Attacking the Culture of Poverty
FROM THE SECRETARY-TREASURER
William Lucy
In 1968, when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, he was in the midst of his Poor People's campaign and had joined in the sanitation workers' battle for union recognition with AFSCME. It was no accident that shortly afterwards, social activist and critic Michael Harrington joined a march through the deserted streets of Memphis in honor of Dr. King. Harrington's 1962 book, The Other America, exposed the country's widespread poverty and formed the basis for the "War on Poverty" conducted by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
Harrington believed in the power of labor. He felt it could help obliterate the widespread poverty he and Dr. King saw in the '60s, when few others wanted to see it. He felt that labor could counter a private enterprise system weighted against those caught in this dead-end web, which he termed the "culture of poverty." Michael Harrington found it "intolerable that the richest nation in human history should allow such needless suffering."
UNSEEN, UNHEARD. Fast forward to fall 2005 and the horrific scenes from Hurricane Katrina. People were trampled down in the hell hole of a convention center that former FEMA head Michael Brown claims he didn't know held survivors. Once again, those in desperate need were not seen and not heard. Patients were left behind in a nursing home as the waters rose to the ceiling. Bodies were stacked in a hospital morgue.
Things went terribly awry. While those with money evacuated to safety, many poor people didn't have cars, money for transportation, reliable information or other necessities for getting out. Rescue gear and 8,000 National Guard troops from Louisiana and Mississippi were in Iraq. It was mayhem, the Tower of Babel, and the walls came tumbling down.
On television we all watched aghast at the sight of such dire and unmet needs — and poverty. Whether in the Superdome or the Astrodome or on the rooftop of a submerged house, our nation's bitter truth, something we've tried to hide and ignore, emerged: Many among us are poor and barely making it — even without the added suffering brought on by a deadly hurricane.
ADMINISTRATION OF THE RICH. What would Michael Harrington have said about the four million additional people who bottomed out — along with the economy — in George W. Bush's first administration? About a 563,000 increase in the number of working people who live in poverty — during a so-called economic recovery? And about inequality and the severity of poverty remaining at record levels? The most current figures, from 1979 to 2002, show that after-tax income for the top 1 percent of the population rose 111 percent, while the middle fifth's rose 15 percent and the poorest fifth's just 5 percent.
Do administration officials connect the dots between tax cuts for the wealthy and income inequality and poverty? I doubt it — or they don't care. They're planning to cut taxes again for the rich. And to pay for that, they're going to reduce benefits and services like Medicaid and Food Stamps — services the working poor vitally need and our members provide.
The administration is even using Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to hand out no-bid contracts to the likes of Halliburton, which failed to deliver the goods in Iraq. And it proposed suspending the Davis-Bacon Act — which guarantees fair wages for workers — on federally funded construction projects in parts of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. Paying less than the "prevailing wage" to poor workers who have already suffered the insufferable — loss of life, property and means of support — would have been a further, grievous injury.
Brothers and Sisters, this is where the union movement must step in, must advocate for a new America, resurrect the war on poverty and give everyone an opportunity to earn a living wage. Never forget the lessons of Katrina. Michael Harrington believed in the power of labor to effect real change. Let's turn his vision into a reality.
