Robert Reich begins: "The battle has resumed in Wisconsin. The state supreme court has allowed Governor Scott Walker to strip bargaining rights from state workers."
Portrait, Robert Reich, 08/16/09. (photo: Perian Flaherty)
FOCUS: The Republican War on Workers' Rights
15 June 11
Why the Republican war on workers' rights undermines the American economy.
he battle has resumed in Wisconsin. The state supreme court has allowed Governor Scott Walker to strip bargaining rights from state workers.
Meanwhile, governors and legislators in New Hampshire and Missouri are attacking private unions, seeking to make the states so-called "open shop" where workers can get all the benefits of being union members without paying union dues. Needless to say this ploy undermines the capacity of unions to do much of anything. Other Republican governors and legislatures are following suit.
Republicans in Congress are taking aim at the National Labor Relations Board, which issued a relatively minor proposed rule change allowing workers to vote on whether to unionize soon after a union has been proposed, rather than allowing employers to delay the vote for years. Many employers have used the delaying tactics to retaliate against workers who try to organize, and intimidate others into rejecting a union.
This war on workers' rights is an assault on the middle class, and it is undermining the American economy.
The American economy can't get out of neutral until American workers have more money in their pockets to buy what they produce. And unions are the best way to give them the bargaining power to get better pay.
For three decades after World War II - I call it the "Great Prosperity" - wages rose in tandem with productivity. Americans shared the gains of growth, and had enough money to buy what they produced.
That's largely due to the role of labor unions. In 1955, over a third of American workers in the private sector were unionized. Today, fewer than 7 percent are.
With the decline of unions came the stagnation of American wages. More and more of the total income and wealth of America has gone to the very top. Middle-class purchasing power depended on mothers going into paid work, everyone working longer hours, and, finally, the middle class going deep into debt, using their homes as collateral.
But now all these coping mechanisms are exhausted - and we're living with the consequence.
Some say the Great Prosperity was an anomaly. America's major competitors lay in ruins. We had the world to ourselves. According to this view, there's no going back.
But this view is wrong. If you want to see the same basic bargain we had then, take a look at Germany now.
Germany is growing much faster than the United States. Its unemployment rate is now only 6.1 percent (we're now at 9.1 percent).
What's Germany's secret? In sharp contrast to the decades of stagnant wages in America, real average hourly pay has risen almost 30 percent there since 1985. Germany has been investing substantially in education and infrastructure.
How did German workers do it? A big part of the story is German labor unions are still powerful enough to insist that German workers get their fair share of the economy's gains.
That's why pay at the top in Germany hasn't risen any faster than pay in the middle. As David Leonhardt reported in the New York Times recently, the top 1 percent of German households earns about 11 percent of all income - a percent that hasn't changed in four decades.
Contrast this with the United States, where the top 1 percent went from getting 9 percent of total income in the late 1970s to more than 20 percent today.
The only way back toward sustained growth and prosperity in the United States is to remake the basic bargain linking pay to productivity. This would give the American middle class the purchasing power they need to keep the economy going.
Part of the answer is, as in Germany, stronger labor unions - unions strong enough to demand a fair share of the gains from productivity growth.
The current Republican assault on workers' rights continues a thirty-year war on American workers' wages. That long-term war has finally taken its toll on the American economy.
It's time to fight back.
Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including "The Work of Nations," "Locked in the Cabinet," "Supercapitalism" and his latest book, "AFTERSHOCK: The Next Economy and America's Future." His 'Marketplace' commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.
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Comments
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Prof. Reich, please address the multiplier issue and the loss of economy to free trade taken to its "reductio ad absurdum."
I think he's also right that Unions are a solution to this (robber barron age), as they have been in the past, via a lot of 'blood, sweat, and tears', as well as a substantial dependence upon what Buckminster Fuller used to call the levers of Legalist-Capitalism, i.e. the Court system, which (in America, not Germany) may or may not be particularly receptive to working people, vis-a-vis employers.
Perhaps a wiser strategy to pursue- in addition to and a complement of Union wars- would be Monetary Reform, taking back the money power itself from utterly unelected & unaccountable denizens of the private currency cartel. THESE are the people who pull the strings and finance the think-tanks that provide some degree of 'plausible deniability' (however thin its wearing these days) to the Kasich's & Walker's of this world, who have apparently been brainwashed into preferring to strip away more from the skeleton crew of American unions & wages, as opposed to balancing their budgets from reducing the #$%(* interest payments to Wall St.-globo-wrecking crew banksters instead. Small change? The CBO itself estimates that, by 2020, int. payments on the fed. debt will = 100% of Congress's discretionary budget.
