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Economy Must Be Restructured to Rebuild the Middle Class |
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The corporate agenda that has shaped our economic policy for three decades has nearly destroyed the country. The legacy of the Bush administration is one of lost jobs, unaffordable health care, bankrupt state and local governments and almost nonexistent retirement security.
The new president and Congress, who were elected in great part through the work of union members, have taken some important steps to jump start the economy. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has saved or created 1.2 million jobs so far.
The AFL-CIO Convention today examined how to continue turning around America and rebuild the economy. The delegates approved resolutions on a national strategy for moving forward our economic recovery and creating and sustaining good green jobs.
New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes said the union movement’s plan to turn around America’s economy requires fair value for fair work, investing in America, creating a fair global economy and regulating the financial system. The first steps must be to ensure that workers can share the wealth they create by passing both the Employee Free Choice Act, reforming the health care system and strengthening retirement security.
Congress must act to build fair value for workers, Hughes said, by restoring the goal of full employment, raising the minimum wage and expanding coverage of the Family and Medical Leave Act.
On the financial and trade front, delegates voted to support a financial transactions tax and a pause to review existing trade agreements and build a comprehensive trade policy. Hughes said:
We reject the cynical notion that America can’t afford these investments “in this economy.” On the contrary, we believe now is precisely the time to fight back.
The delegates also approved a call for a JOBS Now! Initiative and for the AFL-CIO to work with government at all levels to adopt policies and programs to put people back to work.
Machinists President Tom Buffenbarger pointed out that nearly 31 million Americans are either unemployed, underemployed or have given up looking for work. Saying
JOBS Now should be our clarion call, he said:
If we’re all talk and no action, those 31 million workers will be worse off next year.
In the era of globalization, UAW Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Bunn said, Wal-Mart and other low-wage employers show “what the race to the bottom looks like,” she said.
High wages and high benefits did not get us in this mess and low wages and low benefits will not get us out of it.
Meanwhile, the most vulnerable victims of the economic collapse are our nation’s children through lost revenues for schools and the loss of real family income, pointed out AFT Vice President Ruby Newbold.
United Steelworkers (USW) Vice President Fred Redmon said the nation needs a real manufacturing policy that levels the playing field in the global economy.
On green jobs, USW President Leo Gerard pointed out the AFL-CIO is playing a leading role in promoting a greener economy by creating the Center for Green Jobs and holding the convention in the nation’s largest green convention center. He reminded the delegates that
Green jobs are not good jobs unless they are union jobs.
Introducing the resolution on green jobs, Liz Shuler, executive assistant to Electrical Workers President Edwin Hill, called for a national strategy to revive manufacturing with good, green jobs:
Congress and the administration must adopt a manufacturing strategy that targets resources to revitalize our manufacturing base in the industrial heartland and utilizes the existing pool of skilled workers, engineering talent and idled capacity.
AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department President Mark Ayres said green jobs provide the opportunity to “restore the American Dream to millions of workers whose lives have been torn apart by greed.
Roxanne Brown of the USW was one of the delegates to address the resolution on green jobs.
Growing a green economy offers a beacon of hope in revitalizing the construction, transportation and education in the United States. We have to work to make sure the world we leave our children is both clean and prosperous.
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The economy must be restructured, indeed. It’s called Socialism! Worker ownership and control of the means of production, sharing the wealth created among those who create it instead of rapacious banks and corporate thieves, and democratic control of the systems of government instead of the corporate dominated and corrupted plutocracy!
Now that “Green” has been co-opted by every corporation, it has become almost meaningless. Labor finally caught up with environmentalists who have been pushing for investment in alternative energy since at least 1990. Now we should abandon the corporate capitalist political parties and form a Green-Labor Party.
Our economy is moving away from Supply-side economics and toward Keynesian economics. Educate yourselves. Look into those terms.