Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy,
University of California at Berkeley; Author,
'Aftershock'
First, a confession. If Mitt Romney becomes president
I'm partly to blame.
Ten years ago I ran for the
Democratic nomination for governor of Massachusetts --
which would have given me the opportunity to whip Mitt
Romney's ass in the general election,
I blew it. In the final week of the primary I was
neck and neck with the state treasurer, but then my
money ran out, which meant my TV ads stopped. Declining
the suggestion of my campaign manager to take out a
second mortgage on my home, I frantically phoned anyone
I could find who hadn't yet contributed $500, the
maximum state law allowed. I didn't raise beans. In the
end, the treasurer won the primary, Romney won the
general election and became governor, and I went back to
being a professor.
But my fantasy of beating Romney may be nothing more
than a fantasy because Romney had -- and still has --
something I never did (and I'm not referring to his
gleaming white teeth, carefully-coiffed hairline, or
height). He has money, and he has connections to much
more money.
Mitt Romney was then and still is the candidate of
big money.
In the last weeks before the
just-completed Iowa caucuses, Romney
spent over $3 million relentlessly torpedoing Newt
Gingrich with negative ads -- cutting Gingrich's support
by half and hurtling him from first place to fourth. But
Romney kept his fingerprints off the torpedo.
Technically the money didn't even come from his
campaign.
It came from a Super PAC called "Restore Our Future,"
which can sop up unlimited amounts from a few hugely
wealthy donors without even disclosing their names.
That's because "Restore Our Future" is officially
independent of the Romney campaign -- although its chief
fundraiser comes out of Romney's finance team, its key
political strategist was political director of Romney's
2008 presidential campaign, its treasurer is Romney's
former chief counsel, and its media whiz had been part
of Romney's media team.
"Restore Our Future" is to Mitt Romney's campaign as
the dark side of the moon is to the moon. And it reveals
the grotesque result of the Supreme Court's decision a
year ago in Citizens United vs the Federal Election
Commission, which reversed more than a century of
efforts to curb the influence of big money on politics.
If income and wealth in America were as widely shared
as in the first three decades after World War II, we'd
have less reason to worry. But now, with an almost
unprecedented concentration of money at the very top,
Citizens United invites the worst corruption
our democracy has witnessed since the Gilded Age.
And Romney and Citizens United were made for
each other. Other candidates have quietly set up Super
PACs of their own, and President Obama has his Super PAC
already busily tapping into whatever reservoirs of big
money it can find. But Mitt's unique ties to the biggest
money pits enable him to take unique advantage of the
Court's scurrilous invitation.
The New York Times
reports that New York hedge-fund managers and Boston
financiers contributed almost $30 million to "Restore
Our Future" before the Iowa caucuses. And "Restore Our
Future"'s faux independence has allowed Romney to
publicly distance himself from them, their money, and
the dirty work that their money has bought.
More than anyone else running for president, Mitt
Romney personifies the top 1 percent in America --
actually, the top one-tenth of one percent. It's not
just his four homes and estimated $200 million fortune,
not just his wheeling and dealing in leveraged-buyouts
and private equity, not even the jobless refugees of his
financial maneuvers that makes him the Gordon Gekko of
presidential aspirants.
It's his connections to the epicenters of big money
in America -- especially to top executives and
financiers in the habit of investing for handsome
returns. And there are almost no better returns than
those found in tax benefits, government subsidies, loan
guarantees, bailouts, regulatory exemptions, federal
contracts, and trade deals generating hundreds of
millions if not billions of dollars a year.
Romney, in other words, is the candidate Citizens
United created, the creature given life by Scalia,
Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito all playing Dr.
Frankenstein.
Given what the Court has wrought, my conscience is
less burdened. Had I whipped Romney's ass ten years ago
I might only have delayed his awakening. But I fear for
the country.
Last Wednesday, President Obama stood up to Wall
Street by appointing Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau. For months, Republicans have been blocking the appointment,
and Obama's action will finally allow the agency to get to work.
Now, President Obama has a choice to make: whether
or not to order a full federal investigation into bank practices during the
housing crisis.
Progressive attorneys general have temporarily
blocked a sweetheart deal that would have given broad immunity to the banks.1
Now, the president can decide whether or not to move forward with a full federal
investigation that would hold the banks accountable.
The president has the power to order this
investigation today and start the year off right. It's up to us to make
sure he hears loud and clear that progressives are counting on him to continue
taking bold and immediate actions to help the 99%.
Can you sign the petition calling on the president
to order a full federal investigation today? Click below to add your name:
Who was hurt by the greed of Wall Street's 1%? Fellow
MoveOn members like Eleanor J., who was sold a high-interest subprime loan even
though she qualified for a safer one. Now she is struggling to make payments
after her home lost over a third of its value.
There are plenty of examples of Wall Street banks
pushing bad loans on unsuspecting homeowners and lying about the value and risk
of mortgage-backed securities.2 But without an investigation, we
can't hold them truly accountable for the $7 trillion they cost the global
economy, and homeowners can't get fair compensation.3
The president has the power to order a full
investigation. Can you help send him a strong message today?
Want to support our
work? We're entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate
contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small
contributions go a long way.
Chip in here.
Everyone’s struggling in this economy—some of us more than others. Can
you afford even a small donation to make 2012 a little bit brighter for someone
less fortunate than yourself?
Not all of us can afford to give this year. So if you can afford to help,
your contribution is more important than ever. Here are two things you can do:
2. On Sat., Jan. 21, the NFLPA (NFL Players Association) will host the
AstroTurf NFLPA Collegiate Bowl in Carson, Calif. What’s special about this game
is that the AFL-CIO is working with the players to fill the stadium with
people—particularly union members—who have lost their jobs, plus local youths
and members of the military. It costs $12.50 to donate a ticket. Can you help?
Click here to donate one or more tickets. (If you live near
Carson, Calif., or can make it to the game, you can also purchase tickets for
the game
here, using discount code UNION to save 20 percent.)
Whichever of these campaigns you choose, your donation will have an immediate,
tangible impact on people's lives in the New Year.
It takes a hot topic to fill every seat in an auditorium
for a town hall meeting. But Saturday afternoon, every seat
was taken at the Public Safety Academy to discuss Right to
Work legislation. And what started as an impromptu town hall
meeting, turned into a union rally against Right to Work.
Democratic Representative Win Moses hosted the meeting.
Moses said his goal was to take workers' opinions back to
Indianapolis so politicians would be forced to listen to
their constituents before voting along party lines.
Republicans are generally in favor of Right to Work
legislation saying it boosts a state’s economic growth and
increases personal income. Democrats, including
Representative Moses, are generally against the legislation
saying its long-term goal is to reduce wages across a state.
Representative Moses opened the meeting to public opinion
by passing a microphone around the auditorium. Christine
Fisher was the first to take a stand. Fisher has been
unemployed for a few years and believes this legislation
will only exploit honest workers.
"In these economic times when everyone is struggling, we
don't need to reduce our wages in a state that's doing
rather well,” said Fisher. “To make Indiana 'Right to Work'
is almost criminal."
Democrats claim that wages are 3.2 percent less in Right
to Work states than in states that refuse Right to Work
legislation. Representative Moses said that if passed this
legislation will cut two to five thousand dollars from every
Hoosier household over time.
Bob Rynes is a business agent for the United Food and
Commercials Union. Rynes represents all Kroger and Scotts
workers in Fort Wayne and says that unions protect workers
by having power in numbers. He believes that if this
legislation passes, unions will lose their power and
eventually his children will suffer.
"Over time wages get lower, benefits decrease, health
insurance and pensions disappear," said Rynes. "And it will
affect my family. My children are going to grow up and have
lower paying jobs because they don't have the unions there
to fight for them and make them better paying jobs."
Representative Moses explained that, under Right to Work,
if a worker decides to work for a unionized company but not
pay the union dues, he or she will still be able to claim
union benefits. All union workers at Friday’s meeting said
that is not fair.
“If I wanted to join a country club, would I be able to
do that without paying their dues?” Elvin Kimmel, a trades
worker, asked. “Everyone’s got the choice if they want to
work for a dues-paying outfit. If I wanted to go and join
the Chamber of Commerce, would I still have to pay dues to
join? If it’s good for us, why isn’t it good for them?”
Some Indiana lawmakers claim that Indiana is 'number one'
in the Midwest for job creation. Other Indiana lawmakers
claim that the state is failing to bring in enough new jobs
to boost the economy.
"It frightens me to think that after going to war for
this country, to be treated like this by our elected
officials... I just don't understand," said Kimmel.
The battle will continue on Monday at the Statehouse, and
local union workers are sending a strong message of worry
and distrust back to Indianapolis with Representative Moses.
"I think they're trying to bring this here to lower our
wages," said Rynes. "They will just make corporations richer
and the rest of us poorer."
Federal judge throws out Idaho anti-union laws
Associated Press | As Posted in the Lewiston Tribune:
Thursday, January 5, 2012 12:00 am
BOISE - A federal judge threw out Idaho's two
newest anti-union laws, saying the measures violate federal rules and would
restrict the free play of economic forces.
The laws, intended to weaken the power of labor
organizations in the state, were passed during the 2011 legislative session and
were set to go into effect last summer.
You must be logged in with the proper
services to print this article.
However, two building and construction unions
sued in U.S. District Court, and District Judge B. Lynn Winmill stopped the
laws from going into effect while the lawsuit moved forward.
Proponents said the measures were simply
expansions of Idaho's right-to-work law.
The Open Access to Work Act banned project labor
agreements that require contractors to forge pacts with unionized workers as
a condition of winning a government construction job.
The Fairness in Contracting Act prohibited
unions from using dues to subsidize member wages to help union-shop
contractors submit more competitive bids and win more projects.
Winmill ditched the laws in a written ruling
late last month.
He noted in his ruling that Congress set up the
parameters under which construction employers and unions could bargain so
they would be influenced only by their own economic power and the free play
of economic forces.
The Open Access to Work Act upsets that balance,
he wrote.
"The act skews those forces by robbing unions of
the opportunity to even seek a project labor agreement on a public works
project," Winmill wrote.
Winmill acknowledged that the state and its
political subdivisions might never decide to actually use a project labor
agreement. Still, he said, they should be allowed to freely make that choice
without the "handcuffs of the flat prohibition mandated by the Open Access
to Work Act."
Winmill said the Fairness in Contracting Act is
invalid because it would bar programs that are protected under the National
Labor Relations Act.
"We fought pretty hard on this," John Littel,
regional political director for the Carpenters Union, told The
Spokesman-Review newspaper. "We were pretty surprised about how much
momentum there was to really, I think, try to take a bite out of the unions,
and specifically the carpenters."
The Idaho Attorney General's Office warned
lawmakers early last year that those suing over the laws would likely win.
Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene, who sponsored
the bills, acknowledged there were legal issues but said he still thought
the measures were OK.
"We had instances where the carpenters union
from Portland was disrupting work, and I think that was the real emphasis
behind the effort," Goedde said.
The state hasn't said whether it plans to appeal
the court ruling.
The Inland Pacific Chapter of Associated
Builders and Contractors and the National Right to Work Legal Foundation
both filed briefs in support of the new laws.
The Inland ABC has already filed a notice of
appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, saying the organization
should have been allowed to intervene as a full party in the case.
POWERED BY
Dear Jeff,
The continuing instability in the world economy is at least partly due to
the fact that financial markets are still out of control. Wall Street
traders are reaping billions on short term speculation, while our economy
remains stagnant.As an economist, I
know that building a strong, sustainable economy depends on doing something
about a bloated and unruly financial sector.
To help get markets back under control, one important policy tool is a
targeted tax on Wall Street trading.1Please join me in signing this petition to
keep pressure on Congress to pass such a tax.
The Wall Street Tax serves at least three important economic policy goals.
First, the Wall Street Tax would raise
much-needed tax revenue2 without raising taxes on workers
at all. Ten-year estimates range from $400 billion (the Harkin-DeFazio bill
introduced last month) to $1.3 trillion in new tax revenue. That revenue can
be used to grow our economy and create jobs.
Second, like a vice tax on cigarettes or
gambling, the Wall Street Tax discourages activity that is unhealthy for our
financial markets. Traders make billions on speculation that leads to
quick rises and steep drops in the market that have little to do with how
well the economy is doing. This can lead to huge bubbles in oil prices3,
or it can send stock prices plummeting based on a computer glitch. With a
tax, we discourage that sort of short-term trading.
