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Monday, September 4. 2006
Labour’s Love Lost
Samuel Gompers
Founder of the AFL
Father of
Organized Labor
Founder of the AFL
Father of
Organized Labor
Samuel Gompers, co-founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), said Labor Day: “...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation."
Peter J. McGuire, another co-founder of the AFL, said we should honor the working people, “… who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”
During my childhood years, there were parades and a lot of speeches. My dad had a day off from work, the first Monday of September, as it is today. Again, this year, we will have a lot of speeches, principally from politicians who have played a great part in the destruction of the Middle Class and the decline of America’s labor unions.
On the web site for the U.S. Department of Labor, they write: “It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.”
Yet, on that same web site, we can see the truth of where the American worker sits in today’s economy. More on that later.
On Sunday, September 3, 2006, the ABC news program This Week with George Stephanopoulos in a round table discussion featuring George Will, E.J. Dionne (Washington Post) and David Brooks (New York Times), Brooks and Will extolled the “virtues” of Wal-Mart and chastised Senator John Kerry and the Democrats for attacking the nation’s largest employer and the most popular store chain in the country.
Will told a story, enthusiastically (for George Will), of a Wal-Mart opening in suburban Chicago, Il that advertised for just over 300 jobs and getting about 25,000 applicants. “Americans love Wal-Mart,” he said. Dionne countered that it was the business practices of Wal-Mart that were suppressing wages in this country. Both Will and Brooks agreed that was the case, but better to have jobs than no jobs — and low prices!
The truth is, as we “compete” in this global economy, manufacturing jobs leave the United States for other countries, only to be replaced by lower-paying service industry jobs, like those of Wal-Mart. And that’s really the issue. More education isn’t the answer, which is always the stock reply when the topics of out-sourced jobs and depressed wages are discussed. How many college-educated people are working at Wal-Mart, or in the customer service departments of the nation’s businesses?
The Department of Labor keeps excellent statistics, some of which the president and the Republicans like to quote when trying to buttress their claims that the “economy is growing.” At the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we can access the records going back decades, but for the purposes of this column, let’s focus on the years of 2001 and 2005.
Farmers and ranchers, for instance, make less than $20.00 per hour, on average. Five years ago their average wage was $22.41. They have lost nearly $3.00 per hour since Bush and the Republicans took control of government, which translates to about $6,000.00 per year. And David Brooks and George Will think Wal-Mart and more education are the answer?
In 2001, the average janitor made $19,800.00 per year. In 2005, $18,580.00. That’s a drop of about $1,200.00 per year. According to the U.S. Census, the median wage for households where the breadwinners are younger than age 65 is down 5.4% from 2000.
Worse than the drop in salaries though is the number of higher-paying manufacturing that have been lost in the last five years. Bush supporters like to point out that there has been a net increase in the work force, but the increase is due to service industry employment, which pays significantly less than manufacturing.
Unions have been taking a big hit, ever since Ronald Reagan became president. Union haters like to claim it’s because of unions that jobs are going over seas. That’s absolutely untrue. Jobs go over seas because the Chinese, for instance, pay their average workers about 10% of the salaries U.S. workers make.
Back in the 1980’s — before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — the place to export jobs was Mexico, specifically that zone just South of the U.S. border where U.S. companies and the wealthiest Mexican “industrialists” set up maquiladoras to exploit the cheap labor over there so the Mexican citizens didn’t have to break the law and enter the U.S. illegally. Former Wisconsin governor Patrick Lucey (Dem) worked as a paid “consultant” for Mexico — after his term as ambassador to Mexico — luring American companies into transferring their jobs, principally from Wisconsin and the Midwest, to Mexico’s maquiladoras.
With the disassembly of the U.S. unions, screwing the American worker got exceptionally easier. Unions — Labor — no longer had a strong position in the business of America. In fact, states began passing laws specifically designed to undercut unions, laws that would ban “closed shops” or passing “at will employment” laws which sounds like something good for employees, but actually gives very little to workers while giving business carte blanche in regards to employee salaries, benefits and most crucially, job security.
