Tag: labor movement

Creating jobs by cutting wages: Welcome to third-world America

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels May view this as a victory for workers in his state, but Caterpillar’s decision to relocate to the Hoosier state is evidence not of economic strength but of America’s descent to third world economic status.

That’s because Caterpillar is closing a union plant in favor of a new low-wage haven, something Americans are all too familiar with. It wasn’t all that long ago that American plants were closing and moving to Mexico, South America and other developing nations, as corporations sought the cheapest labor.

It was a race to the bottom that damaged the standard of living here without any measurable improvement in these factories’ new homes. Fast forward to 2012, and it is the United States that finds itself as a low-wage haven — and none of us should be happy about that.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

The end of labor as we know it

I’ve been trying to decide what to write in response to last night’s benefit vote, but I realized that I’d pretty much said what I needed to say a few days ago. Here it is.

To sum things up: The benefits bill strips public workers of important elements of their collective bargaining rights, unilaterally altering existing contracts without offering them any compensation in return. The vote was a political maneuver that continued the scapegoating of public workers and should signal to organized labor that its affiliation with the Democrats has left it vulnerable. It leaves every worker at the mercy of management.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Winners in the pension reform debate? Not workers and not NJ taxpayers

Tom Moran says it took “real leadership” for the state Senate to change the state’s pension and benefit rules.

I’d call it shortsighted — and not because it has angered the state’s public worker unions.

The problem with the reform bill, which passed today, is that it accelerates the race to the bottom. The argument being made is that public worker benefits must be brought in line with private sector ones, that the public workers are getting a free ride paid for by the rest of us. It is a brilliant move, of course, because it divides workers, pitting them against each other and ending any chance that workers will act in unison and demand better retirement and health benefits.

Instead, we have private sector folks demanding that public worker benefits be gutted, that they be made to deal with the same crappy benefits offered by the private sector.

The problems we face were created by state legislators and governors of both parties who refused to pay what was needed into the state pension fund over the last two decades and who have spent longer than that pretending that we can expand services without asking anyone to pay.

And now that the bill has come due, we expect the court clerk and the cop on the beat to cover the tab.

We should be demanding that private sector workers get the same benefits as public workers, that we get the same pension benefits and that the rich — who are paying less in taxes now and who are raking in record profits — cover the costs. That can’t happen as long as we scapegoat unions and public sector workers.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Public-sector unions are not the problem

http://eastwindsor.patch.com:/swf/external_video_player.swf

    New Jersey’s public employee unions are starting to fight back by doing what working people should have been doing in this country for years. They are taking it to the streets. The teachers were in Trenton last week; today, it was the police and fire unions. Who’s next? As glad as I am to see them take to the street, we have to face the fact that these rallies lack the unity and sense of larger purpose that the Wisconsin fight has had. Workers in the Badger state face the prospect of being stripped of bargaining rights, even after giving the governor every concession he has requested. The issue there is the basic right to organize and act collectively. Here the talk is about saving pensions and medical benefits and preventing layoffs — worthy goals — but not necessarily ones that will connect with the larger swath of put-upon workers in the state. And not necessarily ones that will shift public opinion. The teachers, firefighters, police and other public workers need to rally together over several days and they need to frame their demands as more than just protecting what the public has come to see as their cushy benefits. The issue is the final assault on the compact that has governed American working live for 60 or so years, but that has been eroding for the last three decades. The collapse of the private-sector union movement, the labor movements disconnection from the larger social movements of its day (think of the bulk of unionists on Vietnam, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, etc.) and the general assault with government help by corporate America and presidents and Congresses of both parties has left the public-sector unions as the only strong unions in the nation. The public-sector workers need to reconnect to workers at large, find a way to cut past the jealousy that has far too many New Jersey residents saying “take away their benefits.” That kind of demand is short-sighted and will only continue the race to the bottom on wages and benefits that has American workers earning, at best, what they were earning 10 years ago, while the top one-tenth of 1 percent of earners — about 300,000 Americans — saw their wages more than triple. Public-sector unions are not the problem. The problem is the lack of private-sector unionization and a legal structure that is decidedly hostile toward union building. This is the argument they should be leading with: Stand with us now and we will stand with you later as you fight to revive the working and middle classes.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Grassroots: Save jobs, safeguard workers

My column in The Progressive Populist, on the need to rebuild labor protections, is live on the site.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.