http://www.pubtheo.com/page.asp?pid=1635
A Teacher Tells the Truth about Wealth and Unions
Republican leaders and policies create economic chaos and budget
deficits. Then they blame teachers, firemen and police officers. Don't
believe them.
By Jim Mamer
’Tis much when scepters are in children’s hands;
But more when envy breeds unkind division;
There comes the rain, there begins confusion.
—William Shakespeare, “Henry VI”
I’m a retired teacher and I’m pissed. No matter what form of media I
look at, I’m confronted with constant references to the various budget
crises. The federal government has a deficit. States have budget
problems. Cities face massive shortfalls. And school districts are on
the edge of bankruptcy. The crises are real, but the search for
culprits has degenerated into a hypocritical attempt to score
political points.
Predictably we are faced with very different narratives of how we got
here. While some are complex and worthy of debate and discussion,
others are little more than a search for scapegoats. Take, for
example, what comes from an increasingly shrill conservative chorus.
After eliminating most of the usual suspects, the source of our fiscal
problem becomes pretty simple. Our debts can’t be the cumulative
result of multiple tax cuts. The crisis has nothing to do with our
ongoing, unnecessary and counterproductive wars. It can’t be the fault
of the bankers and brokers who defrauded millions with securitized
debt obligations based on bundling large numbers of “liars’ loans.” It
probably has nothing to do with our failure to tax most Internet
sales, and it certainly can’t be because hedge fund managers are
allowed to treat a portion of their income as capital gains.
Instead, the cause identified by most Republican governors,
legislators and pundits is simple; government spends too much, and a
lot of the blame falls on the public service unions. Indeed, at the
recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington,
D.C., one panel was titled “Bleeding America Dry: The Threat of Public
Sector Unions.” That’s right: The firefighters, the police and the
teachers are bleeding the country dry. They are paid too much and have
way-way-too-generous benefits. They should be ashamed of themselves,
their unions and their pensions.
I’m not ashamed, not even a little; I’m just tired of the bullshit.
Don’t bother thinking that “in this economy, everyone is suffering.”
That’s a lie. It’s not even close to true. On the contrary, the
richest among us have gotten a whole lot richer. Even those recently
bailed-out Wall Street bankers. In 2009, according to Bloomberg
Businessweek, “After bringing the world to the brink of economic
disaster, major investment banks are planning to pay their people 30%
more than last year in salary plus bonus.” And in the same year,
Executive PayWatch reported that a chief executive officer of a
company on the S&P 500 index was paid, on average, $9.25 million in
total compensation. Two of the biggest winners were Bank of America’s
Thomas Montag, with a total compensation of $29,930,431, and Wells
Fargo’s John Stumpf at $21,340,547. (From an AFL-CIO analysis of 292
companies in the S&P 500 Index.)
Clearly, there is money enough to fix our problems, but if one listens
to the ever-present right-wing chorus, income inequality is only to be
praised. It’s God’s will. The plutocrats deserve everything they have.
They work harder and smarter than the rest of us. In fact they work so
hard that even their kids will deserve the money when Mom and Dad die.
Tax-free. But the teachers, the firefighters and the cops don’t
deserve any breaks. They get too much. They have too many negotiated
contracts, too much pay and too many benefits.
While it goes without saying that anti-union propaganda has a long and
shameful history in this country, the current wave of coordinated
Republican-led attacks on public-worker unions is still appalling.
Naturally we should have seen it coming because the newest attacks on
public service unions were developed in the context of other, often
successful, attacks on unions of all types. It’s a story worth
remembering. With globalization, countless American industrial jobs
were relocated to countries with lower wages and ineffective or
nonexistent unions. This led to increased U.S. unemployment, increased
underemployment and a diminished middle class. Problems were
inevitable. Still, despite deindustrialization, good union jobs
remained. They paid living wages and still seemed to offer secure
benefits. As such they made tempting targets; as the anti-union case
was made publicly, the attack was refined. According to some, for
example, the failure at GM was not the result of bad cars or poor
management; it was the fault of greedy unionized autoworkers. Too many
negotiated contracts, too much pay, too many benefits.
