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Sweeney on Labor Day: Workers Ready to Turn Around America
It’s Labor Day and we certainly won’t find President Bush rubbing shoulders and sharing burgers with electricians, teachers, steelworkers, firefighters or most anybody else who makes up the nation’s working family backbone.
Nope. He was set to be in the Twin Cities addressing the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis/St. Paul, doing his best to boost the candidacy of his “twin,” Sen. John McCain, so the nation can have another four years of Bush rule and policies. But fearing another Hurricane Katrina out-of-touch moment, he canceled his convention plans when Hurricane Gustav was headed to the Gulf Coast.
Those Bush/McCain policies have been devastating for working families, says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in his annual Labor Day message:
Since President Bush took office, we have lost more than 3 million good manufacturing jobs. Poverty has increased 25 percent. Forty-seven million of us are without health insurance. The price of gasoline has risen from $1.50 to $4 a gallon.
Meanwhile, corporations are making record profits and CEO salaries are out of sight. But when working people try to win better wages and more control over their lives by coming together in unions, corporate America declares all-out war—with the active support of the Bush administration.
He says working families this Labor Day are in desperate need of change and this year’s elections present a great opportunity to turn around America. Says Sweeney, there is a stark difference between the two presidential candidates.
Sen. Barack Obama has a record of putting communities—not corporations—first and helping average people get our fair share.
Sen. John McCain plans to continue the Bush record of putting corporate profit over working families’ needs.
Click here to read Sweeney’s full Labor Day message.
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2 Comments
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Legislatively (re)impose a fair and balanced labor market:
First, double the minimum wage to $13/hr over three years (a dollar every six months?) – and – legally guarantee inflation adjustments for incomes under $100,000.
Doubling the minimum wage could potentially add an average 50% more pay to below 50 percentile earnings ($13/hr being today’s 35 percentile wage) – accompanied by only (an easily computed) 3% direct price increases plus perhaps (?) 3% more after other wages are pushed up – a minimum wage-force multiplier.
Next, legislatively introduce French-Canadian style (lite) sector-wide labor agreements to the US labor market (airline and supermarket employees would kill for sector-wide contracts) – and – legally mandate union certification and re-certification elections (every four years?) at every work place (periodic re-certification could clean up the most common objections to unions: entrenched, complacent or even corrupt leaderships).
Top 10 percentile incomes enjoy 40 percent of the take these days (up from 27.5% in 1973) – plenty of headroom there for the mid 50-90 percentile to rake back more missing share points through higher labor prices – a collective bargaining-force multiplier.
Finally, (at least temporarily?) hike marginal tax rates (75% over $500,000, $1,000,000?). Folks earning 2500% more than folks doing the same work 25-35 years ago will not return all the way to earth through 12.5-25% price increases – erode a force multiplier.
America’s lower 90 percentile earners never think to impose legislative hegemony to recoup the 12.5% income share they have lost to top 3 percentile since 1973 – their unemployed force multiplier.
Denis Drew
Chicago
ddrew2u@sbcglobal.net
http://www.ontodayspage.blogspot.com
Legislatively (re)impose a fair and balanced labor market:
First, double the minimum wage to $13/hr over three years (a dollar every six months?) – and – legally guarantee inflation adjustments for incomes under $100,000.
Doubling the minimum wage could potentially add an average 50% more pay to below 50 percentile earnings ($13/hr being today’s 35 percentile wage) – accompanied by only (an easily computed) 3% * direct price increases plus perhaps (?) 3% more after other wages are pushed up – a minimum wage-force multiplier.
Next, legislatively introduce French-Canadian style (lite) sector-wide labor agreements to the US labor market (airline and supermarket employees would kill for sector-wide contracts) – and – legally mandate union certification and re-certification elections (every four years?) at every work place (periodic re-certification could clean up the most common objections to unions: entrenched, complacent or even corrupt leaderships).
Top 10 percentile incomes enjoy 40 percent of the take these days (up from 27.5% in 1973) – plenty of headroom there for the mid 50-90 percentile to rake back more missing share points through higher labor prices – a collective bargaining-force multiplier.
Finally, (at least temporarily?) hike marginal tax rates (75% over $500,000, $1,000,000?). Folks earning 2500% more than folks doing the same work 25-35 years ago will not return all the way to earth through 12.5-25% price increases – erode a force multiplier.
America’s lower 90 percentile earners never think to impose legislative hegemony to recoup the 12.5% ** income share they have lost to top 3 percentile since 1973 – their unemployed force multiplier.
* http://ontodayspagelinks.blogspot.com/2008/08/3-cost-of-gdp-output-and-inflation.html
** http://ontodayspagelinks.blogspot.com/2008/08/income-share.html
Denis Drew
Chicago
ddrew2u@sbcglobal.net
http://www.ontodayspage.blogspot.com