While Kerry woos Wall Street
Economic woes of workers deepen
By Deirdre Griswold
There's never been a better time to hit hard
at the rob-the-poor, please-the-rich policies of the Bush
administration than now. The question is, who's going to do
it?
Not John Kerry, that's for sure. He is currently on a charm
offensive with big business, according to an article in the May
3 Wall Street Journal. Kerry is hoping to attract more of the
big money that has been going overwhelmingly to George W.
Bush's campaign.
The economy, according to those analysts in favor on Wall
Street and in Washington, is doing fine. What is their measure
of success? The money big corporations and investors are
making. Profits are up and the stock market is higher than six
months ago.
But it takes only the smallest scratch on the surface of
this bubble to find out that the tens of millions of workers
who create all the wealth being divvied up by the capitalist
class are facing a broad array of critical problems.
Take housing. Some 2 million families depend on federal
subsidies--known as Section 8--to be able to pay the rent and
keep from being homeless. This number has grown as wages have
fallen in relation to housing costs.
The Bush administration has just announced a change in the
rules of its voucher system that will reduce the amount of
federal money paid into local housing programs. In New York
City, for example, the new rule will strip away $55 million in
housing subsidies for low-income families. The Center on Budget
and Policy Prior ities says the total national shortfall could
be hundreds of millions of dollars this year. That shortfall,
in turn, may force housing agencies to freeze the number of
rent vouchers, demand more money from tenants or do something
that has never happened in Section 8's three-decades history:
evict tenants from federally subsidized housing because of
insufficient funding.
The number of homeless families forced to live on the
streets is bound to rise as this new rule takes effect. The
toll this will take on the physical and mental health of adults
and especially children is incalculable.
Consumer debt reaches $1 trillion
For workers a little higher up the income ladder, the future
is also bleak.
People who have managed to buy some kind of place to live,
whether it's a house, a mobile home or an apartment, are deep
in debt. And mortgage rates are starting to rise again.
Roger Whelan, resident scholar at the American Bank ruptcy
Institute in Alexandria, Va., says that "Consumer debt has
doubled in the past 10 years, excluding mortgage indebtedness,
while personal savings have decreased from 5.8 percent to 2
percent in the past 10 years."
Consider that from September 2002 to September 2003, a
record 1.66 million, or 1 out of every 73 households, filed for
personal bankruptcy.
In April, the total amount of consumer debt in this
country--which does not include home mortgages--exceeded $1
trillion for the first time. That averages out to $14,000 for a
family of four. People who live from paycheck to paycheck and
come up short before payday are accumulating debt--at high
interest rates--in order to buy necessities like food and
clothing.
Bankrate.com's Financial Literacy poll shows that 23 percent
of the population are maxed out on their credit cards.
The vast majority of people in the U.S. work for wages and
are part of the working class--even though it has been a
conscious policy of the bosses to dilute the class
consciousness of better-paid workers by calling them "middle
class."
Organize and fight!
The workers need to be organized for struggle in order to
resist the constant pressure of the bosses to reduce their
wages and benefits. But today, only 12 percent of the workers
in this country belong to unions, compared to nearly 40 percent
after World War II. (Communications Workers of America)
The decline of union organization has closely paralleled the
decline in wages and working conditions.
For example, the average wage of a Minnesota meatpacker has
fallen to less than $10 today from $17 an hour in 1982 (in
constant dollars). This industry used to be highly unionized,
but through reorganization and downsizing the corporations were
able to break many union shops.
Many of today's meatpacking workers are Latino immigrants,
and their rate of injuries and deaths on the job has been
skyrocketing. Until recently, many immigrant workers were
virtually ignored by the union movement, or seen by the leaders
merely as competitors for jobs.
Now, however, a strong movement for immigrant rights is
changing many unions. The meatpackers at Minnesota Beef
Industries are currently voting on whether to join the United
Food and Com mercial Workers, the union that recently carried
out a bitter struggle against three California supermarket
chains that were trying to virtually eliminate health-care
benefits for their employees.
The workers in many industrialized countries have won not
only union-contract-covered health care but some form of
national health. But this has happened only where the workers
were militant and organized.
Everyone by now should know that the Bush administration
puts the profits of its super-rich corporate backers first, and
has tried in every way to dismantle whatever social programs
have been won in the past. But what about Kerry? Where does he
stand on these questions?
'I am American business's friend'
Kerry gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal, which
published excerpts on May 3. Here are some of them:
"Most importantly, and I think this is really significant,
the greatest drag on the American economy ... today is health
care. We're paying $4,887 per person on health care in America.
...
"Now I don't want the Canadian health-care system. I have a
free-market choice-oriented system based on market principles.
But it's got very powerful incentives in it. For people to
behave a certain way, and differently. I would think American
business would jump up and down and welcome what I'm offering.
...
"I think I am American business's friend. Personally, I
think I'd be more effective for business than this
administration, because this administration is squandering the
consensus that we have been busy building for years for trade.
And they've also squandered relations around the world that we
need to do business. They're losing American jobs around the
world. People don't want to do business with us. There's too
much baggage that comes with it. ...
"I believe I could be far more effective in opening up
marketplaces and creating a fair playing field and being an
ambassador for business. ...
"I'm reaching out through a lot of different people. Bob
Rubin is on my economic advisory team. [Former Clinton deputy
Treasury Secretary and Wall Street financier] Roger Altman.
Warren Buffett is on my economic advisory team. Steve
Jobs."
And, of course, Kerry has pledged to send more troops to
Iraq and is totally committed to defending the interests of the
big oil companies and other U.S. empire-building
transnationals. Who's going to pay for all this? The same
working class whose youth have been yanked from their families
and sent to fight and die in a colonial occupation of Iraq.
What U.S. workers need is more than a band-aid administered
by a friend of the voracious capitalist ruling class.
Now is not a time to pour millions of dollars from union
treasuries into the Kerry campaign. It's a time to bolster
strike funds and reach out to the millions of unorganized
workers who must be mobilized to defend their interests against
big business and both its political parties.
Reprinted from the May 13, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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