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Shuler to Minnesota AFL-CIO: Let’s Engage the Next Generation |
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| AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, right, and Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson. |
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler gave a powerful address earlier today to the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s 2009 political conference, saying union members and their allies need to work together to ensure a bright future for the generations to come.
Since being elected Sept. 16, Shuler has been traveling the country to energize union members and listen to the concerns of workers hit hard by the economic crisis. Shuler told Minnesota delegates that all of us in the union movement need to work together to address their concerns and build a strong, active and relevant movement.
The union movement built the middle class, but if we want to sustain a strong economy and a strong union movement in the future, we need to engage young workers and let them know that they, too, can benefit from having a voice on the job, Shuler said.
If we’re going to build the future that we need and deserve, there are other things that have to happen. We need to reach out to unorganized workers who, for whatever reason, don’t see us as the answer to their problems. Above all, that means young workers in their 20s and 30s.
It’s not that young people don’t like unions, and it’s not that they hate unions. It’s just that they really don’t know about us. For them, we’re off screen.
Do they need unions as much as older workers do? No. They need them even more.
Shuler noted that young workers have been hit hard by the economic crisis. Far too many young people are out of a job, or have no health or retirement benefits. As shown in the AFL-CIO’s recent report, “Young Workers: A Lost Decade,” only 31 percent of workers under age 35 say they’re making enough to pay their bills, and one out of three are still living with their parents.
That’s not sustainable, and we need to mobilize and empower young workers if we’re going to have a fair economy in the future, Shuler said, adding that we need to make sure they have access to good jobs.
In addition to her remarks on the future of the union movement and the challenges faced by young workers, Shuler talked about the need for real health care reform—including a public health insurance plan option—the Employee Free Choice Act and strict new regulations on the financial industry. She said these policy changes will shift the balance of power in this country back toward working families, not a handful of big corporations.
Shuler also stressed the importance of keeping up a strong political mobilization across Minnesota, to elect a new pro-worker governor and to make sure we win on the issues that matter to workers’ lives.
You can read more about Shuler and the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s 2009 conference at Workday Minnesota.
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Newly elected AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler is apparently as clueless as what the AFL-CIO should be doing today in face of the economic crises that are impoverishing all working people, organized and unorganized.
A couple of quotes:
“We need to reach out to unorganized workers who, for whatever reason, don’t see us as the answer to their problems. Above all, that means young workers in their 20s and 30s.”
For example, the recent convention, which elected Liz Shuler, also passed a unanimous resolution in favor of “Medicare for All”. So has nothing to say about this fact. What does she have to say?
“In addition to her remarks on the future of the union movement and the challenges faced by young workers, Shuler talked about the need for real health care reform—including a public health insurance plan option….”
The “public option”, that possibly might be tacked on as a last minute gimmick,
will not in any way change the reality that this “health reform bill” of Obama and the Democrats, will continue the massive corporate rip-off that is bankrupting and destroying working people. The “Medicare for All” is billions of dollars cheaper and covers everyone. Again, WHY ISN’T THE AFL-CIO PROMOTING ‘MEDICARE FOR ALL’?
Perhaps the AFL-CIO is maintaining the delusion that a health plan linked to employers is a necessary to maintain the relevance of the organized labor movement?
But the reality is employers don’t want to pay for expensive health insurance premiums. Small business simply cannot afford it. Even where there is an organized union, under present economic collapse and millions unemployed,
that supporting Obama’s “reform” is a bad idea opposed to the needs of working people for a universal, affordable quality system.
What are the new strategies needed today?
1. Stop being a “business partner” to corporate capitalism. The AFL-CIO must go beyond seeking a “middle class” existence for a (diminishing) few workers, perhaps with college degrees (teachers), defense workers, or public sector workers (who are being summarily laid of in California, with no effective opposition by organized labor). The new strategies will mean the AFL-CIO
is now going to struggle for the economic needs of all working people, organized and unorganized, young and old.
