Another well kept secret.
Natalia
From:
http://warisacrime.org/content/lost-debt-ceiling-debate-legal-duty-create-jobs
*The secret the politicians and media won't tell you: Government
is legally required to create jobs
<http://warisacrime.org/node/58770> *
*Jeanne Mirer and Marjorie Cohe, War is a Crime* - The most galling
thing about pundits stating with such certainty that the government
cannot create jobs is the implication that the government has no
business employing people. In actuality, however, the law requires the
government, in particular the President and the Federal Reserve, to
create jobs. This legal duty comes from three sources:
(1) full employment legislation including the Humphrey Hawkins Full
Employment Act of 1978,
(2) the 1977 Federal Reserve Act, and
(3) the global consensus based on customary international law that all
people have a right to a job with favorable remuneration to provide an
adequate standard of living. .
1. Full Employment Legislation
The first full employment law in the United States was passed in 1946.
It required the country to make its goal one of full employment. It was
motivated in part by the fear that after World War II, returning
veterans would not find work, and this would provoke further economic
dislocation. With the Keynesian consensus that government spending was
necessary to stimulate the economy and the depression still fresh in the
nation's mind, this legislation contained a firm statement that full
employment was the policy of the country. As originally written, the
bill required the federal government do everything in its authority to
achieve full employment, which was established as a right guaranteed to
the American people. Pushback by conservative business interests,
however, watered down the bill. While it created the Council of Economic
Advisors to the President and the Joint Economic Committee as a
Congressional standing committee to advise the government on economic
policy, the guarantee of full employment was removed from the bill.
In the aftermath of the rise in unemployment which followed the "oil
crisis" of 1975, Congress addressed the weaknesses of the 1946 act
through the passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978.
The purpose of this bill as described in its title is:
"An Act to translate into practical reality the right of all Americans
who are able, willing, and seeking to work to full opportunity for
useful paid employment at fair rates of compensation; to assert the
responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable programs
and policies to promote full employment, production, and real income,
balanced growth, adequate productivity growth, proper attention to
national priorities."
The Act sets goals for the President. By 1983, unemployment rates should
be not more than 3% for persons age 20 or over and not more than 4% for
persons age 16 or over, and inflation rates should not be over 4%. By
1988, inflation rates should be 0%. The Act allows Congress to revise
these goals over time.
If private enterprise appears not to be meeting these goals, the Act
expressly calls for the government to create a "reservoir of public
employment." These jobs are required to be in the lower ranges of skill
and pay to minimize competition with the private sector.
The Act directly prohibits discrimination on account of gender,
religion, race, age or national origin in any program created under the
Act. Humphey-Hawkins has not been repealed. Both the language and the
spirit of this law require the government to bring unemployment down to
3% from over 9%. The time for action is now.
2. Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve has among its mandates to "promote maximum
employment." The origin of this mandate is the Full Employment Act of
1946, which committed the federal government to pursue the goals of
"maximum employment, production and purchasing power." This mandate was
reinforced in the 1977 reforms which called on the Fed to conduct
monetary policy so as to "promote effectively the goals of maximum
employment, stable prices and moderate long term interest rates." These
goals are substantially equivalent to the long-standing goals contained
in the 1946 Full Employment Act. The goals of the 1977 act were further
affirmed in the Humphrey-Hawkins Act the following year.
3. The global consensus based on customary international law that all
people have a right to a job with favorable remuneration and an adequate
standard of living
In the aftermath of World War II, and for the short time between the end
of the war and the beginning of the Cold War, there was an international
consensus that one of the causes of the Second World War was the failure
of governments to address the major unemployment crisis in the late 20's
and early 30's, and that massive worldwide unemployment led to the rise
of Nazism/facism. The United Nations Charter was created specifically to
"save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." To do so the
drafters stated that promoting social progress and better standards of
life were the necessary conditions "under which justice and respect for
obligations arising under treaties and respect for international law can
be maintained."