Finally, the tax would make financial
markets more efficient by helping businesses raise capital without all of
the inefficiencies that come from an oversized financial sector. The
multi-million dollar bonuses of Wall Street executives are a direct drain on
the rest of the economy. The money that is currently wasted in the financial
sector could instead be used to help businesses grow and create jobs.
Wall Street is putting up enormous opposition to this tax, because it would
change the way Wall Street does business, forcing it to serve the productive
economy by lending to businesses, homeowners, and students, rather than
playing games with complex financial instruments.
Great Britain has had a tax on stock trades for hundreds of years4,
and the London Stock Exchange remains strong and vibrant. Germany, the
industrial world's leading exporter, is considering a similar tax too.5
While it may seem like a tax faces a stiff headwind here in the United
States, good policy can make for good politics. And, importantly, a robust
push for such a tax in the United States could strengthen efforts in Europe
where progress might be more imminent. Indeed, European leaders have cited a
lack of such a push here in America as a reason for their own inaction.
I hope you can join me in supporting the
Wall Street Tax. Please sign the petition to Congress.
If you want to stop Wall Street from wrecking the
economy again, sign our petition supporting the Wall
Street Tax.
Ohio voters reject
Republican-backed union limits
By
JULIE CARR SMYTH -
Associated Press
November 8, 2011
COLUMBUS,
Ohio (AP) — The state's new
collective bargaining law was defeated
Tuesday after an expensive union-backed campaign
that pitted firefighters,
police officers and teachers against the
Republican establishment.
In a
political blow to GOP Gov.
John Kasich, voters handily rejected the
law, which would have limited the bargaining
abilities of 350,000 unionized public workers.
With nearly 95 percent of the votes counted late
Tuesday, about 61 percent were to reject the
law.
AFL-CIO
President
Richard Trumka, among the many union
leaders who hailed the outcome, said victory was
achieved among Democrats and Republicans in
urban and rural counties.
"Ohio
sent a message to every politician out there: Go
in and make war on your employees rather than
make jobs with your employees, and you do so at
your own peril," he said.
Kasich
congratulated his opponents and said he would
spend time contemplating how best to take the
state forward.
"I've heard their voices, I understand their
decision and, frankly, I respect what people
have to say in an effort like this," he said.
"And as a result of that, it requires me to take
a deep breath, you know, and to spend some time
reflecting on what happened here."
Kasich
said he has made creating jobs his priority and
he's beginning to see his policies work.
In a
signal of the issue's national resonance, White
House spokesman Jay Carney issued a statement
saying President Barack Obama "congratulates the
people of Ohio for standing up for workers and
defeating efforts to strip away collective
bargaining rights, and commends the teachers,
firefighters, nurses, police officers and other
workers who took a stand to defend those
rights."
Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern,
at a celebration at a downtown Columbus hotel,
said Republicans and Kasich overreached.
"He
literally thought he knew more than everyone
else," Redfern said.
Asked
whether the collective bargaining law, called
Issue 2, was a referendum on Kasich, Redfern
said, "Absolutely. He was the face of the
campaign. John Kasich chose to put his face on
this campaign for the last eight weeks. The
people of the state pushed back."
Labor and business interests poured more than
$30 million into the nationally watched
campaign, and turnout was high for an off-year
election.
Cincinnati great-grandmother Marlene Quinn,
who appeared in anti-Issue 2 ads and then had
her image used in pro-Issue 2 ads, said before
the decision that she was thinking positive
about a victory.
"We've come this far, and I said I want to go
all the way with this because I know we're going
to win, and I want to be there. So here I am,"
Quinn said at a We are Ohio rally. "We fought
hard — hard and strong."
The law hadn't taken effect yet. Tuesday's
result means the state's current union rules
will stand, at least until the GOP-controlled
Legislature determines its next move. Republican
House Speaker William Batchelder predicted last
week that the more palatable elements of the
collective bargaining bill — such as higher
minimum contributions on worker health insurance
and pensions — are likely to be revisited after
the dust settles.
Earlier Tuesday, voter Janet Tipton, a
46-year-old nurse and a Teamsters union member
at a private health care center, said Issue 2
was the only reason she came out to vote.
"If they
break the union, we won't have anything," she
said outside a church on Toledo's east side.
"They'll come after us, too."
She said
retaining the union-limiting law would have
affected quality of care for the elderly because
it would have meant fewer nurses per patient.
Earlier
this year, thousands of people swarmed the
Statehouse in protest when the bill was being
heard. The bill still allowed bargaining on
wages, working conditions and some equipment but
banned strikes, scrapped binding arbitration and
dropped promotions based solely on seniority,
among other provisions.
Kasich and
fellow supporters promoted the law as a means
for local governments to save money and keep
workers. Their effort was supported by the Ohio
Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of
Independent Business-Ohio, farmers and others.
We Are
Ohio, the largely union-funded opponent
coalition, painted the issue as a threat to
public safety and middle-class workers, spending
millions of dollars on TV ads filled with images
of firefighters, police officers, teachers and
nurses.
Celebrities came out on both sides of the
campaign, with former vice presidential
candidate Sarah Palin and singer Pat Boone
urging voters to retain the law and former
astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn and the Rev.
Jesse Jackson urging them to scrap it.
Jackson said in a statement issued Tuesday
after the vote that "workers, students and
parents have come together, demonstrated, fought
back and won."
"The struggle for workers' rights in Ohio is
something that all Americans cherish. Although
tonight's gains were a move in the right
direction, the struggle continues," he said.
"The passage of Ohio Senate Bill 5 by the
Republican-led Ohio House was deplorable, but
the tide has turned."
The law's opponents far outnumbered and
outspent its defenders. Opponents reported
raising $24 million as of mid-October, compared
to about $8 million raised by the committee
supporting the law, Building a Better Ohio.
Tuesday's result in the closely divided swing
state was expected to resonate from statehouses
to the White House ahead of the 2012
presidential election — potentially energizing
the labor movement ahead of Obama's re-election
effort.
Ohio residents also voted Tuesday to reject
an insurance mandate in Obama's federal health
insurance overhaul. Jeff Longstreth, who managed
the successful campaign, said he sees that issue
as more telling for the president's future in
the swing state.
"Voters spoke very loudly and very clearly
about how they felt about Barack Obama's
proudest legislative accomplishment," he said.
___
Associated
Press writers Ann Sanner in Columbus, John
Seewer in Toledo and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington,
D.C., contributed to this report.
Dear MoveOn member,
Some people just don't get it.
Tens of thousands of Americans have taken to the streets to demand
accountability for the banks. But some members of the Obama
administration—including members of his Cabinet—are pushing for a terrible
deal to let the big banks off the hook for selling bad mortgages and
then illegally foreclosing on homeowners—destroying the American Dream for
millions of families.1
The president's top campaign advisors have said that he's going to run for
re-election on his record of holding Wall Street accountable2—but
that'll be impossible if his administration pushes for another giveaway for
the Wall Street banks who crashed our economy. And that could happen any
day now.3
Can you sign our petition to President Obama right now telling him that
we need a full investigation into the banks' wrongdoing, not another
"deal" that lets them off the hook?
We'll deliver it to the White House and to the campaign headquarters in
Chicago. Here's what it says: "The banks have to be held accountable for
destroying the American Dream for so many families. No immunity for the
banks before a full investigation is done."
Members of the Obama administration have said that the immunity they're
offering the banks would be very narrow. But we can't know if what the
banks are being asked to pay is fair without a full investigation.
What's already come out is shocking—intentionally overlooking
problematic documentation, hiring "robo-signers" to sign thousands of
documents without reading them, and even forging critical legal
documents.4
And while the administration says we have to cut a deal because it's the
only way to get homeowners relief quickly, what the banks are
offering would only help a fraction of the homeowners who are in trouble,
and it's not even clear how many of them it would allow to stay in their
homes.5
Some state attorneys general—led by New York Attorney General Eric
Schneiderman and Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden—have walked away
from the deal, because they believe it doesn't go nearly far enough.6
But members of the administration, including Treasury Secretary Tim
Geithner and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, are continuing to push for a
deal—any deal—so they can say they won something against the banks.7
That's why it's so critical that we speak up now and say that granting
the banks immunity before we know the scale of their wrongdoing makes no
sense. A deal could come any day, so we all need to send a message to
the president that he needs to step up and hold the banks accountable.
Click below to sign now:
Want to support our
work? We're entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate
contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small
contributions go a long way.
Chip in here.
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL
ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's
committee. This email was sent to Jeff Welle on November 2, 2011. To change your
email address or update your contact info,
click
here. To remove yourself from this list,
click here.
October 26, 2011
Last night, Scott Olsen, a Marine who served two tours in Iraq, was
struck in the head by a "nonlethal" projectile fired by the Oakland police.
The round fractured his skull, leaving him in critical condition.1
Olsen had joined with other members of Occupy Oakland to peacefully protest
the group's eviction that morning. When a group gathered to help Olsen
after he was hit, a police officer threw a flash bang grenade into the group
from a few feet away.
Deeply disturbing video of the incident was captured by a local news
crew and provides the clearest evidence yet of the lengths that authorities
will go to to stop Occupy protesters from voicing uncomfortable truths about
our economy.
Yesterday's eviction in the predawn hours2, and last night's
violence against protesters, are only the latest attempts to silence the
voices of those who are speaking up for the 99%. But members of Occupy
Oakland, who faced the most brutal crackdown yet, refuse to be intimidated.
They've called for another peaceful gathering tonight to stand up for their
First Amendment rights.3
To help defend their rights, we're scrambling to put together a rapid
response ad to run in Oakland urging the mayor and the police to end
their brutal tactics and respect the protesters' rights. We want to make
sure everyone in Oakland sees the footage of the crackdown for themselves.
Every dollar we raise will go to pay for the ad, and if there's anything
left over, we'll donate it to a group doing good work helping our veterans
as they come home from war.
We're also supporting a petition by a local Oakland group—Causa Justa ::
Just Cause—to Oakland's mayor to stop the police repression of Occupy
Oakland.
Many MoveOn members experienced the police crackdown firsthand last night.
Here's what some of them said:
The police were intimidating and I have been to many protests in my
life, but nothing quite like this. I have never seen such a police
presence with such force, especially for a calm crowd. The tear gas was
pretty brutal, it is still on my clothes and skin this morning. Anywhere
in downtown Oakland had the smell and sting of the gas all night. —Gina
W.
We talked to the police across the barricades about how we were also
fighting for them, for their children's shot to education without
lifelong debt, for the preservation of their collective bargaining
rights. We expressed this solidarity knowing that they might not be
listening, but we also know that the reasons for not listening are
deeply personal... —Julie K.
As a retired military man, I wanted to reiterate what [I heard] the
Marine Sgt espousing to the police: There is NO honor in brutalizing
your own people. The tear gas stung but I have been exposed to worse,
including Agent Orange. What I saw at Ogawa Plaza made me extremely
proud of those brave souls that were passionate about their causes. As
we say in the Marine Corp and Navy...BRAVO ZULU.—Pete H.
Thanks for all you do.
–Justin,
Marika, Anna, Laura, and the rest of the team
P.S. Many occupations are gathering at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT to stand in
solidarity with Occupy Oakland. To find an occupation near you and see if
they'll be gathering, go to http://www.occupytogether.org/
This evening, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) will give a
speech at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of
Business
about how to address income inequality, likely trying to
capitalize on the
99
Percent Movement he once derided as unruly “mobs.”
Although exactly what policies Cantor will suggest to deal with this
social problem are unknown, it’s unlikely that he will touch on one
of the chief drivers of American income inequality: the decline of
unions. (UPDATE: Cantor
canceled his speech after learning it would be open to the
public.)
As CAP’s David Madland and Nick Bunker show in the
following chart, the middle class’s share of national income has
steadily declined as the percentage of the population in labor
unions has fallen. At the same time, the top 1 percent’s share of
national income has exploded:
Strong unions have traditionally been the free-market solution to
income inequality, allowing people to get higher salaries without
government intervention. Unionization has allowed middle class and
working-class Americans to have the ability to bargain for stronger
wages and benefits and a larger share of national income.
Highly-unionized countries tend to have far less income inequality.
If Cantor really wants to address income inequality, he could
endorse legislation similar to the
Employee Free Choice Act, which would break down barriers that
have been erected to American union membership.
