From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>(WW News Service)
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 23:02:54 -0500
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>(WW News Service)
Subject: wwnews Digest #214
WW News Service Digest #214
1) CEO's & Bush meet in secret
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 18, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AS ECONOMIC STORM GATHERS: CEO'S & BUSH MEET IN SECRET
By Deirdre Griswold
When president-select George W. Bush set aside Jan. 3 for a
special meeting in Austin, Texas, on the economy, he knew he
was facing a storm of unpredictable dimensions. The new
captain was preparing to take over command of the ship of
state just when the seas were rising, the winds had reached
gale force and all the forecasts were for even dirtier
weather ahead.
Did he call all the sailors and passengers together and make
plans to minimize casualties? Did he dispatch teams to check
the lifeboats, make sure that the hatches were battened, and
see that there was emergency medical care, food and other
necessary provisions for those who would need help the most?
Or did he call a secret little meeting with the first-class
passengers and promise them that, whatever else might
happen, they'd be taken care of?
Actually, Bush held two secret meetings. The first one, on
Jan. 3, was with "a mix of nearly two dozen chief executive
officers from technology and other blue-chip companies,"
reported the Wall Street Journal the next day. No reporters
were allowed to attend, but Bush is said to have listened
carefully as a "grim" picture was painted by the CEOs.
He later told the press in his aw-shucks way, "A lot of
folks in this room brought some pretty bad news."
They were cheered up during lunch, however, when it was
announced that the Federal Reserve Board was cutting short-
term interest rates by half a percent. That sent the stock
market soaring for a day. But then news about lower profits,
rising inventories and layoffs brought it down again.
No complete list of those who attended the Jan. 3 meeting
has been published in the press. A few names have been
mentioned: Jack Welch, chair of General Electric; Steve
Forbes of Forbes, Inc.; Solomon Trujillo, CEO of Graviton,
Inc.; Richard Davidson, CEO of Union Pacific; and Stephen
Brobeck of the Consumer Federation of America.
Bush told the group, after listening to their tales of woe,
that he would make a great effort to cut taxes by $1.6
trillion over 10 years, reduce regulation, increase foreign
trade and provide assistance to the energy sector.
Bush has named a former governor of the Federal Reserve
Board, Lawrence Lindsey, to head an economic coordinating
group in his administration. Lindsey is described as the
principal architect of Bush's tax plan.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH TAX CUTS?
Tax cuts always sound good. Isn't it a crime that so much
money is taken out of workers' paychecks in various taxes?
The problem is that the tax cuts Bush and his team want are
for the rich, not the ordinary worker. For every dollar
workers might save in taxes, they will lose many more in
social services, which the upper crust say must be cut to
the bone because government revenues will be falling.
Already, the assault on Social Security, Medicare, public
education and many other vital services is underway.
The rich have already got what they wanted with the
destruction of welfare--a bipartisan offensive against the
poor that was crafted by the Republicans but signed by
President Bill Clinton. As the economic slide continues, the
terrible implications of there being no "safety net" for the
jobless will become even clearer.
The tax cut represents nothing less than another huge shift
of wealth into the hands of the rich. That is why they are
lobbying for it so strenuously.
MEETING WITH HIGH-TECH CEOS
The following day, Jan. 4, another secret meeting was held
in Texas, this one entirely with leaders of high-tech
companies. This time the list of the 17 CEOs was printed in
the Jan. 5 New York Times: Steven R. Appleton, Micron
Technology; James L. Barksdale, Barksdale Group; Craig R.
Barrett, Intel; Carol A. Bartz, AutoDesk; Stephen M. Case,
America Online; John T. Chambers, Cisco Systems; Michael S.
Dell, Dell Computer; Richard J. Egan, EMC; Carly Fiorina,
Hewlett-Packard; Louis V. Gerstner, IBM; David W. Hanna,
Hanna Capital Management; Floyd Kvamme, Kleiner Perkins
Caufield & Byers; Scott G. McNealy, Sun Microsystems; James
C. Morgan, Applied Materials; Steve Papermaster, Agillion;
Leonard M. Pomata, Oracle; and Gregory W. Slayton,
ClickAction.
Chambers of Cisco Systems had given the Republicans $304,000
over the past year, thus earning a prominent seat at the
table. Barksdale, who besides having his own group is also
on the board of AOL, gave $157,000. Altogether, the 17 high-
tech executives are reported to have given more than $1.7
million in political contributions last year, more than 90
percent of it to Republicans.
Whether Bush really called the meeting or the CEOs invited
themselves, they came with their agendas all laid out. The
Wall Street Journal on the day of the meeting said that Bush
would "receive an earful on workforce issues, trade and
regulation." The executives were "expected to pledge their
support for aggressive action by Mr. Bush on education
reform, the president-elect's top priority."
These high-tech companies have a contradiction. They truly
need an educated and skilled population to function in the
new economy. But they are capitalist entities that are
forced to always seek the highest profits over the near term
and the future be damned.
A government truly representative of the people would
approach the problem that many children have in learning
with an all-out, prolonged campaign to improve not only
their schools but their total life conditions.
