Last night members from the community group, Working America, joined together to share their stories and plan new ways to fight back against the avalanche of attacks being waged on working class families across the country. The members who came were from many different backgrounds, including recent college graduates, retirees, and even a one-year-old named Maggie. One common theme brought everyone together – a desire to strengthen and rebuild our community.
We all know things have gone out of balance in America. In neighborhoods across the country, working families understand what’s happening. Corporate power has grown, while working people’s power has crumbled. Corporate profits and banker bonuses are doing great, but the rest of us are, rightly, worried. We’re worried about keeping our jobs, staying in our homes, feeding our kids, and retiring securely. We know what the problems are, and we want to be part of the solution.
America’s workers are more productive than ever, but the benefits of our hard work have gone more and more to a small number of the very wealthy. As the cost of health care, housing, and education has gone up, our wages have fallen behind and America is more unequal than ever. In Washington, D.C., in state capitals, in workplaces and corporate boardrooms, the interests of ordinary working people and their families seem to have been forgotten.
There’s only one way we can reverse it and rebuild a country that works for everyone – and that’s together.
“I’m here tonight because a canvasser from Working America knocked on my door and inspired me to get more involved,” said Diane Stallard, who holds a master’s degree in HR and has years of experience in the field, but after a round of layoffs at her company two years ago, is still looking for work.
David Bouchey wants to see his community in Aurora get back on its feet, “I want to make sure my neighbors know about what our elected officials have been up to and to hold them accountable!”
It’s easy for banks, big corporations and the very wealthy to influence the political process – they have millions to spend on TV ads, lobbying and campaign contributions and, as we’ve seen, they’re not afraid to use it.
We can’t outspend these powerful interests – but we can fight for our needs with strength in numbers. Together, we can have a bigger impact on important decisions about our economy and our country. The morning after the meeting, Kevin Pape, CO State Director of Working America said, “this Community Action Team has voted and agreed to meet regularly to address the issues that matter most to us – rebuilding our neighborhoods. We’re organizing, we’re building, and we’re gaining momentum.”
If you’re in the Denver area and would like to get more involved with our Community Action Team, call our Denver office at 303-935-2776 or shoot us an e-mail at denver@workingamerica.org.
The nation’s economy added 227,000 jobs in February, but the unemployment rate remained steady at 8.3 percent according to the latest figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The jobless rate has dropped by 0.8 percentage points since August and remains at its lowest point since February 2009. The New York Times reports that are about 1.6 million more jobs now than were last April and the new jobs were spread across more industries and more cities.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says that even with the positive signs of growth, “it will take some time before the benefits reach many middle-class and working poor families.”
We must reinforce the President’s efforts to revive an economy that works for the 99 percent, and we must block the destructive agenda of the 1 percent and their Republican political allies…. We must instead build an economy built to last. By contrast, Congressional Republicans and GOP candidates running for President would have us repeat the mistakes that caused the crash of 2008 and the Great Recession.
The number of jobless workers—12.8 million—was unchanged from January and the number of long-term unemployed workers (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) dipped slightly from at 5.5 million in January to 5.4 million last month, or about 42.6 percent of the workforce.
Private-sector jobs grew by 233,000 and government employment was essentially unchanged, but over the past 12 months about 280,000 public employee jobs have been lost.
In February, professional and business services add about 82,000 jobs, but a little more than half were in the temporary services area. Health care employment grew by 61,000 jobs and the leisure and hospitality industry added 44,000 jobs.
Manufacturing saw an increase of 31,000 jobs, mostly in durable goods. Durable goods manufacturing has increased by 444,000 jobs since 2010. Construction employment dropped by about 14,000 jobs, mostly in residential construction.
The unemployment rates for adult men (7.7 percent), adult women (7.7 percent), African Americans (14.1 percent), whites (7.3 percent) Hispanics (10.7 percent) and teenagers (23.8 percent) were little changed.
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) economist Heidi Shierholzsays the latest figures “show a strengthened recovery [and] mark two full years of job growth.” She says the labor market has gained back 3.5 million jobs during the past two years after losing 8.7 million in the downturn.