I wish the "religious right" would leave the USA or the rest of us would leave. I'm sick of hearing their abortion and other fanatical ideas when we have UNEMPLOYMENT and bank problems (& wars all over the place)
Germany does not try to send everybody with half or more of a brain to college. Instead they develop real skilled craftsman and they emphasize engineering, and everybody saves and pays cash, thus making the banks far less powerful.. Their biggest advantage is that they do not have a Wall Street sucking the lifeblood out of their companies.
Hmmm... Just did a check on Bev. Hill and police officers get 51K/year... Hunttington Beach was 69K... Not exactly sure where the bizarro-land numbers are coming from.
We need to admit, out loud, that this is not the country we thought we lived in. Our leaders are bought and paid for. We dance to the tune of the corporate world. Things must either change or we need to learn how to become even better and more productive drones. Is that what we want for our children and grandchildren? Do we have to starve before we tell our "Marie and Louis" that we have had enough and they had better mend their ways...FAST!
Make minimum to two years and you will see real reform. That would force people to put less money in dodgy stocks for short term gain. If the goal is to force people to think long-term (which SHOULD be the goal of any company), you make Wall Street follow the same rules.
I don't believe in violence either.... BUT I am beginning to see little alternative. Nothing else seems to be turning this around. Democrats are sellouts, mostly. A REVOLUTION will soon be our only SURVIVAL MECHANISM. It is coming....SOON!!!
Watching the "rank and file" (what a demeaning term!) run rampant through the Wisconsin legislative building was an excellent example of chaos in the making. The union leadership must have raised their glasses of scotch in unison having sent the "rank and file" to show the world how things are done with non-thinking automatons. (My guess, given the option of staying away, those "rank and file" would have done so.) All this activity is not for the working people anymore but for the union bosses trying to keep their lofty positions.
Ah, obviously someone who has never been in a union (judging by the demeaning language used above). My wife is in a union and is a state worker. She is paid $10,000 / year less than the national average for her job. She is anything but a "non-thinking automaton".
Right now the union is doing its damnedest to prevent further erosion of benefits, because for some bizarre reason, despite the fact they do the nations work, public employees are told they are a "drain on the economy".
When you want to denigrate people, stop and think - you might be talking about someone's spouse.
And they might not be all that keen about it.
No, he is not powerless. He is still POTUS. That is STILL a powerful position. He can still enact change, he just needs to be a little more... pushy...
It is because the majority of unions vote for Democrats. It would only make sense for the Right to want to destroy unions (rather than change their platform and APPEAL to unions - man, talk about inability to think).
The Right needs to understand that people in unions are ALSO American citizens. And last I checked 7% is still LARGER than 1%!
So appealing to the 1% isn't exactly a winning strategy...
There are certainly some exceptions to this dysfunction, but those exceptions are small. In the mainstream America is a sick society.
FOR A NEW AMERICA!!!!!!!!
A second move would be for all union workers to remove their cash from banks across the country on a Thurs and replace it on Mon.
Get them by the wallets and their hearts and minds will find soon follow.
" Do we have to starve before we tell our "Marie and Louis" that we have had enough and they had better mend their ways..."?
That's what it usually takes...
Read up on Bill Still, Ellen Brown, etc., and you'll see that the (best) solutions to this mess need not necessitate anything more violent than a few law changes, and perhaps (if one really wishes to fix it forever) 1 new constitutional amendment. The real problem simply seems to be that the elected reps. in Washington are on the back end of the learning curve on this matter.
Perhaps they're simply suffering from Information Overload like everyone else these days.
We, the people, need to make it nice & clear to them what needs to be done, and whom they are supposed to be working for.
That's how we do things, "American style."
ALL HAIL THE GLOBAL CORPORATE..!!!
AMERICA--- The land of stores and the home of consumers with a Stuff-Always-In-Stores Provider Government of the Global Corporate by the Global Corporate for the Global Corporate.
Any one remember why Americans (i.e. Consumers who live on the North American Continent) go along with all this aside from the inconvenience of putting down the chips, turning off the Global Corporate TV and getting up off the couch after a long hard day of working for less sand less o you can pay more and more to fewer and fewer for everything so they can lots and lots more while they run the world into the ground for the sake of new yachts and things they simply want but do not need as they seek dominion over EVERYTHING and EVERYONE with the help of ONE deliberate corporate Party and ONE roll over corporate Party..???????
We really need to reframe the discussion from Republicans to the elite using their mostly Republican, some Democratic (BHO?), tools. This is where it's coming from. Either they simply aren't paying attention to what their machines, the corporations, are doing and how it is really undermining their viability, or, they don't care and have become insane (as a group), or, it's purposeful and an attempted return to feudalism. In any case at all, they bear the untimate benefit and therefore bear the ultimate price of their rapaciousness. We must not emphasize the tool, we must emphasize the tool user if we hope to save America. They will destroy it.
How many of these commentors actually do the work of making the electoral system work by being informed BEFORE they vote?
How many rely on Foxnews?