It has been proven that children who are hungry, who lack a
decent place to live, whose parents are scrambling to
survive by working long hours or moving frequently, often
have great difficulty studying or paying attention in
school. Are these CEOs interested in correcting that,
thereby raising the educational level all around?
Or are they instead looking for the government to promote
special schools for the more advanced and advantaged
students, so these companies can find the personnel needed
to dominate the world market?
IMMIGRANT WORKERS AND LABOR SOLIDARITY
The CEOs also pushed for a larger quota of immigrants
skilled in high-tech fields. Their motive is only too
transparent--to bring down wages in this sector of the
economy. This is a real challenge to the labor movement.
It is vital that labor promote the unity of the working
class. The bosses are always working to undermine labor
solidarity, to pit one section of the workers against
another. They play on differences in color and national
origin, gender, sexual expression, age--whatever they think
will break down the solidarity that otherwise will evolve
naturally in the process of people working together.
Workers in the United States, which has always been a
country with a large number of immigrants, need to fight
hard to protect the rights of those who, documented or
undocumented, are seen by the bosses as a source of cheap
labor. That's the best way to protect the jobs of workers
already here--by insisting that all workers, whether
immigrant or not, documented or undocumented, get union-
scale pay and benefits.
Workers in the high-tech industries have not been too
interested in unions--until now. But they are finding that
the stock options given them instead of raises can be close
to useless. Dot-com workers in several major companies are
now seeking to organize, and they will need to take a
position on immigrant workers that strengthens class
solidarity.
The way in which the Democrats and even AFL-CIO head John
Sweeney attacked the nomination of Linda Chavez for
secretary of labor--focusing on her employment of an
undocumented woman in her home--was harmful to this basic
interest of the working class. What Chavez did was
reprehensible not because she broke the law but because,
like so many other employers, she took advantage of a
vulnerable worker. Even if the woman herself was grateful
for the job because things are so terrible in her homeland
of Guatemala--which the CIA set on the path of misery with a
bloody coup in 1954--she was still being exploited.
Chavez may have since bowed out of the post, but it would
have been infinitely more beneficial to the labor movement
if the campaign against her had zeroed in on her reactionary
social positions instead--her opposition to the minimum
wage, for example.
Another issue was brought to the table of the Jan. 4 meeting
by Gregory Slayton, chief executive of the Palo Alto,
Calif., Internet-marketing firm ClickAction Inc. He told the
Wall Street Journal that he was going to push Bush for a
major White House effort to increase the public sector's
productivity "by adopting technology-industry practices such
as incentive-based compensation." This is just a fancy way
of saying that government workers should be on some kind of
piece rate. Getting rid of piecework was one of the early
tasks of the union movement in this country.
Tying pay to productivity is aimed more at breaking up
worker solidarity than at producing more. Productivity in
the U.S. is already extremely high--so high that goods are
in super-abundance. The cooperation of workers doing many
different kinds of tasks has been a potent factor in raising
productivity. But the bosses will promote competition over
cooperation any day in order to keep the workers weak and
divided as a class.
It is solidarity that the workers will need to survive the
coming storm of a capitalist economic crisis. The Bush
administration that is emerging is truly one that is eager
to do the bidding of big business. It hasn't even bothered
to find a few fig leaves to cover its class origins and
loyalties.
CEOS AND LOBBYISTS FLOCK TO WASHINGTON
An article by Jim McTague in Barron's Online of Jan. 8 gives
a vivid picture of the transition: "The capital is filling
up with pin-striped, Chamber of Commerce types, attracted by
what promises to be the most pro-business, anti-regulatory
administration since Ronald Reagan reigned. ...
"[Bush] has packed CEOs and industry lobbyists on transition
teams that are advising his new Cabinet secretaries and
agency heads on pressing policy issues and new hires. The
advisory team for nominee Gale Norton's Department of
Interior is jammed with representatives of energy, mining
and paper companies. ...
"Cisco [Systems] president and chief executive, John
Chambers, who was one of the select guests at Bush's
economic powwow in Austin last week, is an adviser to Rod
Paige, the nominee for Education Secretary."
Kenneth Lay, chair of the energy and commodities company
Enron, "is a member of the team advising Sen. Spencer
Abraham, Bush's nominee for Energy Secretary."
And, in a year when half the world seems to be freezing,
flooding or suffering from extreme heat and drought, let us
not forget the environment.
"New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, Bush's nominee to
head the Environmental Protection Agency, is receiving
advice from investment banker Bob Grady of the Carlyle
Group. Carlyle, which is run by former Defense Secretary
Frank Carlucci and former Secretary of State James Baker,
both Republicans, is a huge investor in defense-related
companies. Their presence on any advisory panel bodes well
for the makers of tanks, vehicles and smaller weapons.
Texaco also has a seat on the team."
This is the crowd that will jam the inaugural parties and
balls on Jan. 20. Those who are fighting for a much, much
better world will be on the outside, protesting and
organizing for the even bigger battles ahead.
_________________________________________________
KOMINFORM
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Phone +358-40-7177941
Fax +358-9-7591081
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
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