Despite having the highest number ever of American workers who are both out of a job and out of unemployment benefits, the White House and Senate Republican leaders refuse to provide these workers additional help, U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton charged Saturday.

In addition, he said, Senate leadership continues to block efforts to stop the Bush administration from revising overtime rules in a way that would deny time-and-a-half pay to an estimated 8 million workers who now receive it. In a news conference outside the state Workforce Center on Plymouth Ave. in north Minneapolis, Dayton said: "We can't even get votes on these measures in the Senate, which is shameful."

Sen. Mark Dayton: "We can't even get votes on these measures in the Senate, which is shameful." Union Advocate photo

Senate fails to follow House lead
More than 1.1 million American workers who have been out of work at least six months have exhausted their regular state unemployment benefits, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Further, each new week, nearly 80,000 jobless workers run out of regular benefits without getting further aid, the center estimates.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted Feb. 4 to provide 13 more weeks of extended benefits, but Senate leaders have rebuffed eight separate attempts to pass a similar extension, Dayton said.

"We have tax breaks for hundreds of billions of dollars for corporations and wealthy investors, but we're not providing extensions of unemployment benefits that families need to keep above the poverty level while they're trying to find additional work," Dayton said.

Out of work, out of luck
A previous federal extension expired Dec. 20, leaving any worker who ran out of benefits since then up a creek. This includes an estimated 18,700 workers in Minnesota.

One of those workers is Tom Brustad, a member of Teamsters Local 120 who lost his job at Fleming Foods last summer when the company plunged into bankruptcy and dumped some of its operations, putting 200 people out of work in the Twin Cities and more than 20,000 nationwide.

Brustad's unemployment benefits ran out in January. He says he has no hope of finding a job that comes even close to matching the $23 an hour, plus $9 an hour in benefits, that he made as a truck driver with Fleming.

"If these good jobs are going away," Brustad said, "we need to help people get back into the job market. Unemployment is a bridge to help them do that. The people I know, they want to work. They need jobs and they need help getting the jobs."

Brustad said he's receiving training to become a home inspector, but has to rely on financial help from his parents to tide him over.

Tom Brustad: "If these good jobs are going away, we need to help people get back into the job market." Union Advocate photo

"Often times, it takes more time to enroll in a program and finish the program than the unemployment provides," he said.

Mark Russell, a former mechanic at Northwest Airlines, is affected another way. Because he pieced together work on and off since he lost his job last spring, he didn't exhaust his state unemployment benefits before the Dec. 20 federal cutoff. When his benefits finally ran out earlier this year, he was no longer eligible for the federal extension. "It would have been better for me to just sit on my rear end and keep the money coming in for free, instead of working," he said.

Helping corporations, not helping workers
Dayton also criticized the Bush administration's push to change rules governing overtime pay, and its refusal to deal with outsourcing of American jobs.

"While jobs are being outsourced, we have a bill that may come before us this week that would provide for $39 billion in tax breaks for foreign business operations," Dayton said. "Why we would want to provide more tax relief to companies that are providing jobs outside the United States is an absolute abomination."

Jim Meyer, of Communication Workers of America Local 7250, said telephone companies are routinely moving customer service and information technology jobs abroad. These jobs routinely pay $15-$20 an hour plus benefits, he said, but workers who lose these jobs are lucky to find work that pays $10 an hour.

"Basically, the American dream is now being shipped overseas," he said.

Jim Meyer: "Basically, the American dream is now being shipped overseas." Union Advocate photo

Jeanne Ross, of the Minnesota Nurses Association, and Tom Thornberg, of Minneapolis Fire Fighters Local 82, said that under the new overtime rules, workers in their professions would lose pay for the same amount of work they do now.

"They just don't want to go on record," Dayton said of legislators refusing to block the changes in overtime rules. He called it a choice of "standing up for American workers vs. the interests of corporations who want to keep making people work more hours and not pay them any more."

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