The congressman focused his comments on his recently submitted bill:  H.R. 1000, the “Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Training Act.”  This is an important bill and one that the Not Working Project will continue to support in every way possible. Surely the richest nation in the country can provide a job for every citizen willing to work and contribute to the wellness of her community. Here’s to making it happen. Onward.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 H.R. 1000 & The Not Working Project in Washington, D.C.

On May 16 at 12pm, Penguin Books will host a congressional briefing featuring Rep John Conyers (D-MI) with author and filmmaker, DW Gibson, who will share excerpts from his recently completed documentary, Not Working. Over the summer and fall of 2011 Gibson drove across the country to collect the stories of the unemployed. He interviewed over 200 Americans and three of them will also speak at the briefing:

Roni Chambers (St. Louis, MO) worked in Human Resources and led a team that laid off 200 people in one day before she lost her own job. She currently volunteers full-time as director for the GO! Network in St. Louis, an organization that provides training workshops and networking events for the unemployed.

Bridgette Lacy (Raleigh, NC) lost her position as the Media Relations Manager for the North Carolina Arts Council when it was eliminated by the state. She channeled her frustrations looking for a new job into a blog, which has become a regular column about unemployment for the News & Observer.

Bob Bendig (Pittsburgh, PA) operated a security firm that provided immediate security escorts for corporations performing layoffs.  After walking countless workers from their desks to their cars, Bob had to shut the doors to his own business and is now one of the unemployed. Bob also surrendered his home to his bank and now receives housing assistance through Veterans Affairs.

Chambers, Lacy, and Bendig will speak about their own experiences with unemployment. Rep. John Conyers will join the discussion to highlight the necessary role Congress must take in being an active participant to reduce unemployment. He will focus on how his recently submitted bill:  H.R. 1000, the “Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Training Act,” is the appropriate legislation to put America back to work.

The Not Working Project has, for two years now, sought to use oral history to breath life into the anonymous statistics of unemployment. Gibson traveled the country with a small team, listening to the unemployed tell the story of the day they lost their job, the factors that led up to that event, and the consequences that followed.  A selection of the interviews are featured in Not Working, the documentary, as well as a book by the same title published by Penguin Books (July 2012.)

David Stockman had an essay in the New York Times earlier this week entitled “Sundown in America,” in which he convincing outlines how, exactly, capitalism has made democracy so impotent. His skillful description of the control that the Federal Reserve has over the US government–and the control that the European Central bank has over the 27 sovereign nations in the EU–is frightful.

Listen to the sound track for “Not Working”

Onward.

With a new year and fresh political start it is my fervent hope that our municipal, state and federal leaders demonstrates the wisdom, compassion, and inventiveness required to expand the labor market for all Americans who anxiously await the chance to work and contribute like they once did.

Onward.

When I was traveling the country interviewing folks who had been laid off, many of the Americans I met had, in fact, secured a new job of some kind but in almost in every case it was a job unrelated to their established field, a job that paid far less than previous jobs, and, in all likelihood, a part time position.

What Greenhouse’s article highlights so well is the fact that the reliance on part time employees is not limited to big corporations. Small businesses across the country–businesses with a demonstrated degree of conscientiousness–have come to routinely rely on workforces composed almost entirely of part time employees.

It’s a disturbing development. Not just the proliferation of this model but the fact that it is increasingly viewed as acceptable and increasingly a permanent approach to labor in the US. This is what happens when workers are stripped of nearly all leverage, knowing there is always a line out the door of a hundred unemployed workers eager to take any job at all.

All of that said, there is surely blame to be assigned and it is clear to me that this blame falls on contemporary capitalism, which views workers as numbers on spreadsheets. As I said in the introduction to the book, “Human contact is diminished. Proximity is avoided altogether.” The lack of contact between executive decision makers and employees–that is, disconnect between human beings–is destroying the labor market, and the care we show for each other.

Here’s what I wrote for the Post:

Whom do the unemployed for being out of work?