However, the jobs deficit remains very large. We have 5.3 million fewer jobs now than we did before the recession started, and we should also have added around 4.6 million jobs over this period just to keep up with normal growth in the working-age population. Even at the quite strong average growth rate of the last three months (245,000 jobs added per month), it would take roughly five years to get back to full employment in the labor market.
More confirmation that the extremely rich are getting richer and those without jobs are suffering even more.
In 2009 and 2010, the first year of the current “recovery,” the 1 percent captured 93 percent of U.S. income growth. Repeat: 93 percent of income growth went to the 1 percent.
Forget two-speeds. It’s more like the 1 percent is in a fast lane and the rest are stalled in the parking lot.
Affirming the findings of the study, authored by Emmanuel Saez, Economic Policy Institute (EPI) President Lawrence Mishel adds that at the same time, those in the bottom 90 percent of the income scale have seen their wage share retreat to what it was in 2006—when it was the lowest in any year (dating back to 1937).
A big contributor to declining income is the nation’s historically high long-term unemployment, and a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) looks at how many of the millions of workers struggling with unemployment and under-employment are not being counted—yet are experiencing “significant and long-lasting loss of earnings, deterioration of skills, poverty and even higher rates of divorces and reduced physical and mental health.”
Under the standard measure of long-term unemployment, half of all unemployed African American men have been jobless for more than six months or longer, followed closely by roughly 49 percent of unemployed Asian men, African American women and Asian women, according to “Long-Term Hardship in the Labor Market.”
However, the report’s alternative measure (which includes discouraged workers, workers marginally attached to the workforce and workers who are part-time for economic reasons) shows that African American men are much more likely than other workers to experience long-term hardship. About 9 percent of all black men in the labor force, compared with 7 percent of black women, 5 percent of Latinas and 4 percent of Latino men had been unemployed for six months or longer in 2011.
Says John Schmitt, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and a co-author of the report:
The recovery, which officially started in the summer of 2009, has provided almost no relief to those experiencing long-term hardship in the labor market.
Remember when Ohioans overwhelmingly voted to repeal Senate Bill 5—Gov. John Kasich’s attack on middle-class jobs that was designed to destroy collective bargaining rights in Ohio?
According to Reuters, repudiating S.B. 5 was just the beginning of a big backlash against tea party overreach. In Ohio, many so-called “Reagan Democrats” are turned off by extreme attacks on working families waged by Tea Party politicians and are abandoning the party. Meanwhile, online fundraising for Ohio Democrats has quadrupled.
What we’re seeing in Ohio and other states that have faced attacks on collective bargaining rights is that attacks on working families are turning Reagan Democrats—and Republican union members like teachers, firefighters and police—against the tea party’s extremist agenda.
Brian Barnhart, a 33 year old lieutenant with the Columbus fire department, says it all: “I am socially conservative, I am a registered Republican voter and voted a strict Republican ticket in 2010 – but I am voting with Democrats in ’12.”
The main reason is the attacks on workers that I have been seeing with the Republican Party.
“Mitt Romney said that he supported Senate Bill 5 and Issue 2, so he’ll have a lot of explaining to do to police officers and firefighters, nurses, teachers and working people in general as to why he was on the wrong side of where Ohioans were,” says Tim Burga, the president of the Ohio AFL-CIO.
You can read more about Ohio’s backlash against Republican overreach here.
There are signs of life in the economy, and we’re hoping for a good jobs report at the end of the week—but the recovery from the devastating Great Recession is still fragile, with a number of dangers that could tip us backwards. The most irritating threat to the recovery, however, is a self-inflicted wound: the shredding of public sector jobs as austerity fever hits state budgets.
