New World Order: Poverty with a pay check

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the Nov.-Dec. 1991 issue of The OCAW calls for a new political party labor movement upsurge of the '30s and Workers Union Local 1-547 in the South and labor. Of course, no one would will- Why can't we recognize that the basic in the '60s and "70s, the Democratic Bay area of Los Angeles, Calif. The arti- ingly join a "company union" which conflict between the employers' drive for Party has "championed' them all. They cle was written by Dave Campbell, chief purports to represent both the bosses and profit and the employees' need to main- have done so by coopting the leadership the workers. A "company union," in its tain their families' standards of living of these movements, crafting reforms efforts to appease the bosses, can't deal extends to the political arena as well? with the basic conflict and therefore Why can't we see that a "company shifting all the costs to the workers. As would compromise the interests of the political party" can't represent us any bet- soon as the mass movement demobilizes, ter than a "company union" can. By as soon as the threat of a genuinely indehome is under siege by a gang. Shotgun At our front door, in the economic joining with the bosses in one of our in hand, you confront them at your front arena, we recognize the need for workers political parties, we let them in our back pendent working-class political formation door. Wisely, they leave. But they don't to organize, formulate a program, and go far. As a matter of fact, they just ursue that program independent of the door. change their hats and walk around the bosses. It someone were to propose let- Through our unions we can ward off back the clock. house to the back. Would you now wel- ting the bosses become members of our the employers' efforts to increase profits The answer? A new political party in union, be or she would be viewed as a at our expense. Yet by joining them in a the United States that will represent the political coalition we give them another working person. Labor Party Advocates arena-the plants and shop floors of Knowing this, why then at our back hot at accomplishing the same thing (LPA) is just such a concept and Local 1America -we confront those who oppose door-in the political arena—are we sat- The Democratic Party has never willingly 547 is engaged in plans to organize a our families with our shotgun: The isfied with defending our families' fought for workers' interests. It has mere- Souther California tour for Tony MazUnion! Individuals alone would be power- standard of living by joining a political ly responded to the pressure of mass zocchi [the initiator of LPA] in early less, but by uniting, Itbey are strong coalition with the same investors and mobilizations, all the while seeking to 1992. enough to defend their families' interests managers we would not let into our demobilize the workers and to shift the Let's face it, the bosses have two parcosts of any reforms from the employers ties we need one of our own.

8 SOCIALISTACTION FEBRUARY 1992 "The Working Poor." A documentary program by Bill Moyers. Shown on the PBS television network, Jan. 8, 1992.

"We are creating a work force that can barely afford to buy the goods and services it produces. ... For more than a decade, changes in the global and domestic economy have lowered wages, creating what some have called a 'silent depression'"

With these words, TV commentator Bill Moyers introduced viewers to the city of Milwaukee in a PBS documentary entitled "The Working Poor." Here the working class is divided into two groups: "Those who work for a living and make it, and those who work for a living and can't make it." In a series of interviews with Milwaukee workers, Moyers makes the problem a living reality for the viewer.

For years, a major employer in the city has been Briggs and Stratton, makers of small gasoline motors. This firm, and others like it, offered thousands of high school graduates jobs that paid enough to buy a car and home, and to raise a family. Strong unions brought wage rates to the range of from $12 to $17 an hour. Company-paid health insurance further buttressed the workers' sense of security.

In the '80s, however, the rise in wages came to an abrupt halt. For six years Briggs and Stratton workers got no. pay increases. Moyers quotes Ellen Bravo, executive secretary of an employment research organization: "There was a con... Jobs (continued from page crisis, they say is structural and intrinsic.

In addition, the economic downturn afflicting the United States is spreading to the other major capitalist economic powers. Over the last year sluggish growth rates have been recorded in both Germany and Japan. The crisis in the auto industry, for example, is based on the fact that there is a production overcapacity of nine million units in the global auto industry.

Only months ago the big business media were crowing about the "death of communism." Today, however, they're clearly worried about the viability of capitalism.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, big business's options are limited. And if the government were to attempt to prime the economy by printing more money-a remedy in the past—it could set off an inflationary explosion. This would dramatically add to the woes already being suffered by working people, which might detonate a far more dangerous social explosion.

This is the main reason why economic experts are telling Bush not to tinker with the economy.

The following article is reprinted from Union Bulletin, the official publication of Oil, Chemical and Atomic steward and contributing editor.

Imagine this scenario. Your family's workers.

come them into your home? Hell no! At the front door, in the economic nut.

in this inevitable conflict between capital union? scious decision by many business leaders back in the mid-70s... to cheapen the work force," she told Moyers. "That meant investing overseas, it meant making jobs part time and temporary, lowering benefits and wages, keeping the minimum wage low."

For Briggs and Stratton, this meant moving jobs to other states and to Mexicowhere a worker earned less in a day than a Milwaukee employee made in an hour. Thousands of Briggs workers, who believed they had a secure feature, found themselves on the street.

