Restoring the Promise of the American Dream
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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Andy Stern has a point. As a former union member, I concur with part of his analysis. Unfortunately, my union and others make rules not to suit the labor force but to enhance their power. In this power struggle,whoever wins, the labor force loses.
American labor unions never wanted to internationalize, thinking is was a communist plot. Since communism also has been engaged in power struggles, the analysis was probably more or less accurate.
Now, however, with a "global economy" paramount, unions should organize across national boundaries in a concerted effort to share some of the capitalistic pie.
What is happening here on a global scale is a reworking of the 1890's in the U.S. and other epochs in other countries. Whatever is old is new again may be a cliche, but it is happening on a global rather than national scale.
By the way, while we will never rid ourselves of corruption in power struggles or in life, we can mitigate the effects by having internal (union and management)rules and external (international) laws, much like the Geneva Convention on warfare.
Those who would point out the wrongful acts of individuals who took advantage of the power they gleaned from running a union seem to be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Sure there are people who take advantage of their position of power within a union, and keep their jobs when the rank and file workers have none. BUT this is NOT a union. A union is a group of individuals working in unison for a particular goal. That goal, far beyond workers rights on the job, is the survival of the American worker and the survival of the American middle class and our way of life. Without unions we shall truly spiral down into a third world type of society.
The blogger who wrote that the middle class is at fault for electing officials who worked against us by passing laws against the union movement and against the vast middle class misses an important ingredient in the mix. Corporate run news media is infecting the mind of the average American through the use of propaganda. Read and listen to the news with a skeptical eye and ear. Omission, outright distortion and biased use of words are used to subtley influence the reader or listener.
No, it is not the middle class that are to blame; it is the take over of our society by corporations and the GREED of the CEO's. This will eventually destroy us all - the middle class as well as the greedy power mongers, along with both our children and grandchildren.
We in the middle class HAVE to stand up and fight for more powerful unions and the laws to back them. To sit down and give in is NOT the America I grew up in. Those of you who see only the corrupt part of unions fail to see that the corrupt part of Capitalism is far worse. Get active and involved in the union movment and grass roots politics! ..or in any effort that will help the middle class fight back against the immoral corporate greed that will kill us all.
HEAR, HEAR !!!
OK. I am so glad you posted this, and I want to tell you that I whole heartedly agree with you. With one exception. Before having to retire I was a shop steward on my job and very active in the union. Being in a union served us all well. Perhaps my next perception is wrong, but I don't think that historically, that unions have served the African American community well at all, and have in fact, practiced racism. They denied blacks jobs and union participation to keep then out of high wage, high skilled jobs, reserved only for white men. This is where I have a problem with illegal immigrants. Once again, blacks are locked out of jobs because employers are willing to hire illegals who aren't going to fight for the benefits packages that should go with those jobs, their wages are repressed because the employer wants the cheap labor, and will go to any lengths to hire illegals, rather than seek out other low income blacks and whites who so desperately need the jobs, and this should include both men and women. If the unions stands ready as you say they do to march into a new era, then that era should include reaching out to the poor already here in this country and offering them new opportunities to earn a decent living in this country, before the doors a flung open to a people with no ties here. We need to lift up our people first, and then people spilling over our borders. You don't even need monies for education if people lack this; you just need to partnership with systems already in the community in order to try and help bring people up to speed. If the unions want to help as you say they do, then there is much work to be done, and unions could help accomplish much of it.
Jazzy, I believe you are referring to the fact that SEIU supports the position of representing the undocumented immigrants. While this is true, it does not mean the union stops representing blacks any less. There is power in numbers. You say; "Once again, blacks are locked out of jobs because employers are willing to hire illegals who aren't going to fight for the benefits packages that should go with those jobs, their wages are repressed because the employer wants the cheap labor, and will go to any lengths to hire illegals, rather than seek out other low income blacks and whites who so desperately need the jobs,. The union isn't fighting to force companies to hire undocumented immigrants, it is fighting to represent those who are ALREADY working in these industries. If these Paris Hilton's daddy and other corporate rich moguls have to pay all their employees fair wages and provide fair benefits, then the incentive to hire undocumented immigrants for their ability to be exploited loses it's appeal to the corporations. We're on the same boat fighting the same battle. Don't toss overboard any of your assets.
Woofer, you say;
" I believe that unions actually cause inflation and price increases."
Do you have any proof of that? My neighbor says he has oceanfront propery in Arizona, care to buy some?
You say; "Also, unions fighting for and getting health care benefits causes not only more profits for the HMO's, but also drives up costs for everyone who doesn't have those benefits".
