A Close Look at the Plight of U.S. Workers;
Why Unions Have Failed to Win Remedies
By Harry KelberDoes it bother you that it took the annual wages of 431 workers in 2004 to equal the average compensation of just one top corporate executive (CEO)? This shocking statistic is contained in a report by the Economic Policy Institute and United for a Fair Economy.
Are you enraged that in 2003, it took a CEO one and a half workdays (260 in a year) to earn what an average worker made in 52 weeks of labor?
Are you bitter to learn that between 1992 and 2003, the median CEO received an 80.8% raise, in contrast to the median workers¹ hourly wage, which rose a total of 8.7% for the 11-year period.
What is your reaction to the fact that in 2004, the average CEO of a major corporation received $9.94 million in total compensation, and that the CEO of Yahoo, Terry S. Semel, received $109,301,385? (For that amount, you could provide health-care insurance for 5,000 children who don't have it.Or you could help 2,500 poor children out of poverty.)
Does the AFL-CIO hope to embarrass or shame CEOs by publishing data about their excessive greed? It won't happen. In 1965, a CEO¹s earnings was equal to that of 24 workers. Today, it's 18 times that amount--and will probably keep growing. You can't appease a hog.
Employees and unions have no voice in determining their CEO's compensation, but the CEO has plenty to say about what his employees earn. And the more he can grind down the corporation's "labor costs," the more generously will he be rewarded.
Consider the job cuts at General Motors and Ford. The auto workers were not consulted about the layoffs, and there was no real concern for those auto workers who had given their company ten, twenty or more years of loyal service. The Big Three automakers have eliminated or announced plans to eliminate nearly 140,000 good-paying jobs since the year 2000. But not many people, except for the auto workers themselves, are unduly excited or ready to demand the discharge of all management officials responsible for the debacle.
Sweeney Typifies AFL-CIO¹s Credibility Problem
In his speech before the National Press Club on Jan. 18, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney enumerated all of labor's complaints about injustice and the lack of fairness toward working families, reciting a litany of grievances, from the minimum wage, denial of worker rights and the outsourcing of jobs to problems about health care, pensions and taxes.
It was a good speech, but it had no effect on the audience, who have heard the same talking points in Sweeney statements many times before. It certainly won't have an electrifying effect on the politicians in Washington, who know that Sweeney¹s words won't translate into action. His message has become predictable and boring, even to the union members he is trying to defend.
Sweeney seems satisfied to denounce Corporate America and the Bush administration as though that is his primary function, instead of promoting a course of action that would advance labor's cause.
It doesn't help labor's predicament that none of the 48 members of the AFL CIO Executive Council have chosen to remain silent, leaving the impression that they have nothing meaningful to say about labor¹s current problems.
Because of the lack of national leadership, union members have become anesthetized to whatever abuses are imposed on them by profit-hungry corporations and anti-labor politicians in Congress.
Does the situation have to become much worse, before it becomes better? Can the union people who don't want to wait that long come up with better answers?
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