[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 40 (Friday, April 12, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              JOBLESS RATE IS AT 18-YEAR HIGH IN DISTRICT

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                     HON. LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 11, 2002

  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am concerned. I am concerned that my 
district lost 12,400 jobs in the past year including 300 from Global 
Crossing. I am concerned that this jobless rate is an 18-year high. I 
am concerned that in the last decade, 41 percent of Rochester, New York 
citizens between the ages of 20 to 34 have left town.
  While my area has survived the wave after wave of layoffs over the 
last 20 years by the giant employers such as Kodak, the bankruptcy 
filing of Global Crossing in January was a shock. Global Crossing was 
seen as the wave of the future. Two outstanding labor leaders in the 
Rochester community summarized the thoughts of many workers in an essay 
which appeared in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle on March 19, 2002. 
I have attached for the record a copy of this guest essay for my 
colleagues' consideration.

   Hold All Corporations Accountable, or Our Economy Will Not Improve

        (By James Bertolone and Gary Bonadonna--Guest Essayists)

       Recently, it's been reported that Monroe County has 
     experienced a loss of 12,400 jobs during the last year. 
     Unemployment also has risen to a 10-year high of 6.4 percent 
     (story, March 6). We have also learned that over the last 
     decade, 30,000 young people have left this area looking for 
     better opportunities.
       These statistics may come as a surprise to people in Monroe 
     County, especially those who have been following the 
     predictions of a hopeful economic future from the Chamber of 
     Commerce, the Industrial Management Council and the Center 
     for Governmental Research the past few years.
       In a trend that started in the 1980s, Monroe County has 
     endured an astonishing deindustrialization of its work force. 
     Due to one-sided free trade deals, the rate of this 
     deindustrialization has accelerated rapidly. Eastman Kodak 
     Co., Bausch & Lomb Inc., Xerox Corp., Valeo Electric Systems 
     Inc. and others have announced wave after wave of layoffs. 
     Small manufacturing concerns, many of which sprung up to fill 
     the gap as large corporations shed workers, are suffering 
     also.
       The job loss at large manufacturing companies was, despite 
     our instincts to the contrary, supposed to be good news. We 
     were told by pro-corporate cheerleaders of the new economy 
     that despite these layoffs, our local economy would still 
     continue to grow jobs. We were merely an economy in 
     transition, and the wonder of free trade and the dawning of a 
     new Internet-based economy were supposed to lead these 
     workers to a more modern workplace.
       So what exactly has this new economy brought us?
       Based on statistics, apparently a whole lot less than we 
     bargained for. In this new world, we are supposed to get rich 
     through investment in an ever-expanding stock market, not by 
     punching a time clock. The old economy wouldn't be missed, 
     although it served our community and generations before us so 
     well. But the truth is unmistakable--12,400 jobs lost; 30,000 
     of our best and brightest seeking greener pastures elsewhere 
     and the so-called experts at a loss to explain how this 
     happened.
       Working people can no longer stand idle while the corporate 
     elite strip away our future and while regulations that had 
     been designed to protect us from corporate greed are being 
     dismantled by highly paid, pro-corporate lobbyists. According 
     to that wild-eyed radical Alan Greenspan, two-thirds of 
     economic activity in the United States is based on consumer 
     spending. If workers don't have decent paying jobs, they 
     don't have money, and there goes two-thirds of the economy.
       It's time to recognize that our economy cannot improve 
     without corporate accountability. Big business must be held 
     accountable to their workers, to communities in which they 
     operate and their investors.
       We must regulate and protect the right of workers to 
     organize and bargain collectively because, like it or not, 
     organized labor is the only protection we have against the 
     unfettered power of corporate management.
       Organized labor's struggle to change labor standards, 
     health and safety regulations and general social policy has 
     become the greatest anti-poverty program in the history of 
     the industrialized world.

     

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