Gov. Corzine: Unions Key to Income Equality

by Tula Connell, Aug 15, 2009

As the state with the most extensive union membership, it’s no surprise that New Jersey working families have a strong social contract, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine said today. Speaking at a lunchtime panel at Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh, Corzine told the hundreds of progressive bloggers in the audience: 

There is no question that the association of the union movement with shared wealth is absolutely a reality—and we need to get back to it.

Corzine, who is in a tough fight with challenger Chris Christie in one of two governor’s races this fall, said the distribution of income in this country is skewed—with the nation’s tax policy ”completely tilted toward corporations against labor.” (Media reports today tie Bush-backer Christie with Karl Rove and the illegal firing of U.S. attorneys. Find out more about Christi’s anti-worker stances here.)

Economist Dean Baker, who also took part in the panel along with Change to Win chair Anna Burger, said it is a well-researched fact that

unions are associated with more equaity….So when unionization rates are higher, you’ll see more inconme equality.

Baker, director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), pointed to the nation’s strong economy in the post-World War II years as due in large part to the strength of the union movement in those years, Those gains weren’t just between union members and their employers, Baker said, but across the board for working people because union support has been key to the passage of every piece of major working family legilslation. 

Baker also hit hard against U.S. trade policy, summing it up this way:

Let’s assume we have almost everything wrong in trade.

For instance, while the United States has strict laws requiring higher-end professional insitutions like universities to hire foreign workers only after they can’t find anyone in this nation to do the job, there are no requrements slowing down Wal-Mart from buying goods from China. Wal-Mart accounts for approximately 10 percent of the goods shipped to this country from China.

Check out live webstreaming of Netroots Nations events here and here.

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