By Jamie West
USW Local 6500
Whenever I read this phrase: “As more and more municipalities and governments are saying, business as usual simply cannot continue…”, I recognize it as the preamble to increased austerity measures – typically cuts to unionized public sector workers.
With record low tax rates for corporations, our government pretends to have a spending problem (when they actually have an income problem). This time, the government wants you to blame police officers – instead of obscene corporate tax cuts – for their budget woes. Expect to see more and more stories about “high police wages” and “escalating costs” from the government. Next, the media will repeat key phrases like “rising cost of policing,” and “wages and benefits are a high percentage of the budget.” All of this will help get the public mindset ready to accept that the police are overpaid and that claw backs are necessary.
That might seem far-fetched, but this is the same strategy that has been used successfully in the past to manipulate citizens opinions about other unionized workers in the public sector. It’s a shell game where they convincing you to be angry at workers who earn a living wage while distracting you from analyzing corporate welfare. Not convinced? How does the public feel about teachers, nurses, city workers, and postal workers?
In my opinion, the next “greedy union villains” will be workers in the police force. The key words are already being trickled out. Before you know it, public opinion will sway away from the heroes of 911 who serve and protect us every day. That image will be replaced with the false blame of budget deficits. Finally, we will be given a solution: privatization and claw backs – pay those greedy workers less. It will be wrapped in a fancy name to make it sound important and educated: austerity. Finally, politicians and the media will repeat the phrase “austerity measures” like it’s the solution to all our budget problems. But it’s actually the cause.
Fortunately, you will have seen this coming. You will know that you are being manipulated to blame deficits on middle-class taxpayers who pay their fair share instead of profitable corporations that don’t. You will realize that our shrinking government budgets aren’t due to spending problems – they are due to earning problems; that they aren’t solved through austerity measures – they are created by them.
Don’t fall for this suckers game again. Public opinion about any union becomes public opinion about all unions. Brothers and sisters, unionized workers are under attack, so what must we do?
Stand Up! Fight Back!
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Posted January 17, 2013 at 5:01 pm, in Free Speech Zone
