Who says wages are flat-lining? They maybe if you are working in the private sector, but if you happen to be lucky enough to work for the Federal government, happy days are here again. President Bush signed an executive order authorizing the increases that affects 1.8 million workers. While I would never begrudge any worker their pay or any increase they can get, I can’t help but notice that those groups of workers who are organized continue to receive pay raises while those who are not organized do not. I wonder if this is a coincidence or if dark forces are at work here conspiring against the average worker?
President Bush today signed an executive order that provides nearly 1.8 million federal employees with an average 3.5 percent pay raise and also increases salaries by smaller percentages for the armed forces, members of Congress, federal judges, diplomats and others.
Under the order, the vice president will receive a $5,400 salary increase, to $221,100. The speaker of the House will receive a $5,300 increase, to $217,400, and the majority leader of the Senate will get a boost of $4,600, to $188,100.
In 2008, members of the House, senators and U.S. District Court judges will be paid $169,300. The chief justice of the United States will be paid $217,400, and Supreme Court justices will receive $208,100.
Members of the Cabinet, usually heads of large departments, will be paid $191,300 this year. Deputy secretaries of departments and heads of major agencies will receive $172,200.
Members of the Senior Executive Service, the government's career senior officials, will be paid from $114,468 to $172,200, according to the order.[1]
Now granted a 3.5% pay increase is not a lot, it does however underscore the disconnect between the Beltway and the rest of middle-America. When most other workers will be scrambling to hopefully this year get the increases that have eluded them in the past few years, it is nice to know that our Federal brethren will be taken care of. According to my crack research staff, there have only been two years since 1969 that Federal workers have not received an annual increase 1983 and 1986. I wonder how many of the other average wage earners in America can make that same claim.
Despite reports to the contrary, there are struggles going on in America. There is the struggle to return democracy to the people and away from corporate lobbyists and career politicians, there is the struggle to gain equal protection and opportunities for all Americans, and there is the struggle to balance the threat of terrorists with the freedom of democracy. There is also the struggle of closing the gap between the wealth and incomes of the wealthy with the average American, a gap that has grown larger in the last few years than at any time in our history. In this struggle I believe and agree with John Edwards that it is naive to believe those wealthy people will redistribute their wealth easily or happily. No my friends there will be an epic struggle. It is unfortunate that doing the right thing doesn’t come naturally to these folks, but I guess that’s how many of them got into their positions of affluence. There are those who would have us believe that everything is well in America, but that is a lie. In their usual fashion the MSM is failing to report the concern and in many cases the downright anger of many people with the disparity that continues to grow between the corporate interests and their interests.
People no longer believe the old mantra that what is good for General Motors is good for America. Corporate America has proven time and time again that their interests do not mirror the interests of the average American. The days of blind loyalty and trust of the American people to corporate America are coming to a close. The curtain is being pulled back and Mr. Edwards is exposing the greed for what it is. It is a shame that only one mainstream candidate is trumpeting the cause of the downtrodden and he is being marginalized and ignored. What many people have failed to understand is that as the middle-class goes, so goes America. With so many of our middle-class citizens finding it harder to make ends meet, drowning in debt and stagnant wages the very fabric of America is being unraveled. The sleeping giant is about to awaken and the silent majority will speak.
If the next President does not begin to address these issues there will be large scale restlessness in America unlike any we have seen in decades. The media would have you believe that Mr. Edwards and those calling for change are anti-wealthy, that is false. They are not anti-wealthy, they are anti-greed. Americans have always accepted the tenets of capitalism that some will be wealthy and some will not, but the level of greed that is occurring today is unprecedented. Not only is there great disparity in wealth, but also in the democratic process. Our democracy has been hijacked by the greedy and their tentacles are reaching into every aspect of our lives.
No, there will be no surrender of the lobbyists, corporate interests, or the ruling-class. The change will only come with a fight. Many pundits and talking heads refer to John Edwards as the angry candidate, I for one am glad that he is angry. I know I sure am.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/04/AR2008010402402.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Thursday, January 10, 2008
When Does The Average American Worker Get a Raise?
