While there has been at least a temporary sharp decline in tourist travel, affecting workers in the airline, hotel, and entertainment industries, particularly in New York, the downturn in the capitalist business cycle has had a much more widespread and devastating impact on millions of working people. The Labor Department reported October 5 that close to 200,000 jobs were cut nationwide from mid-August to mid-September, not including the layoffs announced by the airline, hotel, and travel industries after September 11. The department said that factory employment dropped for the 14th consecutive month, for a total cut of 1.1 million jobs since July 2000.

Unemployment jumped to 5.8 percent here in August, but government officials are claiming that 100,000 additional jobs were lost as a result of the attack on the World Trade Center. But as of September 26 only 10,800 people who filed for unemployment assistance stated their layoff was due to the attack's repercussions.

In California, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE) was recently involved in organizing several relief centers. Union officials say nearly one-third of HERE members in the southern part of the state are out of work or working only a few hours. Since most are immigrants who are excluded from coverage under government programs, thousands are suddenly without any means of support. According to press reports, workers began lining up outside the new relief centers before they opened.

The bipartisan assault on the social wage has also severely reduced the percentage of unemployed workers receiving benefits. The unemployment benefits system was created in 1935 as part of the Social Security Act during a period of massive struggles by industrial workers. But a growing number of restrictions and technicalities are being used by the government to deny people benefits.  
 
Declining number receive benefits
Today only 39 percent of workers without a job and looking for one receive an unemployment check. This is down from 50 percent in 1975 and higher levels in previous decades. Government unemployment figures do not count workers who do not report to unemployment offices, meaning the official number out of work is well below actual figures, especially given the growing number of immigrants excluded from the government program altogether.

Government officials say that some 38,000 workers who are ineligible for unemployment insurance--because they were self-employed, being paid under the table, or because bosses were not reporting deductions--are expected to apply for a Disaster Unemployment Assistance Program. Hundreds who have applied for the program have already been denied assistance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

"Since the day of the tragedy I have only received psychological help and $50," said Mariela Roncal to the New York daily Hoy. "What good is therapy going to do if I have other problems that depress me, I don't have a job and my debts are getting bigger." Roncal and 200 other workers and family members of victims of the attack protested the treatment received by undocumented workers at a meeting in Manhattan attended by representatives from FEMA and other relief organizations.

Many of the displaced workers have been denied assistance because they lack proof from their employers. "The bosses know very well who their employees were, who survived and who are missing, but they don't want to provide proof because they are afraid assistance will be denied them for hiring workers without papers," said Joel Magallán, of Asociación Tepeyac, a religious, community-based organization involved in the fight to defend the rights of immigrant workers.

Garment bosses here have laid off thousands of workers or set short working weeks as a result of a drastic drop in orders from retailers and designers. The effects of the weakening economy in the industry, the largest manufacturing sector in the city with a workforce of more than 78,000 people, were also already evident well before September 11.

Union officials say that in Chinatown, where there are 12,000 garment workers, factories are operating at below 50 percent capacity. Some garment workers at shops at the Bush Terminal complex in Brooklyn report they have not received a paycheck in several weeks, with the bosses blaming the economic situation caused by the World Trade Center attack for the delay.

Long lines of unemployed waiting to be interviewed are seen once again in the city. Some 10,000 people showed up October 25 at the second Twin Towers Job Expo at Madison Square Garden, hoping to get an interview for one of the 13,000 jobs reported to be available from 250 companies represented there. An earlier session October 17 was so mobbed that thousands of people left standing outside were turned away.

City authorities had reported that 4,368 "prospective hirings" were concluded October 17, an announcement that helped spur the turnout October 25. But company spokespeople quickly disputed the figure. "We said we had 10 openings. We did not say we were hiring 10 people to fill those openings," a representative of one of the firms callously told the press. A third event is planned due to continued overcrowding.
 
 
Related article:
At New York cleanup site workers fight for pay, union rights  
 
 
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