It is clear from Wisconsin to Ohio to North Carolina and places in between—the public-sector and low-wage workers have become targeted prey for a sociopolitical system that thrives off of predatory labor policies and practices that exploit the labor of public and low-wage workers. For example, policies that deny workers the rights to collective bargain or management practices that make it all too convenient to label and fire workers who protest unjust or unsafe working conditions as “difficult and unruly, insubordinate” or “confrontational” or exhibiting “detrimental personal conduct.” These were the major claims that were put forth by the town of Chapel Hill in its case against the two sanitation workers whom they fired—Clyde Clark and Kerry Bigelow. Bigelow and Clark became scapegoats for a myriad of problems plaguing the Public Works department in Chapel Hill; problems that started at the top with poorly trained, inept, and unqualified managers who demonstrate mastery in shifting the blame and passing the buck yet who show rudimentary skills in effective employee management.
Assassinating the character of public workers who protest or rating workers’ job performance as “unsatisfactory” or “poor” are methods used by managers and employers to devalue, discredit and undermine the rights of workers while also garnering public support and sympathy. After all, who wants a sanitation worker with a bad attitude on their route, right? Or who wants to supervise a worker who is disgruntled because his constant pleas to management to implement safety standards and measures on his route have repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. I mean who do these workers think they are complaining about bad working conditions-they should be glad they have a job right? WRONG!
The mechanisms used to politically disarm and shut down workers are manifold and in full play by the far Right and anti-union allies. Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under the Clinton Administration was spot on when he wrote in a recent column (3/2011): “It's far more convenient to go after people who are doing the public's work -- sanitation workers, police officers, fire fighters, teachers, social workers, federal employees -- to call them "faceless bureaucrats" and portray them as hooligans who are making off with your money and crippling federal and state budgets.”
The “frontal assault” on America’s public-sector and low-wage workers is happening at a time when the income gap between the top earners and the middle and bottom is spiraling out of control. According to 2009 Census data, the income gap between the richest and poorest Americans has grown to its largest margin ever in American history (read Tim Noah’s The Great Divergence). The top-earning 20 percent of Americans – those making more than $100,000 each year – received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S. , compared to the 3.4 percent earned by the bottom 20 percent—persons whose earnings are below the poverty threshold (which was 21834 for a family of four in 2008 and 21756 in 2009). The middle income earners ($50000 earners) saw their wages declining on a fast track to the bottom in 2008.
According to Tim Noah (Slate Magazine, 9/14/2010), the richest 1 percent account for 24% of the nation’s income University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Timothy Smeeding in an article by Hope Yen (9/2010 Huffington Post) made the following observation: "More than other countries, we have a very unequal income distribution where compensation goes to the top in a winner-takes-all economy."
While unimaginable and often undeserved wealth (wealth gained by birth right and very little individual labor) is converging at the top, poverty in America is deepening and at its highest level since the 1960s when President Lyndon Johnson launched a war on poverty. The poverty rate climbed from 39.8 million people in 2008 43.6 million people in 2009 and unfortunately, race does matter. Poverty rose among all race and ethnic groups, but was particularly higher for blacks (25.8) and Hispanics (25.3) than whites (9.4 percent) in 2009. And because poor children are often connected to poor families, the child poverty rate rose from 19 percent in 2008 to 20.7 percent in 2009.
Equally troubling is America’s current jobs’ crisis, which is occurring during one the worst economic recessions in American history. The average unemployment rate in the US in December 2010 was 9.6. For African American males was 18.4 at the end of 2010 and for African American women it was 13.8 compared to 9.4 for White males, and 7.7 for White females; and 12.7 for Hispanic males and 12.3 Hispanic females. The unemployment rate for African Americans in the general working age population (16 and older) at the end of 2010 was 16.0 and 8.7 for Whites.
The problem with wealth, income and even employment status is that often they are intricately interconnected to social capital and political power. Few public workers are well connected to the power establishment or have connections with the right social networks to be able to stop tyrannical elected officials (e.g. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker) or employers from enacting policies that work against the best interest of workers and neutralize workers’ rights. Without the right social capital—friends in powerful positions and the “right places” middle and low-wage workers going up against government and capitalists is like David going up against Goliath. The proverbial stones in workers’ sling shot are (1) their critical mass and strength in numbers that far outweigh their opponents; and (2)a voting populace that has not become apathetic or hoodwinked by a carefully constructed and often politically-motivated narrative e.g. the tale of two rebel sanitation workers who were supposedly out of control and terrorizing women in one of the more affluent areas of town or labor unions that are sucking the state’s budget dry (as argued by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker) or pitiful cries from undeserving beggars who simply want a hand out as others have suggested.
I am encouraged by the mobilization that is happening on the ground by and to support workers. I believe that while money and political power may trump a lot of things, they can never overtake the power of the people, united, mobilized and committed to justice. Just take a look through America’s history—it has ALWAYS been a movement of, by and for The People that have kept “big money” and scoundrel politicians from running amuck and swindling the public’s trust.