Dear Union Sisters and Brothers,
There
were 51 senators who supported the American Jobs Act last week—a majority. It
should have passed the Senate.
But even as outrage against an economy stacked against the 99 percent spreads
like wildfire across America, Congress continues to fail workers, again and
again. Last week Senate Republicans blocked progress for workers with
procedural maneuvers—and prevented the American Jobs Act from getting a vote at
all, in spite of majority support.
This shows just how powerful the 1 percent is—the richest Americans want tax
cuts for themselves at all costs, even if it means cutting vital public services
for the rest of us.
But President Obama hasn’t given up on jobs. And neither have we. He’s
called on the Senate to pass pieces of the American Jobs Act. The first piece is
the Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act, which would create or
protect nearly 400,000 education jobs while preventing the layoffs of thousands
of police officers and firefighters.(1)
Most of us can’t afford to replace police on the beat with our own private
security guards—and who wants to live in the kind of society where we would need
to? The vast majority of us rely on the government to provide education for our
kids. And all of us—even the top 1 percent—need firefighters if our homes are
burning.
What doesn’t Congress get? What’s so controversial about the Teachers and
First Responders Back to Work Act? Republicans have supported bills like this in
the past. This bill should have overwhelming bipartisan support.
Let’s make sure every senator knows we won’t let favored treatment for the 1
percent—like sweetheart tax breaks for Wall Street bankers—cut teachers, police
and firefighters from our communities. Working families have far more votes than
millionaires and we deserve and rightfully demand a society that works for the
99 percent.
Anyone who wants to understand the
enduring nature of Occupy Wall Street
and similar protests across the country
need only look at the first official
data on 2010 paychecks, which the U.S.
government posted on the Internet on
Wednesday.
These are important and powerful
figures. Maybe the reason the government
does not announce their release — and so
far I am the only journalist who writes
about them each year — is the data show
how the United States smolders while
Washington fiddles.
There were fewer jobs and they paid
less last year, except at the very top
where, the number of people making more
than $1 million increased by 20 percent
over 2009.
The median paycheck — half made more,
half less — fell again in 2010, down 1.2
percent to $26,364. That works out to
$507 a week, the lowest level, after
adjusting for inflation, since 1999.
The number of Americans with any work
fell again last year, down by more than
a half million from 2009 to less than
150.4 million.
More significantly, the number of
people with any work has fallen by 5.2
million since 2007, when the worst
recession since the Great Depression
began, with a massive taxpayer bailout
of Wall Street following in late 2008.
This means 3.3 percent of people who had
a job in 2007, or one in every 3330,
went all of 2010 without earning a
dollar. (Update: the
original version of this column used the
wrong ratio.)
In addition to the 5.2 million people
who no longer have any work add roughly
4.5 million people who, due to
population growth, would normally join
the workforce in three years and you
have close to 10 million workers who did
not find even an hour of paid work in
2010.
SIX TRILLION DOLLARS
These figures come from the Medicare tax
database at the Social Security
Administration, which processes every
W-2 wage form. All wages, salaries,
bonuses, independent contractor net
income and other compensation for
services subject to the Medicare tax are
added up to the penny.
In 2010 total wages and salaries came
to $6,009,831,055,912.11.
That’s a bit more than $6 trillion.
Adjusted for inflation, that is less
than each of the previous four years and
almost identical to 2005, when the U.S.
population was 4.2 percent smaller.
While median pay — the halfway point
on the salary ladder declined, average
pay rose because of continuing increases
at the top. Average pay was $39,959 last
year, up $46 — or less than a buck a
week — compared with 2009. Average pay
peaked in 2007 at $40,764, which is $15
a week more than average weekly wage
income in 2010.
The number of workers making $1
million or more rose to almost 94,000
from 78,000 in 2009. However, that was
still below some earlier years,
including 2007, when more than 110,000
workers made more than $1 million each.
At the very top, the number of workers
making more than $50 million rose in
2010 to 81, up from 72 the year before.
But average pay in this group declined
$4.5 million to $79.6 million.
What these figures tell us is that
there was a reason voters responded in
the fall of 2010 to the Republican
promise that if given control of
Congress they would focus on one thing:
jobs.
But while Republicans were swept into
the majority in the House of
Representatives, that promise has been
ignored.
Not only has no jobs bill been enacted
since January, but the House will not
even bring up for a vote the jobs bill
sponsored by President Obama. His bill
is far from perfect, but where is the
promised Republican legislation to get
people back to work?
Instead of jobs, the focus on Capitol
Hill is on tax cuts for corporations
with untaxed profits held offshore, on
continuing the temporary Bush
administration tax cuts — especially for
those making $1 million or more – and on
cutting federal spending, which mean
destroying more jobs in the short run.
At the same time, nonfinancial
companies are sitting on more than $2
trillion of cash — nearly $7,000 per
American — with no place to invest it
profitably. This money cannot even be
invested to earn the rate of inflation.
All this capital is sitting on the
sidelines waiting for profitable
opportunities to be invested, which will
not and cannot happen until more people
have jobs and wages rise, creating
increased demand for goods and services.
More of the same approach we have had
for most of the last three decades and
all of the last ten years is not going
to increase demand, create more jobs or
enable overall prosperity. In the long
run, continuing current policies will
make even the richest among us less well
off than they would be in a robust
economy with government policies that
foster job creation and the capital
investment that grows from increased
demand.
On top of this are the societal
problems caused by something the United
States has never experienced before,
except during the Depression — chronic,
long-term unemployment.
Having millions who want work go
years without a single day on a payroll
is more than just a waste of talent and
time. It also can change social
attitudes about work and not for the
better.
The data show why protests like
Occupy Wall Street have so quickly
gained momentum around the country, as
people who cannot find work try to focus
the federal government on creating jobs
and dealing with the banking sector that
many demonstrators blame for the lack of
jobs.
Will official Washington look at the
numbers and change course? Or do voters
need to change their elected
representatives if they want to put
America back on a path to widespread
prosperity?
(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh)
Some 25 million Americans
are unemployed, underemployed or have stopped looking for work—and wages
essentially are flat.
Americans are crying out for jobs—but Republicans in Congress aren’t
listening. Instead of addressing our jobs crisis when they took over the
House of Representatives, they abused voters’ trust—dragging America through the
mud with a manufactured debt ceiling “crisis.” They even shut down the FAA,
holding 90,000 jobs hostage.
According to our records,
it's likely you live near the office of one of the 136
Republican millionaires currently serving in the U.S. Congress.
Can you drop by on Friday? Showing up is the most important
thing. Bring résumés of unemployed workers if you can—or
anything symbolizing the jobs crisis, like unpaid tuition bills,
bank overdraft statements, mortgage or utility bills or shut-off
notices.
Did you know that—according to our records—it's likely that you live near the
office of at least one Republican
member of
Congress who is also a millionaire? Republicans in Congress say they want to
create jobs—and they ran for office on job creation promises. But they refuse to
do the one thing that will make job creation possible while reducing our
long-term debt: asking the wealthy to pay their fair share to fund job-creating
investments.
Your millionaire lawmaker gets a six-figure salary and has a benefit package
that would be the envy of every working and unemployed American. But he or she
may pay a lower tax rate than you and most middle-class Americans. And get this:
he or she gets to vote on the tax rates millionaires pay.
This Friday at noon, please join America’s unions and our friends at
MoveOn.org. Come with us to the office of a millionaire member of Congress near
you as we deliver a strong, clear message: “America wants to work. And
millionaires like you should pay your fair share to get America back on track.”
With your help, we’ll set straight the millionaires who’d rather play political
parlor games than deal with our jobs crisis.
Just showing up Friday at noon is enough to send a strong message. But if
you have résumés for unemployed workers or anything else that symbolizes the
jobs crises, please bring them to drop off. You could bring things like unpaid
tuition bills, bank overdraft statements, mortgage or utility bills or shut-off
notices.
To fix our jobs crisis and pay for it, the people with the most have to pay
their fair share. As President Obama recently said:
“Either we ask the
wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share in taxes or we ask seniors to pay
more for Medicare. We can’t afford to do both....This is not class warfare;
it’s math.”
President Obama has
called on Congress to pass the American Jobs Act without delay to put America
back to work. And he’s proposed that we pay for it by requiring millionaires,
billionaires and profitable corporations to pay their fair share.
Millionaires in Congress need to chip in to help create jobs. It’s fair. It’s
patriotic. And it’s the right thing to do. Thank you for standing for fairness
and job creation.
P.S. If you show up on Friday, please reply to this message with photos. You
also can tweet about it by using the hashtag #want2work.
Union Sisters and Brothers,
This week already is shaping up to be huge, with
actions everywhere demanding good jobs for working families, paid for with fair
taxes for millionaires and Wall Street.
Occupy Wall Street protests, which really took off over the weekend, will
continue in cities from coast to coast.
And the AFL-CIO America Wants to Work national week of action starts today.
This is a not-to-be-missed moment to get out and attend an event in your
community.
We’re sponsoring a wide variety of activities, from vigils to teach-ins on
college campuses, demonstrations outside job-outsourcing corporations and press
events. In many places, we’ll join the Occupy Wall Street protests that have
sprung up and are growing, from Hawaii to Washington, D.C.
Working people will come together in hundreds of events through Oct. 16 to
demand action from Congress to promote a real jobs creation agenda and real
shared sacrifice from Wall Street and the rich.
Find an event near you.
And college students across the country will gather on Wednesday, Oct. 12, for a
live national teach-in with events on campuses from 7–8:30 p.m. EDT. Find a
teach-in location near you
here. Or, watch it live Wednesday night at:
http://go.aflcio.org/teachin.
Whatever you do this week, don’t miss the opportunity to be a part of something
big. Here are some ways to get involved:
Find an America Wants to Work event near you
here. To share our week of action on Facebook,
click here.
Find an Oct. 12 America Wants to Work teach-in
location near you
here. Or watch it live from 7–8:30 p.m.
here.
Find an Occupy Wall Street event near you
here. You can share Occupy Wall Street events on Facebook
here.
Please also forward this message to your friends
and ask them to get involved. Thanks for all you do for the 99 percent.
In Solidarity,
Liz Shuler
Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO
Unions Built the Middle
Class and Must Save It
By Richard A. Levins
Richard A. Levins, Professor Emeritus
of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota
The middle class is fading fast.
Stagnant wages, rising costs for life’s essentials and massive debt are
taking their toll. What can we do to reverse this trend before it is too
late? We must recognize that
cheap labor can build cars and appliances, but only organized labor can
build a middle class.
While the middle class struggles,
the country’s wealthiest people are riding the stock market gravy train.
Much of my economic work in the past several years has been with farming.
Farmers have a better word for those who make money because of what they own
instead of what they do. They are called landlords. Landlords, like
corporate shareholders, simply sit back and take part of what others have
earned.
What many politicians hail as the “ownership
society” is really a landlord society. It is one in which money that could
be used to reward labor gets skimmed off by a fortunate few. This
repackaging of our old friend, trickle-down economics, is downright
dangerous.
All strategies that trade good jobs for cheap
toasters eventually erode the market for the goods and services being
provided. A society composed of a handful of hyper-wealthy individuals and
millions of people living on the economic edge is not the sound, stable
market needed for growth. Only a middle class with a widely distributed
buying power can provide that. What economists call the “income
distribution” in this country is, from a middle-class perspective, as bad as
it has been since the years leading up to the Great Depression.
The ideology of ownership would
have us believe that the rich getting richer is just how things work in our
economic system. The less we tamper with the way profits are distributed
among owners and workers, the better off we all will be. The problem is, of
course, that the rich and powerful monkey with the system all the time, and
always to their benefit at the expense of the middle class.
Corporations are now strong enough
to call for, and get, substantial tax reductions. They can call for, and
get, substantial wage concessions. They can call for, and get, weakened
public oversight of their activities. These changes, which have permitted
and fostered the growth of corporations and globalization, are not the
result of clever ideas and theories. They result from the exercise of
power.
And that, in a nutshell, is the
problem. Once corporations pay all their expenses, anything left over must
be distributed between labor and owners. When labor has power, wages grow,
and with them, the middle class. When owners have power, we move toward a
society of rich and poor without much in the middle.
A farmer I have worked with over
the years put it this way: When you sit down to dinner with a group of
hungry people, it’s not only the size of the pie that matters. The size of
your fork is just as important.
Because of its generous share of
natural resources, and centuries of public action to build roads, schools
and the like, the United States is a wealthy nation. During the
mid-twentieth century, there were two principal methods for making sure this
wealth was distributed such that it would do the most to maintain and build
the nation’s wealth.
First, the very wealthy were
heavily taxed, either directly or through their corporations. This provided
for maintenance of existing social investments and creation of new ones.
Our system of public education and research, for example, was well supported
by tax dollars.
Second, labor unions became strong
enough to shift corporate profits from very wealthy owners to the middle
class, in the form of better wages and benefits. Money stayed in the hands
of those most likely to spend it in ways that would further stimulate the
national economy and provide essential public services.
In a few short decades, globalization has
raised the specter of moving all of this wealth into the hands of a very
few. In so doing, it will destroy the very process that created and
maintained our wealth in the first place. Rebuilding the middle class,
therefore, will not be a search for new economic ideas. It will instead be a
process of changing the balance of power in ways that favor those of us who
are not corporate landlords.
Politicians can, and should, put the middle
class front and center in their economic thinking. But that alone won’t do
the job. The job of building and maintaining the middle class is, like
always, a union job.
Richard A. Levins is Professor Emeritus
of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. His most recent book,
Middle Class * Union Made,
is available from Itasca Books at 800-901-3480.
We won’t pay for their
crisis
The unions are geared up to resist Government
efforts to reverse workplace rights that have
existed for 50 years
by Tony Burke
Monday, May 9th, 2011
After the tremendous success of the TUC’s “March For
The Alternative” on March 26, it is clear that the
priorities for the trade union movement are to build
on that success and to fight – and defeat – the cuts
to our public services, and to fight – and stop –
the dismantling of the National Health Service.
Unions are already considering more co-ordinated
campaigning and industrial action in the fight back
– and how to win more public support – even as the
cuts bite deep into the infrastructure of our daily
lives.
As Unite’s “Don’t Break Britain” campaign makes
clear, the fight is not just about the cuts to
services and the changes to the NHS. It is about
fighting the ideological policies of a Government
hell-bent on turning the clock back decades and
implementing policies that have little to do with
helping economic recovery.
The Tories, using Liberal Democrats Vince Cable
and Ed Davey as cover, have mounted an attack on
employment rights through changes to employment
tribunals and workplace justice.
The Government proposes to make it even more
difficult for workers to seek redress for workplace
disputes by undermining a system that has served
Britain well for nearly half a century.
The Resolving Workplace Disputes Consultation
2011 has nothing to do with resolving workplace
disputes. It has all to do with deterring working
people seeking redress at an employment tribunal and
it has everything to do with making it easier to
dismiss staff.
The Government’s proposals are based on myths
about employment tribunals with no evidence to
suggest that they will address the economic recovery
of the country. On the contrary, such proposals
would bar vulnerable workers from receiving justice.
By proposing to increase the qualifying period
for unfair dismissal claims to two years from the
current level of 12 months originally set in 1999,
these proposals make it easier for unscrupulous
employers to sack workers by tribunals charging a
fee of £30 to £500 to lodge a claim. This panders to
the usual suspects in the CBI, Institute of
Directors and the small business lobby.
Indeed, when ministers published their proposals
last week some in the employers’ lobby called for
the Government go further. The IoD described the
proposals as “timid” and the CBI opposed a fine of
up to £5,000 for those bad employers found guilty of
wilfully ignoring employment rights.
The proposals also change the role of ACAS from
one of settling disputes – in which it has not
inconsiderable skills – to one of striking out
tribunal claims: something many ACAS officials and
lay tribunal members oppose.
Also look out for the Government’s “back door”
review into the sickness absence system. This is
being led by Dame Carol Black, the national director
for health and work, and David Frost, the
director-general of the British Chambers of
Commerce. The review will look at the “system of
sickness related benefits in
the UK”.
This is possibly code for a review of the
statutory sick pay scheme on which thousands of
workers without decent sick schemes rely. In turn,
that could affect some company schemes, negotiated
by unions and employers, which include an element of
SSP.
With this undoubtedly in mind Cameron launched an
opening salvo this week in which he “declared war”
on Britain’s so-called “sick note culture”.
Providing cover for this assault is a conveniently
timed PwC report which claims absenteeism “costs”
British businesses £32 billion a year while Britsh
workers take “twice as many” sick days as their
Asian counterparts.
Whilst these issues may not immediately appear to
be a frontal assault on employment rights, the trade
union movement will need to make our members, those
not yet in a union, and Labour MPs, aware that
established rights which have perhaps taken for
granted are being taken away.
On the economic front, the crisis has meant that
the take home pay of those in the private sector is
falling. Inflation currently stands at about 5 per
cent, but research shows that, in the three months
to the end of March 2011, average pay settlements in
manufacturing remained static at 2.4 per cent – the
same as the figure for the three months to the end
of February 2011. The number of pay freezes remains
at just over one in eight settlements, while almost
four in five pay deals are at 3 per cent or less.
This, plus a potential skills shortage, is
stoking up problems for the future. During the worst
of the crisis, unions and our members helped
companies through difficult times. Many
manufacturers worked with us to hold onto their
skilled employees and keep going. But we also
witnessed some employers using the crisis as a
smokescreen to cut pay and conditions or abandon
well-established agreements. This caused serious
resentment.
While there have been some decent pay deals in
recent months, we have also seen some companies
re-imposing pay freezes or at best implementing very
low pay increases for the third or fourth year. As a
result, we should expect to see a lot more anger
from union members.
Faced with increased costs of living, higher
bills at home, there are already growing requests
from union reps for ballots for industrial action as
living standards fall further. Meanwhile, those who
caused the crisis in the first place continue earn
stratospheric salaries. This week it was has been
reported that earnings in the City are rising at 7
per cent a year.
A growing number of workplaces where members are
in dispute and are fighting back to re-establish pay
and conditions after years of pay freezes and a
“take or leave it” attitude from short-sighted
managers.
Unite will be supporting members wherever they work
– the public services, private sector or in
manufacturing – in fighting back, defending jobs and
hard-won pay and conditions.
Tony Burke is assistant general secretary of
Unite
Floor Speech by Congressman
George Miller Denouncing the GOP Attack on Middle
Class Americans
Piece by piece, the chipping away at the middle class
standard of living has been accelerated in recent
months. California Congressman D-George Miller
provided a clear understanding on the methods and the
architects behind the attacks against American workers
as Miller referred to those who are behind these
malicious efforts.
“They have asked for no sacrifices
of the well-off and the well-connected. The goal
is to take away power from the middle class and give it
to the wealthy special interests that have backed
Republicans in their elections,” Miller said.
Miller spoke on the House floor this morning
denouncing the national campaign against union workers.
A deep-rooted desire for removing hard-fought safeguards
in the workplace, decent healthcare, and good wages that
help drive our economic engine.
Just a query thought...... What
would it take to adopt a policy for this country's politicians that states that
whatever it is that they can think up for the citizens of the United States of
America, they too, must abide by. One Income Tax for all; One Level of
Medical insurance for us all; One retirement pension for all the workers in the
land.... yada, yada, yada. We would either have one helluva set of wages
and benefits with a fair income tax percentage... or... we would have nobody
applying for the job of politician.
What's Fair is Fair!?!
If we all pushed this proposition
onto a ballot... I bet it would pass! But, remember the State of Idaho
relies on the fact that less than 48% of the voting population ever gets out to
vote... they could probably
overturn the best proposition ever. Remember, Money talks... and they have
it.
Again, it's just a question in my
mind... Brother Jeff Welle, USW Local 608
Middle-Class Struggles, Americans Treading
Water In Gulf Between Rich And Poor
MOUNT
VERNON, N.Y. — A Wall Street adviser leaves
early for work to avoid panhandlers at his
suburban train station. In coal country, a
suddenly homeless man watches from a bench as
wealthy women shop for dresses. A down-and-out
waitress sits glumly on her stoop across the
street from a gleaming suburb. A freshly elected
politician loses his day job.
They're the
faces of a census report released this week
showing that the gap between the richest and
poorest Americans is wider than ever.
The recession technically ended in the middle
of last year, but the numbers can't tell the
whole story. The census report translates to
stories of impatience, resignation and
hopelessness for those who are living it across
the country.
It's the story of Roy Houseman, who, having
barely finished celebrating his election to the
City Council in Missoula, Mont., was laid off.
It's the story of Ashleigh Dorner, an unemployed
Detroiter who has a car but no money for gas or
insurance. It's the story of John Morgan, a
financial adviser who avoids interaction with
the poor in the gritty New York suburb of Mount
Vernon.
And it's the story of Charles Fox.
___
Fox, 68, has claimed a bench on High Street
in Morgantown, W.Va. It's tucked between a pizza
shop and a gelato stand he can't afford to
visit. Beside him are two black trash bags
stuffed with his belongings.
He had a home until last month, when a fire
burned down one of the last cheap motels in
town. Now he sits in the morning sunshine,
worrying about the approach of winter.
"I ain't found no place to live yet," he
says, staring down at the sidewalk.
Morgantown's metro area has the largest gap
between rich and poor in the 50 states, the new
census figures say. That's partly because it's a
college town, and the number of students is
growing rapidly, along with the low-paying jobs
that support them.
College towns also have highly paid
professors, researchers and doctors. And they're
a landlord's market: Fox, who was spending $450
a month on rent – three-quarters of his monthly
disability check – says he can't find a room for
under $1,000 a month.
He used to work in a coal mine, but a blocked
artery in his leg makes walking and standing –
and holding a job – difficult. At night, he
finds a bunk at a packed homeless shelter.
"I sit up here on the street in the daytime
and just wonder, 'Where am I going to go?'" he
says. Tears fall as he adds, "Sometimes I go two
or three days without anything to eat."
Across the street is Coni & Franc's, where
blouses go for $100 and gowns for thousands. But
owner Constance Chico Merandi says she deals
with the homeless and working poor, too.
There's a sale table with $10 shoes, and
sometimes Merandi, 51, pulls an already
discounted dress from her sale rack and lets it
go for less to a woman dreaming of a wedding
gown she knows she can't afford.
"It's just part of living and coexisting
here," she says. "We realize we have to do
something."
Meanwhile, Fox sits on his bench and waits
for his luck to change.
"You ain't got a chance anymore in this
town," he says. "You really don't."
___
John Morgan, a financial adviser on Wall
Street, goes to work earlier some mornings to
avoid panhandlers at the railroad station in
Mount Vernon, a struggling city of 68,000
bordering the Bronx.
He has no interaction with other residents,
including the poor – and doesn't want any.
Warily eyeing a man begging commuters for
"train fare," Morgan says, "This guy hits me all
the time. At first I gave him a dollar or two
and now he sees me coming."
Morgan, 64, is a widower who lives alone in a
condominium apartment. He and his wife raised a
family in a house in neighboring Pelham before
moving two years ago to one of Mount Vernon's
more pleasant neighborhoods.
"I don't have anything to do with Mount
Vernon," Morgan says. "I shop in Pelham. I go
straight out to my house on Long Island on the
weekends. I've never spent a weekend in Mount
Vernon."
As Morgan spoke, police patrolled the
downtown train station, where a missing-woman
flier hung.
He has his doubts about the statistics
revealing a wider gap between rich and poor. The
data showed that the top-earning 20 percent of
Americans – those making more than $100,000 each
year – received 49.4 percent of all income. The
bottom 20 percent took in just 3.4 percent of
income.
"Things aren't good out there," he says. "I
think the rich are getting poorer and the poor
are staying poor."
___
Ashleigh Dorner was getting by, she says,
until job losses in and around Detroit stunted
business at the restaurants where she hustled
for tips to augment her lower-than-minimum-wage
pay. Around the same time, her boyfriend began
bringing home less money as home improvement
work dried up.
Now she's unemployed and they have to live on
the $1,000 per month he earns and "a lot of help
from family," Dorner says, sitting with her
2-year-old daughter on the stoop of their rented
home.
They have no telephone. They have a car, but
they can't afford to put it on the road.
"We don't have money for car insurance or
even gas," says Dorner, 25. "My boyfriend rides
his bike back and forth to work."
Their home on Detroit's far east side is
across the street from one of the affluent
communities known as the Grosse Pointes.
Jon Gandelot, 67, lives and practices estate
planning law in Grosse Pointe Farms, where fancy
homes sit serenely on professionally manicured
lawns, just blocks from some of Detroit's worst
neighborhoods.
Gandelot holds little hope for a recovered
Detroit, where the unemployment rate is
approaching 30 percent. Driving through the city
to get to his suburb is "like day and night, but
it has been this way for 30 years," he says.
"Detroit has always had promises of a
renaissance. It just never comes to fruition,"
says Gandelot, an estate planning attorney.
Dorner says she knows her high school diploma
doesn't count for much in this economy, and she
doesn't resent her wealthy neighbors.
"I don't hold any hard feelings toward them,"
she says. "I wish I could be in their
situation."
___
When the linerboard plant at Smurfit-Stone
Container in Missoula, Mont., was shutting down,
29-year-old Roy Houseman became one of more than
400 workers out in the cold.
His situation was unique: As a newly elected
city councilman, Houseman was expected to help
move Missoula's economy forward after losing
$60,000 of his annual income. He was left with
just the $12,500 a year he was pulling in as a
part-time councilman.
He saw his co-workers forced into retirement
or out of Missoula. Most were in their 50s, an
age that can cause a would-be employer to
blanch.
Houseman and his wife, Andrea, knew they
didn't want to leave Missoula. The mountain town
is considered Montana's cultural center, with
its university, professional population and
urbane atmosphere.
But Missoula also has the state's largest
homeless shelter, serving as many as 350 people
a day.
Andrea Houseman was able to find a
better-paying job to help them get by. Roy
Houseman started graduate school at the
University of Montana, hoping to position
himself for better economic times.
"As the recession goes, I think people try to
find places to shelter – and universities are
places to shelter," he says.
The Housemans put on hold their plans to have
children, as well as their plans to save for
retirement.
"That's one thing I have to say the recession
has taught me," Houseman says. "It's hard to
plan long term."
___
Smith reported from Morgantown. Corey
Williams in Detroit, Matt Volz in Helena, Mont.,
and Hope Yen in Washington contributed to this
report.
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. — A Wall Street adviser
leaves early for work to avoid panhandlers at his
suburban train station. In coal country, a suddenly
homeless man watches from a bench as wealthy wome...
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. — A Wall Street adviser
leaves early for work to avoid panhandlers at his
suburban train station. In coal country, a suddenly
homeless man watches from a bench as wealthy wome...
After the economy slipped into recession in
2008, millions of Americans received
unemployment benefits to make ends meet --
including almost 3,000 millionaires. According
to...
In her first major speech as a member of the
Obama administration, middle-class advocate
Elizabeth Warren reached out to the heads of the
nation's biggest...
There are good reasons to be angry with the state of
affairs in this country and frustrated by the
inability of the political class to change things.
But blaming China for a series of domestic
challenges is not an act of strength or courage.
September 30, 2010 05:05 PM / Zach Carter - Huffington Post
A full 90 members of Congress who voted to bailout Wall
Street in 2008 failed to support financial reform reining in
the banks that drove our economy off a cliff. But when you
examine campaign contribution data, it's really no surprise
that these particular lawmakers voted to mortgage our
economic future to Big Finance: This election cycle, they've
raked in over $48.8 million from the financial
establishment. Over the course of their Congressional
careers, the figure swells to a massive $176.9 million.
The complete list of these Crony Capitalists is below, along
with the money they pulled in from Big Finance, according to
data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (opensecrets.org).
The career data goes back to 1989. Of the 69 House members
who voted with Wall Street on both the bailout and financial
reform, 60 are Republicans, while nine are Democrats. All 21
Senators who voted with Wall Street on both issues are
Republicans, and Republicans raked in over 90 percent of the
total campaign contributions. Here's a chart showing Wall
Street's total contributions to this crowd for the 2010
cycle, by political party:
And here's one showing total Wall Street contributions
over the course of their careers:
These aren't the only politicians carrying water for Wall
Street--only the most flagrant. Some of the bank lobby's
savviest servants on Capitol Hill do their dirty work early
in the legislative process. They push through technical
amendments and deploy complex procedural tricks to defang a
bill, but when the final vote comes, they can still create
the appearance of taking a stand against Wall Street's
interests. Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill., is a master of this
technique, and Tea Party favorite Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass.,
was able to claim credit for voting in favor of reform
after demanding--and receiving--a host of big bank giveaways
in
return for his vote.
Nor are Republicans the only recipients of Wall Street
largesse. Bean, for instance, has pulled in over $773,000
from Wall Street in the 2010 cycle alone, while working
overtime to carve loopholes into new consumer protections
(she's scored $2.4 million over the course of her
Congressional career). And the Democratic leadership has
received millions as well.
When it comes to dealing out economic damage, no special
interest group has been able to wreak more havoc that Big
Finance. After inflating an $8 trillion housing bubble and
sparking a recession that has cost the economy over 8
million jobs, public pressure to crack down on Wall Street
was intense. And the public is still clamoring for Wall
Street accountability--after two years in office, the Wall
Street reform bill remains the most popular legislative
effort championed by President Barack Obama, and getting
tough on Big Finance has been
a reliable re-election strategy for embattled incumbents.
But harnessing the Wall Street beast proved a tortuously
long and difficult process, taking nearly two years despite
its economic urgency. And while the bill that Congress
approved this year has plenty of virtues, many of the most
critical reforms were simply not addressed by the
legislation. The too-big-to-fail financial behemoths that
taxpayers bailed out in 2008 are even bigger today, banks
can still gamble with taxpayer money, and the foreclosure
crisis continues to ravage neighborhoods across the country.
Until these issues are addressed, the U.S. economy will
remain beholden to Wall Street's bonus-crazed whims.
But if you follow the money, it's obvious why so much
work remains to be done on financial reform. This year
alone,
Wall Street spent a staggering $251 million fighting
financial reform. According to a separate analysis of
campaign contributions
performed by Public Citizen, lawmakers who voted with
Wall Street on both the bailout and reform received nearly
triple the campaign cash of those who opposed Wall
Street (figures in the Public Citizen study don't correspond
to those I've compiled, as Public Citizen examined
contributions from 2007 through July of 2010).
Despite the popularity of Wall Street reform, 90 members
of Congress didn't even want to publicly pretend to
support reining in almost universally reviled banks. When
you're trying to decide which bums to throw out in November,
here's one place to start. These members of Congress are
okay with setting up economic calamities, and they don't
mind paying for them with your tax dollars.
Here's how Wall Street's contributions break down among
Wall Street's 21 Senate Cronies. For 2010:
For their careers:
And here are all of the Cronies, along with their Wall
Street hauls:
William S. Lerach / Lecturer, Writer and Investor
advocate- Huffington Post
Blame the Wall Street Bankers and Corporate
CEOs for the "Jobless" Recovery
Now that President Obama's "recovery summer" has fizzled and
it's clear we are in for a "jobless" recovery, it is worth
examining who bears the responsibility for this predicament
-- near 10% unemployment (with millions more so discouraged
they have given up looking for work and are not even counted
anymore) despite a trillion-dollar stimulus. The
manufacturing jobs which were once the backbone of the
American economy and fueled the job growth that pulled
America out of prior recessions just aren't here anymore. In
the name of "free trade," millions of those jobs got shipped
overseas to unregulated markets where cheap labor is
abundant, environmental restrictions are lax and working
conditions are abysmal -- making the costs of corporate
production there much lower.
Who bears the responsibility
for this structural impairment of the American economy? The
Wall Street banks and the multinational corporations, along
with those who have done their bidding in Washington for the
past few decades are responsible. The Republican politicians
that these financial interests own -- and the corporate
Democrats they have "seduced" with campaign money -- have
been their willing instruments. While millions of ordinary
Americans cannot find a decent job and our nation's economy
sputters, the Wall Street bankers still make gobs of money,
the multinational corporations are as profitable as ever and
their political friends in Washington sit on top of stuffed
campaign coffers.
Capital is liquid. Without restrictions money flows to
where it can earn the highest returns, regardless of any
burden its flow inflicts on those left behind, or the
hardship inflicted upon the humans who will toil to create
the return on that newly placed capital. If a corporation
can build a factory in a Third World country where workers
are not organized, wages are low and the cost of worker
safety and environmental protections are nil and still sell
its products here and in other wealthy countries, it will do
so. The executives who decide to take capital to remote
locations suffer no personal hardship from the fact that a
factory that could have been built in America won't be -- or
a factory that was in America will be closed and replaced by
a Third World site.
This is equally true of Wall Street bankers. It makes no
difference to them if a factory in Iowa is closed and the
lives of the well-paid workers there are destroyed so that
their multinational corporate client can build a replacement
factory in Bangladesh. The rapacious bankers pocket the same
huge fees for raising the capital required to fund the
replacement factory regardless of where it is built, the new
workers are located or what happens to the American workers
left in the dust. Over two million American manufacturing
jobs have been lost to overseas sites in recent years. No
one can count how many jobs that could have been created
here have not been.
Over time a nefarious bargain was struck between the
politicians and financial interests that helped lead to our
present predicament. Republicans -- doing the bidding of
Wall Street and their corporate masters -- pushed
relentlessly for "free trade" agreements, the real purpose
of which was to facilitate replacement of American
manufacturing facilities with cheap overseas production. It
happened with steel and auto workers and their supply
chains; the clothing and carpet manufacturers -- the garment
workers -- you can go on and on. The Americans who held
these good jobs were thrown away. But the Wall Street
bankers and corporate executives enjoy even better lives
than before. They benefit from goods being manufactured in
Third World countries. That boosts the profits they use to
pay themselves excessive salaries and outlandish bonuses.
Unfortunately, Democrats who were in a position to
prevent the actions that gutted our manufacturing base did
not do so. The "enterprise" Democrats who serve Wall Street
and corporate interests went along with these disastrous
policies. Republicans in turn tolerated the massive growth
of the Democratic favorites Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This
furthered the Democratic goal of fostering increasing home
ownership by lower income people and had the convenient
impact of benefiting the bankers who made gargantuan profits
by packaging up tons of dubious mortgages being generated by
the housing boom and peddling them to pension funds all over
the world. This arrangement also benefited the
corporate-financial complex as the gigantic housing bubble
masked the true negative economic impact of America's
diminishing manufacturing base resulting from the
globalization they wanted. The bankers made gobs of money
from financing industrial relocation to the Third World and
home mortgage securitization. The campaign coffers of their
political enablers were kept filled.
But then the music stopped. There were only so many
houses to be built and sold with 100% mortgages to
under-qualified buyers. When the house of cards collapsed
the financial system imploded and came to the edge of a
complete collapse. The United States and most of the world
plunged into the worst economic decline in the past 50
years. Unemployment here skyrocketed to 10%. Over eight
million jobs were lost. Unemployment is really over 20% when
the millions of other workers who are so defeated they have
given up looking for a job are figured in. The Wall Street
banks, of course, were rescued by their Washington allies
who funneled hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to
them to save them from the "free market" consequences of
their own greedy folly.
The world's central bankers also responded by flooding
banking systems with liquidity - "free" money in unlimited
amounts to the bankers. The economic decline was stabilized
-- at least enough to prevent a repeat of the Great
Depression of the 1930s -- for now. But look at the end
result. The "bailed-out" Wall Street banks are making tons
of money again - but not by lending to American businesses
to stimulate economic recovery here -- but by arbitraging
the money "loaned" them by the government at near 0% into
interest-paying government bonds -- pocketing billions of
dollars in risk-free profits and then paying themselves
gargantuan bonuses. Multinational corporate profits are back
at record levels. The politicians who arranged for the bank
bailout and serve these again prospering financial and
corporate interests are having no difficulty filling their
campaign chests. But where are the jobs? Where are the new
factories? What about ordinary people?
America remains a great nation and the vast majority of
its citizens, even though they vehemently disagree with each
other on many issues, love their country. Their allegiance
is unquestioned. But I don't think that's true of a great
many of the masters of capital that reside here. Their real
allegiance is not to any country, but to mammon.
These bankers and corporate CEOs are "men and women of
the world." If the legal and economic rules of the game
permit them to make more money for themselves at the cost of
ordinary Americans, they will do so. While they may sit in
office towers here, their ultimate economic commitment is
not to our country or its workers -- their loyalty is to
lining their own pockets, regardless of the impact on
ordinary Americans. To be fair to them -- they are really
the obliging tools of capitalism's "invisible hand" -- if
the incentives permit, indeed favor, the flow of capital to
places that hurt the American economy -- then so be it. It's
the incentives as much as the people.
These harsh words only reflect the reality of raw
capitalism. Capitalism was never meant to be pretty or kind.
Unregulated, it allocates capital -- and the jobs and the
wealth that flow from capital -- in an efficient (ruthless)
manner, inexorably seeking the lowest cost of production so
as to obtain the highest return. The enormous improvements
in computer technology, transportation and communications
that have "shrunk the globe" in recent decades have served
to greatly emphasize this aspect of under-regulated
capitalism -- and accelerate its harmful impact on our
developed, regulated economy, with its attendant worker and
environmental protections, i.e., costs.
For many years, we created buffers to protect our people
from the impact of unregulated free-market capitalism. And,
in the not-too-distant past, we had countless numbers of
manufacturing facilities, which employed workers who
received good wages and benefits - either because they were
organized or were collateral beneficiaries of a large,
organized American workforce that "raised the bar" for all.
And it was those factories and those workers who time and
again helped the American economy recover from inevitable
periodic economic downturns. But no more.
Often major trends unfold in front of us but we do not
recognize them. America is stagnating -- at the tipping
point of heading toward becoming a Second -- even a Third
World country. Much of the anger we see among people in our
country is because they sense it. Bad news for them -- and
their children. But grieve not for the financial and
corporate elite - even in the worst Third World countries,
the economic elite survive -- they thrive -- behind gates
and guards in enclaves of luxurious wealth. So it may be in
the post-industrial America.
Our factories are gone. Our recovery is anemic. Our
economy has suffered structural damage in the name of
globalization, which has benefited only the economic elite.
But what do they really care if America is in decline? These
"people of the world" will continue to profit, no matter
that the economic policies they use their power to achieve
come at the expense of millions of loyal, ordinary
Americans, who are but pawns in a bigger game of
international economic exploitation.
U.S. House Vote for China
Currency Reform Gets Big USW Nod
America’s
Working Families Need Jobs as Casualties of Currency
Policies
Contact: Gary Hubbard, 202-778-4384 (O); 202-256-8125
(C); ghubbard@usw.org
Washington, DC (Sept. 29) – Today’s U.S. House 348-79
vote approval of the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act
(H.R. 2378) was given a big nod by
Leo W. Gerard, International
President of the United Steelworkers (USW) with the
following statement. He testified Sept. 10 before the
Ways and Means Committee and has mobilized workers’
calls on the issue in union halls and Washington forums.
“Our USW members and working families across America
will be gratified with news of today’s strong vote by
the U.S. House that approved the Currency Reform for
Fair Trade Act as the way forward to stop the egregious
behavior of China and other nations that put our
manufactured goods at an unfair disadvantage with
deliberate currency undervaluation.
“This bill will give us the tools we need to address
the shuttered factories and shattered dreams that
currency manipulation has caused.
“House Congressional members stood up for American
workers and demonstrated a commitment to reverse years
of damage to our economy by passing this important trade
bill. Now it’s up to the Senate to do the same.”
For more on the USW mobilization for currency reform:
www.usw.org/.
Recession rips at US marriages, expands income gap
WASHINGTON – The recession seems to be socking
Americans in the heart as well as the wallet:
Marriages have hit an all-time low while pleas for
food stamps have reached a record high and the gap
between rich and poor has grown to its widest ever.
The long recession technically ended in mid-2009,
economists say, but U.S. Census data released
Tuesday show the painful, lingering effects. The
annual survey covers all of last year, when
unemployment skyrocketed to 10 percent, and the
jobless rate is still a stubbornly high 9.6 percent.
The figures also show that Americans on average
have been spending about 36 fewer minutes in the
office per week and are stuck in traffic a bit less
than they had been. But that is hardly good news,
either. The reason is largely that people have lost
jobs or are scraping by with part-time work.
"Millions of people are stuck at home because
they can't find a job. Poverty increased in a
majority of states, and children have been hit
especially hard," said Mark Mather, associate vice
president of the Population Reference Bureau.
The economic "indicators say we're in recovery,
but the impact on families and children will linger
on for years," he said.
Take marriage.
In America, marriages fell to a record low in
2009, with just 52 percent of adults 18 and over
saying they were joined in wedlock, compared to 57
percent in 2000.
The never-married included 46.3 percent of young
adults 25-34, with sharp increases in single people
in cities in the Midwest and Southwest, including
Cleveland, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Albuquerque,
N.M. It was the first time the share of unmarried
young adults exceeded those who were married.
Marriages have been declining for years due to
rising divorce, more unmarried couples living
together and increased job prospects for women. But
sociologists say younger people are also now
increasingly choosing to delay marriage as they
struggle to find work and resist making long-term
commitments.
In dollar terms, the rich are still getting
richer, and the poor are falling further behind
them.
The
income
gap between the richest and
poorest Americans grew last year to its largest
margin ever, a stark divide as Democrats and
Republicans spar over whether to extend Bush-era tax
cuts for the wealthy.
The top-earning 20 percent of Americans — those
making more than $100,000 each year — received 49.4
percent of all income generated in the U.S.,
compared with the 3.4 percent made by the bottom 20
percent of earners, those who fell below the
poverty
line, according to the new
figures. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase
from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in
1968.
At the top, the wealthiest 5 percent of
Americans, who earn more than $180,000, added
slightly to their annual incomes last year, the
data
show. Families at the $50,000
median level slipped lower.
Three states — New York, Connecticut and Texas —
and the District of Columbia had the largest gaps
between rich and poor. Big gaps were also evident in
large cities such as New York, Miami, Los Angeles,
Boston and Atlanta, home to both highly paid
financial and high-tech jobs as well as clusters of
poorer immigrant and minority residents.
Alaska, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Hawaii had the
smallest income gaps.
"Income
inequality is rising, and if we
took into account tax data, it would be even more,"
said Timothy Smeeding, a University of
Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in
poverty. "More than other countries, we have a very
unequal income distribution where compensation goes
to the top in a winner-takes-all economy."
Lower-skilled adults ages 18 to 34 had the
largest jumps in poverty last year as employers kept
or hired older workers for the dwindling jobs
available. The declining economic fortunes have
caused many unemployed young Americans to double-up
in housing with parents, friends and loved ones,
with potential problems for the labor market if they
don't get needed training for future jobs, he said.
Homeownership declined for the third year in a
row, to 65.9 percent, after hitting a peak of 67.3
percent in 2006. Residents in crowded housing held
steady at 1 percent, the highest since 2004, a sign
that people continued to "double up" to save money.
Average commute times edged lower to 25.1
minutes, the lowest since 2006, as fewer people
headed to the office in the morning. The share of
people who carpooled also declined, from 10.7
percent to 10 percent, while commuters who took
public transportation were unchanged at 5 percent.
The number of U.S. households receiving food
stamps surged by 2 million last year to 11.7
million, the highest level on record, meaning that 1
in 10 families was receiving the government aid. In
all, 46 states and the District of Columbia had
increases in food stamps, with the largest jumps in
Nevada, Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin.
Other findings:
_The foreign-born population edged higher to 38.5
million, or 12.5 percent, following a dip in the
previous year, due mostly to increases in
naturalized citizens. The share of U.S. residents
speaking a language other than English at home also
rose, from 19.7 percent to 20 percent, mostly in
California, New Mexico and Texas.
_The poorest poor hit record highs. Twenty-eight
states had increases in the share of people below
$10,977 in income, half the poverty line for a
family of four. The highest shares were in the
District of Columbia, Mississippi, Kentucky,
Arkansas and South Carolina. Nationally, the poorest
poor rose to 6.3 percent.
_Women's average pay still lags men's, but the
gap is narrowing. Women with full-time jobs made
78.2 percent of men's pay, up from 77.7 percent in
2008 and about 64 percent in 2000, as men took
bigger hits in the recession.
_More older people are working. About 27.1
percent of Americans 60 and over were in the
work
force. That's up from 26.7 percent
in 2008.
The census figures come weeks before the pivotal
Nov. 2 congressional elections, when voters anxious
about rising deficits and the slow pace of the
economic recovery will decide whether to keep
Democrats in control of Congress.
The 2009 tabulations, which are based on pretax
income and exclude capital gains, are adjusted for
household
size where data are available.
Prior analyses of after-tax income made by the
wealthiest 1 percent compared to middle- and
low-income Americans have also pointed to a widening
inequality gap, but only reflect U.S. data as of
2007.
‘Can You
Imagine Working Until 70?’ Congressional Republicans Think
That’s OK
In jobs like construction, manufacturing, and the service
sector, I just don’t see how you can. A study by the
Center for Economic and Policy Research showed that 45
percent of workers age 58 to 69 are in physically demanding
jobs. And in a tough labor market, who would hire someone in
their late 60s?
In fact, without Social Security, 19.8 million more Americans
would be poor, according to the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities (CBPP). Without
Social Security, 45.2 percent of older Americans would have
incomes below the poverty line. With Social Security, only 9.7
are poor. CBPP’s Paul Van de Water and Arloc Sherman reminds us
that Social Security isn’t only for retired folks:
Social Security lifts more than 1 million children out of
poverty.
More children and elderly living in poverty doesn’t seem to
bother the likes of Boehner. He’s too busy
playing golf at the ritzy clubs he belongs to when he’s not
relaxing in his gated community.
There
was a lot of concern about an amendment added to the House health care bill that
was referred to by some in the media as the “black liquor” amendment.
To
clarify, the amendment proposed by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., does
not impact the tax credit in the paper industry also known as
“black liquor.”
Last year alone Clearwater Paper benefited by this tax credit to the tune of $19
million. A tax credit brought to the attention of the company by one of
our blue collar brothers.
The
USW, led by president Leo Gerard, proudly represented paper workers in front of
congress, and strongly opposed repeal of the
vital tax credit in the paper industry given when alternative fuel is mixed with
very small amounts of taxable motor fuel. The paper industry is the largest
industrial user of bio-fuel in the
United States.
The USW, North America's largest Organized Labor Union, whose
membership staffs a great number of pulp and paper industry jobs, fought to keep
these tax credits alive with the thought that the credits earned might
'trickle-down' into the pockets of the laborer in an industry that has seen
little to now economic movement in the past decades.
Our
union believes this tax credit is encouraging paper companies to make greater
use of bio-fuel, which helps our environment. And the credit, in theory by
keeping struggling businesses alive, is saving thousands
of jobs. But what about corporations that are doing well to start with.
This tax credit is strengthening their bottom line, allowing growth and
expansion of their market shares... but is it encouraging these work places to
create safer work
environments? To provide wage increases for the workers to keep up with
the rate of inflation? You can read more about the USW position on this issue on our Web
site here, http://www.usw.org/media_center/releases_advisories?id=0187.
Dozens of media outlets ran stories on
Tuesday about the fact that industry titan News
Corp -- the parent company of Fox News and the
Wall Street Journal, among many other media
properties -- had donated $1 million to the
Republican Governors Association.
Notably, though, Fox News itself apparently
chose not to run a single story on the
contribution. "While many news organizations
reported Tuesday on the $1 million gift, a
late-afternoon search of Fox News' Web site
produced no mention of it," the New York Times
reported. Media Matters also
noted, "Fox News has not mentioned the
contribution, according to searches of the
TVEyes and Nexis databases."
Democrats, meanwhile, are doing their best to
keep the controversy alive. Howard Kurtz
reported on Wednesday:
In a letter Wednesday to Fox News Chairman
Roger Ailes, the head of the Democratic
Governors Association said: "In the interest
of some fairness and balance, I request that
you add a formal disclaimer to your coverage
any time any of your programs covers
governors or gubernatorial races between now
and Election Day."
Nathan Daschle, the group's executive
director, even suggested the wording: "News
Corp., parent company of Fox News, provided
$1 million to defeat Democratic governors in
November." Otherwise, he said, Fox
executives should demand that the donation
be returned.
The full text of the DGA's letter to Fox is
below.
* * * *
Mr. Roger Ailes
Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Fox News Channel
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
and VIA EMAIL
Dear Mr. Ailes,
For the first time in history, your organization
is openly and proudly supporting the defeat of
Democratic governors with an unprecedented
political contribution of $1 million to the
Republican Governors Association. In fact, your
company provided the single largest corporate
contribution to our opposition.
In the interest of some fairness and balance, I
request that you add a formal disclaimer to your
news coverage any time any of your programs
cover governors or gubernatorial races between
now and Election Day. I suggest that the
disclaimer say: "News Corp., parent company of
Fox News, provided $1 million to defeat
Democratic governors in November." If you do not
add a disclaimer, I request that you and your
staff members on the "fair and balanced" side of
the network demand that the contribution be
returned.
As you are well aware, the stakes could not be
higher in the 37 gubernatorial races this
election cycle. Your corporation and your allies
know well that these races have grave and
substantial implications for Congressional
redistricting. In fact, your allies in the GOP
hope to change our election map for decades by
electing governors who will redraw 30 seats into
Republican territory.
I look forward to hearing from you - or any of
your programs - at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Nathan Daschle
P.S. Many news outlets have covered this
controversy, but your own news programs have
been strangely silent. I am available to appear
on any of your programs to discuss the case for
Democratic governors - particularly why our
governors best for business growth. Despite my
efforts to immediately reach out to your news
programs, more than a dozen requests were
ignored.
Cc: Bret Baier
Carl Cameron
Gretchen Carlson
Neil Cavuto
Steve Doocy
Trace Gallagher
Major Garrett
Sean Hannity
Bill Hemmer
Brian Kilmeade
Megyn Kelly
Martha MacCallum
Bill O'Reilly
Jon Scott
Shepard Smith
Greta Van Susteren
Chris Wallace
GOP Fighting To Keep Wall Street
Negotiations Secret
April 27, 2010 - From Ryan Grimm: "The Financial Fix" of the Huffington Post
For the better part of a year, the GOP has
blasted Democrats for legislating "behind closed
doors" and making "secret deals." On Monday
afternoon, the Senate will vote on a motion to
proceed to debate Wall Street reform in public
on the Senate floor.
Yet Republicans say their 41 members are
united and will oppose the motion, in order to
encourage Democrats to continue negotiating with
them behind closed doors.
Condemning closed-door negotiations yet
voting to prevent public debate is the height of
hypocrisy, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) told
HuffPost on Monday. "By voting against cloture,
Republicans are voting to keep Wall Street
negotiations behind closed doors, demanding
changes to the bill without public scrutiny.
Instead of closed-door deals, they should
support open floor debate," said Merkley.
[UPDATE: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) took to
the Senate floor Monday night following the vote
to hammer Republicans for voting to continue
negotiating "behind closed doors" instead of, as
they routinely insist, in public.
"Rather than make the case out in the open,
on the floor of the Senate, for the changes they
want to the Wall Street reform bill, the 41
Senators who voted to block debate are instead
saying they want changes worked out behind
closed door," said Shaheen. "They are actually
saying that they will prevent debate and hold
this Wall Street reform bill hostage until they
are accommodated behind closed doors."]
The GOP acknowledges that it's time to move
forward. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the
lead Republican negotiator, spoke before the
Independent Community Bankers of America Monday
morning and was asked if Congress should allow
more time to pass with a commission
investigating the root causes of the financial
crisis.
"I think we basically know what went wrong.
We had a lot of hearings. We've been working on
it 15, 16 months now," said Shelby. "The
question is, do we agree basically on how to fix
it, for lack of a better term, deal with it?"
Shelby said that the global nature of the
financial system makes it impossible to
guarantee there will never be another crisis,
but that the likelihood and severity of them can
be mitigated.
"I don't know that you can fix it, because
you can't anticipate every problem down the road
in the financial sector because of the world --
the way we've connected in the world," he said.
"But we can mitigate it as much as we can. And
we can send a message, hopefully, that this is
not the status quo."
Democratic leaders, meanwhile, are portraying
the vote as one for or against Wall Street.
"Today, Republicans face a major choice: Will
they stand up for the American people, and join
us to hold Wall Street accountable for the
reckless gambling that cost 8 million Americans
their jobs and millions more their economic
livelihood?" said Jim Manley, spokesman for
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "Or will
they follow the marching orders they've been
getting at their secret, closed-door meetings
with Wall Street executives, and continue to
protect Wall Street?"
UPDATE -- From Shaheen's floor statement:
I am deeply disappointed that 41 Senators
voted this evening to stop us from even
beginning debate on legislation to reign in
the reckless and risky Wall Street conduct
that brought our economy to its knees.
Rather than make the case out in the
open, on the floor of the Senate, for the
changes they want to the Wall Street reform
bill, the 41 Senators who voted to block
debate are instead saying they want changes
worked out behind closed door. They are
actually saying that they will prevent
debate and hold this Wall Street reform bill
hostage until they are accommodated behind
closed doors.
I would like to see some changes to the
bill, too. For example, I think we need to
strengthen the provisions in the bill to
prevent financial institutions that are
supposed to be helping American companies
finance their growth plans and families save
for their retirement and kids' college
educations from making risky side bets for
their own profit. But rather than block the
Senate from taking up the Wall Street reform
until I get what I want, I intend to
cosponsor an amendment with Senators Levin
and Merkley and then debate the issue openly
on the floor. Our amendment prohibits
federally-insured banks from engaging in
proprietary trading and will impose strict
capital charges on large nonbank financial
institutions to limit their proprietary
trading. We have all learned in recent days
about the proprietary trading Goldman Sachs
was doing - betting their own money that
mortgage-backed securities would fail while
getting their clients to invest in
mortgage-backed securities.
Mr. President, we need to enact a strong
Wall Street reform as soon as possible.
While we delay, the big banks on Wall Street
have returned to the same types of reckless
and risky gambles that brought our economy
to the brink of a complete economic
meltdown. My grandmother used to say: while
the cat's away, the mice will play. Today I
think my grandmother would say: while Wall
Street reform is delayed, middle class
families are being played. Let's be clear: a
vote against opening debate on holding Wall
Street accountable is a vote to protect Wall
Street.
It's fitting that President Barack Obama delivered a
speech about Wall Street at Cooper Union, the same auditorium where
Abraham Lincoln launched his national career. It is also safe to say
that if Lincoln were alive today, he would take a tough stand on
"derivatives," "credit default swaps" and all those other exotic
instruments. And he was a Republican.
No, I won't torture some Lincoln quote to prove that
he'd be opposed to what's going on at, or wrong with, Wall Street.
Suffice it to say that he earned the nickname Honest Abe as well as his
place in history for fighting the forces that allow people to profit
mightily from the toil and misery of others.
Wall Street crashed by picking the pockets of
hard-working Americans and rebounded to a healthy profitability by the
loans it received from American taxpayers.
Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain unemployed or
underemployed. Mothers worry how they'll feed their children. Those
lucky enough to still own a home worry how they'll pay their mortgage
next month. And, also in the meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal Magazine
can again publish a full-page ad for a diamond-encrusted toilet.
Clearly, something's not right. Equally clear is that we
need to make it right.
Since we all have short memories, let's recall how we
got to where we are today. Let's recall that at the end of the Clinton
years, the Republicans, under the guise of freedom, removed most
government regulations on Wall Street. An orgy of greed and swindling
followed. Make no mistake: this is a bipartisan farce that should demand
bipartisan cooperation in fixing the problem.
President Obama, the Tea Party's Mad Hatters and both
political parties should get on the same page and demand accountability,
transparency and, yes, that Wall Street pay back taxpayers with
interest. Wall Street has a moral obligation to help Main Street.
Let's face it, had Congress not made legal most of Wall
Street's swindles, there would be even more Wall Street executives with
Bernard Madoff for a cellmate. Wall Street raised gambling to its
highest dark art during the last 10 years. It's called "derivatives."
Warren Buffett, no enemy of free enterprise, called
derivatives, a fancy name for gambling, "financial instruments of mass
destruction." Even a financial wizard like Buffett had to admit that "no
one really understands how they work." Though heads nodded in agreement
across Wall Street, nothing was done to rid the financial world of those
instruments of mass destruction.
Let's recall that Buffett, one of the richest men in
America, also noted, "my secretary pays more in taxes than I do." Let's
recall that Sen. John McCain wanted us to sympathize with Joe the
Plumber because Obama wanted to restore taxes on the rich that he,
McCain, helped to remove. And, to be honest, let's also recall that some
Democrats have received gobs of campaign money from these rich Wall
Street titans.
In a delicious twist of history, President Obama, who
also benefited from some campaign contributions from Wall Street, is
merely seeking to return to average Americans a huge amount of wealth
that Wall Street redistributed - to itself. In his remarks, the
president stated: "I believe in the power of the free market. I believe
in a strong financial sector that helps people to raise capital and get
loans and invest their savings. ... But a free market was never meant to
be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it.
That is what happened too often in the years leading up to this crisis.
Some ... on Wall Street forgot that behind every dollar traded or
leveraged, there is a family looking to buy a house, pay for an
education, open a business, or save for retirement. What happens here
has real consequences across our country."
The slick Wall Street gambling resulted in placing
billions of dollars on high-risk subprime mortgages that were then
bundled and sold off, deceptively, to others. Thanks to lax or
nonexistent regulatory agencies and lawmakers sleeping at the switch,
some of whom remain unwilling to acknowledge their own bad deeds, clever
Wall Street gamblers were free to make billions, legally, by betting
that the mortgages would fail. And did they ever! Again, Wall Street
pocketed our losses as profit. Damn! Where are my pistol-packing Second
Amendment friends now?
Today, as I write this, it is legal for canny Wall
Street operators to take out insurance policies on elderly people they
aren't related to, betting when they will die. Would you be comfortable
with a politician or Wall Street as your life insurance beneficiary?
This is beyond sick. It's depraved.
Finally, let's recall that Wall Street executives paid
themselves billions of dollars in bonuses that they wouldn't have had
without the money taxpayers loaned them.
Enough!
Remember the commercial "When E. F. Hutton talks, people
listen"? Well, when Wall Street speaks, members of Congress start to
move their lips. But what about us? Who speaks for us?
Wall Street greed adversely and profoundly affects the
security of this nation. It's ruined the incomes and lives of millions
of American families. It's an evil. Wall Street still doesn't get it.
They like what they did. They're proud of it. They profit from it. They
want to do more of it.
What's worse, they are now betting that the average
American won't 'get it.'
Fat chance!
Donna Brazile is a political commentator on CNN, ABC
and NPR; contributing columnist to Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol
Hill; and former campaign manager for Al Gore.
Most back stricter financial reform,
advantage Obama
The Washington Post
About two-thirds of Americans support stricter regulations on the way
banks and other financial institutions conduct their business, according
to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Majorities also back two main components of legislation congressional
Democrats plan to bring to a vote in the Senate this week: greater
federal oversight of consumer loans and a company-paid fund that would
cover the costs of dismantling failed firms that put the broader economy
at risk.
A third pillar of the reform effort draws a more even split: 43
percent support federal regulation of the derivatives market; 41 percent
are opposed. Nearly one in five - 17 percent - express no opinion on
this complicated topic.
President Obama, who traveled to New York last week to
deliver
his case for sweeping changes to the financial system gets an
even-up review of his performance on the issue, with 48 percent of those
polled approving of his handling of financial regulation and 48 percent
disapproving.
But compared with congressional Republicans, Obama has a clear
advantage. A slim majority - 52 percent - of all Americans says they
trust Obama over the GOP on the issue, while 35 percent favor the
Republicans in Congress. Independents prefer Obama 47 to 35 percent,
with 16 percent trusting neither side on the issue.
In the poll, most Democrats back each of the three major elements of
the reform legislation and most Republicans oppose them, echoing the
congressional showdown expected this week.
The area with the highest levels of cross-party
support is on more robust federal oversight of the way banks and other
financial companies make consumer loans, such as auto loans, credit
cards and mortgages. Here, 44 percent of Republicans approve of stricter
guidelines, joining 75 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of
independents on the issue.
In this poll, support for new federal regulation was about the same
for "banks and other financial institutions" as for "Wall Street firms."
A recent Gallup poll taken before Obama took his case for reform to
New York last week showed somewhat greater support for new laws aimed at
Wall Street, suggesting the phrase had become a pejorative.
Q: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Obama is handling
regulation of the financial industy? Do you approve/disapprove strongly
or somewhat?
- Approve -- -- Disapprove -- No
NET Strgly Smwht NET Smwht Strgly opin.
Regulation of
the financial
industry 48 22 26 48 14 33 4
Q: Whom do you trust to do a better job handling [ITEM] - (Obama) or
(the Republicans in Congress)?
Both Neither No
Obama Reps (vol.) (vol.) opinion
Regulation of the
financial industry 52 35 1 11 2
Q (HALF SAMPLE): Do you support or oppose stricter federal
regulations on the way banks and other financial institutions conduct
their business?
----- Support ----
NET Much Smwht Oppose No opinion
4/25/10 65 34 32 31 4
2/8/10 62 36 26 34 3
2/22/09 76 49 27 22 2
Q (HALF SAMPLE): Do you support or oppose stricter federal
regulations on the way Wall Street firms conduct their business?
----- Support ----
NET Much Smwht Oppose No opinion
4/25/10 63 35 28 29 8
Q: Please tell me whether you support or oppose each of these items.
Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?
a. Having the federal government regulate the complex financial
instruments known as derivatives
----- Support ----- ------ Oppose ----- No
NET Stgly Smwht NET Smwht Stgly op.
4/25/10 43 16 26 41 19 21 17
b. Requiring large banks and other financial companies to put money
into a fund that would cover the cost of taking over and breaking up any
large financial company that fails and threatens the broader economy
----- Support ----- ------ Oppose ----- No
NET Stgly Smwht NET Smwht Stgly op.
4/25/10 53 27 26 42 18 24 5
c. Increasing federal oversight of the way banks and other financial
companies make consumer loans, such as mortgages and auto loans, and
issue credit cards
----- Support ----- ------ Oppose ----- No
NET Stgly Smwht NET Smwht Stgly op.
4/25/10 59 36 23 38 15 24 2
This poll was conducted April 22 to 25, among a random national
sample of 1,001 adults. Interviews were conducted on conventional and
cellular telephones. The results from the full sample have a margin of
sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on
Friday announced that it would offer $2.3
billion in clean-energy manufacturing tax
credits to 183 companies, seeking to renew
its emphasis on domestic economic issues
after two weeks spent focused on terrorism.
The biggest winners were companies tied
to the solar industry, including Hemlock
Semiconductor Corp. and Wacker Polysilicon
North America LLC. Brand-name companies that
were big awardees included
United Technologies Corp., which plans
to retool existing plants to produce a more
fuel-efficient jet engine.
The announcement begins a renewed
administration drive on economic issues and
follows a report that the U.S. unemployment
rate
stayed at 10% in December as the economy
lost 85,000 jobs. Unemployment remains one
of the Democrats' thorniest challenges as
they look ahead to November congressional
elections.
The attempted bombing of a U.S.-bound jet
on Christmas Day has for the past two weeks
riveted the administration on a review of
flaws in the nation's intelligence
apparatus, a summary of which was
released Thursday.
Mr. Obama has placed heavy emphasis on
incentives for Americans to make
energy-efficient improvements to their
homes, and investments in renewable energy
projects as ways to generate "green jobs."
But the administration has faced skepticism
from important constituencies such as
unions, which fear that U.S. policies will
create demand for overseas goods. The
manufacturing tax credits are designed to
counter those fears, to ensure that U.S.
manufacturing capacity can meet U.S. demand.
Mr. Obama expressed support for a package
of clean-energy job initiatives late last
year, and in late fall announced $3.4
billion in investments from the $787 billion
economic stimulus package for more efficient
"smart grid" electricity distribution
projects. In mid-December Vice President Joe
Biden announced the administration's support
for up to $5 billion in additional funding
for a stimulus-related clean-energy
manufacturing program.
When Congress returns from its holiday
recess in a week it is expected to continue
work on an overhaul of the nation's
healthcare system, a rework of U.S.
financial system regulation and a
jobs-creation bill, in that order,
congressional leadership aides say. The jobs
bill likely will include investments and
incentives backed by Obama to spur
clean-energy manufacturing jobs.
Democrats urged to back union rights
As reported by "MORNING STAR" online.co.uk's -Foreign Desk-
US union leader Richard Trumka urged Democrats
yesterday to advance President Barack Obama's pledge
to pass a pro-union law and "give workers the
freedom to organise a union."
The AFL-CIO union federation president was
responding to US Labour Department figures that
revealed the past 10 years were a "lost decade" for
US workers.
For the first time ever, there was zero net job
creation during an entire decade.
In the 10 years from December 1999 more jobs were
lost than created, while workers' wages registered a
fall in real terms for the first time since the
1960s.
Labour Secretary Hilda Solis insisted that
President Obama was determined to "turn this around"
and added that her department was committed to
"aggressively" enforcing workers' rights.
Highlighting bosses' widespread evasion of
minimum wage and health and safety laws, Ms Solis,
who is the daughter of two Latino union organisers,
declared that the administration "will not rest
until the law is followed by every employer."
"Each worker must be treated and compensated
fairly," she stressed, announcing that the Labour
Department was taking on 250 workplace inspectors to
crack down on bosses cheating workers out of minimum
wage and night-shift premium payments.
Ms Solis also revealed that the government had
taken on 100 workplace safety inspectors and had
begun targeting and fining companies with
"egregious" health and safety violations.
She said it would also introduce rules forcing
bosses to disclose whether they were employing
union-busting "consultants" to undermine union
organising campaigns.
AFL-CIO chief Mr Trumka welcomed the
announcements and urged Congress, which is dominated
by President Obama's Democrats, to follow through on
a campaign promise to pass the Employee Free Choice
Act (EFCA), which will give legal protection to
activists trying to organise a union in their
workplace.
"We need to give workers the ability to bargain
for a fair share," the AFL-CIO leader asserted.
"That means passing EFCA to give workers the
freedom to form a union and get a fair contract."
Obama to GOP: 'Stop
trying to frighten the American people'
President Barack Obama told House Republican leaders
to "stop trying to frighten the American people" even as
he and Democrats said they see a possibility for
bipartisan cooperation on job creation legislation.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told
reporters that Obama made the admonition during a
bipartisan meeting at the White House on Wednesday,
producing a chart to show Republicans that "things are a
lot better."
Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said
there was broad agreement on their side of the aisle
about how to create jobs by aiding small businesses and
boosting infrastructure spending. Pelosi said she thinks
on those issues, "it's possible for us to find some
common, bipartisan ground."
But moments later, Republicans made it clear that they
want to see a "spending freeze" and a "no-cost" jobs
plan that consists largely of tax cuts.
"We can't keep spending money we don't have," House
Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) pushed back
on Obama's request for an end to Republicans' scare
tactics by saying that Obama's policies have led to a
hiring freeze, and the GOP is simply telling
constituents what is happening.
"[E]mployers are sitting there and they're frozen
because they don't know what's really going to happen
here," Boehner said. "And the president wants to blame
us for informing the American people about what's
happening here and how it will affect them, but it's not
what we're doing; it's the policies that they're
promoting here in Washington."
The Republicans presented a letter to Obama detailing
how they think he should approach job creation,
including by way of tax cuts and trade expansion.
For his part, Obama also expressed hope that
Republicans would support him on his proposals,
particularly on items like a one-year elimination of the
capital gains tax that the GOP has supported in the
past.
"It's appropriate that I met with leaders of both
parties," Obama said after the meeting. "Spurring hiring
and economic growth are not Democratic or Republican
issues. They are American issues that affect every
single one of our constituents."
The president noted Republican opposition to his $787
billion stimulus package, but he said he hopes that he
will get some GOP support for his attempts at job
creation.
"It's no secret that there's been less than full
bipartisan support for the recovery act and some of the
steps that have broken the free-fall of our economy,"
Obama said. "But my hope is that as we move forward we
can do so together, recognizing that we have a shared
responsibility to meet our economic challenges on behalf
of all Americans: those who elected us to make sure that
we're doing the people's business."
Despite the GOP opposition, Democratic leaders seemed
optimistic they can move quickly on a jobs bill that
contains much of what the president outlined in a speech
Tuesday.
Reid declined to say when a jobs bill might come up in
the Senate, but he said after Tuesday night's
"breakthrough" on healthcare reform that he does think
the Senate will pass a healthcare bill before lawmakers
leave for Christmas.
overturn the best proposition ever. Remember, Money talks... and they have
it.
MOUNT
VERNON, N.Y. — A Wall Street adviser leaves
early for work to avoid panhandlers at his
suburban train station. In coal country, a
suddenly homeless man watches from a bench as
wealthy women shop for dresses. A down-and-out
waitress sits glumly on her stoop across the
street from a gleaming suburb. A freshly elected
politician loses his day job.
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We won’t pay for their crisis
Unions are already considering more co-ordinated campaigning and industrial action in the fight back – and how to win more public support – even as the cuts bite deep into the infrastructure of our daily lives.
As Unite’s “Don’t Break Britain” campaign makes clear, the fight is not just about the cuts to services and the changes to the NHS. It is about fighting the ideological policies of a Government hell-bent on turning the clock back decades and implementing policies that have little to do with helping economic recovery.
The Tories, using Liberal Democrats Vince Cable and Ed Davey as cover, have mounted an attack on employment rights through changes to employment tribunals and workplace justice.
The Government proposes to make it even more difficult for workers to seek redress for workplace disputes by undermining a system that has served Britain well for nearly half a century.
The Resolving Workplace Disputes Consultation 2011 has nothing to do with resolving workplace disputes. It has all to do with deterring working people seeking redress at an employment tribunal and it has everything to do with making it easier to dismiss staff.
The Government’s proposals are based on myths about employment tribunals with no evidence to suggest that they will address the economic recovery of the country. On the contrary, such proposals would bar vulnerable workers from receiving justice.
By proposing to increase the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims to two years from the current level of 12 months originally set in 1999, these proposals make it easier for unscrupulous employers to sack workers by tribunals charging a fee of £30 to £500 to lodge a claim. This panders to the usual suspects in the CBI, Institute of Directors and the small business lobby.
Indeed, when ministers published their proposals last week some in the employers’ lobby called for the Government go further. The IoD described the proposals as “timid” and the CBI opposed a fine of up to £5,000 for those bad employers found guilty of wilfully ignoring employment rights.
The proposals also change the role of ACAS from one of settling disputes – in which it has not inconsiderable skills – to one of striking out tribunal claims: something many ACAS officials and lay tribunal members oppose.
Also look out for the Government’s “back door” review into the sickness absence system. This is being led by Dame Carol Black, the national director for health and work, and David Frost, the director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce. The review will look at the “system of sickness related benefits in
the UK”.
This is possibly code for a review of the statutory sick pay scheme on which thousands of workers without decent sick schemes rely. In turn, that could affect some company schemes, negotiated by unions and employers, which include an element of SSP.
With this undoubtedly in mind Cameron launched an opening salvo this week in which he “declared war” on Britain’s so-called “sick note culture”. Providing cover for this assault is a conveniently timed PwC report which claims absenteeism “costs” British businesses £32 billion a year while Britsh workers take “twice as many” sick days as their Asian counterparts.
Whilst these issues may not immediately appear to be a frontal assault on employment rights, the trade union movement will need to make our members, those not yet in a union, and Labour MPs, aware that established rights which have perhaps taken for granted are being taken away.
On the economic front, the crisis has meant that the take home pay of those in the private sector is falling. Inflation currently stands at about 5 per cent, but research shows that, in the three months to the end of March 2011, average pay settlements in manufacturing remained static at 2.4 per cent – the same as the figure for the three months to the end of February 2011. The number of pay freezes remains at just over one in eight settlements, while almost four in five pay deals are at 3 per cent or less.
This, plus a potential skills shortage, is stoking up problems for the future. During the worst of the crisis, unions and our members helped companies through difficult times. Many manufacturers worked with us to hold onto their skilled employees and keep going. But we also witnessed some employers using the crisis as a smokescreen to cut pay and conditions or abandon well-established agreements. This caused serious resentment.
While there have been some decent pay deals in recent months, we have also seen some companies re-imposing pay freezes or at best implementing very low pay increases for the third or fourth year. As a result, we should expect to see a lot more anger from union members.
Faced with increased costs of living, higher bills at home, there are already growing requests from union reps for ballots for industrial action as living standards fall further. Meanwhile, those who caused the crisis in the first place continue earn stratospheric salaries. This week it was has been reported that earnings in the City are rising at 7 per cent a year.
A growing number of workplaces where members are in dispute and are fighting back to re-establish pay and conditions after years of pay freezes and a “take or leave it” attitude from short-sighted managers.
Unite will be supporting members wherever they work – the public services, private sector or in manufacturing – in fighting back, defending jobs and hard-won pay and conditions.
Tony Burke is assistant general secretary of Unite