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Shrinking Middle-Class; Shrinking Labor
There has been much talk lately about the state of the middle-class, the insecurity of workers, and the flat-lining of wages in America. Much of the debate has revolved around the changes in the make-up of our labor force today. It has been erroneously reported that the shrinking of wages and of the middle-class is due to our no longer being a manufacturing society and due to out-sourcing. While this provides a convenient foe, it does not accurately depict the situation. There is a direct correlation between the flat-lining wages and the shrinking middle-class with the reduction of the labor movement in America. The only groups who have seen real growth in wages the past few decades are groups who are represented by unions. If this is true, then why are unions and the labor movement not more powerful and vibrant?
The reason is simple, corporate America and their Washington whores have gutted the labor movement in America. The only defense that middle-income folks had against the big money lobbyists and government thieves were the unions. The unions allowed the workers to pool their resources to be able to fight against the influence of corporate America. They provided cover for and contributions to politicians with the courage to stand up to corporate America. Unions for many years were the driving force behind the increase in the standard of living for all working Americans, not just their union members. Unions allowed the development of a strong middle-class which is essential to a thriving economy and a vibrant democracy. It was the unions that guaranteed their workers an honest wage and a secure job environment. How many of today’s workers cite job insecurity as a major concern with the economy?
While the unions provided many positives for their members, they also provided excesses for their leaders. I would be remiss and disingenuous if I only extolled the positive without the negative, there were many instances of abuse of power in many unions by leaders. However, that abuse of power is not because of unionism, isn’t it more because of a human frailty; greed? The problem is that corporate America began a campaign decades ago to destroy the labor movement in America, the labor movement through unions offered the only protection of the American workers against the type of abuse that they are suffering today. With the help of their “political allies” in Washington, corporate America has used the broad brush of union corruption and legal defeats to cripple the unions and the labor movement in America as a whole.
The great sit-down strikes and labor uprisings in the 30s and 40s brought our nation close to real democracy when the voices of the majority, American workers, was heard loud and clear. Corporate thugs, police agencies, and federal troops openly murdered workers and their families. The corporate media supported those actions, even calling for hanging of labor organizers. Unfortunately, labor leaders mistakenly accepted the passing of the National Labor Relations Act [NLRA] as remedy. Nothing more than deception, the Act reaffirmed the Corporation's superiority over the Constitution and made the criminal behavior by employers, labor violations, effectively undermining rights our founders sought to give. Each time labor stood up and mobilized, the Corporation, with the aid of congressional pimps and the corporate media, passed new labor acts to beat down the rights of workers. A prime example was the passage of Taft-Hartley.[1]
Using PR firms and restrictive organizing regulations supported and sponsored by the politicians, corporations have created an atmosphere of appeasement and apathy for today’s workers. Many of today’s “high tech” workers have been brainwashed to believe that the cause of labor no longer applies to their concerns. I have been at many tech jobs where the younger workers have blamed labor for the loss of industry and jobs. Many of today’s workers do not believe that labor is relevant anymore. There is only one small problem with this thinking, as the unions have shrunk the disparity between the salaries of the average worker and the top executives have reached all-time highs. Are we to believe that this is a coincidence? Correspondingly, the wealth of our nation is also being concentrated in to fewer and fewer hands. The American worker has been sold a bill of goods concerning the labor movement and its relevancy to their lives.
Without a strong labor movement including unions the American worker is at the mercy of greedy corporate executives and money grubbing politicians. The call of the union is just as relevant today as it ever was, there is strength in numbers and solidarity. It is foolish for today’s worker to rely on the benevolence of corporations, just as it was foolish for their grandparents to do so. Today’s worker must not buy into the hype that the dynamics of our economy and industries have outgrown the need for labor and unions. If nothing else the proof is in the fact that corporate executive compensation has increased at the same time workers compensation has decreased or flat-lined. Never in our history has there been disparity on the scales we are now witnessing.
These are outcomes of the long, unfolding crisis, not root causes. Despite the novelty, but obvious seriousness, of the current debate, U.S. Labor did not arrive at this point of historic impotence in just the past several years. This downward spiral has been in process for decades. Workers at the base became painfully aware that corporate capital was breaking the so-called "social contract" many years ago. Their initial anticipation that leaders of the nation's unions might devise appropriate strategies to resist or blunt the assault or that, in many instances, their own local determination to fight back would be welcomed and fully supported was one of the first casualties of this new chapter of class warfare being written in America.