A pattern developed. In 2001, when the formerly powerful Bethlehem
Steel Corp. declared bankruptcy, at least part of the blame was laid
on the unions. They had taken unfair advantage of a naive and
well-meaning management. They had demanded too much. Accordingly, the
following year the company was allowed to terminate its pension
obligations, which were then assumed by a federal agency, the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corp. The pensions eventually paid to retired workers
were often drastically (and legally) reduced. In 2005, the
then-bankrupt United Airlines received court permission to terminate
its pension plans for the various unions representing pilots, flight
attendants and mechanics and other ground service workers. This
released the airline from more than $3 billion in obligations and put
a reduced pension responsibility on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.
Other airlines, and other corporations, sought and received the same
treatment.
But consider who was at fault when it is clear that all of these
“too-generous” retirement plans had been negotiated among and between
privately owned companies and unionized workers. Is it not obvious
that all parties knew the terms of the contacts? Is it not obvious
that the amount of money needed to properly fund these agreements
could have been discovered by anyone with minimal math skills and a
calculator? It was never the unions, but the companies that
purposefully failed to adequately fund their obligations and then
found legal ways to renege on their promises.
In subsequent years most of these corporations switched their
remaining employees from the more secure defined-benefit retirement
programs to various defined-contribution plans like 401(k)s. This
reduced corporate responsibilities and also tossed the fate of the
affected to the uncertainties of Wall Street. Cumulatively the blows
to jobs and to secure retirements affected millions. After
globalization and deindustrialization drastically reduced the number
of American jobs, membership in industrial unions dropped accordingly.
After corporate bankruptcies stripped workers of what they had been
promised, the power of unions diminished. As fewer and fewer private
sector workers were unionized, the private/public balance was reversed
and, by 2010, a majority of union members were government workers. As
The New York Times reported, “… membership fell so fast in the private
sector in 2009 that the 7.9 million unionized public-sector workers
easily outnumbered those in the private sector, where labor’s ranks
shrank to 7.4 million, from 8.2 million in 2008.”
When the preponderance of union membership shifted to those working
for government the stage was set for another struggle about the nature
of American society, even about the meaning of the American past.
Omnipresent conservative commentator Ann Coulter recently summarized
the narrative of the right: “… public sector employees got themselves
terrific overtime, holiday, pension and health care deals through
buying politicians with their votes and campaign money. But now,
responsible elected officials in Wisconsin are trying to balance the
budget.” But despite Coulter’s certainty, this battle is not primarily
about the budget; it is about the power of working people to
participate in determining their own fate.
This attack on the unions aims to destroy the very organizations that
provide workers with a unified voice and make negotiation possible.
Regardless of whether the fight is in Wisconsin, Tennessee or
Minnesota, the current strategy on the right is to divide the public
by sowing confusion, envy and anger while manipulating the confusion
and anger already present in those continuing to reel from the
recession, from official unemployment of almost 10 percent, from the
continued lack of heath insurance and from the ongoing housing crisis.
The point is to focus anger away from the plutocrats, away from the
bankers and brokers of Wall Street, away from their protectors in
Washington, and toward those who still benefit from the power of
unions. Why not blame the teachers, firefighters and cops?
For many of us this situation has become personal and has been
manifested in countless conversations. I’ve had such discussions with
those in my own family who face an uncertain or nonexistent
retirement, and I appreciate their frustration and anger, but I worry
when their reaction is to suggest that, if they face uncertainty, I
should too. Such an argument may appear rational (“Since I’ve worked
just as hard as you, why should I suffer while you don’t?”), but the
solution of making everyone poorer and unable to count on a secure
retirement is self-defeating, even crazy.
I’m persuaded that far too many Americans have grown accustomed to a
mythology of anti-union individualism. We need to reverse that. In our
conversations we should remind others that unions built the American
middle class; that the benefits of organized labor are a public good
to be fought for and protected. We need to insist that the right to
organize is fundamental to a democratic society. We need to insist
that teachers, firefighters and cops have a right to negotiated wages
and secure retirements, but we need to add that so does everyone else.
No one who works should be denied a good negotiated wage. No one who
has worked for 30 or 40 years should be denied a safe retirement. When
envy breeds unkind division … there begins confusion. In “Henry VI”
this line is spoken by the Duke of Exeter as he cautions those around
him to fear the power of envy. It is advice we should all take to
heart.
This article appeared at TruthDig.
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Date Added: 3/25/2011 Date Revised: 3/25/2011 2:05:46 PM
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