In education, in public safety and in other vital services, states are kicking people off the job rolls—even as, in many cases, they’re cutting taxes for corporations. When hundreds of thousands of teachers, firefighters and other public workers lose their jobs, it’s just like when anyone else loses a job: they end up competing in the job market for a smaller number of openings, they draw on unemployment insurance, they have a harder time making mortgage payments and feeding their families, and they have less money to spend to support businesses in their community. What’s more, their neighbors are getting a lower level of public service. It’s lose-lose. Newly-elected state legislators on an ideological quest to shrink the services states provide are playing their games at the expense of actual people’s actual paychecks.
As Paul Krugman notes, the right wing is fond of contrasting the current recovery with the recovery from the recession of the early 80s, during Reagan’s first term. But during that era, the public sector was adding employees, not losing them. Krugman estimates that if we weren’t turning teachers and other public employees into the unemployed, our economy would be much stronger and the unemployment rate almost a full point or more lower than they are now.
And as David Dayen notes, these cuts aren’t just short-term: “when you scale back public education and investment, the practical effect of those job losses, that has far-reaching effects into the future.”
Of course, President Obama’s American Jobs Act could have helped in this regard—it would have given states money to invest in keeping teachers and public safety employees on the payroll. But it was repeatedly filibustered by Republicans in the Senate who are about as interested in how the economy works for real people as their colleagues in state capitols are.
SB 2106, the bill to reduce the subminimum wage for Florida’s tipped workers down to 1985 levels, has stalled in committee.
“When we put the bill together, we just realized it was realized it was riddled with problems,” said Nancy Detert (R-Venice) the Chair of the Senate’s Commerce and Tourism Committee. She also said: “It’s a complex issue because these truly aren’t minimum wage workers, and some are making as much as $20 an hour.”
Gasp! The horror of a worker making a decent wage!
This is the same legislator who called the effort to reduce servers’ wages “bold” and “brave,” as if taking on waitresses and bartenders at the behest of powerful restaurant lobbyists was an act of valor.
Indeed, Detert fully admits that SB 2106 was written and pushed “at the request of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association,” according to the Bradenton Herald. The FRLA is the special interest group whose powerful members include Chili’s and Outback Steakhouse. Take heart, Floridians! The interests of Chili’s and Outback are well represented in your state government.
Thankfully, the final question might not be left to the Senator Detert (R-Chili’s). Taking wages back down to $2.13 an hour might not be legal under Florida’s constitution. Besides, as the Bradenton Herald points out, the definition of “tipped worker” could open up loopholes to allow for car washers, hotel workers, and taxi drivers to also receive only $2.13 an hour.
So the brilliant plan of the Florida legislature and their corporate sponsors is this: make sure people already struggling the most struggle even more – that will create jobs and get the economy back on track, right?
Every day for these guys is opposite day.
If the restaurant industry is worried about their profit margin, here’s a bright idea: don’t back policies that take money out of the pockets of your best customers! Don’t stand idly by while their unions are busted, their healthcare coverage is threatened, and their public services are slashed to the bone. No one will be there to buy your Southwestern Egg Rolls if they can’t even pay the electric bill, and they can’t even get to your restaurant if they can’t fill up the gas tank.
Despite all the political discord in this country, we can’t avoid a simple fact: everybody is either working or wants to be working. Whether you’re a “nine-to-fiver,” a home office-goer, or on the night shift, all of us spend the majority of our week hunkering down at a job or a job hunt.
That’s why Working America canvassers urged passers-by in downtown Pittsburgh yesterday to do a simple act: say “thank you” to a worker you encounter during the course of your day.
“We really believe that folks deserve to be thanked for the work they’re doing,” said Catherine Balsamo, our Member Coordinator in Pittsburgh, “This campaign obviously speaks to younger people, but it’s really for everybody, whether your name is on your front pocket or the front office.”
Jennifer Pfifer, who covered the event for 90.5 Essential Public Radio in Pittsburgh, wrote that the response was positive. While we all have different jobs, we all go through a similar slog.
One West End resident, Idris Delaney, wrote a note for the employees at a Downtown fast-food restaurant, where he usually stops on his way to work. “I wrote ‘I just want to thank you for serving your customers,’” he said. “Sometimes it gets hard working a job like that. … I think it’s a blessing to be able to say thanks to them once in a while.”