Unabated disinvestment, corporate whipsawing of one plant's workers against another's, job blackmail, often with union leadership complicity, and a magician's trunk full of solidarity-busting workplace reorganization schemes had, by the mid-1980s, become the backdrop for the renewed concerted employer aggression. Most labor bureaucrats were either untrained and/or more often unwilling to venture out of their comfort zones to lead struggles against this eviscerating reality.[2]
[1] http://www.labornet.org/news/0106/wvwarzon.htm
[2] http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/tucker210705.html
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tales from the Lazy Acre
According to Forbes Magazine, American workers on average are becoming lazier as compared to the rest of the world. It appears that we are working fewer hours per week than many of our global competitors.
(Fortune Magazine) -- We Americans pride ourselves on being a hard-working bunch, so here's a thought to spoil your Labor Day rest: By global standards, we're lazy. We've been getting lazier. And the days of the American dolce vita may be numbered.
The surprising report of our relative sloth arrives in new research from the UN's International Labor Organization, which looks at working hours around the world. When it comes to what we might call hard work, meaning the proportion of workers who put in more than 48 hours a week, America is near the bottom of the heap. About 18% of our employed people work that much.
That's a higher proportion than in a few other developed countries like Norway, the Netherlands, and even Japan. But it's actually lower than in Switzerland and Britain, and way lower than in developing countries like Mexico and Thailand. It's drastically lower than in what may be the world's two hardest-working countries, South Korea and Peru, where the proportions are about 50%.[1]
American workers should be ashamed of themselves. How are we going to compete in the global marketplace working less than 48 hours a week? The corporate bosses want you to know that if you don’t increase your hours, they will take their jobs elsewhere. Once again the corporations are using fear tactics to try and coerce the American work force. As if the reason our jobs are being out-sourced is because we are not working hard enough. How is it that every work force study states that productivity is up in America, fewer workers are doing more work. Now instead of doing the work of 2 or 3 workers, we now need you to do the work of 4 people, you don’t mind do you?
It kills me how these guys can interpret the results of this study to take a swipe at the American worker. What this study shows is that we are getting more done with fewer people working fewer hours, it’s no wonder the stress levels of the average worker is through the roof. Increased working hours can create family problems, dissatisfaction, and increased absence. What was not reported in this article was that Americans work on average 70 more hours than the Japanese and 350 more hours than the Europeans.
Why not talk about how it is the corporations who are limiting the overtime to save labor costs. According to a study done by Cornell University 46% of workers want to put in more overtime than they currently are.[2] Many workers want to work overtime due to job insecurity and financial strain. Many workers feel that if they work overtime in the event of a downsize they will be less likely to be let go. There is also the pressure of making ends meet. Because wages have to a large degree flat-lined, for many workers the only way to keep pace with their living expenses is to work increased hours. There are many workers who are not being paid an overtime rate who are still seeking extra hours. So it isn’t that American workers are not working enough or willing to work, so then what could it be? What could be behind this article in Forbes?
My guess is to scare American workers to accept less and work more. It is a plot to discourage workers from organizing, especially now that discussions are being held in the Congress on the Employee Free Choice Act. Corporate bosses and apologists have been using the outsourcing card for some time to extricate concessions from workers and in every case the outsourcing still took place, because no matter what American workers are willing to give up it will never match what the foreign labor markets are giving. How can we match a country where the median daily income is 2 dollars a day?
I want to see the survey that compares the working hours and compensation of American CEOs against their foreign counterparts. Let’s see who really needs to be working more hours for their pay. I haven’t heard of Forbes publishing that study on CEOs and I probably never will.
The problem is not that the American workers are not working hard enough or long enough, it is that the corporations are taking too much of the profits from their hard work. There are some fundamental problems with the capital allocation system in America and unless we correct it soon, it won’t matter how hard or how long any of us work. Workers in America must be given the opportunity to unite and organize; we will only be able to defend our rights through collective bargaining. The corporations will not defend the rights of the workers, they never have and they never will. Their goal is to get as much work for the cheapest labor and they have shown in the past that they will try to achieve this goal by any means. The welfare of the American worker is not one of their goals.
