by Seth Michaels, Mar 19, 2008
Why is the U.S. economy failing working people? It’s a failure of public policy at the highest levels. The solution is to push hard for a new agenda that puts working people first, according to panelists at “The Economics of Shared Prosperity,” a session at Take Back America 2008.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka says the economic challenges of the past several years and the recession most of us believe we’re in have been the “predictable result” of a set of policies that define growth only in terms of what’s good for corporations, not for working families. Unfair trade policies, privatization, deregulation and the suppression of workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain have been part of a public policy agenda that enriches a few at the expense of nearly everyone else. Even as productivity has gone up, workers have seen less and less of a share of the benefits, Trumka told the session.
The economy is made up of rules. Those rules decide the winners and losers. Those rules are decided by men and women we elect, and those rules can be changed just like the men and women we elect. I want us to keep that in mind.
Turning the country around starts with beefing up progressive majorities in Congress and electing a new president, but it doesn’t end there, Trumka says. While he notes the importance of engaging in a historic mobilization around the elections, Nov. 4 won’t be the end of the work. Those mobilized workers need to hold the newly elected leaders accountable and ensure that they pass new, better policies to restore the balance between rich and poor and between employees and employers. Adds Trumka:
Turning around America is what our campaign for 2008—and 2009—is all about. We will not stop, I promise you, until we destroy the walls of greed that corporate policies have built around the workers and the middle class.
We’re not going to dismantle our mechanism on election night. We’re going to keep our mechanism in place, and we’re going to use it to jab ‘em in the backside when they slow down. Then when the next election comes around, we’ll give them their report card.
Trumka says this energized movement will be there to make sure economic policy isn’t placed only in the hands of Wall Street and corporate interests—–as it has been for years.
Larry Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, points out a variety of areas in which a new agenda for shared prosperity is necessary, including health care, retirement, education, trade and energy. A better agenda would be one that rewarded work and allowed people to balance work and family, through good wages, benefits, medical leave and child care. Mishel agrees with Trumka that a return to the freedom to form unions is an essential part of the picture.
We need a revitalization of unionism in this country. It’s essential not only for economic fairness but for justice in the workplace. There is no democracy without a strong labor movement.
Two other scholars, Tamara Draut of Demos and William Darity Jr. of Duke University, describe the way the corporate-dominated politics and policy we now live with are putting younger people and people of color at a particular disadvantage, because of the way wealth is distributed.
Draut, author of Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead, said a lack of investment in public education and the decline in wages are making it difficult for young people to have a middle-class life and economic security.
This is the first generation very likely to not surpass their parents’ living standards. If we are going to embark on creating more prosperity, it’s absolutely critical that we look at what’s happening to young people.
The key problem, Draut says, is that due to stagnant wages and the rising cost of education, younger people are going into debt—especially those coming from lower-income families.
Darity, who directs the University of North Carolina’s Institute of African American Research, says minority populations, historically disadvantaged, haven’t had an opportunity to build the kind of assets that help working families weather economic decline.
The central problem associated with race in America is dense inequality, and at the center of these inequalities are group-based disparities in wealth.
Trumka says that one danger to building a better deal for working families is if Sen. John McCain(R-Ariz.) becomes president. The AFL-CIO’s McCain Revealed is designed to get the facts out—in person, online and in the news—about McCain’s anti-working family record. Says Trumka:
Everything we work for can unravel if we underestimate McCain. He’s been a right-wing warrior in lockstep with the most anti-union, anti-middle class president in our history, George Bush.
We have too much at stake to leave this to chance. Don’t let statements about his record go unchallenged. We need to put information in their hands. We have to define him for what he is.
If we can win this fall—and Trumka is optimistic we can—the next step is to keep working families united and mobilized behind health care, fair trade, fair taxation and the freedom to form unions.
The AFL-CIO’S plan for a stronger, fairer economy is part of our campaign to Turn Around America.
More articles at http://blog.aflcio.org/