I liked a lot of what was in the speech, but not the "Bridge to Work" program.

[totodeinhere]

Selfish businesses will use this program to get free workers for eight weeks, then fire them and hire someone else for no pay. Yes, the workers would be getting unemployment insurance, but they would get that anyway. This would be just one more giant step in the quest to depress workers' wages. The Republicans want to eliminate the minimum wage but now Obama is proposing a program where they won't get paid anything at all with no guarantee to ever get a paying job. It's a bad idea.

[rury]

1. Wrong.....

It allows them to learn a marketable skill to use in their search for work.
Did you choose not to hear that part?

[totodeinhere]

2. Yes of course that is what they will say about it. But I doubt if it will work out that way.

Most businesses I suspect will hire people to do menial jobs just to get the free help and after the eight weeks the workers will be no better off than before. In fact they will be worse off. They will be that much closer to having their unemployment benefits run out.

[ThomCat]

5. Have you evern been on a job through public assistance?

They don't teach any skills. People get shoved into the most boring, mind-numbing jobs with the most repetitive tasks that require no skills what-so-ever.

Companies know that you're not going to be there for long, so even though the purpose is supposed to be to teach job skills, companies don't want to lose one of their workers by having someone stick teaching you, and they don't want to get nothing out of you too, by having you leaning skills you haven't mastered. Assigning a skilled worker to teach you something means that they have two people essentially doing nothing all day. So they have you do something easy and repetitive instead. They don't lose an employee, and they gain your labor too. Instead of losing two, they gain one.

You should always keep in mind that regardless of the intent of any program, companies are going to do whatever is best for their bottom line. They don't give a damn about what is best for people.

[MADem]

3. I don't think it is a bad idea. I doubt that workers are placed against their will.

There's probably some selection going on and selfish businesses would probably be passed over as the word got out....and being encouraged to resume a routine after a long period of time spent job searching, going into a funk, getting depressed, sitting around at home, looking for work, etc...people get unemployment for what, now, 99 weeks? Two months out of that period of time is a good opportunity to remotivate oneself.

Sometimes, getting into a routine that you don't particularly like, too, helps you focus on what you actually DO like--which may not be what you did before. I would have to see the program in action before I start trashing it. They did something like this in MA (job training and child care were in the mix, as well) under Dukakis and it did some good.

[totodeinhere]

4. I have a better idea. Give them a paying job. None of this work for free shit.

It's just wrong to work without pay. That goes against everything we believe in as a country. Or at least I thought we believed that.

[nolabear]

8. I don't agree that there's no pay. They're being paid. And if the training is regulated

and IS training it can allow for networking, proving one's abilities, honing skills, fighting the depression that one can feel from sheer inaction and frustrated action, improve pride in performance, and a host of other things.

I don't understand how, without seeing what the plan entails, people can go immediately to the most negative, rageful, suspicious, paranoid spin on absolutely everything. If it turns out that this is 21st Century slavery I'll eat my words but I'll wait to see before I freak out.

[totodeinhere]

10. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee also opposes this.

Tonight, President Obama proposed corporate tax cuts paid for with cuts to Medicare benefits. Forcing Americans to choose between jobs and Medicare is unthinkable, especially for a Democratic president," the statement reads. "America needs a massive government investment in jobs – not Medicare benefit cuts, not corporate tax giveaways, and not telling the unemployed to work for big corporations for free."

And they are not "negative, rageful, suspicious, paranoid." And neither am I. We are standing up for progressive principles.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/08/obama-medicare-cuts-jobs-speech_n_954840.html

[MADem]

15. Because their glass is half empty and the worst is their paradigm.

Either that, or they'd prefer to wallow in unemployment and not even try to become marketable in a transitioning economy.

Mike Dukakis did something like this in MA, except it was a "Welfare to Work" thing. It had good results and included child care so parents didn't have to sweat that aspect.

I'm with you--I want to see the details, and based on the MA model, I am hopeful that this program will be helpful.