Another passerby, Brian McCarty, a construction worker from Youngstown, OH, said, “This is a great idea, because a lot of people don’t get thanked daily for what they do. It helps out and makes you want to keep working.”
So why is this important? Here’s one way to think about it. Part of the problem with the American economy right now is how disconnected our thinking is when it comes to work. Our small business owners struggle for paying customers, but then don’t speak out when right-wing legislators strip fair share rights, which leads to lower wages. Executives bemoan the lack of qualified candidates for technical position, but fall silent when funding for job training is cut and school budgets are slashed.
A car dealer in Miami wonders why business is slow – but the waitress who was going to get a new Ford is too nervous to make that investment while the debate in Tallahassee revolves around cutting her wages. Same goes for the nurse in Orlando, who wanted a new Chevy but is now required by the legislature to contribute more of her paycheck to her pension and healthcare.
Like Catherine said, this matters whether your name is on your front pocket or your front office. We don’t need to be economists to know that businesses need customers, managers need employees, and workers need wages, training, and a pathway to succeed if anything is going to function.
That business owner who wants paying customers? She’s not a “special interest.” The construction worker who wants an hourly wage high enough to afford health care for his kid? He’s not a “special interest” either. These are people exercising their common sense.
That’s why the folks in downtown Pittsburgh were so willing to write a thank you note to the workers they encounter every day. They know that work, whether you are seeking it or surviving it, connects all of us. The more that our elected leaders understand that concept, the better off we’ll all be.
We don’t ask for every politician to agree with us. But saying one thing and doing the opposite? That’s another story.
Tom Corbett was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in part because of his promises of reform: in his words, ending perks and special privileges and cutting red tape. “Tom Corbett believes that we need to shrink the size of government through accountability and transparency,” reads the Issues page of his website.
New policies implemented by Corbett’s office, however, run completely counter to the promises he made during the campaign. Or to put it another way, it turns out that Corbett’s promises apply to some Pennsylvanians and not others.
A group of activists for disabled citizens also want “accountability and transparency,” which is why they planned to protest at the state Capitol in response to Corbett’s cuts to transportation. The Governor’s response? Keep them out, and keep them away.
The group of disabled activists, who call themselves American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) called the protest to help stop the “erosion of consumer choice,” “restricting eligible consumers from services and creating waiting lists” and creating fraud “where none exists” as an excuse to “institutionalize the disabled community.”
In response, the Capitol building has been locked down and barricaded, specifically, the building’s elevators, to keep the activists from getting inside. Allentown Morning Call politics blog Capitol Ideasis on the scene, Tweeting photos of the barricades.
So when Corbett promised accountability and transparency in government, I guess he wasn’t including himself. He should’ve made that more clear on the campaign trail.
This is only one in the long line of policies coming from this governor that do an about-face from his campaign rhetoric. The man who pledged small government and less red tape placed the entire city of Harrisburg under state control, with a state-appointed, un-elected financial manager named David Unkovich. The latest news is that three elected City Council members object to the “fiscal recovery plan” of the un-elected financial manager. If the will of the state-appointed manager overrides the wishes of the local government, isn’t that the very definition of the “big government” mentality Corbett ran against?
Corbett’s response to Harrisburg? State control. Corbett’s response to school districts running out of money as a result of his budget cuts? State control. Corbett’s response to activists who want to express their displeasure with his budget cuts? Use taxpayer-funded security to keep them out.
And it’s a huge coincidence that his big campaign donors include oil drillers, private school owners, and corporate executives?
When it comes to government, we expect that people will have different opinions. Working America members believe that government does have a limited role to play in people’s lives; that we are collectively better off when we have basic public services, a fair tax code, and public funding for better roads, bridges, education, and healthcare for those who otherwise can’t afford it. Disagree? That’s fine. That’s your right.
But Corbett’s policies are not about “limited government” or “accountability and transparency.” His policies are about taking care of his rich and powerful friends while the rest of us deal with worsening schools, deteriorating roads, underfunded universities, rising energy costs, and a seemingly endless unemployment crisis. And when it comes to the average working stiff wanting to make their voice heard, government suddenly becomes very big indeed.