It is no accident that one of the first actions of the UN was to draft
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration was ratified
by all then members of the United Nations on December 10, 1948. It is an
extremely important document because it not only recognized the
connection between the respect for human dignity and rights, and
conditions necessary to maintain peace and security. The Declaration is
the first international document to recognize the indivisibility between
civil and political rights (like those enshrined in the Bill of Rights)
on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights on the other.
The UDHR is the first document to acknowledge that both civil and
political rights are necessary to create conditions under which human
dignity is respected and through which a person's full potential may be
realized. Stated another way, without political and civil rights, there
is no real ability for people to demand full realization of their
economic rights. And without economic rights, peoples' ability to
exercise their civil rights and express their political will is replaced
by the daily struggle for survival.
The Declaration, although not a treaty, first articulated the norms to
which all countries should aspire. It stated that everyone has the right
to an adequate standard of living. This includes the rights to: work for
favorable remuneration, (including the right to form unions), health,
food, clothing, housing, medical care, necessary social services, and
social insurances in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability or
old age. There has been a conspiracy of silence surrounding these
rights. In fact, most people have never heard of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
Similarly, most Americans do not know that the UN drafted treaties which
put flesh on the broad principles contained in the Declaration. One of
the treaties enshrines Civil and Political Rights; the other guarantees
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These treaties were released for
ratification in 1966. The United States ratified the treaty on civil and
political rights and has signed but not ratified the economic, social
and cultural rights treaty.
The latter treaty requires the countries which have ratified it to take
positive steps to "progressively realize" basic economic rights
including the right to a job. Almost all countries of the world have
either signed or ratified this treaty. When most countries become party
a treaty, they do so not because they think they are morally bound to
follow it but because they know they are legally bound. Once an
overwhelming number of countries agree to be legally bound, outliers
cannot hide behind lack of ratification. The global consensus gives that
particular norm the status of binding customary law, which requires even
countries that have not ratified a treaty to comply with its mandate.
The conspiracy of silence
With the duty to create jobs required by U.S. legislation, monetary
policy and customary law, why has the government allowed pundits to
reframe the debate and state with certainty the government cannot do
what it has a legal obligation to do?
We allow it because of the conspiracy of silence which has prevented
most people from knowing that the full employment laws exist, that the
Federal Reserve has a job-creating mandate, and that economic human
rights law has become binding on the United States as customary
international law.
Congressman John Conyers of Michigan knows about the Humphrey-Hawkins
Full Employment Act, and he has introduced legislation that would fund
the job creation aspects of that Act in the "The Humphrey-Hawkins 21st
Century Full Employment and Training Act," HR 870. It would create
specific funds for job training and creation paid for almost exclusively
by taxes on financial transactions, with the more speculative
transactions paying a higher tax.
If Congress refuses to enact this legislation, the President must demand
that the Federal Reserve use all the tools relating to controlling the
money supply at its disposal to create the funds called for by HR 870,
and to start putting people back to work through direct funding of a
reservoir of public jobs as Humphrey-Hawkins mandates.
There is nothing that would prevent the Federal Reserve from creating a
fund for job training and a federal jobs program as HR 870 would
require, and selling billions of treasury bonds for infrastructure
improvement and jobs associated with it. The growth in jobs would
stimulate the economy to the point that the interest on these bonds
would be raised through increased revenue. There is no reason the Fed on
its own could not add a surcharge on inter-bank loans to fund these
jobs. These actions could be done without Congressional approval and
would represent a major boost to employment and grow the economy. If the
Federal Reserve is going to abide by its mandate to promote maximum
employment, and comply with the Humphrey Hawkins Act, and the global
consensus it must take these steps.
Failure of the Fed and the President to take these affirmative steps is
not only illegal, it is also economically unwise. The stock market
losses after the debt ceiling deal is in part based on taking almost 2
million more jobs out of the economy and will only further depress
demand creating further contraction in the economy. This is not an
outcome any of us can afford.
/Jeanne Mirer, who practices labor and employment law in New York, is
president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past
president of the National Lawyers Guild./
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