How many spend an hour a day {or more} writing to their senators and representatives and informing THEM of your knowledge of how the system is SUPPOSED to work?
I do; 2 to four hours a day.
That is how you move things.
Otherwise yout comments are pointless and puerile.
And then there are the Democrats that live in Texas that are lucky if they get a response from their elected official that even makes sense. Kay Baily Hutchison was still blathering on about WMD's after no WMD's had been found (hidden bunkers?!? LOL)...
We had an environmental group visit her and she blew them off saying that she "listens to the silent majority".
Huuhhhhhh?!?
A wise elder taught me at an early age to save and invest and build carefully. "Always have at least five years pay saved," he said, "and you will be free." To leave. To walk away. To find a better, more noble and meaningful job, career, and life.
I followed his advice and as a result left three jobs when they turned sour, finding much better and more fulfilling positions. And recently I retired early from a wonderful job that turned tragic when new, disappointing management arrived--and I am free.
Several of my students have done it. It just takes thinking, planning, and sticking to it. Buy inexpensive, reliable autos with good warranties. Take your lunch to work. Rent, don't attend, movies. Vacation during the off season (they give Florida away in the summer, when the water is clearest and fishing is best). Rent instead of buying a house--or buy a bargain and keep your expenses low. And save.
Married and both working? Save the highest earner's complete take-home pay. All of it. It really piles up.
I know it works because we did it. And we have had fun every day. Even bought a small, used boat at one point and had a ball--didn't need an expensive one.
Think, save, and be patient. And you will be free.
Last, there are always great jobs in need of great people. Do your best to work with good, positive people. Or move on. Good people are out there. And remember to share goodness, as everyone else needs this too.
Wishing all of you great success and happiness. Make it happen.
Also, it's worth noting that the middle class is losing ground in income--it isn't as easy to save as it could be.
Someone above says write your reps. Yes, please do. But it is better to show up at meetings- local council meetings, community meetings, etc. Especially the democratic (repuibican if you are republican) caucuses and demand they get their backbones and fight back.
De Tocqueville also says, and this is in the 1830s, that our government is an expensive one, because we, unlike many other nations, are willing to help out and support those who need help. Nothing has changed. When the republicans decry the expense and the need to cut and destroy the unions, they are trying to undue the basic fabric of what De Tocqueville saw 170 years ago. They are the activists here.
The workers need to get active and take over the political machine. They've got the money but it's the votes that count.
On November 26, 2006,in the New York Times, Warren Buffet stated: "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
For years, Professor Reich has been warning us of the destruction of our unions, our middle class, our industrial structure, our building capacity, etc., that are causing us to lose our jobs and our way of life.
Yet, we continue to re-elect the same senators and congressmen and women who support the financeers who back this economic way of life that is destroying the middle class.
We need look no further than the face in the mirror to see the cause of our problem. We do not need a revolution. We simply need someone who will turn out to vote and throw the bums out who are supporting the status quo in congress.
It is our appathy that is the problem no one elses that is causing our difficulty. We need to get out and vote and get rid senators and congressmen and women who are eating at the table of those who are bent on destroying us.
most work in america and other places is a rat or mice race. the cats are winning.but because game is zero sum, as soon all the money will dry up in america. the cats will have it all.
there have been good ideas proposed today on this blog, and they give us plenty to thing about. thanks you all the good people of america. saving is good, boycotting is good, mass action, like taking cash out of banks for ten to twenty days is also good. voting is good (i am the dem whip in my area. we got out 99 percent of the democratic vote in 2000 in broward county florida. best in the country. old people still understand the importance of the vote. however, fifty one percent of white women voted for bush over gore. what is wrong with that picture? they voted against their own best interests? and log cabin republicans? we have some really weird voters in this country. i wish i was more optimistic, but i despair for this great land. this beautiful land. the home of the free? or the brave?
WAKE UP AMERICA....THE ALARM IS RINGING!
Unless you only shop at union stores and only buy union made products you are a hypocrite. Please respond back and tell us that you support unions, all the time, in all ways possible. Otherwise, I will believe that you are just one more academic spouting rhetoric without taking any meaningful actions.
7/7/11
Let’s Demand Responsibility & Accountability
Government has been unwilling to protect consumers and investors from the financial ravages of greedy, predatory financial firms, over and over, for decades, which caused increasingly worse financial crises. This left more and more working families without the minimal financial security that a responsible government should provide through the enforcement of fair, free market rules. Instead Wall Street bought off politicians in order to fabricate ever more manipulated, rigged markets—rigged markets that they ran into the ground until the fraud was so ob-vious that there were no suckers left that they could fool, and the bubble burst.
“Heads I win, tails you loose”-- not once, but over and over again--is appar-ently what a malevolent political establishment thinks working families are so downtrodden and brainwashed that they will accept. Persistent “social welfare for financial elites, rugged individualism for working families”: it is now being taken to new levels of absurdity.
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