Do Not Sever Labor from Democracy
Labor Day started in 1882 to celebrate and respect the contributions of American workers and provide them with a paid holiday. Today, “respect” and “celebrate” are less part of the equation. Today, the holiday feels more like a rallying call for action rather than a day of relaxation.
We need action on the economy, action on human rights and social justice, action on environmental justice. These are labor issues. It’s disingenuous and plain wrong to try to separate foundational democratic principles from the labor movement. They both need each other to survive.
We are approaching a critical election that will resurrect this country as a strong middle- class nation or steer us sharply toward plutocracy, toward a country where wealth equates with power and research is manipulated to maintain the wealth-power privilege.
Sound economic research doesn’t translate well into three-word insults hurled at campaign rallies. Building a wall, banning Muslims and Right to Work will not restore America to a prosperous middle-class nation based on justice and civil rights.
To claim otherwise is to conflate economic facts that bear little or no impact on each other. Tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations will not stimulate the American economy. A strong middle class stimulates the economy.
The New York Times, Pulitzer-prize winning economist Paul Krugman has plotted this Basic roadmap for recovery:
Collective bargaining for wages and grievances
Guaranteed health insurance
Increase in minimum wage
Adequate retirement and Social Security
Roadmap to plutocracy includes:
Tax cuts for the wealthy
Tax cuts for corporations
Right to Work and dismantling Prevailing Wage
Eliminating environmental regulations
Privatizing and weakening Social Security
Eliminating or failing to raise minimum wage
Dismantling the Affordable Care Act
Strengthening the influence of Wall Street and the power of big banks
The Economic Policy Institute has written that we are experiencing a historically weak economic recovery because we’re also experiencing deep cuts to government spending. What makes this more inexcusable is these cuts in government spending come at a period of historically low interest rates when we should be implementing massive investments into infrastructure.
The minimum wage is worth 25 percent less than it was in 1968, despite a doubling of productivity. The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates low to combat inflation and that has benefited Wall Street investors while working against full employment and rising wages.
Economist Robert Reich has written the road to recovery comes not from walls and exaggerated security measures but from coming together with common goals; not looking for tax cuts and loopholes but looking to pay a fair share; not by imposing onerous voter ID laws designed to disenfranchise segments of the population but by securing the right to vote for all qualified Americans; not hating and weakening government by insisting it impedes progress but by strengthening the role of government in solving problems; not by divisiveness but by promoting diversity.
Larry Summers, economic adviser to President Obama and former president of Harvard University, said infrastructure improvements have such a high rate of economic return that they are virtually self-funding.
In other words, during this period of historically low interest rates, we can borrow money to fund infrastructure improvements for roads, bridges, schools, the energy grid, environmental projects and more while stimulating the economy, creating jobs and growing a stronger community and more secure nation.
Those are economically sound reasons to join a rallying cry for labor on Labor Day Sept. 5. Efforts to cut labor out of an economic recovery dooms us to decades of stagnation until a political leader comes forward with the vision and understanding to start building bridges and advancing public policy rooted in sound research. (Clare Howard)