The promise of America is that if you work hard, you will be rewarded. You will be able to provide for your family, own a decent home, afford quality health care, and enjoy a secure retirement. It is that promise that built a thriving middle class. It is the American Dream, and it has inspired generations of women and men who helped make this country great.
Today we are living through a period of profound economic change. We have new ways of communicating, new methods of production, new means of generating wealth, new global competition. And while many of the ways we used to do business have changed, the American Dream has not.
Today, in 2007, that dream is at risk. We stand at a moment of unprecedented economic opportunity, but that opportunity is not being extended to all. Tens of millions of Americans are working harder than ever just to stay afloat. The latest Census Bureau report shows that wages are dropping and more people lack health insurance.
On the other hand, a handful of incredibly wealthy people are prospering beyond all comprehension. Private equity CEOs are making on average more than $650 million -- or more than 22,000 times what the average American worker brings in. Put another way, it takes the average American worker one full year to make what a wealthy buyout CEO makes in only ten minutes.
The buyout industry and the big banks are cutting the heart out of the American economy. Global buyout corporation the Carlyle Group is taking over one of the nation's largest nursing home chains, ManorCare. As part of the deal, ManorCare's CEO Paul Ormond will personally profit up to $186 million dollars, money that could have gone to hire more nursing home aides to care for our loved ones. Even worse, ManorCare will pay no corporate taxes while it is owned by Carlyle. The lost federal, state and local tax revenues over the next five years? More than $600 million. There's a credit crunch on, and massive lenders like Bank of America are using their size and market dominance to run up fees and credit card rates, deny loans to working families and minority communities, and lay off workers.
This Labor Day, a greater percentage of the economy is going to profits than to wages, and a majority of parents believe their children will be worse off economically. Tens of millions of people in the U.S. are working harder than ever before, but they're still falling behind.
We are at a crucial moment, a moment that makes us ask what kind of country we want to be.
The answer to that question must include more workers uniting in unions -- the labor movement. Unions have always been the best anti-poverty, best pro-health care, best pro-family program around. Unions have done more to help working people experience economic success than any other program.
This week, a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Inclusion showed that workers in the lowest-paying jobs make about 16 percent more when they are members of a union, and they are 25 percent more likely to have health insurance or a pension plan.
Now, more than ever, as new technologies and new ways of thinking about efficiency have reduced workers to a line item on a balance sheet, unions are not only relevant -- we are indispensable.
As the economic landscape has shifted, the labor movement has needed to adapt to these new realities. I am proud to report that the 1.9 million workers united in SEIU stand at the forefront of the evolving labor movement. In recent years we have pioneered new models of organizing, like uniting workers in nontraditional employment situations. Since 1999, 400,000 home care workers have changed state laws throughout the country to give them the freedom to unite in a union.
We have established new relationships with employers who are willing to reward work, while continuing to hold accountable those who are not. We are acting on new ways to secure health care and retirement security that reflect rather than deny the new economic reality.
The bottom line is this: the American economy is not a zero-sum game. There is no good moral or economic reason why all workers cannot or should not share in the success and prosperity they helped create. We need to restore the promise of the American Dream. And that means choosing what kind of country we want to be.
-Andy Stern, President, Service Employees International Union
Also from SEIU this Labor Day, check out Cincinnati janitor Craig Jones' "Just Work" blog about turning minimum wages into livable wages.
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About SEIU: The 1.9 million-member SEIU is the fastest-growing union in North America. SEIU members are winning better wages, health care, and more secure jobs for our communities, while uniting their strength with their counterparts around the world to help ensure that workers, not just corporations and CEOs, benefit from today's global economy.
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Someone else put it better. "I'm 61, and in my lifetime I don't recall any candidate for President who articulate
I am highly suspect of any of todays crop of politician
Nothing will be done about campaign finance or the lobbyists, or PACs or any of the other things bringing this country down until there is a complete regime change and both parties are out of office. They have become so entrenched in their quest for money and power that they care not if they betray the American people. It's all part of doing politics.
The U.S. labor movement was created through organizing
Andy, I believe that labor is the solution to the mess in this once great nation. However the labor movement must begin researchin
Poor people are easier to manipulate
The public gets deliberate
'The government
Can I get on this no tax thing?
Seriously, the Bushie's would be so happy if the USA was a banana republic or a captive labor farm like China.
Gemma
I wanted to add that I appreciate your post, even if I may not agree with much of it. I think unions have a place. Abusive employers love Virginia because unions are kept out. I had a boss who tried to force me to work on my day off, by sending me faxes about an unsatisfie
I tried to explain that he was calling my home on my day off with work business and I didn't approve. He insisted on sending the fax. I ended up contacting the client and resolving the issue, on my day off, and charging my employer one hour which was quite fair.
He responded by harassing me and trying to get me fired. He combed over ever inch of my paperwork and followed me around and couldn't come up with anything. That wouldn't have happened if I had a union rep. There are many other examples I could give of what happens in Virginia in the absence of unions. I hope VA is a target of the unions.
That question has been answered. The choice made is one of obese people who traded neighbourh
I could go on but part of the trade included giving up human relationsh
The CEO's will never give up there $$$$$$$$$. So, the way to deal with it is to bring back the income tax on excessive salaries. Before Kennedy, anyone who made over about $3 million (in todays dollars) was taxed at 90% (you read it correctly ninety per cent). Kennedy changed it to 70%. Under saint ronald (and not Ronald Mc Donald). The 70% was removed and all income was taxed at the same rate (about 35%). If that tax were to be reenacted, I am sure you will see excess CEO pay drop. You will also have money to pay for the war, fix the infrastruc
Just read an article by San Pizzigati about “The Compensati
I belong to a union and I believe that unions have helped the american worker and helped build middle class America. Without unions, the workers will get less and less and you will see the return of massive poverty. We need strong unions.
Then the middle class became Republican
Then the Republican
There goes the middle class.
Who told them they are Number One in everything and they actually believe it. Most who never been out of the country or some that have but prefer to close their eyes when overseas with this attitude like "I am better than you."
Yet, they paychecks and benefits and ergo, their way of life is much further advances than
that in the US. This is coming from someone who lived on both sides of the Atlantic. Now I see companies are firing people and hiring them back at a lower pay - thanks to the illegal
aliens.
The entire society is infected with greed. It's old and tired, but this is a place where you have respect if you have money, and it doesn't matter how you got it.
We now have a corporate Supreme court, and a Congress that is RUN by corporatio
AND under this guise, the corporatio
I can only hope that when you and I end up in a "for profit" nursing home that we are " out of it" because no one wants to be living in a gulag