Today in Michigan and Arizona, Republicans go to the polls to register their choice for the Republican presidential nominee. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama spoke at a gathering of United Auto Workers members in Washington. Although the election is still months away, of course these events aren’t happening isolated from one another.
There’s a bigger question at play here than who wins the prettier headline on a Beltway paper tomorrow, and it’s a question we’re sure to keep fighting about all year. It’s “what is the economy for, anyway?”
It’s a good question, because how you measure the answer says a lot about what you think we need to do to fix it. Do we measure the economy purely by whether a line on a chart is pointing up or down? Do we measure it by whether the very wealthiest people are able to make themselves endlessly wealthier? Or is the health of “the economy” measured by something a little more tangible, a little broader?
You don’t have to pretend President Obama has been perfect on every issue facing working people to notice that there’s a difference in how he and Republican candidate Mitt Romney talk about the auto rescue program—a program that, largely, has worked to keep the industry alive and make it profitable again. While Romney used his time in Michigan to bash the auto rescue as a “bailout” for unions and push an economic agenda that would shift money away from Medicaid into upper-class tax cuts, Obama defended the auto rescue as part of an economy where we all have a stake in each other’s success.
You know why the “bailout for unions” storyline completely collapses under examination? Because union members—the people who, after all, built these companies—gave up a lot to save them. They made concessions on wages, benefits and retiree pensions. They offered to lose things that they had fought and bargained for because they wanted to protect the industry not just for them but for workers after them. It will not be easy to win back the things that were promised them, things they let go at personal cost. As the president said, that’s actual sacrifice. That’s not the action of a greedy special interest looking to loot the taxpayer, that’s the action of a group of people who understand what “the economy” really means.
If you think “the economy” is purely about the bank accounts of the 1%, maybe a program like the auto rescue doesn’t make a lot of sense. But if—like our members do—you think of the “the economy” as meaning how we’re all doing, then saving those jobs, for the past three years and for the future, is vital.
When the people we talk to talk about the economy, they mean something simple. Can I get a job? Can I stay out of debt, feed my family, and not go bankrupt if I get sick? Will I and my neighbors be able to stay in our homes? Will my kids be able to get a decent education and build a life for themselves? After a lifetime of hard work, will I be able to retire? Candidates of both parties need to look at what they’re saying about “the economy” and figure out how it answers those questions.
United Steelworkers (USW) Local 207L members ratified by a 2-to-1 margin a new five-year contract with Cooper Tire and Rubber Company The vote ends a three-month lockout at the company’s Findlay, Ohio tire plant.
USW Local 207L President Rodney Nelson says:
We are proud to have remained united and delivered a fair contract, despite Cooper’s best attempts to divide us.
The workers were locked out by Cooper on Nov. 28, despite the union’s good-faith offer to continue working under the terms of the previous agreement while negotiations toward a new one proceeded, says USW District 1 Director Dave McCall.
Cooper needs to acknowledge that its loyal, productive and efficient USW workforce is the company’s most valuable asset in Findlay and treat them with the respect and dignity they have earned. For many years, Cooper was a good example of how workers and management could work together toward common goals and the greater good of the community.
Several Cooper Tire workers and Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers (BCTGM) locked out by American Crystal Sugar just ended a 1,000 mile Journey for Justice. The group traveled from American Crystal offices near Fargo, N.D., to Cooper Tire’s headquarters in Findlay.
The journey highlighted the corporate greed that marks their lockouts, and the growing drive by corporate CEOs to drive down wages and benefits to pad their own pockets. Says Teresa Brown, a 12-year Cooper employee:
We set out to spread the message that we must stand together to make a difference, and we sent that message loud and clear. Our fight and the fight for justice for thousands of other workers continues every day.
Adds Becki Jacobson, a 30-year American Crystal worker from Moorhead, Minn.:
The support we’ve received over the last five days has strengthened my resolve to keep up our fight for a fair contract.
