America’s Workers Are Struggling

Friday, March 9, 2007

(Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation)

By Jim Bertolone, President, Rochester and Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation
and John J. Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO

All people want their children to do a little better than they’ve done. A little better education. A little more saved.

But today, too many people think that the American dream is a pipe dream. Fewer than a quarter of Americans feel the next generation will be better off, according to a new survey by Peter D. Hart Research Associates.

The vast majority of Americans are struggling to maintain their living standards in the face of stagnating wages, vanishing retirement security, eroding health care coverage and mounting debt. America’s working families are being left behind in an economy designed to benefit Wall Street, not Main Street.

The rosy picture of the economy drawn by the Bush administration simply isn’t reality for working families. Americans are working harder than ever, yet they’re not keeping up with rising costs. Between 1980 and 2005, productivity in the U.S. economy rose 71% while the real compensation of workers rose just 4%. Meanwhile, those at the top of the economic heap are making money hand over fist. The average CEO now makes 411 times that of the average worker.

Something is wrong with the system.

One of the primary reasons America’s workers are struggling is they’ve lost their ability to bargain with their employer for better wages and benefits through unions. Unions are a cornerstone to building and keeping a strong middle class in our nation.

Union workers earn on average 30% more than workers who don’t have a union, according to government statistics, and they are much more likely to have health care coverage and pensions.

The single best anti-poverty device in our nation is a union card. In fact, more than half of people who don’t already have a union say they would join one tomorrow if given the chance, but too few people get than chance. Employers routinely harass, intimidate and even illegally fire workers who try to form unions.

For the Corporate Right and CEO’s to claim they want to keep the so-called free elections and claim they are for democracy in the workplace is disingenuous when they bring in anti-union specialists and fire workers. When African-Americans were trying to register to vote prior to 1965 they were beaten and sometimes killed, but more commonly their white employers threatened their jobs. The voting rights act of 1965 was necessary then, and the Employee Free Choice Act is necessary now.

Congress must work quickly to level the playing field for working people by passing the Employee Free Choice Act, which would restore workers’ freedom to choose to join a union and bargain for a better life.

Congress also must stop the seemingly endless flow of good jobs out of this country. We’ve lost more than 3 million American manufacturing jobs since 2001, partially as a result of misguided exchange rate policies, unbalanced trade policies and corporate strategies to aggressively move manufacturing operations offshore. In the past five years alone, Wisconsin lost 87,600 manufacturing jobs.

Last week’s announcement that the U.S. trade deficit hit $764 billion in 2006, up 6.5% since last year’s record, is further evidence that our nation’s trade policies are broken and badly in need of an overhaul.

Princeton economist Alan Blinder warns that as many as 42 million service-sector jobs are vulnerable to being moved offshore. This isn’t a blip in our path to economic freedom; it’s a long-term trend that must be reversed with sound policy.

Congress should start us on the road to recovery by derailing President Bush’s plan to extend trade promotion authority, or “fast track,” which allows the President to force and up-or-down vote on bad trade deals without proper consultation from Congress. Extending “fast track” authority would hamstring Congress’ ability to fix our broken trade policy at a time when working families are in dire need of a correction in course. We also must reject any trade agreement that does not provide adequate workers’ rights and environmental protections.

Finally, our nation’s middle class cannot be strengthened without a plan to provide every American with affordable, quality health care and a secure retirement.

At the richest moment in our nation’s history, the American dream is fading fast for a majority of American workers. The only way to get America back on track is through a commitment to real, lasting reform in our trade and economic polices.

In November, working families voted for a change in direction. It’s time our nation’s leadership delivers.

Published: Labor News, March 9, 2007