Let's see if I understand you.The worker(labor) produces a product at a certain 'cost' that coupled together with corporate costs equals customer/product price. Increase labor 'cost' and product price increases you say. Isn't increasing the 'cost' of the CEO(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.) the same problem? Yet you take no umbrage with that.
You say; "Read: no more pie slices to go around".
The article clearly gives an example of what is happening in America;(The lost federal, state and local tax revenues over the next five years? More than $600 million.). That this raises the cost on everyone who doesn't have the same benefits is lost on you. These tax breaks are true for the majority of Fortune 500 corporations and the vast majority of foreign chartered corporations. They are paying no taxes and even getting refunds, yet their CEO's are getting bonuses of $180 million dollars. That's quite a piece of pie.
You say;"What has to happen now is a massive shift in tax laws, national health care, and stop spending on wars.
Passing the buck has to stop at some point. The middle class and poor have no more money."
I couldn't agree with you more.
Ah....women and children beaten by police.....
20 April 1914
The "Ludlow Massacre." In an attempt to persuade strikers at Colorado's Ludlow Mine Field to return to work, company "guards," engaged by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and other mine operators and sworn into the State Militia just for the occasion, attacked a union tent camp with machine guns, then set it afire. Five men, two women and 12 children died as a result.
19 January 1915
World famous labor leader Joe Hill was arrested in Salt Lake City. He was convicted on trumped up murder charges, and was executed 21 months later despite worldwide protests and two attempts to intervene by President Woodrow Wilson. In a letter to Bill Haywood shortly before his death he penned the famous words, "Don't mourn - organize!"
On this same day, twenty rioting strikers were shot by factory guards at Roosevelt, New Jersey.
25 January 1915
The Supreme Court upholds%2
There was the 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike and the resulting "Bloody Thursday" which is still remembered today. Longshore workers don't work on Bloody Thursday to remember and honor the men who died standing up for fair labor practices and the people who put it all on the line to unionize.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_West_Coast_Longshore_Strike
Mother Jones working for 55 hour work week for children......
1911
The Supreme Court ordered the AFL to cease its promotion of a boycott against the Bucks Stove and Range Company. A contempt charge against union leaders (including AFL President Samuel Gompers) was dismissed on technical grounds.
25 March 1911
The Triangle Shirtwaist Company, occupying the top three floors of a ten-story building in New York City, was consumed by fire. One hundred and forty-seven people, mostly women and young girls working in sweatshop conditions, lost their lives. Approximately 50 died as they leapt from windows to the street; the others were burned or trampled to death as they desperately attempted to escape through stairway exits locked as a precaution against "the interruption of work". On 11 April the company's owners were indicted for manslaughter.
2 December 1911
A Chicago "slugger," paid $50 by labor unions for every scab he "discouraged," described his job in an interview: "Oh, there ain't nothin' to it. I gets my fifty, then I goes out and finds the guy they wanna have slugged. I goes up to `im and I says to `im, `My friend, by way of meaning no harm,' and then I gives it to `im -- biff! in the mug. Nothin' to it."
24 February 1912
Women and children were beaten by police during a textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
18 April 1912
The National Guard was called out against striking West Virginia coal miners.
11 June 191?
Police shot three maritime workers (one of whom was killed) who were striking against the United Fruit Company in New Orleans.
5 January 1914
The Ford Motor Company raised its basic wage from $2.40 for a nine hour day to $5 for an eight hour day.
I saw an interview with one of the remaining survivors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Sad story. It is disheartening to think that it takes a tragedy like that to effect change. Had they been unionized, the fire might still have broken out, but the workers may have been able to escape, instead of being locked up to die.
Unions are crucially important to the construction trades. They make possible a very good living, health insurance and pension,not to mention the protection of the worker on the job. If you do not plan on going to college join a construction trades union - you'll be glad you did.
And the struggle continued....
12 October 1902
Fourteen miners were killed and 22 wounded by scabherders at Pana, Illinois.
23 November 1903
Troops were dispatched to Cripple Creek, Colorado to control rioting by striking coal miners.
July 1903
Labor organizer Mary Harris ("Mother") Jones leads child workers in demanding a 55 hour work week.
23 February 1904
William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Chronicle began publishing articles on the menace of Japanese laborers, leading to a resolution of the California Legislature that action be taken against their immigration.
8 June 1904
A battle between the Colorado Militia and striking miners at Dunnville ended with six union members dead and 15 taken prisoner. Seventy-nine of the strikers were deported to Kansas two days later.