So listen up all you lazy Americans, let your Congress people know that you support the right of workers to organize freely and without undue management pressure. Support the Employee Free Choice Act, so that with the stroke of a pen even us lazy Americans can get organized.
[1] http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/22/news/economy/lazy_american_workers.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes
[2] http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:aTF4MzeLbJUJ:www.ilr.cornell.edu/iws/overtime%2520study.pdf+stress+level+american+workers&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Fair Trade vs. Free Trade
I began recently to wonder if one can have free trade and fair trade, or is it an either/or proposition. On the one hand, I believe that in order for developing nations to improve the livelihoods there has to be some form of trade with more developed countries. I also believe that we must do as much as we can to insure that any trade agreements do not infringe on the rights and livelihoods of our citizens. How is one to reconcile these two seemingly opposite positions? I believe that they can be reconciled but first we have to have some basic ground rules.
I believe that there cannot be free trade in country where the people are not free. Globalization by its very nature requires freedom of movement of people, yet the globalization being touted today is only freedom of movement for capital. Since capital is not real or human, what they are really advocating is freedom of movement for the owners of the capital. In other words the large corporations should be able to override the will of the local people for the sake of trade. In addition, these corporations should be able to shop the world for the lowest possible wages and environmental laws to maintain their profits.
I am not a trade guru or a corporate/media talking head. I am just an ordinary working American who lives in the real world, not a world of graphs and charts. And what I know is that free and fair trade has not come about through any of the globalization treaties we have seen in recent years. On the contrary, while corporate profits are up, average worker wages have flat-lined and in some cases decreased. Jobs are being outsourced by the millions. Entire industries have shut down in the states and moved elsewhere.
“For decades we took for granted that everyone agreed with us economists that free trade is good, protectionism is bad. Somewhere along the way, that stopped being the conventional wisdom,” acknowledged U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers. “And whereas the default vote on a trade bill in Congress used to be a ‘yes’ vote, the default vote on a trade bill now in Congress is a ‘no’ vote.” Why? Because lots of people are no longer convinced that a rising tide of trade lifts all boats — and there's evidence to back them up.
For three decades, the richest 10 percent of Americans have been growing even richer much faster than everyone else. Over the past five years, real wages for all the rest of American workers have been almost flat. Many blame globalization.[1]
I have yet to hear a compelling argument of why this is happening. Normally in an economy when productivity is up wages follow, in this economy that is no longer the case. We have experienced strong growth in productivity for the last five years and yet wages have not increased. So the average American is working harder for the same or less money and they wonder why globalization is getting a bad name? I am all for developing countries becoming more developed and have less poverty, but we have to do more to help the workers in this country to cushion the blows from globalization. It isn’t like the money isn’t there. When one CEO can make over 140 million dollars a year, the money is there. The problem is we are not spending it properly; we need to readjust our priorities. Globalization that does not take into account people first is doomed to failure.
This includes not only the people here at home, but the people in the developing countries as well. We must always put people first in our negotiations, in our planning, and in our implementation. For too long we have allowed corporate interest to supersede the interest of people. We have created these oligarchic and monopolistic entities that have more power than the governments that charter them. We must not continue to watch as our corporations engage in a race to the bottom to see how low they can go on wages, on the environment, and on human dignity.
I believe that free trade and fair trade are not mutually exclusive, but that in order to institute them we must allow greater worker organization all over the world. Only by allowing the workers to organize can we begin to offset the uneven system we have in place today. One group of workers cannot be organized and protected and another group not, this would only lead to the exploitation of the unprotected workers as we have today. For decades we have allowed the trade decisions to be made by the money grubbers and the politicians, we see where that has led us; maybe it is time to allow the workers to become involved in the process. For too long we have negotiated these treaties without gauging the impact they will have on our workers or the workers in the other countries. It is time we began to consider the impact they will have on our workforce and how we can reduce the harmful effects of globalization.
I think that the union bill currently in the Congress will go a long way to bring the workers concerns into this process. We need to strengthen our organized labor; the decline of wage growth and industry relocation overseas can be correlated to the decline of organized labor in this country. All those promises of management that organizing workers would lead to outsourcing of jobs was just a smoke screen, the outsourcing happened anyway only without organization, the workers were left high and dry. Is there such a thing as fair, free trade? Yes there is but it will only happen if we demand it.
