If you feel like workers in St. Louis are getting a whooping, you are absolutely right.
American Airlines laid off thousands after the merge with TWA. Employees at Lohr’s who distribute the King of Beers are on strike to get a better deal on health insurance and working hours. The teachers’ union fought for a pay raise while Washington University employees fought for a livable wage. Airport cabbies are fighting for economic justice. Even workers at the zoo are rising up, despite firings and other threats. The list goes on.
Some of those folks who danced up into the middle class ignored warnings of this financially stable mirage. Thanks to the Enrons of the world, the middle class had the rug pulled from under it. I don’t know what hurt the most, their sore backside or their bruised ego.
When we said, “Workers unite!”, these educated, skilled and talented workers flaunted their six-figure salaries, their bulging 401Ks and their hefty pensions. They scoffed at the notion of worker solidarity. Now, they’re indistinguishable from anyone else looking up jobs on the computer at the unemployment office.
According to a recent New York Times article, middle-aged women and educated white-collar workers are among the long-term unemployed. So much for the incentive to get an education! These greedy corporations are whacking and whittling too much to rehire these employees at the salaries they were accustomed to earning.
Yet, workers still allow corporations to play games with race, age, gender and sexual orientation, pitting one against the other to maximize profits. White educated women earn about 40 percent less than white men with college degrees. African-American and Hispanic educated men earn 30 percent less than white men with comparable education.
Management keeps us busy fighting one another n citizens fighting immigrants, men fighting women, straights fighting gays, old fighting the young and skilled fighting the unskilled.
That subterfuge is to hide their obscene salaries, now about 500 times the average worker. It is to obscure the fact that the top 1 percent of the wealthy owns more than the bottom 90 percent.
That’s because over the last 25 years, when company execs moaned and groaned about their losses, these blood suckers convinced workers to increase their productivity and accept major concessions in order to avoid layoffs and outsourcing. Loyal, hard-working employees did just that n up to 40 percent. Workers found out too late that they had been suckered and still got management’s boot out the door. Mega profits were made that didn’t trickle down.
We are working longer hours for less pay and fewer benefits. Bush and his rich friends even opposed the overtime many worked to equal a decent salary. Families are facing record amounts of debt to make ends meet. But don’t try to declare bankruptcy; that’s only for the Big Boys now.
So, the next time, you hear “workers unite!”, you don’t have to snap to attention. Just pay attention n to the realities around you and who your real allies are.