17 April 1905
The Supreme Court held that a maximum hours law for New York bakery workers was unconstitutional under the due process clause of the 14th ammendment.
1908
The Erdman Act was further weakened when Section 10 was declared unconstitutional. This section had made it illegal for railroad employers to fire employees for being involved in union activities (see 1898).
22 November 1909
The "Uprising of the 20,000." Female garment workers went on strike in New York; many were arrested. A judge told those arrested: "You are on strike against God."
25 December 1910
A dynamite bomb destroyed a portion of the Llewellyn Ironworks in Los Angeles, where a bitter strike was in progress.
Many have died for our benefit....
1894
Federal troops killed 34 American Railway Union members in the Chicago area attempting to break a strike, led by Eugene Debs, against the Pullman Company. Debs and several others were imprisoned for violating injunctions, causing disintegration of the union.
21 September 1896
The state militia was sent to Leadville, Colorado to break a miner's strike.
10 September 1897
19 unarmed striking coal miners and mine workers were killed and 36 wounded by a posse organized by the Luzerne County sherif for refusing to disperse near Lattimer, Pennsylvania. The strikers, most of whom were shot in the back, were originally brought in as strike-breakers, but later organized themselves.
1898
A portion of the Erdman Act, which would have made it a criminal offense for railroads to dismiss employees or discriminate against prospective employees based on their union activities, was declared invalid by the United States Supreme Court.
12 October 1898
Fourteen were killed, 25 wounded in violence resulting when Virden, Illinois mine owners attempted to break a strike by importing 200 nonunion black workers.
29 April 1899
When their demand that only union men be employed was refused, members of the Western Federation of Miners dynamited the $250,000 mill of the Bunker Hill Company at Wardner, Idaho, destroying it completely. President McKinley responded by sending in black soldiers from Brownsville, Texas with orders to round up thousands of miners and confine them in specially built "bullpens."
1899 and 1901
U.S. Army troops occupied the Coeur d'Alene mining region in Idaho.
It has to make a person proud to realize the sacrifices made....
23 November 1887
The Thibodaux Massacre. The Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of "prominent citizens," shot at least 35 unarmed black sugar workers striking to gain a dollar-per-day wage, and lynched two strike leaders.
25 July 1890
New York garment workers won the right to unionize after a seven-month strike. They secured agreements for a closed shop, and firing of all scabs.
6 July 1892
The Homestead Strike. Pinkerton Guards, trying to pave the way for the introduction of scabs, opened fire on striking Carnegie mill steel- workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania. In the ensuing battle, three Pinkertons surrendered; then, unarmed, they were set upon and beaten by a mob of townspeople, most of them women. Seven guards and eleven strikers and spectators were shot to death.
11 July 1892
Striking miners in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho dynamited the Frisco Mill, leaving it in ruins.
1893
The first of several bloody mining strikes at Cripple Creek, Colorado.
5 July 1893
During a strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company, which had drastically reduced wages, the 1892 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago's Jackson Park was set ablaze, and seven buildings were reduced to ashes. The mobs raged on, burning and looting railroad cars and fighting police in the streets, until 10 July, when 14,000 federal and state troops finally succeeded in putting down the strike.
Continuing the struggle....
On 11 November 1887, four of them, including Parsons and Spies, were executed. All of the executed advocated armed struggle and violence as revolutionary methods, but their prosecutors found no evidence that any had actually thrown the Haymarket bomb. They died for their words, not their deeds. A quarter of a million people lined Chicago's street during Parson's funeral procession to express their outrage at this gross mis-carriage of justice.
For radicals and trade unionists everywhere, Haymarket became a symbol of the stark inequality and injustice of capitalist society. The May 1886 Chicago events figured prominently in the decision of the founding congress of the Second International (Paris, 1889) to make May 1, 1890 a demonstration of the solidarity and power of the international working class movement. May Day has been a celebration of international socialism and (after 1917) international communism ever since.
The Bayview Massacre also took place at this time (for more detailed information visit http://www.execpc.com/~blake/rollin~1.htm), where seven people, including one child, were killed by state militia. On 1 May 1886 about 2,000 Polish workers walked off their jobs and gathered at Saint Stanislaus Church in Milwaukee, angrily denouncing the ten hour workday. They then marched through the city, calling on other workers to join them; as a result, all but one factory was closed down as sixteen thousand protesters gathered at Rolling Mills, prompting Wisconsin Govorner Jeremiah Rusk to call the state militia. The militia camped out at the mill while workers slept in nearby fields, and on the morning of May 5th, as protesters chanted for the eight hour workday, General Treaumer ordered his men to shoot into the crowd, some of whom were carrying sticks, bricks, and scythes, leaving seven dead at the scene. The Milwaukee Journal reported that eight more would die within twenty four hours, and without hesitation added that Governor Rusk was to be commended for his quick action in the matter.
