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Jobless bank teller in PA: Congress needs to extend unemployment insurance.
The AFL-CIO launched a Tweet-a-Thon Wednesday in efforts to get unemployment compensation insurance extended during bad economic times. The organization, along with a number of allies, calls for extension of the benefits with no cuts and no strings attached:
[Wednesday], starting at 11 a.m. ET, we’re joining with Working America, NELP, MomsRising, HERvotes, USAction and a slew of other organizations and bloggers to launch an #ExtendUI tweet-a-thon.
We’re sending a clear message: No Strings, No Cuts: #ExtendUI Now!
The first thing you can do to join the tweet-a-thon is visit our tweet-a-thon page and tell your friends what’s happening.
Once you’ve done that, browse our unemployment stories website and find and tweet individual stories you find compelling. Please also sign our act.ly Twitter petition to @RepDaveCamp.
Don’t use Twitter? You can still read compelling stories and share them on Facebook.
And, of course, send as many #ExtendUI tweets as you can today.
With your help, we’ll make a powerful case to #ExtendUI without cuts or preconditions that hurt the 99 percent.
Messages coming through the website include ones like this:
Bill, Jenison, MI, Unemployed Worker:
I have been unemployed now for better than 4 years. My unemployment checks ended a year and a half ago. Since then I have been surviving on aid from family, something they cannot sustain indefinitely for obvious reasons. My younger brother was unemployed for 3 1/2 years and had also exhausted his benefits before finally landing a job. My house has been in foreclosure for over a year now. The only reason I am still able to be in it is because the Michigan market is already flooded with foreclosed properties and the bank can't sell it. This scenario, this madness, must end! Don't force even more Michigan families out of their homes, extend their benefits now! One can't find jobs that don't exist.
They have also launched a petition aimed at Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) trying to get him to do the right thing on the extension.
