The cynical ploy by McConnell and a number of his GOP colleagues to hold working people hostage to their political agenda of vilifying unions is a reminder of why Americans voted to throw McConnell's party out of office in November -- and a signal that one election is not enough to change the direction of this country.
McConnell and company demanded sweeping cuts in pay and healthcare coverage for unionized auto as the price for a bailout of the auto industry. McConnell called for a "parity pay structure," which sounds nice until you understand he is talking about punishing workers with lower living standards, as if the past eight years was not punishment enough.
It's also worth noting, of course, that McConnell neglected to impose the same conditions on the bankers or Wall Street speculators when he shepherded a $700 billion bailout for them.
Or he could have come up with other ideas. Such as pledging to work to raise standards for all workers.
Or helping employers, as well as the people who work for them, by shifting healthcare coverage costs from employers to a national system like Medicare. It's one major reason why car producers have lower costs in other industrial countries which have national healthcare systems. It would also guarantee healthcare coverage for the millions of Americans who have lost, or are losing their jobs or employer-coverage in this recession, or were already uninsured.
Not to mention how many lives it would save. The U.S. ranked last in preventable deaths among 19 comparable countries that all have national health systems.
But, McConnell and company have instead decided that their path back to power is to demonize unions and if workers fall through the cracks as collateral damage along the way, so be it. That may help round up campaign contributions from anti-union and corporate interests, but it's hardly a humane solution to our deepening economic gloom.
And, it's been wildly unsuccessful under the thankfully outgoing administration. Harper's January, 2009 issue offers a retrospective of the Bush-McConnell years. Nearly 4 million manufacturing jobs gone. Consumer debt doubled. One-fifth of American homeowners likely to owe more in mortgage debt than their homes are worth. Some 3.5 million more Americans living at less than half the federal poverty level while three-fourths of all income gains have gone to the top 1 percent of earners. Since 2000, average weekly wages for production and non-supervisory workers have increased a paltry $11.
Then there's the healthcare meltdown. One in eight late-stage cancer patients skip recommended treatment, and one in four Americans skip doctor visits because of the costs. One in ten can't afford to get immunization shots for their kids. Overall, since 2001, American workers have seen a 172 percent increase in out-of-pocket medical costs. And these are mostly people with insurance. The number without any coverage is up five million the past eight years.
Reducing the wages and health coverage for unionized workers will do nothing to reverse these chilling trends. The likely result would be to thrown more people into poverty and hasten the arrival of a full scale Depression that does not seem very far away.
During the last major Depression, we experienced a wave of union growth. A direct result was the full flowering of economic prosperity for American families and an unprecedented economic boom in the 1950s and '60s. The erosion of that dream and the shocking wealth chasm in our nation has coincided directly with the decline in union membership and the relentless attack on unions during the Bush-McConnell reign.
Continuing that war on unions might be good politics for Scrooge McConnell, but it's a nightmare for the rest of America.