LABOR'S RENEWAL?: Time for a New Contract
Sweeney, John
I am a product of the social compact that lifted America out of the Great Depression and working Americans into the middle class. My father was an Irish immigrant, a New York City bus driver,...
...They are frustrated and bitter, and their anger is exceeded only by anxiety over keeping their jobs...
...Corporate profits have risen 205 percent since 1980...
...That is why we are pouring money and people into rebuilding our grassroots political strength...
...Mobil Oil announces big layoffs and its stock goes up...
...And what do working Americans want as we draw close to a new century...
...America will become more like the trouble spots where we send our sons and daughters to keep peace...
...That is why I am challenging every union to put millions of dollars into organizing from the Sunbelt to the Rustbelt and from health care to high tech...
...Here's what business people knew: if they paid their workers fairly and plowed some of their profits back into their communities, they could count on loyal employees and loyal consumers...
...They took second and third jobs...
...And our notion of a moral nation is one that cares for its young, its old, and its poor—and leaves the rich to fend for themselves...
...to going to college instead of into a dead-end job...
...global economy, not by American teamwork and American know-how, but by driving down labor costs...
...Meanwhile, the wealthiest Americans are doing better than ever...
...But, in spite of it all, median family income fell 5 percent between 1989 and 1994...
...Instead of treating their employees with respect as they WIWIER • 1997 • 35 Labor and the Intellectuals do in Japan, the company fires two thousand men and women, the biggest illegal replacement of workers in our country's history...
...Because of the wage and the wealth gap, America is becoming edgier, angrier, and meaner...
...They went deeper into debt...
...But working people, business people, and public officials shared certain understandings...
...They see the stock market soaring and profits roaring and they wonder, "Who the hell is getting my share...
...It was an eloquent statement of values trade unionists still hold dear...
...For almost thirty years after World War II, we all prospered because we prospered together...
...here in the United States it's business as usual...
...They paint an ugly portrait of a country that has lost respect for workers and the jobs they do...
...The stories are all too familiar...
...And here's what our leaders in government understood— and President Kennedy said it best: "A rising tide lifts all boats...
...Now Landis has shown itself to be an employer devoid of any sense of corporate responsibility, a company that gives demerits to workers who have to take their children to emergency rooms, discriminates between men and women in pay scales and job assignments, fires workers for trying to organize a union, cancels health insurance coverage for disabled workers, and runs a plant that is lopping off fingers in pursuit of extra profits...
...And now, instead of merely depressing wages, profitable corporations are wiping out jobs...
...Chase Manhattan and Chemical Bank announce a merger that puts 12,000 people out of work and their stock goes up...
...Many of you know his words well...
...In Japan, public opinion would force the CEO to resign for such shameful acts...
...And how about this picture...
...Corporate chief executive officers are raking in 360 percent more—and now they earn 187 times more than the average worker...
...They sent husbands, wives, and teenagers into the labor force...
...American workers are running out of money, running out of options, and running out of hope...
...Between 1980 and 1995, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 404 percent...
...They've exhausted their savings and they are loaded with debt...
...Our idea of a just society is one in which honest labor raises the standard of living for all, rather than one with enormous wealth for a few...
...Where our children and grandchildren can look forward to pay raises instead of layoff notices...
...American families tried to cope...
...Here's the truth: the weakness of labor encouraged employers to take the low road...
...That's what Samuel Gompers said when he was asked nearly a century ago, "What does labor want...
...36 • DISSENT...
...Our secretary of labor asks to meet with the CEO and gets turned down...
...My father was an Irish immigrant, a New York City bus driver, and a proud member of the Transport Workers Union...
...AT&T says it plans to lay off 40,000 men and women and its stock goes up...
...We were concerned with raising the standard of living for all Americans—not just accumulating money for a fortunate few...
...So what can we do about it...
...And only by rebuilding our strength can we bring American business back to the high road of high wages...
...Here's what working people knew: if we got up every morning and did our jobs, then we could earn a better life for ourselves and a better chance for our children...
...More...
...Our social compact was a formula for the strongest economy, the largest middle class, and the most successful society this world has ever known...
...We want to live in a country where you can raise a family without having to hold down three jobs to do it...
...For American workers and their families, these are snapshots from hell...
...What's wrong with this picture...
...Of course, American business must change and American government must change...
...to enjoying life more, not less, than we've been able to...
...Two years ago, workers at five Bridgestone/ Firestone tire plants [Bridgestone/Firestone is a subsidiary of the Bridgestone Corporation of Japan] in the United States decide to exercise their legal right to strike...
...That is why I ran for president of the AFL-CIO, and that is why I won...
...Faced with deregulation, the oil embargo, and the emergence of new technologies, corporations made a fateful decision to compete in the new This piece is excerpted from a speech given at the Columbia University Teach-In with the Labor Movement on October 3, 1996...
...That provided huge payoffs for investors—but no wage gains for workers...
...But now, those days are gone...
...But American labor must also change...
...Three years ago, the citizens of Solway, New York, were delighted when Landis Plastics decided to open a new plant in their job-starved little community...
...More schoolhouses and less jails," he said, "more books and less arsenals, more learning and less vice, more constant work and less crime, more leisure and less greed, more justice and less revenge...
...He lived and worked in tough times...
...That is why, from 1978 through 1995, the buying power of workers' hourly earnings fell by 12 percent...
...Where you don't have to spend so much time at work that you have no time left to go to a movie or a ball game with your kids or grandchildren...
...Until we ease the growing gaps in work, wages, and wealth, we will be reading more dispatches from a wounded nation— more militia movements, more bombings, more hate crimes, and more of the quiet anguish ofAmericans losing their sense of a common destiny and a common purpose...
...Where your lot in life is determined by what you do, and not by the color of your skin or the accident of your birth...
...What we want is to work together to build an America that holds true to the values we honor in our homes and in our houses of worship...
Vol. 44 • January 1997 • No. 1