Read more!Friday, June 22, 2007
The Union, Jack
In today’s technologically advanced workplace, do we still need unions? Have unions lost their viability? There is debate going on concerning the Employee Free Choice Act and its impact on the American worker and economy.
The Employee Free Choice Act, would require employers to recognize a union if the majority of workers simply sign cards showing their support rather than hold a vote. It also strengthens penalties against employers that violate federal law against union organizing. There are many who argue that because of the loss of manufacturing and more physical type labor the need for unions has passed. I would submit that because of the weakening of the labor movement we have a shrinking manufacturing industry and a loss of middle-class opportunities.
Protecting the right to form unions is about maintaining the American middle class. It’s no coincidence that as union membership numbers fall there are growing numbers of jobs with low pay, poor benefits, and little to no security. More than half of
Because of intimidation and media savvy consultants the major corporations have convinced a generation of workers that they did not need unions. They promoted how unions were corrupt and outdated; it is no surprise that as the populace became more self conscious (me generation and the greed generation) that the argument held sway with many younger workers. These workers were too young to remember the conditions that brought about the need for unions in the first place, the long hours, the unsafe working conditions, and the low wages of their parents and grandparents generations. Those were greedy robber barons back then the modern corporations would be more benevolent towards it workforce. Let’s ask the employees of Enron, Tyco, and a whole slew of other corporations how benevolent the modern corporation is.
Why has this happened? It’s not a result of a neutral, inevitable economic fact, like the sun setting in the west. It happens because corporations can get away with hogging the fruits of economic activity. It happens because politicians will not stand up and decry either the unfairness of the theft and the underlying corporate greed that siphons away workers’ deserved rewards.
And, sadly, it reflects the weak state of the labor movement. When unions are strong, everyone benefits—union and non-union workers alike. Through collective bargaining, unions act as a counterforce to an unjust diversion of income, creating a system that spreads out the rewards for hard work. Unions turn bad jobs and low wages into good jobs and decent livelihoods. The best middle-class jobs program is, indeed, mass unionization.
Let me make two side points here. First, when wages don’t grow, even when productivity is high, it undermines our nation’s retirement system. This is because taxes on workers wages are the central revenue source for the Social Security system. A key reason the 1983 Greenspan Commission’s modifications to the Social Security system came up short is precisely because wage growth did not match what had been forecasted more than two decades ago. “If wages had grown as the Commission forecast, and inequality had not increased we wouldn’t even have a Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years,” observes Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Weisbrot is quick to point out that the projected shortfall is quite small, and according to President Bush’s numbers, the program today is financially stronger than it has been throughout most of its 70-year history.
Second, the outsized corporate windfall from productivity works hand in hand with the other factor propelling the massive redistribution of income in society: Compensation and tax policies that are shifting vast wealth to the upper 10 percent of the population.[2]
It is nothing short of amazing how the wealthy have convinced our nation that welfare for corporations is good, but welfare for the poorest Americans is bad. That record profits for corporations and record salaries for executives is good, but minimum wages and wage increases for average workers is bad. How have we allowed ourselves to be co-opted into this outrageous scenario is beyond words. These things can only occur because we allow them to, while we are so busy fighting over crumbs they are stealing us blind. While we are so concerned with the color of the skin of the guy next to us in the same life boat we are in. Is that insane or what? As long as we continue to allow foolish things to divide us, we will never be able to overcome those who want to keep us all down. If you think that those in power are more concerned about your needs than mine because you are a different shade than me, you are sadly mistaken. There is only one color that matters and that is green. The middle-class has not shrunk because of illegal aliens from
Have unions been corrupt in the past? Yes, but have they been anymore corrupt than their corporate cousins? There have been more workers who have had their retirements decimated by corporate malfeasance than union corruption. If we want to increase wages for average Americans and gain some semblance of job security, unions are our best bet. Unions help all workers, even non union workers. Unions are good for
[1] http://araw.org/takeaction/efca/about.cfm
[2] http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2005/07/14/the_productivity_problem.php
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