Wednesday, July 12, 2006
A Fight for Bread and Roses
When 25,000 textile workers struck in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912, many of the women strikers carried picket signs that said, “we want bread, and roses too.” This slogan came to represent the fight not only for a living wage, but for dignity and the right to enjoy life outside of work.
Today we face a situation much like that in the early part of the last century. Wages are falling, the cost of living is soaring, and most of the workforce is no longer unionized. Many work two or even three jobs to feed themselves and their families.
We need a change. It’s time to stand up and say to the bosses, “we want bread, and roses too!” But in order to succeed, we need to know two things: what we are fighting for, and how to fight for it. I want to propose a platform that addresses both of these concerns.
WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR:
Bread:
- A raise in the minimum wage to bring it above the cost of living and official poverty level. Minimum wages adjusted up for workers with dependents. (The purchasing power of the minimum wage is currently at its lowest level since 1955. The value of the minimum wage peaked in 1968, at $7.71 in 2006 dollars. Source: Economic Policy institute, www.epinet.org)
- An end to the threats against Social Security. Expansion of Social Security to provide a living wage to the elderly. Expansion of welfare and unemployment insurance to ensure that everyone gets paid a living wage, whether they can find work or not.
- Downsize the military and establish a youth job corps to provide independence, a living wage and valuable work experience to youth.
- Rewrite the tax code to relieve the burden of paying for government from working people while redistributing the wealth of the rich in the form of social welfare programs (see above). This can be done via a heavy, progressive income tax – only those in “comfortable” income brackets pay tax, and the more they make, the higher percentage of income they pay, with no tax cap. End sales tax and reduce or eliminate property taxes for properties owned by working people.
- Rewrite farm subsidies to benefit small producers. Subsidize small farms and organic production while removing subsidies for large-scale agribusiness. Outlaw dumping by large agribusiness. Guarantee a minimum price for farm commodities. Preserve one-person-one-share in cooperatives. Bring minimum wage for farm workers into line with the minimum wage in other sectors.
- Re-evaluate logging practices; make logging companies pay the true cost of forest management. Require logging to be done ecologically and sustainably. If logging companies fold, re-open under state ownership with workers’ control.
- Establish “affirmative action” for state spending in rural areas – state spending in rural counties should reflect true costs of services for those areas and make up for the lack of other funding sources (municipal, etc.). It should not be based on population size.
- State takeover of factories/industries that threaten to close or are delinquent in taxes or violate labor or environmental regulations. Run the factories via elected workers’ councils.
Roses:
- Reduction of work hours with no reduction in pay. The first way to accomplish this is by raising the minimum wage to a living wage. Make any work over the first 40 hours per week worth time-and-a-half, with all work on weekends paid double-time.
- Six months paid maternity and paternity leave. At least two weeks of paid vacation per year. Paid sick days.
- Free, public health care available to all. Period.
- Fully fund public schools and place them in the control of local communities. No public taxpayer money for private schools (i.e. school vouchers or charter schools run for profit). Reverse school funding formulas to provide the most money for the neediest schools. Make all schools great schools.
- Eliminate tuition for public colleges and universities. Everyone should be able to afford a college education.
- Expand funding for libraries.
- NO FEES FOR:
- Parks, forests and recreation areas – these lands are owned by the people; why does it cost to get in?!
- Public mass transit – we need it to combat global warming and provide a way to and from work without stealing people’s hard-earned wages.
- Public services, such as drivers’ licenses, courts, etc.
- Public communication services – i.e. phone, internet, etc.
HOW TO GET IT
- Independent political party. Every time a struggle for justice gets co-opted into the Democratic Party, it fizzles and dies. The struggle for worker’s rights is no exception. Especially up here in the North, many good people who consider themselves progressives are drawn into the Democratic Party. While their politics may sound good, they get stuck in endorsing and running candidates for office who are funded by the party machine – including donations from big business – and won’t stand up for workers’ rights in the end. We need our own farmer-labor party, one that won’t get co-opted by business to serve the interests of the owning class.
- Independent media. In today’s “media marketplace,” most people still get their news from corporate media, which is wholly owned by the boss class. The reigns on what real information we get from the media are being pulled tighter and tighter, and none of it is “fair and balanced” from a working-class perspective. Meanwhile people’s brains are being poisoned and lulled into apathy by so-called “reality TV”, which exhibits anything but. We need more newspapers, websites, blogs, etc. published by and for the working class, pushing a working-class agenda. We need to encourage people to ignore the corporate media and seek out alternatives, such as Democracy Now!, Commondreams.org, Counterpunch, etc. So reach out to your neighbors, friends and co-workers and TALK about the issues of the day. Because if people knew what was really going on, there would be riots in the streets.
