Paul Krugman, a Nobel-prize laureate in Economics, professor at Princeton University, and a columnist for the New York Times has published an extraordinary piece in the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine. In it, he writes an open letter to President Obama, giving his advice on some steps that he'd advise the new president to take in order to get our economy back on track.
One of the solutions Krugman advises in his letter is for President Obama to "pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it much harder for employers to intimidate workers who want to join a union." The economist believes that the legislation will "enable America to take a huge step toward recapturing the middle-class society we've lost."
Krugman begins by framing just how bad our economic situation is, calling it "worse than anyone imagined." Any type of growth over the last few years was "fueled by an explosion of private debt," leaving credit markets "in disarray," with "business and consumers...pulling back and the economy in free-fall."
One of the main problems, says Krugman, is that the "U.S. economy needs to add more than a million jobs a years just to keep up with a growing population," and as of today, we're "continuing to lose jobs at the rate of half a million a month."
Krugman looks, historically, at lessons from the FDR administration during its successful attempt at navigating our country through the Great Depression in the 1930's. A key take-away from FDR's success is that a president has to be "really bold in (his) job-creation plans." Otherwise, the economy turns to a vicious cycle: cutbacks on spending lead to a "shortfall in demand," which leads to a fall in employment, and continues to spiral.
FDR's biggest accomplishment, says Krugman is that the New Deal made America a middle-class society. He explains:
"Under FDR, America went through what labor historians call the Great Compression, a dramatic rise in wages for ordinary workers that greatly reduced income inequality. Before the Great Compression, America was a society of rich and poor; afterward it was a society in which most people, rightly, considered themselves middle class."Krugman suggests that in order to understand the "Great Compression," we should look no further than the rise of organized labor. Unions, he says, "not only negotiated better wages for their own members, they also enhanced the bargaining power of workers throughout the economy."
Krugman is also quick to point out a common critique of labor that was wrong then, and continues to be wrong now:
"At the time, conservatives warned that wage gains would have disastrous economic effects -- that the rise of unions would cripple employment and economic growth. But in fact, the Great Compression was followed by the great postwar boom, which doubled American living standards over the course of a generation."In the 1970's, however, the "Great Compression was reversed starting in the 1970s, as American workers once again lost much of their bargaining power. " Krugman suggests that we can create another Great Compression by enhancing worker's rights.
You can read the full letter here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/25456948/what_obama_must_do/printt. There's plenty of good stuff that we've left out of this blog post that's worth checking out, for sure.
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Epic union struggle enters its endgame
SEIU's Andy Stern (left) is clashing with UHW's Sal Rosselli (Guardian photo of Rosselli by Charles Russo)
By Steven T. Jones
A high-stakes feud between United Healthcare Workers and its parent union, Service Employees International Union, reached a critical point today when SEIU’s International Executive Board approved a set of findings essentially accusing UHW of insubordination and financial irregularities and threatening to take over UHW if it doesn’t atone for its perceived sins within five days.
As the Guardian has reported, the conflict revolves around a power struggle between SEIU head Andy Stern, who has been seeking to consolidate power within the international, and UHW head Sal Rosselli (based out of the union’s Oakland office), who is seeking to preserve the autonomy of SEIU locals and affiliates, particularly his own.
UHW spokesperson Sadie Crabtree says the union’s executive board will be meeting soon to discuss how to respond to SEIU, which is threatening to take over UHW with a trusteeship within five days unless UHW agrees in writing to abide by an SEIU decision merging UHW’s long-term care workers into other SEIU locals, publicizes this decision to its members, purges its database of names allegedly pilfered from SEIU, and agrees to a fiscal audit by SEIU and to follow SEIU orders.
“The decision reaffirms that in SEIU, ‘justice’ means injustice for all those who disagree with Stern and his cronies,” UHW said in a press release, while SEIU put out a statement that, “SEIU leaders believe this is a moment of history to change this country, and we believe this decision offers an opportunity to join together everyone in SEIU to change America.”
You can read the relevant documents on the case here. Stay tuned to this blog for the latest developments in this unfolding story and grab next week’s Guardian for a more detailed analysis of the conflict.
By Steven T. Jones: January 22, 2009 07:24 PM
Comments (1)
Steve McGonigle:
I have alot of problems with this going on, locals being cut up, which gives Andy Stern more power and the members a lesser voice. I wonder if all of the members of UHW voted on whether to stay as they are or do as the IEB wants, what would the outcome be. The International wants to state that this is the democratic way, it was voted on. Well than why do you want to take away the right of workers to vote on whether or not they want to have a union at the workplace?
I believe in the EFCA(Employee Free Choice Act) in priciple, but there are some things I think need to be changed with this legislation.
I lost my job, at Nova Southeastern University, because I was a major supporter of the organizing of of the Janitors and the Landscapers at this campus. I was a Lead Painter, was paid well and had no problems on the job. But, because of my fierce support of my co-workers, I lost my job along with 107 janitors and landscapers. I put myself out there, in the newspaper, press releases for the Union (SEIU) and basically became a leader in this struggle. After I lost my job I went to work for SEIU Local 11 in Miami Florida and was laid off in August of 2008 because SEIU Local 32BJ out of New York took over Local 11. Today, I believe because of my support of the Union, I am jobless, I believe I have been black balled because of my Union activity, I google my name and up pops up all of the newspaper articles and press releases with my name, I was arrested during a protest in support of the workers at Fisher Island. I am forced to file bankruptcy because I have had my vehicle repossed, my investment property foreclosed on, in short I have lost a lot because of this. My life has done a 180, before this I was happy, not making a huge amount of money, but was able to pay bills and go out to eat once in a while. Now, I am broke, have lost my dignity and does the Union care, No. I am beginning to realize that I was just a tool for them. To this day I wonder how the organizers and leaders can live with themselves after they took part in destroying 108 people's lives. I know I could not. They got paid to do what they did, did not sacrifice anything, we did all of the sacrificing. And where are they now. The Union has basically disassociated themselves with these workers, no communication with then, it is just plain immoral.
Now back to the EFCA, I believe things need to be changed, we went through much in our attempt to organize, and the current Labor Laws do not support us. In November of last year I went to a hearing at the NLRB (National Labor relations Board) for an incident that happened during our struggle in August of 2006. Why did it take so long? This needs to be changed. We lost our jobs in February of 2007. Employers need to be held to a more strict law, that if the interfere with the workers in attempts to organize, they will have to pay big fines.
I think removing the election is not a neccessary step if the laws protect the workers more than they do now. Also, the Union wants to allow card check as a way of organizing, why not card check as a way of disaffiliation? That only would be fair. UHW has filed a dissaffiliation request with the International, watch what happens. I only think it holds the Union accountable, and if the workers are not happy with the Union, it gives them a way out, just as they had a way in.
When I first became aware of this in the beginning, my wishes were that Andy Stern and Sal Rosselli get together and hash things out, but I guess that was not possible. I believe no one is 100% right or wrong in this fight, but if the leadership of this Union cannot resolve their problems without it escalating to what this has, what does it say about the Union.
I do not believe trusteeship is the way to go, it has back-fired on Andy Stern recently, Tyrone Freeman and others, but I think if two very intelligent men can sit down and debate openly and honestly with each other, this can be resolved. It only takes a willingness to be open minded.
We will see what happens.
Posted by Steve McGonigle | January 23, 2009 06:27 AM