Moyers' documentary takes the viewer into the homes of some of the laid-off factory workers. We see directly the devastating effect of plant closings on young families. The bread winners gradually confront two chilling facts: they will never get their old jobs back, and they are very unlikely to get another job that pays as much "What can I offer a family?"

Steve Laren, 30, was laid off by Briggs two years ago. He was making $12 an hour. Now he works as a security guard for $4.50 an hour. He is not guaranteed a full week. Steve's standard of living has plummeted.

Asked what was the worst aspect of his reduced circumstances, Steve replied, "When I haven't had enough to eat... when I have had to go to an outreach program and ask someone for food. It was the most embarrassing, dehumanizing part of this whole episode." Unfortunately, underemFor working people the future looks bleak-with double-digit unemployment and underemployment, and a decline in living standards a constant social blight. In the past, full employment—in the doublespeak of capitalist economics-was considerered achieved when the unemployment rate was only 3 percent. During the recession in the early 1980s, full employment was achieved when unemployment was at 5 percent.

Today, working people are being told full employment will be attained when the unemployed make up 10 percent of the working population. ployment is becoming a lasting episode for Steve and thousands of other workers.

In two years of active searching, Steve has not found a job comparable to the one he lost. As Steve's job prospects dim, his hopes of starting a family fade. Steve asks, "What can I offer a family on wages of $4.50 an hour?"

That dilemma also faces workers who are raising families. Tony Neuman has a wife, three children and a mortgaged house. Moyers introduces them as "The first postwar generation of Americans expected to do worse financially than their parents."

Tony made $10 an hour at Briggs. Since being laid off, he has been offered only $6 an hour for comparable work. They cannot pay the $820 monthly mortgage payment and are about to lose their home.

Neuman's wife borrowed $1300 to invest in a line of beauty products to be sold door to door. Her laid-off neighbors cannot afford them, and she will probably lose her investment. Now facing the loss of her home, she asks, "Isn't owning your home the American dream? Where is it?"

Work combined with welfare A spokesman for Briggs told Moyers how his company approached this problem. "We have to make the unions understand that we can no longer pay high wages for unskilled work," he said. Asked how low-paid workers could meet minimum needs, he suggested that public agencies might help—work combined with welfare.

Another proposal-training workers for more skilled jobs—is explored by Moyers.

U.S. News & World Report's dire predictions mean only one thing: The economic offensive against working people by the capitalists and the government will intensify.

Unemployment is a permanent feature of capitalism even under the best economic conditions. The capitalist system consciously keeps a layer of workers unemployed, ultimately driving them to desperation, so they can be used to break strikes and keep wages low.

This "reserve army of labor," as Marx called it, and which today is a growing army, will be used by the bosses to force Steve Neuman graduated from a trade school with enhanced skills. But he found this was actually a handicap in job seeking. Jobs at his new skill were non-existent. When he applied for other jobs, he was turned down as "over-qualified."

One trade-school graduate studied welding because his father had earned $17 an hour at that trade. Now the going rate is $6 to $8 an hour. This is near the poverty level for a family of four.

Moyers interviewed mostly workers who held full-time jobs, but 5.4 percent of America's workers have to get by on less than 35 hours of work a week. These 6.3 million workers get no health insurance or paid holidays. This makes part-time work very popular with employers.

Although part-timers cannot properly support themselves, they are listed as fully employed. Were these underemployed counted, the true unemployment rate would be 9.6 percent instead of the official 7.1 percent.

A true measure of the economy, Moyers says, is not the statistics on employment, but a measure of average income.

By this gauge, the American workers' standard of living will continue to drop even when the business cycle turns and "prosperity" returns.

Moyers has done a service in bringing this aspect of the "New World Order" before a wide television audience. He does not offer a solution, but he punctures the boast that capitalism offers us an ever-rising standard of living. Moyers concludes by saying, "If this trend continues it will change radically America's work force ... millions will find that poverty and a pay check go hand in hand."

working people to accept even deeper cuts in their wages, benefits, and living conditions.

One of the central lessons the labor movement learned during the great union upsurge in the 1930s, was that to win a struggle with the employer they had to formulate a program for the unemployed workers.

Similarly, the union movement today, which is under daily attack from both the employers and the government, will have to build a social movement that addresses the question of jobs if it doesn't want to see itself devoured by the bosses.

According to a recent U.S. News & World Report poll, more than 50 percent of Americans think unemployment will worsen in 1992. Only working people and their organizations will solve the economic dilemma being forced on them by the ruling rich.

Every working person should have a right to a job at union scale. The workweek should be cut from 40 hours to 30 hours with no cut in pay, spreading out the available work. A public works program must be initiated to build the schools, housing and hospitals working people need.

Finally, workers will have to organize their own political party, based on the unions, to make sure their jobs are safe.

to the employees. Whether it was the '40s, the fight for civil rights in the '50s and '60s, or the fight for women's rights which divide working-class unity, and dissipates, the Democratic Party has joined the Republican Party in turning