Blog

Stewart Acuff
Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President, Utility Workers Union of America

Austerity, by any other name, is still austerity.

Austerity has bound much of Europe in its iron-fisted grasp. The working families of Greece are suffering grievously losing jobs, social benefits, family savings and wealth but fighting back as best they can in the streets.

When I was in Britain, the fear and the talk was all about losing the National Health Service. The Conservative Government has already contracted out some functions to private vendors. Twenty-thousand British workers turned out to protest the closing of ONE local hospital. Spain is facing austerity measures. Much of the demands for austerity come from the conservative leaders of Germany.

Only an NDP (New Democratic Party) victory in Canada will prevent austerity measures in that country. One of the reasons I am so excited about the elections this spring in Canada is that the Canadian people can stop the austerity train rolling around the world.

In the USA, we don’t call austerity, austerity. In America, austerity goes by other names. Right now the threat is sequestration, a self-imposed crisis that will force huge indiscriminate cuts across the federal budget if radical right-wing Republicans continue to refuse to bargain with President Obama about a balanced plan that will raise revenues and not force us into a deeper economic crisis. At this point, words like recession and depression have lost their meaning for average Americans. Though the economists deny it, we still suffer the recession-depression left to us by Bush and his buds on Wall Street. And that same crowd still demands that average Americans pay for their monumental greed and childish recklessness. (more…)

By Hugh J. Campbell
Philadelphia, Pa., son of a Steelworker

The book Here’s the Deal takes on the partisan issues of tax cuts versus spending, and admirably examines the proximate causes of our fiscal dilemma but overlooks several root causes. No mention is made of the free trade induced cumulative U.S. trade deficit, since the early 1970s, of over $10 trillion, how it has structurally weakened our economy and its quadruple effect on our fiscal deficit.

Also ignored is how virtually all our major trading partners have replaced tariffs with value-added taxes (VATs) as highly effective consumption tax to minimize tax avoidance, enhance global competitiveness and increase savings/investment.

The quadruple effect of the trade deficit includes: higher safety net spending, reduced general tax and employment tax revenue, and lower interest rates, which have artificially ballooned the present value of off-balanced sheet liabilities like Social Security and Medicare.

The decline in general and employment tax revenue as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 9/30/2000 to 9/30/2004 was 26.75 percent and 6.12 percent respectively. This was even before the financial crisis developed, yet as revenue declines were readily apparent, on Dec. 8, 2003, Medicare Part D was signed into law adding approximately $7.6 trillion to our off-balance sheet liabilities. This combined with the effect of declining interest rates has caused our off-balance sheet liabilities to increase by $35.4 trillion, or over 175 percent, in eight years from ($20.2 trillion at 9/30/2000 to $55.6 trillion at 9/30/2008). Our entire fiscal crisis has not been manufactured but a large percentage appears to be a well-orchestrated fleecing of the 99 percent.

***

To submit a blog to Free Speech Zone, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again! This is a Free Speech Zone.

My surgery went fine Friday. I had to use FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) for the next couple months of work I’ll be missing.

Twenty years ago last week, then-President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) into law.

Before the passage of the FMLA, far too many workers had to make the intolerable choice between keeping their jobs or taking the time to give birth or deal with a family crisis. The FMLA extended a much-needed helping hand to families in their time of need and it has now benefited more than 10 million working families.

Now, twenty years after the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, the time has come for Congress to expand the law to cover more families and provide paid leave for workers.

Only one in five of all new mothers are able to utilize the law’s benefits. Lesbian and gay partners and spouses are not covered. More than three-quarters of the eligible workers who need leave are unable to use it because they cannot afford to go without their wages. (more…)

By Hugh J. Campbell
Philadelphia, Pa., son of a Steelworker

Harry Moser, founder of Reshoring Initiative, is courageously engaged in a debate on Economist.com. The link to the debate follows: Offshoring & outsourcing: Do multinational corporations have a duty to maintain a strong presence in their home countries?  Moser’s opponent argues that: competitiveness is hardly likely to be undermined by multinational corporations investing abroad.

Since 1997, with multinational corporations able to defer paying U.S. income tax on overseas earnings, multinational corporations investing abroad has undermined America’s competitiveness, perhaps more than any other single factor. Al-Qaeda’s central aim in its war on the United States is to bleed America to the point of bankruptcy. If you view offshoring and outsourcing as weapons of economic destruction aimed at America, please vote yes in the debate that U.S. multinationals still have a duty to America.

***

To submit a blog to Free Speech Zone, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again! This is a Free Speech Zone.

Leo Toribio
Pittsburgh, Pa.

Patty Murray is the U.S. Senator from the state of Washington and Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. And Patty Murray’s view of how democracy should work is evidently very much like my own. For years I have advocated giving citizens a much more active role in determining how our country is run. Certainly, with the internet and other tools at our disposal, that is an increasingly possible scenario, and it is one in which our neighbors in Canada are already actively engaged.

