Wages, taxes, the role of unions, and a new term, “income inequality” spark lively and sometimes angry discussions across our state and nation. There are people working more than one low wage job who still qualify for food stamps and can’t support a family. Others can’t find even a minimum wage job. Some of our leaders say that developing higher levels of skill and education will bring higher wages, a true statement but an unsatisfactory answer to those who are underpaid to do necessary work. The work of those who prepare and serve fast food is honest work done by honest people who deserve a living wage. The same can be said for those who mop the floors of the schools, pick the peaches that I hope to eat soon and mow the grass along the highways.
There is enough money in our economy to pay people decently. According to statistics reported by the Federal Reserve Bank, the proportion of our gross domestic product that became corporate profits in 2013 and 2012 was about 11 cents of every dollar of goods and services produced in the nation. That is the highest number since recordkeeping began in 1947 and it is roughly double the historical norm. The Dow Jones Average has increased in value by 94 percent since January, 2009. Meanwhile workers in the middle class have been losing ground along with those at the bottom of the income scale. Some have had few salary increases or none at all while those at the top have had massive increases. In large public companies median CEO compensation is now 257 times more than the average American worker. That disparity is at the highest level ever. The average American worker is neither unskilled nor lazy but she or he is paid roughly $40,000 per year while the median for a large corporation CEO has risen to $10,500,000.
At the state level our legislature has reduced taxes for corporations and for individuals with high incomes. Then they said that they don’t have enough money to provide raises for public employees. At the federal level we are running big budget deficits so there are cuts to unemployment compensation and health research and food stamps and so forth – all of that while corporate profits are setting new records. Food stamps for those who are employed subsidize the low wage company rather than the worker but they are needed while wages are so low.
We seem to be replaying the early 20th century when conditions for laborers became so bad that they formed very strong unions. Some of the actions that they took and the unions that they formed were illegal at the time but desperate people had little to lose so they pressed ahead anyway; insisting that any work worth doing was worthy of a living wage. Many of the leaders were called communists or socialists. Some of them were jailed. Some of them died in riots. Eventually laws were changed and most union activities became legal. Their most powerful tool was the strike but they found that it was effective only if nearly all the workers supported the strike, and that led to more violence. Eventually a sort of equilibrium was achieved. General strikes which closed entire cities or industries were ended but workers were allowed to form unions and if a majority of a company’s employees voted for one then every employee was required to pay dues. The “greatest generation”, WWII veterans, banded together when unions were at their peak and the “middle class” had a golden era that lasted into the 1970s before it began to deteriorate. Now it is lost along with the power that workers wielded when they banded together.
Recently there is renewed union activity among fast food and retail workers. They have little to lose and they have resorted to regional strikes. The movement is still weak but it is an echo of a successful past. I’d like to think we will do better this time than in the 1930s, but it is hard to be optimistic. The government has huge deficits and few resources to act. The congress is in gridlock. Today’s corporations are in no better mood to share their wealth with employees than were the tycoons of yesteryear.
There is a lesson for corporations that I learned many years ago from a manager of a manufacturing plant in Ohio. He was proud that the employees of his plant had held an election and voted to decertify their union. I’ve never forgotten what he told me. He said that employees do not enjoy paying union dues or attending long union meetings. They will only vote to do that if they don’t trust management and they believe that they are not being treated fairly. It is management’s job to be fair and trustworthy and to treat even the most menial labor with the respect that is due to honest work. If you do that, you’ll never have to worry about a union. He was right, but corporations and government have forgotten that lesson. If they don’t provide employees what they need, then the employees will do it again – the hard way – just as their grandparents did before them. It is said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.