Take Back America Forums Highlight Role of Corporations, Globalization

by Mike Hall, Jun 19, 2007

Not only have U.S. corporations been engaged in a years-long effort to shred their social contract and obligations to U.S. workers and their families; they also have been the driving force behind a trade and globalization policy that has economically and socially bashed workers both here and aboard.

Two key forums this morning at the Take Back America 2007 conference—where more than 3,000 progressive activists are mapping out strategies to change the nation’s direction—addressed the impact of corporate behavior and globalization.

Ron Blackwell, AFL-CIO chief economist, moderated one panel, “The Great Risk Shift: When Corporations Shred the Social Contract.” Blackwell said the United States

developed a uniquely American system of worker security, health care security, retirement security…a public private system of government, employer and individual workers that depends on all parties recognizing they have a role to play and obligations to meet….What we are witnessing is that employers simply don’t want to play. They are walking away from their obligations to provide health care, retirement security and decent jobs where workers are able to provide for their families.

There has been an unraveling of what little social protection the United States provides for its people…and not only are corporations walking away. They are actively engaging in politics to make sure that the government does not step in.

One example of corporations shedding their obligations, says longtime women’s rights activist Ellen Bravo, former director of 9-to-5, National Association of Working Women, is the huge decline in the number of workers in mid- and large-size companies who have paid leave—from 74 percent to 54 percent between 1978 and 2004. Most low-wage workers have no paid leave whatsoever. The choice between taking time to care for a sick family member or your self or going to work

means that being a good family member puts your job at risk, and being a good worker puts your family at risk.…When the people who run the businesses only care about the third-quarter profit, then it’s the role of the government to make things change.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), a sponsor of paid family leave legislation, says after last fall’s election, when a dozen years of Republican congressional rule ended:

We are no longer powerless to make change. But don’t have any illusions, every day will be a battle to turn the tide in our favor and on behalf of America’s families.

At another session, “New Strategies for the Global Economy,” freshman Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio), said the devastating job-loss consequences of corporate and Bush administration trade policies and globalization “have workers reeling” and are one of the key reasons she and other new lawmakers won their seats. Says Sutton:

We need a new trade model….It’s about the rules of trade, and we have to make sure they are fair and enforceable.

Sutton says even when labor rights and environmental standards are included in trade agreements, such as with Peru and Panama, the Bush administration has done little, if anything, to enforce those standards.

The [Bush] trade deal with Colombia—where human rights violations and murder of worker activists is routine—should tell us all we need to know about their desire to enforce labor and human rights standards.

There is no way this Congress should consent to ceding our responsibility over trade and give Fast Track authority over to the Bush administration.

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