In California for instance, a non-union company can fire an employee for no reason and if the fired employee wants to pursue the matter in court, it’s up to that person to prove the company engaged in any bias when the employee was fired. Good luck.
Then, President Bush (41) and many politicians on both sides of the aisle lobbied hard for NAFTA and eventually President Clinton signed the “treaty” into law. NAFTA has done nothing to secure the American workplace, including the farms that now employ hundreds of thousands of undocumented, migrant workers. With cheap produce coming into American grocery stores from places like Chile and Argentina, thanks to NAFTA, the farms that once comprised California’s San Joaquin Valley are quickly becoming developments for houses, condominiums and strip malls.
Back in the early 1990’s, General Dynamics just up and sold a large piece of its business, much of which was based here in San Diego, putting about 50,000 San Diegans out of work. The condominium complex where I live began sporting “For Sale” signs and more and more owners began moving out, to places outside of California, renting their condos to people like me because trying to sell them was difficult. The economic impact has been devastating. Biotech firms have been popping up, filling some of the void, but the vast majority of those lost jobs have been replaced by lower-paying service industry jobs.
And of course, the cost of living in San Diego has, like the rest of California, skyrocketed. So, if you’re making $35,000.00 per year … that’s not such a good wage anymore. You couldn’t buy a home on that income and probably couldn’t keep your home, which would require yet another income which means working more hours to keep pace with where you were at 15 years ago.
One other statistic provided by the U.S. Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics is our standing in global wages and quality of life. In Germany, workers put in on average 37.5 hours per week. American workers are about 50% higher. And we get paid less for our efforts, have less vacation time and higher health care costs, in other words, we aren’t doing as well physically as our European counterparts. We are a fat nation. We have less time for artistic pursuits, less time for physical activity, less time to spend at leisure with our families, all because we — American Labor — are working harder and longer so we don’t lose economic ground as fast as would happen if we maintained the old paradigm of a single paycheck household.
Quality of life is higher throughout Western Europe and parts of Eastern Europe are getting better than the United States. In a study conducted by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, cities around the world were ranked for their quality of life. Zurich and Geneva, Switzerland ranked highest, one and two respectively. No U.S. cities were even in the top 25, although Honolulu made the list at 27. Europe, Canada and Australia dominate the top of the list.
Many reasons can be cited for this, but high on the list would be the decline of the American Worker. As employees, we no longer have as much value to employers who can replace us by shipping our jobs to China, India or Indonesia — or even to the Northern Marianas, where companies can legally set up sweat shops and turn young women into sexual slaves all on American soil.
Thanks to investigations into the activities of Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff, we now know the Northern Marianas is the place to go if you don’t want to be accused of exporting American jobs!
These are the issues on Labor Day. What has our federal government done for the American worker lately? Nothing really. Congress can’t even pass a minimum wage bill. Which is why we need a change in Washington. Big business is getting all the breaks, including laws that reward companies for shipping their jobs to places like China and the Northern Marianas.
We need people in Congress who will speak for the rest of us, those of us who need three-incomes to survive in today’s economy; those of us who pay a high price when it comes to taxes — all taxes, not just income tax — those of us who are wondering when we will be fired or laid off because our jobs will be going elsewhere. Those of us for whom a minimum wage isn’t an abstract social idea — it’s a painful reality.
Just 25 years ago $10.00 per hour was a decent wage, now it’s below poverty level and yet, for non-union and service industry jobs, that seems to be the top end of the normal starting wage.
Are you happier and better off today than you were five years ago? Never mind the homeland security issues, just the basic quality of life. If you’re like 75% of this country, the answer is no.
Enjoy your day off — if you’re lucky enough to get it. Have a Happy Labor Day.
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