Unions Built the Middle Class and Must Save It

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.aflcio.org/mediacenter/speakout/dick_levin.cfm

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.


Richard A. Levins, Professor Emeritus of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota

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.

FULL story at link.

[PreacherCasey]

1. Great article, too bad no one seems to give a shit tonight.

How was this situation allowed to happen? Oh wait, that's right, not enough people gave a shit. The irony.

KICK! :kick:

[PreacherCasey]

2. and again...

:kick:

[BayCityProgressive]

3. I agree

unions are one of the few democratically run progressive institutions where workers voices actually matter. This is why the Right hates them so much.

[proud patriot]

4. K and R

:kick: proud member of CSEA which is in the AFL-CIO.

I make so much less than the teacher I work with yet
do so much more in the classroom ...

As a SEA I know our kids are worth a lot .

[senseandsensibility]

5. Proud to be the fifth nomination

What a great article!

[midnight]

6. Cheap labor can build cars and appliances but .......

only organized labor can build a middle class. Bravo!!!! Well said.....

[Lugnut]

7. K&R

Because I give a shit.

[Q]

8. Unions...

...were weakened by Reagan and finally destroyed by 'New Democrats' in the 80s and 90s. It's a sad fact that (some) Democrats helped the right eliminate unions and their bargaining power with corporations.

[MadHound]

9. While I agree in theory with this article, in reality it isn't going to happen

Unions have become so corrupt from without and from within that they are now mere shells of themselves, impotent to affect and real change and relegated to shouting from the sidelines. The only real hope that we have is that new unions are built from the bottom up. But our current union structure isn't something that I would place any sort of confidence in for making great social or economic changes.

[bread_and_roses]

10. I have a hell of a lot more confidence in unions than in Democrats

As for "so corrupt" as a broad, general denunciation - just what do you mean? I am not asking for individual instances of corruption, which we can all call up for any group from princes to priests to peons, but for a pattern of institutionalized corruption?

[bvar22]

12. AGREE LOUDLY!!!

Some Unions have become top heavy with elite "professional" management and Republican style corruption (infiltrated?), but this is the exception. Broadbrushing ALL Unions and the concept of Organized Labor for the actions of a few criminals (in Union Management is an "Ownership Society" talking point. The concept of Labor Unions in the USA is still strong and valid!

Which Democratic Contenders support Labor's Right to Organize?

*Dennis Kucinich for SURE!

*Clark says Labor Rights ARE Human Rights.

*Edwards says the right things, but not enough specifics to decide for sure.

*ALL DLC candidates (Hillary) are ANTI-LABOR with their support for Free Trade.


Saint Ronnie and the reThugs with the help of conservative Dems killed Labor's Right to Organize. I still FAULT Bill Clinton and the DLC with IGNORING Labor Rights and FAILING to restore the damage done to the American Working Class under St Ronnie. This was their Greatest Sin of Omission.

The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[MadHound]

14. Well, let's see here

Teamsters, do we really need to go into all of the sordid ongoing details with the Teamsters? From Hoffa to, well, Hoffa. As a matter of general, widespread policy, unions have become way too comfy with the management structure that they're supposed to defend labor from. Howard Zinn has written some excellent work on this.

In addition, unions have failed to keep up with the times. They still have their basis in the manufacturing/transportation sector, yet this has become a service economy, where unions really don't want to go. I've organized unions, and at one particular locale, a group home, I had to fight like hell to find a union to take us in. Finally the Food and Commercial Workers took us under their wing, but was relunctant to do so.

Don't get me wrong, I fully support unions. But that doesn't preclude my criticism of them either. I think that many of the older ones have become moribund and outdated, unwilling or unable to change with the times. Others have simply been wracked by scandal and corruption so often that they've become a joke.

We desperately need new, fresh unions in this country, or to have the older ones break out of their shells. But until either of these events happen, unions are going to continue to be sidelined.

[The2ndWheel]

11. If there is a middle class, by definition there will be a lower class

Not to mention a top class, which is never satisfied. If the top class isn't satisfied, the middle class won't be either, as the only reason it exists is for the right to demand whatever the top class has(and everyone has that right). It also brings along the lower class, since the middle class has at least some empathy for those less fortunate, but there will always be that lower class.

Plus as capital has become at least somewhat global, unions have lost power. They can just ship your job somewhere, and it gets done just the same. To combat that you would need a global union(or at least a couple, the way the media has a handful of global corporations). The one problem there though, would be the diversity factor. Corporations are all the same color, have the same desires, never have to eat, sleep, etc. People, on the other hand, can't merge when one does something better. We have different colors, different desires, and we need to sleep, eat, have children, etc. Far more difficult to organize that.

[bvar22]

13. ALL that needs to be done is for LABOR to have representation!

It is really THAT SIMPLE!

The destruction of LABOR did NOT happen all of a sudden because of this magical thing called "Globalization" that suddenly manifested itself on Earth in the last 20 years. Globalization has been happening since the beginning of MAN.

The destruction of LABOR has happened through a coordinated effort of the very rich Corporate Owners who bought enough Congress Critters and Media to write their own legislation and Trade Treaties. These are written on paper and can be ammended or rewritten.

Corporations are souless as they should be. The People (Working Class) DEPEND on Government to represent US and protect our rights. It is NOT Globalization that destroyed the Labor Class in America.....It is OUR Government that sold out to the Ownership Class and cover their greedy asses by saying, "Oh Well. "Globalization"! What could we do?" :puke:

Don't buy the sorry excuse of "Globalization" to cover up Global Greed by the Ownership Class.

40 years ago, the Ownership Class declared War on the Working Class, and they spent what it took to WIN.
"Globalization" is an excuse for excessive greed! Pure BullShit!

[Bill Wiltrack]

16. GREAT Post bvar22...

Just one thing disturbs me about it...you're right.

[provis99]

15. yeah, I also don't buy the "globalization" excuse

world economies were much more linked together before world war I, with the European colonial powers controlling the world economy and encouraging economic dependency relationships with the colonies. The real problem is that rich people just aren't happy being rich, they also need to keep everyone else poor. The best way to fight this is unions fighting for workers fair piece of the pie.

[mhatrw]

17. Yes! n/t