Traub: Workers Need Employee Free Choice Now More Than Ever
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Amy Traub, research director at the Drum Major Institute, has a great piece on the economic crisis and why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.
Traub says the nation’s economic crisis is making workers feel powerless on the job—more willing to accept poor treatment, long hours and most crippling for the economy, cuts in wages and benefits.
What they need, she says, is the freedom to form a union and bargain so they no longer end up bearing all the pain from the economic crisis. Traub writes:
“Productivity is soaring as fewer workers get more work done. But working people are not seeing many of the benefits. And that’s bad news for the economy as a whole. Consumers aren’t likely to resume spending when wages are down, especially without the ability they once had to borrow against high home values. It’s a recipe for a vicious economic cycle.
“The way out should include additional public stimulus, but it must also involve shifting more power to employees—enough to push back and stop making America’s working families the single easiest target for every negative economic development.”
Workers Need Employee Free Choice to Get Ahead
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Here are two great recent pieces on the need for the Employee Free Choice Act, proposed federal legislation to give workers the tools they need to build a better life for themselves and a strong economy for everyone.
Writing at the Drum Major Institute, Amy Traub says that just investing in training and education isn’t enough to help workers earn their way out of the economic slump and into the middle class. They need the freedom to form a union:
Education alone won’t solve the economic problems underlying the middle-class squeeze. If it were, college graduates would be doing better. And while educated workers are more likely than those without a degree to enjoy a middle-class standard of living, wages for most college graduates have grown sluggishly in recent years and their access to employer-provided health care and pensions has dropped. And then there are the tens of millions of Americans who work at jobs that don’t require a college degree.
Progressive Change Needs Strong Civics Education
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More than 100 years ago, a commission, charged with examining how well high school students were being taught about government, politics and citizenship, found that a poor civics education linked to the plethora of bad politicians and weak public servants dominated turn-of-the-century American government.
Today, says Andrea Batista Schlesinger in a Point of View guest column at the AFL-CIO website, a renewed and strong emphasis on civics is even more vital in the 21st century.
We have to start caring a lot more about civics. If we want to ensure that a pro-worker progressive movement is in our future, we need to raise a generation of young people who feel connected to the institutions of their democracy, who understand how to navigate them and who understand from an early age that it is their right—and their responsibility—to question them.
Schlesinger is the author of The Death of Why: The Decline of Questioning and the Future of Democracy. She is on a leave of absence from the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, where she served as executive director.
Bipartisan Bill Would Strengthen Guest Worker Rules
Under current law, unscrupulous employers are free to abuse guest worker programs by exploiting workers, driving down standards and, often, displacing U.S. workers. This hurts all workers and gives these employers an unfair competitive advantage over businesses that play by the rules.
Bipartisan legislation introduced yesterday would provide much-needed security and higher standards in two of the programs. The H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act, introduced by Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), would enhance protections within these visa programs.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney praised the legislation, saying it “makes progress in combating fraud and abuse within the H-1B and L-1 temporary worker programs.”
It’s time for our nation to put an end to employer abuse of these worker programs. Employers should neither be allowed to displace domestic workers nor intimidate guest workers and drive their working standards below those of the domestic labor market.
Bush Legacy: Topping the Injustice Index
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In less than a month, George W. Bush’s term as president will end and working people will breathe a massive sigh of relief.
While Bush’s popularity and performance ratings are at rock bottom, he rates high on the Drum Major Institute’s (DMI’s) Injustice Index. Through a stunning series of numbers and dates, DMI paints a picture of increased misery for millions of Americans over the past eight years.
Some of the most onerous of the numbers and dates in the Bush legacy include:
-Since President Bush signed legislation phasing out the federal estate tax in June 2001, the number of U.S. millionaires has risen by 928,000, while the number of Americans living in poverty rose by 4.4 million. All totaled, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy have cost taxpayers $1.3 trillion.
-Some 78,000 children lost health coverage during President Bush’s tenure. Also, 20 percent of Bush’s total vetoes blocked expansion of children’s health insurance. In fact, he cited the superiority of private insurance programs five times in his message explaining the first veto to Congress.
