Actress, poet, film-maker and Ash Grove gang stalwart
The prior subjects are the war on drugs and
Ed
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/6277-focus-robert-reich-the-republican-war-on-workers-rights
FOCUS: The Republican War on Workers' Rights
Why the Republican war on workers' rights undermines the American economy.
he battle has resumed in
Meanwhile, governors and legislators in
Republicans in Congress are taking aim at the National Labor Relations Board, which issued a relatively minor proposed rule change allowing workers to vote on whether to unionize soon after a union has been proposed, rather than allowing employers to delay the vote for years. Many employers have used the delaying tactics to retaliate against workers who try to organize, and intimidate others into rejecting a union.
This war on workers' rights is an assault on the middle class, and it is undermining the American economy.
The American economy can't get out of neutral until American workers have more money in their pockets to buy what they produce. And unions are the best way to give them the bargaining power to get better pay.
For three decades after World War II - I call it the "Great Prosperity" - wages rose in tandem with productivity. Americans shared the gains of growth, and had enough money to buy what they produced.
That's largely due to the role of labor unions. In 1955, over a third of American workers in the private sector were unionized. Today, fewer than 7 percent are.
With the decline of unions came the stagnation of American wages. More and more of the total income and wealth of
But now all these coping mechanisms are exhausted - and we're living with the consequence.
Some say the Great Prosperity was an anomaly.
But this view is wrong. If you want to see the same basic bargain we had then, take a look at
What's
How did German workers do it? A big part of the story is German labor unions are still powerful enough to insist that German workers get their fair share of the economy's gains.
That's why pay at the top in
Contrast this with the
The only way back toward sustained growth and prosperity in the
Part of the answer is, as in
The current Republican assault on workers' rights continues a thirty-year war on American workers' wages. That long-term war has finally taken its toll on the American economy.
It's time to fight back.
Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the
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From: Jimmy Walter [mailto:jwalter@walden3.org]
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 9:26 PM
Subject: FW: Workers' share of national income plummets to record low - Yahoo! News
Over the last decade, the share of
Check out the chart below, compiled by the Labor Department, and posted this week by conservative writer David Frum. It shows that the decline began with the brief recession that followed 9/11 in 2001. But it continued even as the economy picked up again, and got even worse once the Great Recession hit. In the weak recovery since then, workers' share of income just kept on falling.
Why are workers taking home such a reduced share of the pie? Opinions differ, but many experts think that the trend has to do with a number of factors, including a decline in the bargaining power of labor, and increased competition from foreign workers. Similarly, over the last year or so, U.S. companies have made record profits, while unemployment has stayed high and wages have barely risen.
The chart jibes with other data, which show that since the 1980s, income for the richest 1 percent of Americans has exploded, while hardly budging at all for everyone else.
Still, there's little sense that either Obama administration or Congress plan to do much about this growing inequality. Indeed, any serious action to boost the economy and cut unemployment now seems to be off the table.
Money is just shiny stones and fancy paper.
"When we say ‘our rulers’, we mean those who are engaged in the manipulation of symbols (bankers, priests, lawyers, politicians, [media]). We [are] a symbolic class of life… those who control the symbols rule us…" - Korzybski
From: James Phillips [mailto:texfarmboys@msn.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 6:13 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Workers' share of national income plummets to record low - Yahoo! News
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