Bush's approach brinds hard times for workers

(Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation)

While admittedly, we in the labor movement have all enjoyed witnessing public hysteria over Michael Moore’s new film “Fahrenheit 911” and we shamelessly cheered upon hearing that the film reached number one at the box office, the fact is that the upcoming election is crucial to the future of our economy and our issues with President George Bush are routed far more deeply in the war he has declared on the American Worker than on the war he declared in Iraq.

Since Bush was inaugurated in January 2001 our nation has lost  2.9 million private sector jobs, 2.8 million of which were desperately needed, family sustaining manufacturing jobs.  While a scant few new jobs have been created in recent months they don’t even scratch the surface on the kind of economic development that is needed to sustain our economy and our community. 

In our nation today, almost 15 million workers are unemployed, underemployed or have given up all together on looking for any kind of employment.  While we have seen a mild recovery on Wall Street, we have seen no improvement on Main Street.  Close to 5 million of these workers are working part time because full time employment was not available to them.  During his tenure, President Bush has touted every minor drop in the unemployment rate, but these minor decreases are largely attributed to workers accepting lower levels of employment out of necessity and those workers whom have exhausted their unemployment benefits and are no longer counted on the public roles.  At times during the Bush Presidency, unemployment has been as high as 6.3 percent.

There has been a devastating loss of good jobs in the United States, and those jobs are never coming back.  The Wal-Martization of our job market has incubated and nurtured an economy based on low wage jobs with no benefits.  In those industries now adding jobs, pay is 21 percent less than in American industries losing jobs.  A great many of our manufacturing jobs have moved overseas to low wage countries like China.  Today we are witnessing new phenomena – the exportation of white-collar, high-tech jobs. 

Computer science, engineering, entertainment, financial and medical services are now being exported to countries where workers earn far less.  A study by Forester Research predicts U.S. employers will move about 3.3 million white collar service jobs and $ 136 billion in wages overseas over the next 15 years.

Democratic Candidate John Kerry has already committed to the idea that serious penalties should be put in place for U.S. companies that take our jobs and assets overseas,

Over the past year, weekly wages for non-management workers grew less than 2 percent.  This is the lowest wage increase since 1987.  Corporate profits have jumped 25 percent during the past year, while household incomes actually declined by 1.7 percent between 2000 and 2002. At the same time, the Bush administration and their corporate benefactors tell the American people that sending  jobs to countries where workers earn pennies a day, have no human rights, and literally thousands die on the job every day  is good for the economy.  Apparently, they don’t think we are very bright.

I mentioned President Bush’s war on the American Worker.  The most recent example is effort to take overtime pay away from millions of American workers.  Adding insult to injury, the United States Department of Labor has actually published descriptions for how employers can avoid paying low wage workers for their overtime hours. 

 In addition, the Bush administration has denied collective bargaining rights to hundreds of thousands of Federal Workers and has eviscerated health and safety regulations.

Almost 75 million Americans, a number totaling 1/3 of all Americans under age 65 – had no health insurance coverage during some point in 2001 or 2002.  Between 2000 and 2002 the cost of health insurance rose 50 % .  While some of the nation’s larger employers offer access to a health plan, the majority of these plans are out of workers’ financial reach.

Today in our nation personal savings for working families are at a record low.  Consumer debt and bankruptcies are at record highs.  Many working class families are living paycheck to paycheck and bridging the gap with credit cards.  A serious illness or job loss will leave many of these families bankrupt or worse – homeless.  According to the U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors, personal debt now averages $ 18,700 per household.  While the Bush administration and congressional allies threaten the social security network, employers are stealing, cutting and killing our pensions.  The retirement forecast is looking quite bleak for generation X.

One of the many realities we must face after 4 years of the Bush administration is that for the first time in American history we can expect that our children will be worse off than we are.  Any remaining jobs that offer family sustaining wages and benefits usually require a college education, a major stretch for working families in a time when most states are cutting tuition aid and raising tuition costs. 

On a local level, the labor movement is dedicating all of its resources to helping unorganized workers win a voice on the job and we simply don’t have the resources to create a pithy “Mooresqe” documentary to demonstrate the innumerable reasons why George Bush is bad for America.  We would however suggest to those who are interested in our future that reading newspapers and keeping up with current events will demonstrate in every way that it is time for a change in Washington.