Related Articles
Local 24 Member Tells House Leaders: Extend Unemployment BenefitsDecember 9, 2013
Stan Osnowitz, an unemployed journeyman electrician member of Baltimore Local 24, said he hates being unemployed. “It is a waste of my abilities. I love being an electrician,” he says. Out of work since July after working for three years straight, Osnowitz is one of more than two million unemployed job seekers who could lose federal jobless aid if Congress does not act to extend it before the end of the year.On Dec. 5, Osnowitz drove to Washington to address members of a House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee who are countering efforts of Republican legislators against the extension of up to year and a half of a half of benefits for unemployed workers even after their state benefits have run out. The program was instituted in 2008 in response to the nation’s economic crisis. “I have been unemployed since July, but I still get up between 4 and 4:30 every morning to actively pursue work through my union and elsewhere,” said Osnowitz, countering the right-wing narrative that unemployment insurance “makes workers lazy.” “Construction work is hard to find in the winter, and outside of my industry, from what I’ve seen, potential employers see my age (67) and look right past me,” said the 43-year member who helped establish “24 Brotherhood,” a group that supports members who are unemployed or facing other troubles. The group’s fundraising efforts have helped pay the dues of out-of-work members to head off a lapse in benefits. Osnowitz joined a panel with other unemployed workers and experts, including the executive director of the National Employment Law Project and a representative of Catholic Charities. The hearing, before Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and several members of the House Progressive Caucus, was televised on C-Span. The number of long-term unemployed workers in September—4.1 million—is higher than in any month during the Great Recession, which ended in June 2009, reports AFL-CIO Now in a story on the steering and policy committee meeting.
|