Ohio Workers Rally to Help the Jobless, Slam Tax Cuts for the Rich

Ohio AFL-CIO Field Communications staffer Andrew Richards sends us this report.

Braving near single-digit temperatures, dozens of jobless Portsmouth workers rallied outside the office of Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) yesterday to demand she and other congressional Republicans stop using an extension of unemployment insurance [1] (UI) as political leverage to continue tax cuts for the wealthy.

Workers chanted “pass unemployment now” and held signs saying, “We need good jobs now” and “Unemployed held hostage by GOP tax cuts for rich,” as passing cars honked in support.

Republican leaders have blocked action on maintaining the unemployment insurance benefits for long-term jobless that expired Nov. 30. They are holding it and other legislation hostage [2] until they get a vote on extending Bush-era tax cuts. The White House and Republicans have agreed to a deal [3] that includes the tax cuts and a 13-month extension of unemployment insurance. But the deal’s fate is uncertain.

“No one here wants to be unemployed,” said Mitch Lewis, a member of Electrical Workers (IBEW [4]) Local 575 and currently unemployed.

They all want to work and support their families…But you have to have jobs…We need jobs now.

The situation for workers in Schmidt’s district is particularly dire. Working families in her district face some of the highest unemployment rates in the state.  Unemployment is more than 14 percent in Pike County—one of five counties in Schmidt’s district—more than 12 percent in Scioto County where Portsmouth is located.

More than 588,000 workers are currently unemployed in Ohio and, if Republicans continue to hold unemployment hostage, over 100,000 Ohioans will lose their unemployment insurance by the end of the month. Says IBEW Local 575 member Steve Sands:

If you take the unemployment lifeline away from the unemployed, and they have gone through their pensions, through their savings, there is nothing left.  This is their lifeline If we can’t get jobs here now; please let’s provide the lifeline for the jobless.

P.R. Crippen, an unemployed worker from Carpenters [5] Local 437, said he tried to contact  Schmidt multiple times about the unemployment extension but did not hear back.

Tax cuts for billionaires are what they want to get to extend unemployment for 13 months. Well, that ain’t going to work.

Following the rally, Austin Keyser, Shawnee Central Labor Council secretary-treasurer, Michael Malone a Local 437 member and unemployed worker, newly-elected Portsmouth Mayor David Malone and City Council President John Haas delivered petitions from thousands of Ohioans to Schmidt’s district office staff.