- Independent mass action. Short of riots in the streets, we need to start taking back some of what has been lost – jobs, wages, benefits, etc. We need to stand up against war and for increased social spending. We need to get organized and get creative – I’m talking strikes, rallies, festivals, people’s congresses, and more. We need to start by talking to our co-workers and organizing meetings. If conditions warrant, we should go on strike to push our demands – this is the only way to get the bosses to listen. Asking “pretty please” or going to our congress member isn’t going to solve our problems – only WE can solve our problems!
This is the agenda I am putting forward to you, my brothers and sisters who work in Wisconsin. I would love to have people comment on this platform, add points I missed, and point out problems that should be addressed. Many of my rants and polemics I plan to put on this blog will deal specifically with individual points of this platform. It’s a work in progress, so please don’t hesitate to contribute!
Comments:
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It's best to be overly optimistic if you're going to bargain with the boss. When you're buying a car, you don't start out by offering the price you expect you'll be given, you start out with what you want to pay and haggle from there. This isn't to say we shouldn't believe it's possible to achieve the gains we seek - with enough solidarity and fighting spirit, it certainly is.
On different pay for different jobs - I'm not saying everyone should be paid the same, though the playing field should certainly be more level than it is. Why is it that the hardest-working individuals - the ones on their feet all day at McDonalds and Wal-Mart, for instance - are often the worst-paid in today's job market? So say a McDonalds employee made $20 per hour - even so, would they really need the incentive of "moving up" in wages to want to get out of working there?
The basic demand isn't for total equality of pay, but rather for a living wage for all. Even those working the crappy minimum-wage, entry-level gigs should make enough to support a family. And no, raising the minimum wage does NOT cause inflation to rise, as the voodoo economists would have you believe. It merely raises the floor slightly closer to the ceiling.
On the "roses" comment, of course some of the demands aren't practical for business owners. Our goal shouldn't be to accomodate business - that's the corporate-run media talking through the holes they made in your brain. Accomodate the workers, and business will adapt. It has in France, where workers DO get four weeks of paid vacation per year.
Having worked for some small business owners myself, I understand that they may be genuinely hard-up for cash, especially after Wal-Mart comes to town. In most cases, though, they're quite happy when they get a little extra in profits to reward themselves with a bonus and leave their workers out in the cold. However, it isn't high minimum wages that's keeping small business down, it's corporate competition. Make everyone pay workers the same, higher minimum wage, and competition will still be the main factor. With all the entreprenurial ingenuity we're always hearing about, I'm sure those smarties will figure a way out of their cost predicament. And if a few small business owners go under - sorry, that's life, but maybe they'll make it better as blue-collar workers now that we have a living wage anyway.
On taking advantage of the system... why is it so important to safeguard against this? If the system uplifted people instead of throwing them down, there'd probably be a lot less resentment and dishonesty among working-class folks, and hence less readiness to defraud the government or other working-class folks. Besides, I'm a lot more worried about the corporations currently taking advantage of the system as we speak, who are granted all sorts of tax loopholes and corporate welfare that we taxpayers pay for. And when that isn't enough, they simply cook the books like Enron, which literally stole millions from their hard-working employees' pension funds. Or Northwest Airlines, which is currently doing the same thing through the "legal" channel of bankruptcy court. Compared to the billions per year that these slimeballs rip off from taxpayers, the trailer park resident who has an extra kid so she can get enough money to eat is a drop in the ocean.
On fees... of course the government needs to pay for maintenance. That's why the tax code needs to be rewritten. And let's not forget, we could re-route the billions of dollars going to wars that only benefit the super-rich.
As working people, we gotta pay our dues all right. And we do pay - the lower tax brackets currently pay proportionately far more compared to their income than do the uppers. Taxes rest on the backs of working people while the rich get a pass. And the situation is only getting worse with more Bush-style "tax cuts" to the super-wealthy. Witness those trying to repeal the inheritance tax.
One last thing about that ol' American Dream. In my view, it's the greatest American myth. I wish I could pull some stats out of my ass, but for now suffice it to say that the vast majority of the wealth of this country is held by a few families, the same families that have held it for generations. And rather than it getting easier for working people to "make it", recent studies have shown that just the opposite is happening. More formerly middle-class people are getting thrust down in pay grade as industrial and even white-collar jobs move overseas, while the average pay of the upper class has shot up like a rocket on steroids. If we don't join together and fight this, rather than acting individually and hoping to get our own big payoff, you and your kids will only have the "American Nightmare" to look forward to.
Thanks for continuing the conversation.