Now, thanks to Patty Murray, you can contribute your voice to the national budget debate here. You can also use the site to closely monitor what is happening in the budget debate, and I encourage you to do so, regardless of your political affiliations (as I will be doing).

***

To submit a blog to Free Speech Zone, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again! This is a Free Speech Zone.

Leo Toribio
Pittsburgh, Pa.

Where are we, how did we get here, and where do we go from here?  These are questions addressed in an outstanding article by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz.

To some extent they were also addressed by President Obama in his inaugural address.

But can the politicians in this country face up to their responsibilities to be Americans and not partisan idealogues?  Perhaps they can if we help them; if each and every one of us reminds them that they have a duty to the people of America and not just to some campaign contributors.

As we begin this new year, we should not hesitate to remind the politicians that a Republican President with a Republican Majority in both houses of Congress brought us to the brink of an economic depression. This is their chance to bring us back, not by cutting taxes, but by funding education and infrastructure and by ensuring that those who manage our businesses act ethically and fairly.

***

To submit a blog to Free Speech Zone, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again! This is a Free Speech Zone.

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.  (more…)

USW Local 8888 members in Newport News, Va., will be sporting a new solidarity sticker on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthdate, January 15, that honors the workers he sacrificed his life for in Memphis, Tenn., in 1968. The Local 8888 sticker slogan, “I AM UNION POWER,” is adapted from the defiant declaration of dignity, “I AM A MAN,” which was the rallying motto of 1,300 poor black sanitation workers in Memphis who staged a courageous strike in 1968 for union representation and against racism and poor working conditions.

The black community and unions across the nation rallied to support the men and their families during the 65-day strike. Eventually, their struggle so inspired Dr. King that he embraced their demands for dignity and justice as part of his Poor Peoples Campaign. Dr. King led a massive solidarity march through Memphis, where he delivered his famous last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” before he was tragically murdered on April 4, 1968.  In the tumultuous aftermath, the strikers ultimately won their major demand – recognition of their union, AFSCME Local 1733.

USW Local 8888 President Arnold Outlaw said the 8,000-member union issued its “I AM UNION POWER” sticker as the first solidarity action in its contract negotiations with Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding. USW International Vice President Fred Redmond (Human Affairs), who is the union’s chief negotiator, praised the new sticker slogan as fitting and “self-empowering.”

Dwight Kirk
Spokesman, USW Local 8888

It was a long road that brought us here: two years of passing out leaflets in the burning sun, crowding into a garage for membership meetings, and beating back the company’s misinformation on late-night calls with our co-workers.

But everyone’s hard work and determination paid off last month when we voted 3-to-1 to ratify our first ever union contract.

Workers at Haynes International in Arcadia, La., are now proud Steelworkers of Local 1505, protected by a strong collective bargaining agreement.

For us, forming a union was never about the pay (though our members aren’t complaining about the new increases).

Under our new contract, workers who used to put in month-long stretches with mandatory overtime and no scheduled days off will now have more time to spend with their families. We’ll receive the same medical coverage as longtime union workers at the company’s other plant, and we’ll finally have flexibility to visit our doctors and fully utilize that benefit. And, most important, we’ll have a voice on the job and a procedure for holding the company accountable.  (more…)

By Kent Hammond
Author, Terrorist, Inc.

In 1964 as an integral part of the civil rights movement, we Americans, under the leadership of President Lyndon B. Johnson, declared war on poverty and gave birth to the Great Society movement.  Many in Congress did not support these ideals; most of the antagonists were the same regional politicians that opposed civil rights.  Regardless a new era of American freedom was born by declaring all Americans are equal and none should be denied the basics of life, a fair opportunity and respect.  In 1964, while many such as I were serving our country and fighting for other peoples freedom in Vietnam, we still found the fortitude to create and pass several acts to engage in the war on poverty.

Civil rights is not a purely a minority ethnic issue; it was for all of us who were not born with a silver spoon in our mouth.  The poverty of the Appalachians, the coal country of West Virginia, was known and written about, but poverty existed and still exists today in our cities and in rural America consisting of all races and religions.  It is worth noting that the new demographic is not race or religion specific but those of multiple ethnic and national origins.  Those who are compelled to pick a race or mark other rather than check all that apply on job applications or federal forms.  This too is limiting our progress.

The following acts changed the world for many of us and we began to believe we were part of the American dream.  These are not entitlements these are rights most of which have been enacted into law and into our Constitution.

o   Civil Rights Act (1964):  As important as this act was and is today, it has no teeth without the other acts such as:

o   The Economic Opportunity Act (1964): Provided the basis for the

o   Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)

o   Job Corps

o   Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA)

o   Head Start

o   Legal Services

o   Neighborhood Youth Corps

o   Community Action Program (CAP)

o   College Work-Study program

o   Neighborhood Development Centers

o   Small Business loan programs

o   Rural programs

o   Migrant worker programs

o   Remedial education projects (more…)