Layoffs destroy communities.

Layoffs turn once-vibrant areas into dangerous ghost towns. When workers are left without paychecks to spend, small businesses in the area go under. With less money taken in by working people’s taxes (which are already too high, while corporations and the rich hardly pay any), social services like education and healthcare suffer.

In areas affected heavily by layoffs, crime skyrockets. Flint and Saginaw, Michigan, two cities that have lost a huge number of jobs, have become areas with some of the highest crime rates in the world.

Big corporations like Delphi try to justify layoffs by saying they are going bankrupt, but Delphi clearly thinks profits are possible because they are continuing business operations.

When corporations face “financial trouble,” they get billions in bailouts. When workers face trouble, we get hell. After 9/11, the airlines got $15 billion in federal money, with none of it going to the thousands of airline workers who have lost their jobs and seen their benefits slashed. Meanwhile, laws have been passed to make it more difficult for the working poor to file for bankruptcy.

These corporate bailouts don’t save jobs; they save big investors. We’re asked to make the sacrifices while they make the profits. Enough is enough! Working people are the ones who really need a bailout. Big business should be taxed to pay for jobs, healthcare, education, housing, and decent, guaranteed pensions for all.

The Republicans and Democrats are both corporate parties that supported the anti-worker bankruptcy laws and the bailouts for big business. We need to run independent working-class candidates who will fight to protect our communities against the loss of decent jobs.

Layoffs don’t just affect the people laid off. We all need to mobilize to stop the jobs slaughter for the sake of our entire communities.

• People, not profits. Decent jobs with decent benefits, not a race to the bottom.
• Any layoff of even one worker should be met with resistance from the entire workforce – or else they’ll come for the rest of us next.
• Organize committees in workplaces and communities to defend jobs and organize actions against layoffs. Resist speed-ups and productivity increases. If they force us to work more without raising our pay, we are just paving the way for layoffs.
• We need a shorter working week without loss of pay. This way, the work can be spread around without losing jobs or closing plants.
• The money workers earn in the targeted plant/workplace is crucial to the small businesses in the area. Small business owners and workers should support other workers in the struggle against layoffs.
• When big business threatens to close down or move, we should organize mass action and use eminent domain proceedings to take over factories and save jobs.
• Allegedly bankrupt businesses like Delphi should be taken into public ownership under democratic workers’ control and management. A plant can’t run without workers, but it can run without profit-hungry bosses.