The system is designed to be broken in order to break us.
Unemployment insurance was created because, during the last Great Depression, unemployed workers went on strike and demanded financial relief. But unemployment insurance was deliberately designed not to help unemployed workers, just placate us — and be so inadequate that we'd be forced to take bad jobs with bad wages.
WE DEMAND
$600 renewal for every unemployment insurance applicant until work is safe!
Paycheck guarantee for all workers during crisis!
Paid sick leave, PPE, and One Fair Wage before we return to work!
At the start of the pandemic, we launched the One Fair Wage Emergency Fund to help tipped service workers who have disproportionately lost their jobs, and who were underpaid and overworked to begin with.
Throughout this crisis, solutions have come from the people. We know that the system is destructive. We know that the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers is a vestige of slavery and the fact that most low-wage workers are Black and brown is a product of the same racism. We know that sexual harassment is worse when women have to rely on tips for wages. And we know that unemployment insurance wasn’t designed to help us when we’re in need, but force us to be desperate enough to take even lower-wage work.
Unemployment insurance was created because, during the last Great Depression, unemployed workers went on strike and demanded financial relief. Those unemployed workers chanted, "Fight, Don't Starve!" We're taking up their mantle and finishing what they started — and demanding economic solutions that work for all working people, including a living wage when we go back to work.