And furthermore.....
Late 1885/Early 1886
Hundreds of thousands of American workers, increasingly determined to resist subjugation to capitalist power, poured into a fledgling labor organization, the Knights of Labor. Beginning on May 1, 1886, they took to the streets to demand the universal adoption of the eight hour day.
Chicago was the center of the movement. Workers there had been agitating for an eight hour day for months, and on the eve of May 1, 50,000 workers were already on strike. 30,000 more swelled their ranks the next day, bringing most of Chicago manufacturing to a standstill. Fears of violent class conflict gripped the city. No violence occurred on May 1 -- a Saturday -- or May 2. But on Monday, May 3, a fight involving hundreds broke out at McCormick Reaper between locked-out unionists and the non-unionist workers McCormick hired to replace them. The Chicago police, swollen in number and heavily armed, quickly moved in with clubs and guns to restore order. They left four unionists dead and many others wounded.
Angered by the deadly force of the police, a group of anarchists, led by August Spies and Albert Parsons, called on workers to arm themselves and participate in a massive protest demonstration in Haymarket Square on Tuesday evening, May 4. The demonstration appeared to be a complete bust, with only 3,000 assembling. But near the end of the evening, an individual, whose identity is still in dispute, threw a bomb that killed seven policemen and injured 67 others. Hysterical city and state government officials rounded up eight anarchists, tried them for murder, and sentenced them to death.
Today, let's recognize the sacrifices made by union labor that helped create the greatest middle class and Democracy in the world.
1806
The union of Philadelphia Journeymen Cordwainers was convicted of and bankrupted by charges of criminal conspiracy after a strike for higher wages, setting a precedent by which the U.S. government would combat unions for years to come.
27 April 1825
The first strike for the 10-hour work-day occurred by carpenters in Boston.
3 July 1835
Children employed in the silk mills in Paterson, NJ went on strike for the 11 hour day/6 day week.
July 1851
Two railroad strikers were shot dead and others injured by the state militia in Portgage, New York.
1860
800 women operatives and 4,000 workmen marched during a shoemaker's strike in Lynn, Massachusetts.
13 January 1874
The original Tompkins Square Riot. As unemployed workers demonstrated in New York's Tompkins Square Park, a detachment of mounted police charged into the crowd, beating men, women and children indiscriminately with billy clubs and leaving hundreds of casualties in their wake. Commented Abram Duryee, the Commissioner of Police: "It was the most glorious sight I ever saw..."
12 February 1877
U.S. railroad workers began strikes to protest wage cuts.
21 June 1877
Ten coal-mining activists ("Molly Maguires") were hanged in Pennsylvania.
14 July 1877
A general strike halted the movement of U.S. railroads. In the following days, strike riots spread across the United States. The next week, federal troops were called out to force an end to the nationwide strike. At the "Battle of the Viaduct" in Chicago, federal troops (recently returned from an Indian massacre) killed 30 workers and wounded over 100.
5 September 1882
Thirty thousand workers marched in the first Labor Day parade in New York.
1884
The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, forerunner of the AFL, passed a resolution stating that "8 hours shall constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886." Though the Federation did not intend to stimulate a mass insurgency, its resolution had precisely that effect.
Neocon logic: greedy workers cause inflation.
Fact: the Federal Reserve control inflation.
With ALL this said,
Is it any surprise that BUSH is in IRAQ on LABOR DAY- his failed policies here, his failed administration here, his failed Republican coup here, his failed programs here!?!
What Republican legislator wants BUSH in their state or area on LABOR DAY* NONE!!!!
BUSH has failed AMERICA!
BUSH has failed the Republican Party!
BUSH has failed our TROOPS' best efforts!
BUSH has failed KATRINA!
BUSH has failed AMERICAN WORKERS!
BUSH has failed NEW ORLEANS!
BUSH has failed AMERICA'S ENVIRONMENT!
BUSH has failed AMERICA'S CONSTITUTIONAL LAW!
BUSH has failed AMERICA'S EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM!
BUSH has failed AMERICA'S NATURAL RESOURCES HERITAGE!
That is why he is in IRAQ- he has NO PLACE he can go in AMERICA!
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