Unions
Keep Poverty on the Agenda
Published August 30, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
With the death of Sen. Kennedy and the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina both happening this week, the topic of poverty was fresh in the public's mind. In eulogizing Kennedy, most of us could take pride in remembering his service to "working people" everywhere, his commitment to poverty reduction over the life of his career. With Katrina, it is also about a job unfinished, but with a much less nostalgic, sweet glow - the enduring problems of blight, housing insecurity, racial inequality and poverty are glaring, graphic, and depressing.
Whether you're motivated to action by the inspiring good works of folks like Senator Kennedy, or fueled by a sense of outrage over injustice, this past week offered plenty of reminders that poverty is a persistent, entrenched, political problem for which solutions exist. Investments in early childhood education pay lifetime dividends. Economic boycotts and union movements highlight workers' rights and benefits. Providing childcare, fair pay, and extensive family leave policies give mothers better opportunities to compete economically and earn enough to care for their families. And universal health care bankrupts neither households nor the entire medical system.
Change.org is just one platform where you can commit (and re-commit) to fighting poverty in the U.S. To start, let's begin by keeping poverty on the public agenda - as a problem we can and must solve. Let's not let it slip away as our weekend tributes wrap up. As Uncle Teddy and 15k volunteers in New Orleans remind us, the cause endures and the work goes on.
("Not Everyone in SF is Rich..." by Son of Groucho)
Highest Income Inequality Ever
Published August 16, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
We've surpassed even the vaunted inequality of the 1920s - the "Gilded Age" years that preceded the Great Depression. In 2007, the top 10% of American workers took home just under 50% of all wages. Think about that: if 10 workers were to split $100, one guy (no doubt) would get $49.70, and the remaining 9 would split $51.30. What do you think that one man does for a living compared to the other nine? What jobs, to your mind, possibly deserve that kind of distorted payout?
The paper, written by a Berkeley professor, shows how from 1993 through 2007, the top 1% of earners captured "half of the overall economic growth." Think about how hard you've been working at your job for the past two decades - now you know where your hard-earned profits have gone! And the trend continues - the just released Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows American workers are working longer hours for less pay. Make sure you click through the link to see that thanks to all this productivity, corporate profits are up.
And the cycle continues.
Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly thinks if Democrats or progressives try to rectify this inequality they will be charged with fomenting "class warfare." David Sirota sees the wrangling over Social Security and concludes we're all ready there. We've asked a few times here: is it time to protest yet?
Poverty @ Netroots Nation
Published August 14, 2009 @ 11:00AM PT
Many of my fellow bloggers have gone to Netroots Nation for the weekend; ironically, I suppose, I lack the funds for the trip.
It's too bad; Netroots Nation is one of the best known coalitions of progressively-minded activists in the country and certainly the best known for those of us who use the web and media for our work. The annual conference is taking place in Pittsburgh this year, a city I'd love to visit some day.
So let's pretend I'm at NN, and take a look at a few of the key convenings I'd be joining on behalf of Poverty in America:
Is it Time to Protest Yet?
Published August 03, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
More on those unemployment #s: Corrente takes a look at the National Employment Law Project report on unemployment - 1.5M Americans will have exhausted their unemployment benefits by 12/31/09 - and wonders if this is what will finally "break" us. And by break I mean rise up and fight back against atrocious wealth inequality.
I'm skeptical. Almost one-third of unemployed workers haven't worked in six months. That's a long time to be home all day, surfing the internet, sending out resumes, playing with your kids, letting yourself go, feeling your self-confidence and sense of self-worth along with your "soft skills" just totally atrophy. And from this sense of desperation we're going to fight for our economic rights? Revolution doesn't come from desperation; it comes from a sense of entitlement that we deserve more. We have to recognize our own oppression before we can revolt against it. This idea that work = self-worth means that out-of-work Americans just aren't our go-to revolutionaries. We're nothing without our jobs, and we get nothing from our society without them. And we buy into this set-up.
We're coming on 6 months since we last had this conversation about worker protest. As 500,000 Americans gear up to lose their unemployment benefits next month, seems like now's the time to have this discussion again.
What's it going to take, people??
(Photo of strike threat by janitorial workers in Santa Monica by Steve Lyons)
On Health Care: The Wal-Mart Effect in Washington
Published July 16, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
As Change.org's own Tim Foley reported a week or so ago, Wal-Mart has recently come out (in a letter to President Obama co-signed by the Center for American Progress and Service Employees International Union) in support of an employer mandate that would require most businesses to provide health care coverage to all of their employees.
This change of heart by the mega-corporation--whose dismal labor practices have been well-documented over the past decade--has been called a major political turning point in the nation's current health care reform debate, and could push the country towards more "universal" coverage for all its residents.
However, since reading about this corporate "coming to God" moment, I can't stop asking myself two important questions: why and at what cost has Wal-Mart chosen to support health care reform?
Happy 4th: On Class, Ethnicity & Immigration
Published July 04, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
My fiance and I are dog-sitting for my mom this weekend. Hopefully we're walking them along the beach in her CT town, enjoying the sun, whose warmth I've forgotten in the cloudiest June in Massachusetts in over 100 years.
Here's some interesting links for that downtime between the BBQs and naps I hope you're enjoying today:
MySpace is the ghetto, trailer park, or barrio of the internet. Discuss.
The Obama Administration is halting Bush's Nothin' But Raids approach to immigration and going after employers who hire undocumented workers. It's most high-profile case is against American Apparel, which raises questions about the effectiveness of this approach. It's definitely more humane. But will a fine of $150,000 make a remote bit of difference?
Police Chiefs from Miami, Austin, and Sacramento come together to call for immigrant legalization and a separation of duties between local police forces and immigration enforcement. Money quote: “When you remove the emotion from the debate,” [Austin] Chief Acevedo said, "no one can argue that it is in the best interest of public safety to keep these people living in the shadows.”
Finally, Richard Trumka is on track to move from Secretary-Treasurer to President of the AFL-CIO. Perhaps most famous for his moving speech on racism in the labor movement during Obama's candidacy last year (video above), Trumka "a former coal miner and fierce critic of corporate America...would bring a more combative style to running the federation at a time when organized labor seems to be growing weaker in the nation’s workplaces but stronger in Washington."
This fighting style is right up my alley, of course. Others worry he'll be too polarizing. There's a hilarious-in-its-irony quote from an exec at the US Chamber of Commerce, fretting about Trumka's aggressiveness and potential bad publicity for the "employer community." As we document here at Poverty in America, I think Corporate America's already doing a bang-up job there! Good luck to Trumka and the labor movement. Don't forget: Support EFCA!
Bank of America Accused of Latin@ Exploitation
Published July 01, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
A group of whistle-blowers has come forward, with the backing of SEIU, claiming that as employees of BOA they were taught to prey on low-income, Latin@ customers to sign up for a plethora of services - of redundant ones - in order to extract as many fees from them as possible. It's a pretty interesting read for the multiple competing interests in the article, and notable for its absence of any input from current or former customers.
The whistle-blowers, current and former employees, are mostly Spanish-speaking women on the front lines of customer sales. Some have been fired for expressing interest in unionizing, and SEIU is supporting them in what's becoming a campaign against BOA because it's trying to organize the nation's largest bank. BOA, of course, insists that it's practices are legal and customary in the industry, which is probably at least technically true, and that customers and employees alike are satisfied. What a mess.