-Carl
On different pay for different jobs - I'm not saying everyone should be paid the same, though the playing field should certainly be more level than it is. Why is it that the hardest-working individuals - the ones on their feet all day at McDonalds and Wal-Mart, for instance - are often the worst-paid in today's job market? So say a McDonalds employee made $20 per hour - even so, would they really need the incentive of "moving up" in wages to want to get out of working there?
The basic demand isn't for total equality of pay, but rather for a living wage for all. Even those working the crappy minimum-wage, entry-level gigs should make enough to support a family. And no, raising the minimum wage does NOT cause inflation to rise, as the voodoo economists would have you believe. It merely raises the floor slightly closer to the ceiling.
On the "roses" comment, of course some of the demands aren't practical for business owners. Our goal shouldn't be to accomodate business - that's the corporate-run media talking through the holes they made in your brain. Accomodate the workers, and business will adapt. It has in France, where workers DO get four weeks of paid vacation per year.
Having worked for some small business owners myself, I understand that they may be genuinely hard-up for cash, especially after Wal-Mart comes to town. In most cases, though, they're quite happy when they get a little extra in profits to reward themselves with a bonus and leave their workers out in the cold. However, it isn't high minimum wages that's keeping small business down, it's corporate competition. Make everyone pay workers the same, higher minimum wage, and competition will still be the main factor. With all the entreprenurial ingenuity we're always hearing about, I'm sure those smarties will figure a way out of their cost predicament. And if a few small business owners go under - sorry, that's life, but maybe they'll make it better as blue-collar workers now that we have a living wage anyway.
On taking advantage of the system... why is it so important to safeguard against this? If the system uplifted people instead of throwing them down, there'd probably be a lot less resentment and dishonesty among working-class folks, and hence less readiness to defraud the government or other working-class folks. Besides, I'm a lot more worried about the corporations currently taking advantage of the system as we speak, who are granted all sorts of tax loopholes and corporate welfare that we taxpayers pay for. And when that isn't enough, they simply cook the books like Enron, which literally stole millions from their hard-working employees' pension funds. Or Northwest Airlines, which is currently doing the same thing through the "legal" channel of bankruptcy court. Compared to the billions per year that these slimeballs rip off from taxpayers, the trailer park resident who has an extra kid so she can get enough money to eat is a drop in the ocean.
On fees... of course the government needs to pay for maintenance. That's why the tax code needs to be rewritten. And let's not forget, we could re-route the billions of dollars going to wars that only benefit the super-rich.
As working people, we gotta pay our dues all right. And we do pay - the lower tax brackets currently pay proportionately far more compared to their income than do the uppers. Taxes rest on the backs of working people while the rich get a pass. And the situation is only getting worse with more Bush-style "tax cuts" to the super-wealthy. Witness those trying to repeal the inheritance tax.
One last thing about that ol' American Dream. In my view, it's the greatest American myth. I wish I could pull some stats out of my ass, but for now suffice it to say that the vast majority of the wealth of this country is held by a few families, the same families that have held it for generations. And rather than it getting easier for working people to "make it", recent studies have shown that just the opposite is happening. More formerly middle-class people are getting thrust down in pay grade as industrial and even white-collar jobs move overseas, while the average pay of the upper class has shot up like a rocket on steroids. If we don't join together and fight this, rather than acting individually and hoping to get our own big payoff, you and your kids will only have the "American Nightmare" to look forward to.
Thanks for continuing the conversation.
-Carl
Carl is saying some important things. When one looks around at our present society it just is obvious we could do much, much better. Our present system at its foundation is organized around the pricipal of greed. But we humans are multi-sided beings, capable of a whole range of behaviors from self-serving to genuine altruism. As a parent I am fully aware that having my children has been a financial set back, but it has been one of the most meaningful things in my life. We are capable of forging real human solidarity. That is a good thing.
We can change the priority in our society from private profit for the corporations to putting human needs first. As Carl says, this doesn't require all of us to be saints, which we certainly aren't. But we can move toward a more cooperative set of relationships with each other and with the world. Socialism is nothing more than putting fairness in place as the organizing principal of our society. It means making the world a little more kind and distributing power more equally among the hands of ordinary people.
We are not a perfect species, but we don't need to be. We just need to put the need of the big majority first. Capitalism has had its day, and now it is time for us to build something better. It is an exciting prospect.
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We can change the priority in our society from private profit for the corporations to putting human needs first. As Carl says, this doesn't require all of us to be saints, which we certainly aren't. But we can move toward a more cooperative set of relationships with each other and with the world. Socialism is nothing more than putting fairness in place as the organizing principal of our society. It means making the world a little more kind and distributing power more equally among the hands of ordinary people.
We are not a perfect species, but we don't need to be. We just need to put the need of the big majority first. Capitalism has had its day, and now it is time for us to build something better. It is an exciting prospect.
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