The effort, coordinated by Americans United for Change, includes the AFL-CIO, AFSCME and SEIU, leaders said in a telephone press conference Tuesday.
"The economy is in free fall and working people are struggling. The share of all the unemployed who are jobless more than six months is 18% and there are two jobless workers searching, per every job available," declared AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel. He called the economy — including a sharp rise in May in the jobless rate — "a toxic brew" for workers and their families.
The objective of the blitz is to get the House to approve a bill extending jobless benefits to a minimum of 39 weeks and making the extension retroactive to all workers who had exhausted their benefits starting last November. Every month, starting in January, some 200,000 more workers had lost their benefits, reaching the end of their 26 weeks, Samuels said.
The House vote is expected either Wednesday or Thursday.
"We alerted our state and local labor leaders, to contact their lawmakers and push them for it," Samuel said. "And we\'ve got 800 (toll-free) numbers for activists to call." One such number is 1-888-460-0813, set up by the federation and Americans United.
The key roadblock, said Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., is getting enough Republicans to defect to override a veto by President Bush. Bush says that joblessness is not high enough to justify extending benefits. He contends the economy is still basically healthy, even though unemployment rose 0.5% in May to 5.5% and 861,000 more workers lost their jobs.
Neither Levin — whose Ways and Means Committee is writing the bill — nor Samuel could produce a nose-count on either side of Capitol Hill. Samuel said the situation could change quickly depending on both lawmakers\' perceptions of the joblessness problem and on whether the free-standing jobless bill would — again — be rolled into Bush\'s money bill funding the Iraq War. The Senate added the jobless benefits, plus an improved GI Bill for soldiers\' education, plus more relief for Katrina victims, to that measure last month by a bipartisan 75-22 vote.
That would be enough to override a Bush veto, but "we don\'t know how many would defect" on a solo jobless benefits bill, Samuel said. "We hope it wouldn\'t be any."
The House also tucked the jobless benefits extension into the war money bill, but without enough votes to override a veto. That needs two-thirds majorities.
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.
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The effort, coordinated by Americans United for Change, includes the AFL-CIO, AFSCME and SEIU, leaders said in a telephone press conference Tuesday.
"The economy is in free fall and working people are struggling. The share of all the unemployed who are jobless more than six months is 18% and there are two jobless workers searching, per every job available," declared AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel. He called the economy — including a sharp rise in May in the jobless rate — "a toxic brew" for workers and their families.
The objective of the blitz is to get the House to approve a bill extending jobless benefits to a minimum of 39 weeks and making the extension retroactive to all workers who had exhausted their benefits starting last November. Every month, starting in January, some 200,000 more workers had lost their benefits, reaching the end of their 26 weeks, Samuels said.
The House vote is expected either Wednesday or Thursday.
"We alerted our state and local labor leaders, to contact their lawmakers and push them for it," Samuel said. "And we\’ve got 800 (toll-free) numbers for activists to call." One such number is 1-888-460-0813, set up by the federation and Americans United.
The key roadblock, said Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., is getting enough Republicans to defect to override a veto by President Bush. Bush says that joblessness is not high enough to justify extending benefits. He contends the economy is still basically healthy, even though unemployment rose 0.5% in May to 5.5% and 861,000 more workers lost their jobs.
Neither Levin — whose Ways and Means Committee is writing the bill — nor Samuel could produce a nose-count on either side of Capitol Hill. Samuel said the situation could change quickly depending on both lawmakers\’ perceptions of the joblessness problem and on whether the free-standing jobless bill would — again — be rolled into Bush\’s money bill funding the Iraq War. The Senate added the jobless benefits, plus an improved GI Bill for soldiers\’ education, plus more relief for Katrina victims, to that measure last month by a bipartisan 75-22 vote.
That would be enough to override a Bush veto, but "we don\’t know how many would defect" on a solo jobless benefits bill, Samuel said. "We hope it wouldn\’t be any."
The House also tucked the jobless benefits extension into the war money bill, but without enough votes to override a veto. That needs two-thirds majorities.
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.