Standing Up to Corporate Killers

by Gerald W. McEntee

We're nearing the end of what some have called the American Century—one hundred years in which America has put its stamp on the world—and not just for our F-16s, hamburgers and T-shirts. American democracy and American-style capitalism have created a standard of living that most nations can only dream about.

Now some of our bedrock political and economic beliefs are in question. Working families are swept by insecurity. They work longer hours, get second jobs, go into debt and yet fall further and further behind. Since 1980, three of every four American households have been touched by layoffs, and the survivors look around and think, "This could be me."

According to the textbooks, when the economy is strong, layoffs go down, wages go up—everybody does better. Not these days. Productivity is up. The stock market has set more than 80 records in the past year. In 1995, executives' pay in-creased at the fastest rate since the go-go 1980s, and their salaries and cash bonuses averaged more than $2 million.

But workers are getting creamed. Corporations are averaging more than 8,200 layoffs every day, and wages of the survivors have gone up less than three percent. Since 1980, Corporate America has downsized, right-sized, fired, bumped or dumped 43 million men and women. Two-thirds of those 43 million have had to settle for jobs that pay less and that have fewer, if any, benefits—no pension, no job security, little if any health coverage. For the survivors, their paychecks buy less than they did 20 years ago.

And while the middle class tastes some of the fear and desperation that the poor dine on every day, a handful of people at the top are cleaning up. Since 1979, 97 percent of the gain in household income has gone to the elite 20 percent.

What's going on? In part, new technologies and tougher competition. But to my mind greed is a major factor.

Greed gave us the Great Depression—a decade that destroyed families and almost the nation itself. In climbing out of the wreckage, Americans voted for a capitalism that didn't limit its benefits to the few but spread them among everyone. One result is that America has enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world.

But the big shots are always the last to hear the message. In the business press, one corporate boss after another says that the destruction of jobs and families is healthy. It's "destructive creativity."

Robert Allen, the head of AT&T, should have felt just terrible canning 40,000 workers. But AT&T's stock value shot up, and Allen's personal take for the year came to $8.4 million.

These days, the fastest way for a CEO to push up the company's stock and cart home a multi-million-dollar bonus is to fire 25,000 people. Folks making millions tell the rest of us to forget about job security and a safe retirement and college for the kids—and settle for a new VCR instead.

Now, why should public workers and health workers care about what corporations are doing? Well, for one, we don't like to see people shoved around. As I told David Brinkley, on ABC's This Week, it's a matter of basic fairness.

But there's a lot more to it than that. When a corporation lays off hundreds or thousands of men and women, that affects the federal, state and local tax bases. That means tighter public budgets and fewer public services. The bottom line is jobs—your jobs.

When Corporate America buys Congress almost lock, stock and leadership—when Senators pass out corporate pork while cutting social spending, when Representatives take aim at Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, occupational safety and health, collective bargaining, fair labor standards, college tuition, child welfare, affirmative action, safeguards against tainted food and toxic medicines and much else—when corporations can make these things happen, it's worse than wrong. It's taking this country to the edge of the cliff.

We have to restore the public's voice in public debate and in public decision-making.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal summed it up in an editorial column headed: "For Unions, 1996 Is Armageddon." It should have read: "For Working People...."

Last year, the AFL-CIO awoke from a long sleep—just in time. Today, labor is united behind one, single program: Labor '96. It's an alarm bell. We are going to make sure that workers—whatever the color of their collar and whatever their employer, public or private—understand that their futures are at stake.

Labor '96 intends to restore the public's voice in public debate and in public decisions. There's more about it in this issue of Public Employee. But I want to get across one, single point with you, the owners of AFSCME:

Sisters and Brothers, your futures are on the line. Whether a public service is killed, starved or privatized, you take the hit. And it won't make a bit of difference whether you're a Republican, a Democrat or an Independent. Your activism can make a difference.