The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-09-28
AFL Chiefs Advance
Against
JObless Insurance
Prof HaensePs Scheme of Workmens Savings
Seen as Old Self-Help Plan To Protect
Profits of the Employers

fund about five or ten per cent OF
his wages, the employer placing
like or slightly higher amount. The
government is to pay a certain
amount on the funds thus accumu-
lated, the interest rate being raised
as the fund grows.
When the worker is unemployed,
he is to be permitted to draw
limited amount from the fund, no
more than the total contribution.
He may not touch the interest. AS
soon as he gets a job again, the
worker is to replace what he has
taken out Of the fund. Then the
high rate of government interest
will be restored.
AS to unemployment insurance
II being impractical" One cannot
forecast" unemployment on the
same basis that the actuary pre-
diets life span for the insurance
companies. This argument certainly
cuts no Ice with the workers. The
capitalist system is so anarchic that
it cannot compute with any de-
gree of certainty the actual number
Of unemployed for the coming few
years? Does this do away with the
problem of unemployment? Does it
do away with the bread lines? Pre-
cisely because of this anarchy is it
necessary for the workers to have
UNEMPLOYMENT insurance
Actually, however, even under
capitalism, systems of unemploy-
ment insurance in Great Britain
and other countries have been
forced to count the number of
unemployed and build a system of
unemployed insurance, that to some
degree is workable. The very fact
that there is a system of federal
unemployment insurance in these
countries compels the government
to register the unemployed and to
compute statistics on the rise and
fall of unemployment from month
to month.
The second argument-that "the
ordinary scheme of unemployment
insurance Is not attractive to the
worker who enjoys continuous en-
ployment"-simply flies in the face
of well-established facts. 1t pre-
supposes job security for the Amer
lean toilerS that does not exist. Out
of 100000 workers who have had
gainful occupations in this country
at least 100000 (ten million by
A. F. of L. estimates) are totally
without jobs. Millions more are
working part-time. Almost every
worker is faced with seasonal lay
offs. Under such circumstances
the actual, not theoretical, circum-
stances of American working class
life today-can there be any such
talk about continuous unemploy-
ment"?
And if, Herr Doktor Haensel,
unemployment insurance is so
"unattractive" to workers. how can
you account for the fact that more
than 2,400 A. F. of L. bodies, in
Guiding three international unions,
have endorsed the Workers Unem-
ployment Insurance Bill, known in
the last session of Congress as
H. r. 1893?
PROFESSOR HAENSEL'S plan is
simply a sugar-coated "self-help"
plan-poor Paul and poor Peter
paying starving Paul and starving
Peter. Out of the wretched wages
you can make you are to put aside
certain sum so that when the
lordly employer decides to shut
down his mills and throw you out
you may be able to exist for a few
weeks on money, half of which you
have yourself contributed out of
starvation wages
This implies, of course, that you
are in a position to save, that you