authored by editors and writers of the newsletter and board members of the NJFAN) are not necessarily those of the NJFAN as an organization. We hope that the newsletter will become a forum of discussion and debate among jobs-for-all/full-employment/right-to-work/job-guarantee advocates. With that goal in mind, we plan to add a letter to the editor section to the newsletter and also encourage readers to email us at http://newsletter@njfan.com to suggest articles they would like to contribute to the newsletter. We promise a quick response.
Jobs for All Newsletter Committee
Gregory N. Heires (editor); Chuck Bell and Charlotte Wilhelm (production managers); Trudy Goldberg; Philip Harvey; Sarianna Sabbarese; Frank Stricker; Stephen Monroe Tomczak (Movement News); Logan Martinez; June Zaccone (Full Count and NJFAN website) and Noreen Connell.
National Jobs for All Network
P.O. Box 96
Lynbrook, NY 11563
203-856-3877
Web: www.njfac.org
Email: njfan@njfac.org | | | |
