Todays Salem Rally For Jobs

Several of us attended the jobs rally called by the Oregon AFL-CIO on the steps of the State Capitol today. Rally organizers estimated that 300 people attended, but it seemed to me that the numbers were closer to a spirited 500. The crowd came overwhelmingly from the trades, the docks, the Teamsters and the Steelworkers.

The rally was held as part of a wider lobbying effort for jobs and to give pro-labor politicians and labor leaders a forum to address the union members and their family members who come to rallies and actively participate in their unions. The rain and a lack of cooperation from the media no doubt conspired to keep many people away who might otherwise have attended. Noticeably absent were the public employee unions and many of the pro-labor community organizations, and especially the immigrant rights groups, who have become necessary to building successful labor mobilizations in the Valley.

Remember that this is part of a national effort that will gain ground in some areas and be less successful elsewhere. A meeting today in Washington between four civil rights leaders and President Obama on jobs ended on an upbeat note, with Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP saying in a press conference that he believes that the President gets it.

It was good to see a multigenerational and multiethnic working class crowd mobilized by the unions. The basic stated demand of the rally insured that many people would attend who might not otherwise cooperate with one another. Some of our progressive politicians got a good hearing from the crowd and obviously have mass working class support. It was good to hear a few liberal politicians feeling obligated to reach for labor credentials and support; the crowd and the unions they represent can still move politicians. The rally organizers did a great job on turn-out and basic unity and holding politicians accountable. It's difficult to get labor people on the same page and to break down the trades' resistance to working with other groups, but the rally organizers clearly did a good job here.

People at the rally were moved by stories of homelessness and joblessness. These are real fears now, and especially so for tradespeople who depend upon an expanding construction economy for work and dockworkers and teamsters who depend upon Pacific Rim trade.

On the downside, the rally featured a slogan which amounted to something like "Don't vote for job-killing taxes or politicians" and some in the crowd repeatedly chanted, "No jobs, no taxes!". These are the slogans of the right and they were used by anti-government forces in their unsuccessful efforts to defeat Measures 66 and 67. Had the rally been held before the vote, it would have been a debacle. These slogans imply that taxes and politicians are at the root of unemployment and that companies want to hire but are being prevented from doing so. The fact is that public policy is very much up for debate and redesign and that companies don't want to, or can't, hire now. Anti-government forces have their own self-serving reasons for ending regulations and cutting taxes and tax rates and none of these benefit workers. Massive public works and public services programs, ideally paid for by taxes on the wealthy and on corporations, can bail us out of the crisis, if only temporarily. Reducing these complex issues to one of taxes or politicians gets us nowhere and becomes an attack on public workers in the hands of the far right every time.

We come back continually to the hard truth that it is capitalism, with its boom-and- bust cycles and its over-production and gradual impoverishment of the workers, which causes unemployment. If jobs return, they are more likely to do so when inventories drop, wages drop and the wealthy force workers to shoulder more of the costs of doing business.

A state worker who attended the rally got it right when he said, "This just goes to show you how easy it is to divide workers over the promise of jobs."