The Workers’ Collaborative unites native-born, African American and immigrant workers to oppose the denial of access to employment on any unfair grounds, whether they be immigration-related excuses, or immoral racial barriers, or background checks which are inhumane and degrading. We believe that deauthorizing any worker from employment not only is immoral but pushes that worker into an underground, often exploitive working situation which lowers the standards for all workers. We support policies which promote equal rights and full employment for all workers. Immigration reform is an important step towards stopping the criminalization of poor workers, especially those of color.
Chicago Workers’ Collaborative is an Illinois non-profit organization that unites low-wage workers so we can receive the proper respect and treatment in exchange for our important labor. We educate about workplace rights, provide critical services to our members, and mobilize to gain full access to employment for all workers, especially immigrants and African Americans. The CWC presently is working on the following initiatives:
- Collaborating with the Illinois Department of Labor and the Illinois Attorney General’s office to improve enforcement of state labor laws.
- Growing the membership of our Chicago and Northwest Suburban Worker Service Centers by providing critical Assistance to our members.
- Aiding our worker members to locate the best legal assistance for employment-related issues.
- Working with law enforcement authorities in arresting the perpetrators and helping the victims of human traffiicking.
- Bringing together African-American and Latino workers to end the criminalization of our people, including Comprehensive Immigration Reform, so we may all work and participate in our community as equals.
In our 2010 “Colorlines: Race and Economic Recovery” TV special, we profiled Tisha, an unemployed young mother trapped in Connecticut’s support system. Tisha’s a trained home health care aid who had to let her certification lapse when a family member fell ill. But the system’s neither designed nor funded to help her get back into her field and match her with a job; instead, Tisha’s required by the state to spend forty hours a week at an underfunded city-run job training (read: dress-for-success) program. If she doesn’t go, or if she gets part-time work, or if she uses up her lifetime allotment of weeks in the program, she loses her food stamps. At the end of the program, a participant has no new skills, no new job openings in their community, a black mark on their employment record, and even fewer legal options to support their family. You can imagine that ‘curious’ doesn’t begin to describe their response.
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| — | Channing Kennedy, Have Behavioral Economists Ever Met a Poor Person? - COLORLINES |
Compare to a chart of GDP recovery over the same period using the same nations.
Something is very, very wrong with the U.S.
Okun’s Law tells us that labour productivity, crudely measured as GDP/employment, and ignoring subtleties like hours worked and quality of labour, normally falls in a recession. Because the percentage fall in GDP will be two or three times as big as the percentage fall in employment. And it did fall in all the other countries. But in the US it didn’t fall at all. Labour productivity actually increased. GDP fell a little over 4%, peak to trough, and employment fell nearly 6%, so the GDP/employment ratio increased by over 1%.
The US is an even bigger puzzle if you think that business cycles are caused by productivity shocks. Sure, you could always argue that US firms and workers were expecting even bigger productivity growth, so when it actually came in at only 1%, that was a negative shock to productivity. But you would have to work hard to convince me that that’s plausible. And what were all the other countries expectations for productivity growth — chopped liver?
Why did US productivity increase during the recession? Why doesn’t your explanation also apply to the other 6 countries?
Why is the US an exception?
I can’t tell you how many times I have read people who have lost their jobs in this recession in the newspaper saying, “But I’m trying so hard to be positive.” Well, maybe there’s no reason to be positive. Maybe you should be angry, you know? I mean, there is a place for that in the world.
Another piece of the economic issue that’s extremely important to remember is that women who are unemployed or underemployed are at significantly higher risk of domestic violence than women who are full-time employed at fair wages. I don’t think that it is a stretch to connect the dots between systemic wage discrimination against women—right? Women are paid 78 cents to the dollar. In communities of color it’s much worse. African American women are paid 64 cents to the dollar for white men; Latinas, it’s 58 cents. And the economic security of a woman is very much related to her ability to leave an abusive or violent relationship.
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| — | Terry O’Neill, As NY Gov. Paterson Criticized for Alleged Interference on Aide’s Behalf, a Look at Domestic Violence Nationwide |
“As you can see, the worse the recession, the more workers get discouraged. The longer our current recession drags on, the further off the reported unemployment rate will be versus the true number that includes discouraged workers. That also means, once the economy really starts getting better, the unemployment number will unexpectedly jump, because all those discouraged workers will be encouraged to give it another go.”
As a “discouraged worker” taking the summer off myself, I found this really interesting. Many of the people who recently graduated undergrad with me fall into this category, and the unemployment rate for our age group is catastrophically high— even worse when you consider that plenty of them are, like one person I know, using their fancy new engineering degrees from the University of Illinois to be lifeguards in their hometowns.
