This type of work is normally done by NGOs and they call their staff "Community Workers".  Working with displaced workers is called "Labour Adjustment" and run initiatives where you assist workers who lost their jobs with job search and skills training or retooling.  

I did this work for more that 30 years, with real social justice type of people.  Whenever someone came along and sow themselves as "Community Organizers" we kept an eye on them.

You organize papers, or drawers, you do not organize people, you can only assist them to organize for themselves.

You don't empower people, you can only help them in empowering themselves.  

If what we learn working with displaced workers is that they lose their dignity he was blind and hard of hearing.  
Most unemployed workers become distressed if they do not find work  in a relatively short period of time.  Loosing their dignity?  No, it is their dignity that make them pick themselves up and go look for work, even when distressed and depressed.

It happened when Reaganomics cancelled my job and my student aid in the 1980s and told me to beg in cheese lines.

My true 'work' went on as I 'followed my bliss' to quote Joseph Campbell), but my career trajectory took a sharp downward turn as I clawed my way out of the sinking ship called post-industrial Ohio.

They tried to steal my dignity when I stood outside a hospital while my gay partner was dying, being told I couldn't enter because I wasn't 'family'.  But I lied and said we were 'cousins' and I kept my bruised but undying dignity while I lost all respect for the state and religion.

Obama should avoid lecturing weary people on woes he's never weathered, it comes across as condescending, at best.

The welfare system does a pretty good job of taking away dignity sometimes.  Their applicants become numbers in line, and there may be a tone of contempt.  But it is not right!  Treat people as if they are deserving of respect (that is what dignity means), and they respond by respecting others.

"When you lose your job, you lose your dignity!"

But one thing Gore talks about is the "easy wrong" and the "hard right".  He also talked a little bit about real bipartisanship, because in order to fight the Climate Crisis(note: official meme change), we need everybody.  The Republicans, skeptics, Creationists, Democrats - everyone.  Multiple times, Gore resisted the temptation to attack Bush and Cheney(and probably the entire Beltway culture) - because even if 99% of that audience was convinced that Bush & Cheney were Evil Incarnate, it was wrong to dismiss the 1% who thought they were good, honest men.

It's easy to over simplify, to tell people what their problem is instead of listening to the real, complex and often contradictory stories of real people and real problems.  You don't show people you understand them by telling them how they feel.  You show people that you want to understand them by letting them tell you how they feel.  Do not dismiss the people who do not understand you.  Instead, you should seek to understand them.  Even if you do not win them over, you youself will have gained from the experience.

Last month it was that people only cling to church/guns/anti-immigrant stuff when they've been let down by the gov't and are distrustful the jobs will be available or they'll have a decent life.

This week he says when you lose your job you lose your sense of self, community, and dignity.

I honestly don't care which way he thinks it is, I'd just like him to make up his mind, craft a message, and deliver it in a way that doesn't insult my underemployed self.  

So yes, when these things happen, it does effect your dignity. You don't think Washington cares, and once depression sets in (from not being able to take care of your family), your dignity starts to fade real fast.

I can tell you as I hugged my field staff, one thing they DID have was their dignity.  Of course there were tears and major disappointment, but we promised to help them find new jobs and they said they would do whatever they needed to do to stay working.

Obama infuriates me when he says these RIDICULOUS things.  I've been in staffing for twelve years and a lot of these folk bounce back when an opportunity is removed.  It's a hit to the pocketbook BUT not to their spirits.

This is not the same adoring crowd reaction featured in the early transcendency rallies.

These people do not seem to have seen the light.

from the WSJ today:

Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign.