Hi. It's good to see workers finally in the mix of players in our financial storm. In their real roles, not defined as meaningless but acceptable 'middle class" voters. Middle class is not middle income, though both workers and the middle classes are suffering. Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman develops the issues. Ed
http://www.truthout.org/102008LA Battle Intensifies Over Bill to Expedite Union Organizing by: Michael A. Fletcher The Washington Post: 18 October 2008 Organized labor and business groups are facing off in an increasingly intense battle over legislation that would make it easier to organize unions, as labor seeks to bolster its dwindling ranks and propel its agenda for working Americans. The Employee Free Choice Act - which would require employers to recognize unions once a majority of workers sign cards of support - would be perhaps the most significant change in federal labor law in six decades. Currently, employers can demand that workers hold secret-ballot elections on whether to organize; labor organizers say that method allows companies to pressure workers through a formal campaign. The union proposal is strongly endorsed by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and a bevy of congressional Democrats, who see it as a way to increase the clout of workers who have been losing economic ground over the past three decades. The effort is fueled by an estimated $300 million political war chest and a massive grass-roots mobilization effort. Thea M. Lee, policy director of the AFL-CIO, said the proposed legislation would return some leverage to workers. "The destruction of unions and the attack on unions have been a major contributor to the growing income inequality in the country and erosion of the middle class," Lee said. "We look at the financial crisis, and it certainly seems to us that you can't build a thriving consumer economy on debt and low wages." Fierce opposition to the measure has emerged from a coalition of business groups, which describe the proposed legislation as a power grab by struggling unions, whose membership has dropped from 20 percent of all workers to 12 percent in the past 25 years. The groups also say the measure would result in workers being pressured into joining unions. "It changes the balance of power that is struck in labor law," said Richard Berman, a labor lawyer and executive director of the Employee Freedom Action Committee, a nonprofit organization that officials said has raised $25 million to oppose the measure. The proposal is also opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and a long roster of congressional Republicans. The so-called card-check proposal passed the House in early 2007 but was defeated in the Senate by a GOP filibuster. In any event, the bill faced a certain veto from President Bush. Now, however, the battle is surfacing anew ahead of the elections, and both sides are investing more than ever in making their respective cases, with television ads and grass-roots organizing. Opponents of the measure are focusing their efforts on states with competitive Senate races - including Minnesota, Maine, Mississippi and Colorado - on the theory that even if Obama becomes president, they can continue to block the union effort in the Senate. "In 2007, it was almost an artificial exercise that no one figured would pass," said Steven J. Law, general counsel of the chamber. "Now all of a sudden there is a realization that there may be a president in the White House who would sign it. And there is a growing realization that this is just one of a long list of bills that would be coming that could completely change the labor-management relationship in this country." Besides saying it would be a boon to unions, opponents charge that the "card check" system is fundamentally undemocratic. They say that if workers do not have access to a private ballot, they easily can be coerced into supporting union organizing efforts. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has raised $30 million to derail the proposal. Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern, normally an ally of organized labor, has been featured in campaigns against the effort. McGovern has called the proposal a "disturbing and undemocratic overreach not in the interest of either management or labor." Aside from the card-check proposal, organized labor leaders say they plan to soon pursue measures that would result in expanded paid leave and health-care benefits, which small-business advocates say could cripple some struggling firms. With allies in Congress and the White House, union officials would also likely push for tougher workplace safety laws and enforcement, tighter restrictions on trade agreements and increases in the minimum wage. "This issue has caught fire on the ground in a way that exceeded my expectations," Law said. "Small businesses have been prodded by what they see as a resurgent organized labor movement with an aggressive policy agenda." Though unions have been weakened in recent decades, they have become more focused in their political advocacy and demands, business leaders say. One example is the walkout by 27,000 union members against Boeing, which began in early September. The biggest sticking point was whether Boeing would limit the amount of work that it sends to outside contractors. "That did not used to be a major demand in union negotiations," Berman said. "There are some seismic shifts going on in the relationship between management and labor." Underlying the union push is a decline in inflation-adjusted wages that has gripped most working Americans over the past eight years, even as a shrinking percentage of workers receive benefits such as paid sick leave, paid vacation and retirement coverage. "We see the Employee Free Choice Act as part of a broader-based economic reform agenda that would basically reverse the decline in wages, health-care coverage and pension coverage" that U.S. workers have experienced since the 1970s, said Greg Denier, communications director for Change to Win, a union coalition. *** http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/opinion/20krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin The Real Plumbers of Ohio "But what's really happening to the plumbers of Ohio, and to working Americans in general?" By Paul Krugman NY Times Op-Ed: October 20, 2008 Forty years ago, Richard Nixon made a remarkable marketing discovery. By exploiting America's divisions - divisions over Vietnam, divisions over cultural change and, above all, racial divisions - he was able to reinvent the Republican brand. The party of plutocrats was repackaged as the party of the "silent majority," the regular guys - white guys, it went without saying - who didn't like the social changes taking place. It was a winning formula. And the great thing was that the new packaging didn't require any change in the product's actual contents - in fact, the G.O.P. was able to keep winning elections even as its actual policies became more pro-plutocrat, and less favorable to working Americans, than ever. John McCain's strategy, in this final stretch, is based on the belief that the old formula still has life in it. Thus we have Sarah Palin expressing her joy at visiting the "pro-America" parts of the country - yep, we're all traitors here in central New Jersey. Meanwhile we've got Mr. McCain making Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, a k a Joe the Plumber - who had confronted Barack Obama on the campaign trail, alleging that the Democratic candidate would raise his taxes - the centerpiece of his attack on Mr. Obama's economic proposals. And when it turned out that the right's new icon had a few issues, like not being licensed and comparing Mr. Obama to Sammy Davis Jr., conservatives played victim: see how much those snooty elitists hate the common man? But what's really happening to the plumbers of Ohio, and to working Americans in general? First of all, they aren't making a lot of money. You may recall that in one of the early Democratic debates Charles Gibson of ABC suggested that $200,000 a year was a middle-class income. Tell that to Ohio plumbers: according to the May 2007 occupational earnings report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income of "plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters" in Ohio was $47,930. Second, their real incomes have stagnated or fallen, even in supposedly good years. The Bush administration assured us that the economy was booming in 2007 - but the average Ohio plumber's income in that 2007 report was only 15.5 percent higher than in the 2000 report, not enough to keep up with the 17.7 percent rise in consumer prices in the Midwest. As Ohio plumbers went, so went the nation: median household income, adjusted for inflation, was lower in 2007 than it had been in 2000. Third, Ohio plumbers have been having growing trouble getting health insurance, especially if, like many craftsmen, they work for small firms. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2007 only 45 percent of companies with fewer than 10 employees offered health benefits, down from 57 percent in 2000. And bear in mind that all these data pertain to 2007 - which was as good as it got in recent years. Now that the "Bush boom," such as it was, is over, we can see that it achieved a dismal distinction: for the first time on record, an economic expansion failed to raise most Americans' incomes above their previous peak. Since then, of course, things have gone rapidly downhill, as millions of working Americans have lost their jobs and their homes. And all indicators suggest that things will get much worse in the months and years ahead. So what does all this say about the candidates? Who's really standing up for Ohio's plumbers? Mr. McCain claims that Mr. Obama's policies would lead to economic disaster. But President Bush's policies have already led to disaster - and whatever he may say, Mr. McCain proposes continuing Mr. Bush's policies in all essential respects, and he shares Mr. Bush's anti-government, anti-regulation philosophy. What about the claim, based on Joe the Plumber's complaint, that ordinary working Americans would face higher taxes under Mr. Obama? Well, Mr. Obama proposes raising rates on only the top two income tax brackets - and the second-highest bracket for a head of household starts at an income, after deductions, of $182,400 a year. Maybe there are plumbers out there who earn that much, or who would end up suffering from Mr. Obama's proposed modest increases in taxes on dividends and capital gains - America is a big country, and there's probably a high-income plumber with a huge stock market portfolio out there somewhere. But the typical plumber would pay lower, not higher, taxes under an Obama administration, and would have a much better chance of getting health insurance. I don't want to suggest that everyone would be better off under the Obama tax plan. Joe the plumber would almost certainly be better off, but Richie the hedge fund manager would take a serious hit. But that's the point. Whatever today's G.O.P. is, it isn't the party of working Americans. ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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