Labor Day 2011: Honor those who built the nation

By Jeff Johnson

Labor Day is a time to celebrate the work that we do that has created the economic and social fabric of America.

When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. joined the striking sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968, he proclaimed that “all labor has dignity” and should be afforded the means to achieve the “American Dream.”

That “American Dream” has been rapidly unraveling during the current “Great Recession” and is under full scale attack by corporate America that won’t invest, banks that won’t lend, and politicians who would rather fight over fake political crises, like the debt ceiling, than create jobs.

As austerity budgets are imposed across our country, the great irony is that workers, the elderly, students, immigrants, the poor and the vulnerable, the ones who most suffer under these budget cuts, are being blamed for deficits they did not create.

Wall Street banks caused the immediate economic crisis by treating the economy as if it were their private casino and credit default swaps were their chips – and now these same banks sit on over a trillion dollars of assets and continue to dole out obscene bonuses to the very people who brought us the recession.

But the collapse of the U.S. economy and the world economy has had devastating impacts on working people. In the U.S. and in our state the unemployment rate remains above 9%. It’s twice that if you count those who have dropped off the unemployment rolls without finding work and those working part-time involuntarily. It’s three times 9 percent in the building and construction trades. And it’s higher still for youth and workers of color.

Not since the 1920s has there been such a gross disparity of income and wealth in our country. Workers and the poor simply don’t have the purchasing power to give the economy a boost.

Faced with plunging revenues and increasing demand for social services, state and local governments lack the resources to invest in the social, physical and public infrastructure needed to help strengthen the private economy. Some states are using their deficits in an attempt to crush public employee unions and devastate state and local safety nets.

For several decades our economy has been weakened through policies that have accelerated the concentration of wealth at the top: Deregulation of the financial industry and a tax policy that coddles the wealthy and rewards employers for off-shoring U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Free trade agreements have deindustrialized the U.S. economy through the loss of 50,000 manufacturing plants over the last ten years, have run up huge U.S. trade deficits; and have failed to protect the workers’ most basic labor, environmental, and human rights.

Wisconsin, Ohio and other states have exploited their deficits to eviscerate the collective bargaining rights of public employees. Their public employee unions had grown too influential, it was argued, created too strong a voice for working people and the social safety net, and were therefore responsible for the deficits.

The community response was that Governors Walker and Kasich had severely overreached. People understood that the recession, and not the unions, had caused the deficits.

The popular uprising in Wisconsin has led to the recall of two Republican state senators. In Ohio, citizens have gathered 1.3 million signatures to refer that state’s anti-collective bargaining law to this November’s ballot.

At the federal level we have the manufactured debt ceiling crisis and the resulting “super committee” that will determine our country’s spending and revenue direction. Are the deficits we face as a nation the result of overly generous Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits, too many workplace health and safety inspections, and too much spending on monitoring clean water and air? Or are they the result of an unfair tax system, a financial industry out of control, trade policies that weaken our overall economy, and the financing of two wars?

We in labor believe the question answers itself. We believe that as a nation, and as a state, we need to confront the real crises facing us –The burning need for jobs, for revenue and for the restoration of moral leadership.

We need to create public jobs programs on the scale of the Works Projects Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps pf the 1930s. Every state has failing transportation infrastructure – roads, bridges, transit - that we can invest in. We could energy retrofit public buildings creating tens of thousands of jobs, creating demand in the clean energy sector, and reducing our carbon footprint. We could invest in smart energy grids and broadband expansion creating tremendous common good and creating demand for privately produced products. All these investments would create employment, income, and consumer demand.
We need to oppose “Free Trade Agreements” that create substantial net job losses and tax policies that reward the off-shoring of U.S. jobs.

We need to enhance income support and safety net programs -- Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Trade Adjustment Assistance and mortgage relief for homeowners. These policies, too, will increase consumer demand.
In the short run the federal government needs to provide the funds for state and local governments to cover their recession-induced budget deficits. Providing strong state services, state and local employment, investing in our educational, health care, and transportation infrastructures helps create employment and demand and strengthens the private economy as well.

State and local governments need to use their procurement policies to purchase goods and services from local employers employing local workers wherever possible. Similarly, state and local governments can invest their tax receipt accounts, social insurance trust funds, and pension funds in banks that are committed to injecting credit into local communities to finance job-generating investments.

We need a fair tax system that provides the revenue to maintain healthy communities. In our state, we need to place a moratorium for several years on many of the 567 tax exemptions that choke off the revenue we need.

Above all, we need to remove the requirement that any measure to raise revenue or remove tax exemptions must have the support of two-thirds of the legislators. This undemocratic requirement gives a minority of legislators a choke-hold on state revenue and frustrates the will of the majority.

Dr. King used to say, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” To bend that arc will take courage and moral leadership. Join us in bending that arc toward justice!

(Jeff Johnson is President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, and a PSARA member.)