2. The outreach to “young workers” and unorganized workers today must mean to go beyond the struggle to organize workers and to get a union contract. Trade unions are almost impossible to organize, even with EFCA, at this level today under conditions of collapsed capitalism (millions without jobs), capitalist globalization (in search of cheap labor costs).
3. Employers do not want and will not pay for even a decent “living wage” let alone substantial benefit costs as health care, retirement, etc. The fact is that these “fringe” benefits, once secured from the employer, and now being secured and MAINTAINED through political struggle and legislation at all levels of government.
Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, Student Loans, Section 8 housing, OSHA standards, Minimum wage legislation, etc. must now be secured through political struggle at every level of government. In other words, the simple trade union struggle for a good labor contract from an employer must be greatly expanded to include rigorous political struggle at every level of government.
4. However, the Democratic Party, and Obama, are an instrument of corporate capital, Wall Street, banking, the military-industrial complex, etc. Perhaps only an estimated ten percent of Democrats are “pro-labor”. It is impossible for labor unions, using dues money and volunteer time, to “out bid” (out bribe) office holders, as organized labor cannot match the billions of funds and power that capital offers. Nor should it try.
The corporate funded controlled Democratic Party must be abandoned. The AFL-CIO should call for a founding convention of a new political party that represents not just organized labor but the economic needs of all working people. The money and resources formerly wasted on the Democrats should now be used to support the new political struggle.
The corporate interests, who now literally own Congress and Obama, also completely own and control the mass media. Radio and TV spew forth Rush Limbaugh anti-labor babble, without any oppositional voice. NPR and PBS, more sophisticated for the college educated, continue to frame all programming to the corporate agendas. There is no national programming in newspapers, radio or tv that expresses the economic interests of the great majority, the working people of this country.
For a socialist perspective on what is needed today, this article from the World Socialist Web Site is worth reading:
Read the full article here:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/pers-o05.shtml
As US jobless toll tops 15 million
Unemployment crisis shows the failure of capitalism
5 October 2009
Patrick Martin
The staggering figures released Friday on the US labor market demonstrate that what has developed since the Wall Street crash one year ago is not a conjunctural downturn or recession, but an historic assault on working class living standards.
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There are now six unemployed workers for every job opening in America. A survey by the Business Roundtable, an association of corporate CEOs, said 40 percent of its member companies intended to cut their payrolls during the next six months, while only 13 percent planned an expansion.
More than one million Americans have filed for bankruptcy in the first nine months of 2009, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. September saw a 41 percent increase over the same month in 2008, with 124,790 cases. The institute predicted that a total of 1.4 million people will file for bankruptcy by the end of this year.
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The jobs crisis demonstrates the failure of the capitalist system—not only in the United States, but internationally. Not a single capitalist government, in any of the OECD countries, has lifted a finger to create jobs or put the unemployed to work. In each country, the ruling elite is using mass unemployment as a club against the working class, to enforce demands for the destruction of wages, benefits and working conditions.
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The working class must fight these demands by putting forward its own program for the defense of jobs, which starts with the needs of the masses, not the profit requirements of big business. Workers must take direct action against layoffs, short-time working and the shutdown of factories and offices, by occupying their workplaces, preventing their closure and appealing for the widest possible support from all working people.
This must be combined with the demand for a multi-trillion-dollar program of public works—instead of limitless handouts to the banks—to provide good-paying jobs and rebuild the social infrastructure, including homes, hospitals and schools. The demand must be raised for immediate measures of relief, including full pay for all laid-off workers, at their previous salaries, and a ban on foreclosures, evictions, utility shutoffs and other measures by which the burden of the capitalist crisis is imposed on working people.
These demands must be placed within the framework of the political struggle for the socialist reconstruction of society. Make the capitalists pay for the crisis, not the workers! Revoke all bailouts to Wall Street! Place the giant corporations and banks under public ownership and democratic control, with no salary higher than that paid to a skilled worker! Reorganize economic life to serve the needs of the working people, not corporate profits! Establish a 30 hour work week at 40 hours pay to guarantee a decent-paying job to every person who wants one!
The axis of this struggle is a break with the two big business parties and the building of an independent mass party of the working class, based on a socialist and internationalist program.