When the 2013 Labor Legislative Conference (LLC) convened in Raleigh on Tuesday, participants learned the outlook at the start of the new biennium of the North Carolina General Assembly for working people, consumers, the environment, clean elections advocates, and many other constituencies is grim, indeed.
We interviewed six North Carolinians to record their stories of life on unemployment. They told us a powerful story that should give pause to any lawmakers now pushing deep benefit cuts. May they be heard.
If Governor McCrory is going to put the brakes on a plan that would harm not only inflict permanent pain on jobless workers but threaten our state’s economic recovery, now is the time for him to speak up.
The Raleigh News & Observer has accused Republican state lawmakers of treating jobless workers “more as enemies than victims,” calling, in a recent editorial, their proposal to enact devastating cuts to our state’s unemployment insurance system “petty, hurtful and unnecessary.”
If a proposal by the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, adopted by Republican leaders in our state legislature, to dramatically cut our state’s unemployment benefits system becomes law, rural counties with unemployment rates almost double the state average will take the biggest economic hit.
When the world’s largest social network picked Rutherford County, NC as the site of its newest data centers, Facebook turned to IBEW to get the job done right. Now workers are earning a living wage in a county with high unemployment, and IBEW is winning new members grateful for the union difference.
The workers at the Thomas Built Buses manufacturing plant in High Point, who are represented by United Auto Workers Local 5287, got some good news earlier this month. Thomas has recalled 112 laid-off workers to meet demand.
Governor Perdue took action earlier this month to make sure 28,000 jobless North Carolinians will not lose their last lifeline in the New Year.
About 50 workers, students, and community activists joined unemployed constituents to demonstrate for the extension of unemployment insurance outside of Rep. Coble’s office on Thursday, December 8.
The NC Justice Center has pulled together available information about unemployment in our state to create a profile of joblessness. The facts show the jobs crisis hitting workers 55 and older hard.
By a vote of 51-47 on Thursday, Senate Republicans including Richard Burr voted unanimously to kill the Rebuild America Jobs Act on procedural grounds which required 60 votes to advance the bill. It was the third time Burr voted to block legislation that would put hundreds of thousands of Americans back to work.
U.S. Representative Sue Myrick sponsored a job fair at Central Piedmont Community College, today, but she did not attend. It’s just as well because Myrick’s voting record in Congress shows the only job that concerns her is her own.
According to recently released data, North Carolina’s unemployment rate rose to 9.9% in June. As the N.C. Budget and Tax Center reports, this increase was fueled by state government job losses, which are expected to get worse as the new Republican state budget takes effect.
For just over a month, an estimated 37,000 North Carolinians have been trying to live without their federal unemployment benefits all because Republican legislators refuse to pass a clean bill to extend benefits. The number of people losing benefits grows by just over 2,000 each week. Now over 42,000 people must live without this critical income.
NC State AFL-CIO
PO Box 10805
Raleigh, NC 27605
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919-833-6678 voice
919-828-2102 fax
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