From World Socialist Web Site
By Alex Messenger
5 May 2010
New figures released by the International Labour Office (ILO) and the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) underscore the scale of joblessness throughout the G20 countries and the limited impact of various government stimulus measures.
The global economic crisis has thrown tens of millions of workers—especially those in the youngest and oldest cohorts—into permanent unemployment, the reports indicate. Labor and employment ministers, meeting last month for a G20 summit in Washington, responded to the OECD and ILO reports with vague recommendations for their governments to pursue “inclusive active labour market policies” and aim for a “higher equilibrium of progress” on employment issues.
According to ILO estimates, if governments in the 20 largest economies had not increased their spending in the period 2009-2010, employment would be only 1 percent lower than it is now. It means that without government action, the rise in official unemployment in the G20 would have been 55 million, rather than 34 million. But the ILO concedes that its calculations take into account not only “extraordinary” stimulus spending (crisis measures) but also both unemployment insurance (to which workers contribute) and increased demand for normal social security payments. In other words, the positive employment impact of the trillions the G20 has spent on stimulus—not to mention the far greater amounts governments have spent on bank bailouts—is likely to be considerably less than 1 percent of total employment. Regardless of the effectiveness of stimulus programs—measures in fact dominated by infrastructure spending for big business—the working class will foot the bill for those programs via severe cutbacks to social spending.
Continue reading at: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/oecd-m05.shtml
Because of the astronomically high rates of unemployment and under-employment among transgender/transsexual people general economic issues are trans-issues.
If we move beyond identity politics we might find common cause with other minority groups that are also discriminated against. During his final year Martin Luther King moved beyond the simple issues of race into including a class analysis and discovered that poor black people and poor white people had many common issues.
Privilege takes many forms and class privilege often tops others in erasing discrimination. In the words of Cindi Lauper, “Money changes everything.”