[Modern_Matthew]

22. Yeah, these purists are becoming about as annoying as the teabaggers.

When you take three steps forward and one step back, you're still two steps ahead. But they want to make a great leap forward and have 100% of what they want overnight.

I, too, want a lot of these changes... but I am also a realist and know they won't come quickly.

An all or nothing attitude is obstructionist, at best.

[MADem]

14. No one is "working without pay." I don't get where you're getting that crap.

If a person can get money from the government while undergoing job retraining that's a good thing.

[CTyankee]

23. I don't think we ever did think that way.

Cutthroat capitalism has been our economic system for many, many years.

While I agree with you on paying jobs, I have to say that we sometimes think we are living in a democracy that is actually going to enact social justice in a productive way, such as the Swedes and the Germans have. We need to face the fact that we don't live in Sweden or Germany. They have what we don't and, as far as I can see, never will. There would have to be massive resistance on the part of the American people to throw off this system we have and adopt one more like Sweden and Germany. But you and I both know that is NOT going to happen. Americans won't revolutionize their system, no matter what we progressives think, no matter how much we talk about how we can be socially just and competitive in the global market at the same time.

I see no evidence that the American people are going to "wake up" and shake things up...

[NiteOwll]

6. I'd like to know how these workers will be able to afford

all the expenses that go with having a job, like gas, childcare, meals, tolls, clothing, etc., while scraping by on unemployment.

[nolabear]

7. The same way they look for jobs.

I want to see the plan before I condemn or approve it. How about you?

[former9thward]

9. You don't have to wait.

Georgia already has it. The president mentioned that in his speech. It is there for anyone to see.

[MADem]

17. MA has done this for people on welfare, and it worked. NT

[NiteOwll]

12. I don't know about anyone else...

but when I was unemployed and looking for a job, there was no way I could afford the same expenses I had while working. I couldn't afford to drive places or eat out or ever pay a babysitter. Unemployment didn't even cover the basics. I'm looking forward to seeing the details.

[MADem]

16. I'm betting there will be subsidies for working people like other programs have done.

Some states provide transportation vouchers and child care.

Are you telling me people who have been out of work less than two years have no clothes? That's a bit unlikely, I think. They may not be fashion forward, but stuff that is two years old isn't completely archaic.

[NiteOwll]

20. No, but I've needed different clothing (or equipment)

for different types of work that the job didn't always provide. When you're counting nickels, it's hard to buy those things. I'm sure this has been worked into the plan.

[demwing]

11. how would you feel if the program were tied to Unionized workplaces?

and an entry to union membership?

I ask, because that's one thing the Georgia Works program is considering in its expansion process. (last paragraph)

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6006/who_gains_from_georgia_works/

[ClassWarrior]

13. It must be all those people who deny there's an Obama-can-do-no-wrong crowd who are unreccing this.

:rofl:

NGU.

[Donnachaidh]

18. Georgia's unemployment numbers are higher than the national average

So *Georgia Works* evidently does NOT work.

Proposing to use a program that does NOT work speaks volumes as to how much REAL thought went into this *proposal*.

[secondwind]

19. I thought this was mostly a "retraining" program for the unemployed... not necessarily a chance at

job with the employer who takes them on. It CAN be called free labor, but I think it has its merits, particularly if it trains people to do something they hadn't done before, and this lands them a job somewhere else.

[Change Happens]

21. Just focus on the fucking positive things :)

[ZombieHorde]

24. I guess we will see how it works out. My job training has always been paid though.

Hopefully this doesn't just effectively lower the min wage to $0.00/hour for the first eight weeks of every job.

What if every time someone was hired, the first eight weeks were considered "training?" That would be really fucked up.

I really hope President Obama has the details worked on this.

[laureloak]

25. $4000 tax break for hiring anyone unemployed > 6 mos! PLUS

it's a chance to learn skills and it's a damn sight better than vegging out on a couch. Good work won't go unnoticed. And I'll add that a good attitude can do wonders...now, where is YOURS????

[Life Long Dem]

26. No reason for Republicans to disapprove then.

:patriot: