The “Liberal Media”?
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 And Corporate Control Of The Airwaves
By Todd Vachon
“You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.”
-Gil Scott Heron
Many people take serious offense when I say that television could quite honestly be the largest road block to real democracy ever invented. While the potential for it to be the greatest tool and asset simultaneously exists, it’s power is unfortunately controlled by corporate giants who use it largely for “bad”, not “good” ends.
Being among the few die hard purists that avoid corporate media like the plague, it’s easy to see the vast majority of Americans absorb it’s sleazy content daily (like an ex-smoker smelling tobacco on everyone else). For most people it’s either a necessity or simply the most convenient way to find out “what’s happening.” Trying to gather as many varied sources as possible from the internet, radio and television can make us more completely informed, but most people don’t have the time or frankly the interest to do this; just the political news junkie types who read it for pleasure as well as education.
I’m the guy that walks into the doctor’s office, sees Fox News on the idiot box and immediately locates the remote to change the channel to Animal Planet (one of 100+ stations owned by Discovery Communications, Inc). To the surprised, and sometimes angered onlookers I offer: “We can all learn how to behave a little bit better by watching these animals than those other sly foxes.”
But, sadly “we, the people” rely heavily, if not exclusively on the media in order to make informed decisions; both public and private. Unfortunately, the information we receive is always biased. While I realize that unbiased media is a virtual impossibility, a little slant wouldn’t seem so bad if there were some balance coming from other major stations. Such balance used to exist to a certain extent, but it certainly does not in today’s profit-minded media system. The so-called “liberal media” is owned by a handful of very wealthy conservatives whose sole interest is in maximizing profits, to hell with public service. There is a bit more diversity in radio, but it’s still largely controlled by the same folks who own the television stations, cable networks and newspapers.
This extreme consolidation of media ownership is a relatively recent phenomenon. The private control of more and more media outlets by fewer and fewer companies was rapidly facilitated by one act of congress in the winter of 1996. While Bill Clinton was running for re-election, O.J. Simpson was on trial and the Taliban was capturing Afghanistan, five major corporations were conspiring to buy up and control 75% of what you see, read and hear in the United States. Guess which one of these stories didn’t get covered by the corporately owned media? Clinton won re-election and the media skewered him. OJ was acquitted and he was flambéed as well. The Taliban got mixed reviews from pundits, but the results of The Telecommunications Act of 1996 got just as much coverage after it was passed as it did before it was passed….virtually none.
Wasn’t it big enough news that the FCC and congress undid media regulations that dated back to the birth of radio and television? Damn right it was! Just not the sort of thing that the winners of the spoils wanted their viewers/listeners/readers to know much about. This is yet another glaring example of how democracy under capitalism serves the highest bidder.
So, having been left out of the know and now suffering it’s consequences, let’s examine what the Telecomm Act of ’96 actually did for the “liberal media.”
The Telecommunications Act of 1996:
(Source: The Fallout of The Telecommunications Act of 1996: Unintended Consequences and Lessons Learned, The Common Cause Education Fund, 2005. www.commoncause.org)
• Lifted the limit on how many radio stations one company could own. The cap had been set at 40 stations. It made possible the creation of radio giants like Clear Channel, with more than 1,200 stations, and led to a substantial drop in the number of minority station owners, the homogenization of play lists, and less local news.
• Lifted from 12 the number of local TV stations any one corporation could own, and expanded the limit on audience reach. One company had been allowed to own stations that reached up to a quarter of U.S. TV households. The Act raised that national cap to 35 percent. These changes spurred huge media mergers and greatly increased media concentration. Together, just five companies – Viacom, the parent of CBS, Disney, owner of ABC, News Corp [owner of Fox], General Electric, owner of NBC and AOL, owner of Time Warner, now control 75 percent of all prime-time viewing.
• The Act deregulated cable rates. Between 1996 and 2003, those rates have skyrocketed, increasing by nearly 50 percent.
• The Act permitted the FCC to ease cable-broadcast cross-ownership rules. As cable systems increased the number of channels, the broadcast networks aggressively expanded their ownership of cable networks with the largest audiences. Ninety percent of the top 50 cable stations are owned by the same parent companies that own the broadcast networks, challenging the notion that cable is any real source of competition.
• The Act gave broadcasters, for free, valuable digital TV licenses that could have brought in up to $70 billion to the federal treasury if they had been auctioned off. Broadcasters, who claimed they deserved these free licenses because they serve the public, have largely ignored their public interest obligations, failing to provide substantive local news and public affairs reporting and coverage of congressional, local and state elections.
• The Act reduced broadcasters’ accountability to the public by extending the term of a broadcast license from five to eight years, and made it more difficult for citizens to challenge those license renewals.
See:
http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7B8A2D1D15-C65A-46D4-8CBB-2073440751B5%7D/FALLOUT_FROM_THE_TELECOMM_ACT_5-9-05.PDF
In a small “d” democratic society it is absolutely imperative that the voting public have access to pertinent information that will guide their decision-making processes on issues that will effect them, their families’, friends and communities’. The simple fact that the major media outlets chose not to cover this legislation that changed media ownership rules tells me that they are more than willing to put profits before public service. How many other bills in congress or local policies have we missed out on? With now fewer owners controlling more media, their interests have also been consolidated and our access to information that may be contrary to their profit interests will be even more difficult to find.
While some stations are actually exposed for reporting blatantly inaccurate information regularly, it is the more “trustworthy” stations that pick and chose which stories to cover or not cover that have the most dangerous outcome for democracy.
Now, being a book that advocates more, rather than less socialism, you may be wondering at this point how socialism could address this problem. Well, first of all, erase any image of the state run Chinese media or Orwell’s ministry of information (or Fox News Channel) or any other undemocratic propaganda machine. The solution lies in having access to more diversity, not less.
To better serve the public interest, a few simple steps can be taken: 1. re-instate regulations. Implement strong public interest rules that require stations to cover local issues, issues of public interest, local elections, etc… in order to maintain a broadcast license. 2. Create more high quality, publicly funded, local media that is not in the business of making profits, but rather interested in informing, educating and entertaining the public, period. Give the public some democratic control over content. 3. Guarantee equal media access to all candidates for office, including eligible minor party candidates. Eliminate for-profit campaign advertising and open the television/radio debates to minor parties as well.
Although not often perceived as such, the media operates like the 4th branch of the government. They are the liaison between the state and the public, the gateway of information. This makes the media the single most important issue in politics today because it sets the agenda and provides the voice to opinions on all other issues. While the internet is currently a valuable resource for diverse information, it is not readily accessible by all Americans; especially not those in the lower income brackets, the elderly and less tech-savvy. But even the internet is now under attack by corporations like Comcast who wish to privatize every aspect of the web as well (see www.savetheinternet.com).
In sum, greater social ownership and democratic control of the media can only serve to improve democracy and hence society at large.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
May Day 2009
"It was not by gold or silver, but by labor that all the wealth of the world was purchased" -Adam Smith
Even the most die-hard and utopian free-market capitalists admit that labor creates all wealth. If you have any doubt, just consider any corporation on an average day. What would happen if no workers showed up?
That's right, the company would make no products or render no services and hence make no profit.
I suppose the CEO and shareholders could do all of the work in place of the wage earners and still share all of the profit, but that would no longer be capitalism. It would be worker owned and controlled enterprise, or as some might say, socialism.
Now consider the opposite. What happens if the owners or CEO don't show up for the day?
Well, this actually happens all the time and the companies still make money.
Labor creates all wealth.
This is the theme of May Day and will continue to be so long as the working majority is seperated from ownership and control of the economy.
Please join the Socialist Party of CT and other like minded folks on the New Haven Green tomorrow to celebrate all of the past struggles; losses and victories, and future hope of the labor movement and working class politics.
I understand that it is a work day for many and travelling is difficult, but for those of you who cannot attend please consider the importance of worker solidarity. The color of the collar is irrellevant now-a-days. The nature of the character and capacity of the heart are what define us as socialists in the 21st century.
Economic crises are nothing new for those familiar with Marx. Democrats rushing in to save capitalism from itself is also nothing new.
This May Day let us have the resolve to commit to the real worthy struggle of attaining economic democracy. Be vocal, be proud and stand strong.
Times are changing.
As always,
In Peace and Solidarity
Todd Vachon
Chair
Socialist Party of CT
www.socialistpartyct.org
www.sp-usa.org
www.votevachon.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message to all Workers on Their Day
by the National Action Committee, Socialist Party USA
On this International Workers Day, the majority of the workers find themselves in a great dilemma. It is obvious that free trade and deregulation have caused millions to lose their jobs. Even the United States, once the major economic power of the world, is in the process of an economic collapse. Today, more than ever, is a time to consider casting off the chains of capitalist crisis.
The truth is that the majority of the workers understand very well the economic depressions are a permanent part of capitalism. The majority of the workers are intellectuals in an organic way. Without any type of formal economic education, they know what is going on because they are forced to live capitalist economics. It is irritating to hear so many socialist intellectuals pontificate that all workers have to do is realize that they are being exploited and it will light their revolutionary fire. Workers understand that they are being exploited, what is lacking is the organizational means to ignite the spark.
Creating socialism will not be easy. It will take much sacrifice. An egalitarian society will not arise in one day. Only a determined class struggle can bring about the kind of fundamental changes we need. We must first learn to abandon the trinkets and small concessions that capitalism offers us. We must create a vision of the society we want to live in and fight for it.
For the Mexicans and other Hispanics in the United States that work as undocumented workers, the economic crisis will bring great difficulties. President Barack Obama promised some type of amnesty, but you can be assured that this will not happen immediately. When it does it will come at great economic cost for the applicants and will have many complications. .Meanwhile, immigrants will be made into scapegoats as racist conservatives circulate the notion that they are stealing “American” jobs. Violence by racist groups has already begun and may
continue to grow. Immigrant workers will find allies in socialists because we understand that labor knows no borders – all workers are a part of our class.
This crisis presents opportunities to reestablish and enlarge the power of the unions and rebuild mass socialist political parties. But that decision to take action is yours as workers. You know socialism is the path to create a better society. You know there is a history of successful socialist political parties throughout the world. Socialism can once again deliver what working people need so desperately – a world of prosperity, justice and freedom!
Long Live the Workers!
Long Live Revolution!
Long Live the First of May!
Even the most die-hard and utopian free-market capitalists admit that labor creates all wealth. If you have any doubt, just consider any corporation on an average day. What would happen if no workers showed up?
That's right, the company would make no products or render no services and hence make no profit.
I suppose the CEO and shareholders could do all of the work in place of the wage earners and still share all of the profit, but that would no longer be capitalism. It would be worker owned and controlled enterprise, or as some might say, socialism.
Now consider the opposite. What happens if the owners or CEO don't show up for the day?
Well, this actually happens all the time and the companies still make money.
Labor creates all wealth.
This is the theme of May Day and will continue to be so long as the working majority is seperated from ownership and control of the economy.
Please join the Socialist Party of CT and other like minded folks on the New Haven Green tomorrow to celebrate all of the past struggles; losses and victories, and future hope of the labor movement and working class politics.
I understand that it is a work day for many and travelling is difficult, but for those of you who cannot attend please consider the importance of worker solidarity. The color of the collar is irrellevant now-a-days. The nature of the character and capacity of the heart are what define us as socialists in the 21st century.
Economic crises are nothing new for those familiar with Marx. Democrats rushing in to save capitalism from itself is also nothing new.
This May Day let us have the resolve to commit to the real worthy struggle of attaining economic democracy. Be vocal, be proud and stand strong.
Times are changing.
As always,
In Peace and Solidarity
Todd Vachon
Chair
Socialist Party of CT
www.socialistpartyct.org
www.sp-usa.org
www.votevachon.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message to all Workers on Their Day
by the National Action Committee, Socialist Party USA
On this International Workers Day, the majority of the workers find themselves in a great dilemma. It is obvious that free trade and deregulation have caused millions to lose their jobs. Even the United States, once the major economic power of the world, is in the process of an economic collapse. Today, more than ever, is a time to consider casting off the chains of capitalist crisis.
The truth is that the majority of the workers understand very well the economic depressions are a permanent part of capitalism. The majority of the workers are intellectuals in an organic way. Without any type of formal economic education, they know what is going on because they are forced to live capitalist economics. It is irritating to hear so many socialist intellectuals pontificate that all workers have to do is realize that they are being exploited and it will light their revolutionary fire. Workers understand that they are being exploited, what is lacking is the organizational means to ignite the spark.
Creating socialism will not be easy. It will take much sacrifice. An egalitarian society will not arise in one day. Only a determined class struggle can bring about the kind of fundamental changes we need. We must first learn to abandon the trinkets and small concessions that capitalism offers us. We must create a vision of the society we want to live in and fight for it.
For the Mexicans and other Hispanics in the United States that work as undocumented workers, the economic crisis will bring great difficulties. President Barack Obama promised some type of amnesty, but you can be assured that this will not happen immediately. When it does it will come at great economic cost for the applicants and will have many complications. .Meanwhile, immigrants will be made into scapegoats as racist conservatives circulate the notion that they are stealing “American” jobs. Violence by racist groups has already begun and may
continue to grow. Immigrant workers will find allies in socialists because we understand that labor knows no borders – all workers are a part of our class.
This crisis presents opportunities to reestablish and enlarge the power of the unions and rebuild mass socialist political parties. But that decision to take action is yours as workers. You know socialism is the path to create a better society. You know there is a history of successful socialist political parties throughout the world. Socialism can once again deliver what working people need so desperately – a world of prosperity, justice and freedom!
Long Live the Workers!
Long Live Revolution!
Long Live the First of May!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
What's Fair?
Todd's opening remarks at The Holleran Center for Community Action's Panel:
"What’s Fair? Current Issues in Trade and Labor Organizing"
Thank You for that wonderful introduction. I should start with a quick disclaimer and that is this: I’m here today sharing my personal thoughts and experiences, and not as a representative of any organization that I am affiliated with. The brief bio is meant merely for identification and proof of credentials I suppose.
So…that being said, I’d like to start by reading a short quote from Adam Smith’s book The Wealth of Nations . Is everyone familiar with this book? Or at least with Adam Smith and the concepts that his name embodies? Smith, in simple terms, is kind of like the Godfather of Free Market capitalism. The quote is this:
"It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased."
Sounds like something Karl Marx might have said?
So I’d like to use the premise of this quote as a starting point. “Labor creates wealth” is essentially what he said. “labor creates all wealth.”
It’s a very simple concept, and if you have any doubt, just consider any profitable corporation on an average day. What would happen if nobody showed up to work? There would be no product manufactured or services rendered or whatever the company does would not get done; hence the corporation would make no money .
Well… I guess the CEO and shareholders could go to work and do all the jobs in place of the wage earning employees and still share all of the profit….. but that would of course no longer be capitalism….It would be worker owned and controlled enterprise, or as some might say, socialism…
Okay. So we’ve determined that somebody has to do the work in order for the company to make money right? If the workers don’t show up the company goes belly up. Now lets consider the opposite. What happens if the owners or management doesn’t show up for the day? Well, this actually happens all the time and the company still makes money. Why? Because the surplus value, or profit, of any company is generated by it’s labor force.
The capitalist plays the important initial role of funding and starting the business, but the daily operations and hence income are results of the labor force.
Now some neoliberal economists might argue that that I’m all wrong about the necessity of paying workers in order to make profit…. Some would even argue that machines could do much of the work, but this fails to consider two very important issues: #1. Someone has to make the machines, and: #2. more importantly, even if machines made everything, including themselves, who would be able to buy their products? I mean if all the workers are replaced and presumably making zero income because they are unemployed, they certainly can’t afford to go out and purchase the goods and services made by these machines.
So the premise “labor creates all wealth” is actually a two-sided coin: Labor creates the wealth on one end as workers creating commodities, and on the other end as consumers purchasing them.
So, where the heck does fair labor practice come into this whole scheme?
Pretty much everywhere.
As we all know, corporations want to get as much work for as little pay as they can out of their employees in order to reduce their “bottom line” and increase their profits. Workers, on the other hand want to be paid as much as possible for their time and efforts.
This is a constant tug-of-war between employer and employee, between capital and labor, and it’s array of outcomes can be represented on a simple spectrum. On the far left of the spectrum, the worker would get back exactly what he or she produced. If I make one car per day, I should get paid 1 car per day, or the equivalent of 1 car per day of other goods, because really, who needs 260 cars per year? On the other end, the far right of the spectrum, there would simply be slavery, where the worker is given only enough to sustain his survival so as to continue working while all of the value of his or her work is kept by the employer.
What we have in the U.S. today falls somewhere in between these two extremes and in any given year can be further to the left or the right of where it was the previous year. Throughout the world we find varying degrees, more to the left in Europe and way to the right in parts of Asia, Central and South America.
So, what determines this?
I would argue that the amount of the value workers create that they actually get to keep is determined by the extent of their power to demand a more fair share from their employers, a la unionism.
The business-side reply to this exercise of power by employees is pretty straight forward. “We are putting our capital on the line in hopes that it will have a good return. We deserve the extra value because we are willing to take the risk of losing it.”
This is logical to some extent, but it precludes several pertinent facts. Most notably, that the worker is also engaging in risky behavior, perhaps with more dire consequences, because his livelihood and family depend on his or her income and hence the success of the capitalists business venture.
Furthermore, the worker does not have the luxury of diversification that the capitalist enjoys. If workers could diversify their employment the way that investors diversify their portfolios, they might be more willing to engage in more risky behavior as well. I mean, if I could work Monday at Pfizer, Tuesday at The Day, Wednesday at Aetna, Thursday, etc… I could afford to lose one of those jobs and still have an income. But workers are instead forced to carry all of their eggs in one basket as the saying goes, and therefore they need that basket to be pretty sturdy and filled with as many eggs as possible.
So the worker wants his or her one job to pay well.
But how can this one individual worker ensure that her salary is not forced down to the point of subsistence? If she speaks up by herself or makes too much fuss, the boss can simply terminate her…. And a small check is better than no check after all, right?
Well, one proven way to improve wages and working conditions is to organize with fellow workers and make demands collectively. Through this process, the American labor movement has won much for working people in this country. Not just for union members, but for all workers across the board.
Corporate voices, on the other hand, say that unions stifle their competitiveness and profitability. But, few stop to consider that some of the most prosperous and stable decades of the past century were those where the percentage of workers who were in unions was the greatest. This balanced the play between employers and workers and in-turn created the modern middle-class… the folks who earned enough money at work to purchase goods from the companies they and their neighbors and friends worked for.
This fragile balance has been drastically shifted over the past 3 decades and with the decline of unions in America so too has the middle class eroded.
Wages for the bottom half of society have been stagnant and in many cases declined while those of the top 1% have doubled, those of the top 1/10th percent have tripled. The ratio of CEO income to average worker pay was anywhere between 30 and 70 to 1 in the 1970s, it is now between 500 and 700 to 1 and in some cases 1,000 to 1. After three decades of incredible economic growth the working class still remains in the same boat, a boat which was not “lifted by the rising tide” as the free-market trickle-downers like to argue.
The tug-of-war is obviously uneven, but how is it that the workers in their roles as consumers can still continue to support this economy?
Well, the corporations have managed to have their cake and eat it too. They have both reduced wages and at the same time maintained a large enough pool of consumers to purchase their goods and services.
The main way in which they have accomplished this over the past few decades in this country is by outsourcing jobs to countries with little or no labor or environmental laws. This tactic gives them: 1. Cheap labor- -often children, and 2. The ability to sell their products for lower prices back here in the U.S. to consumers who are earning less than they used to.
The American middle class standard of living was built by labor victories, but is now sustained by cheap labor in Asia and of course endless consumer credit debt and also two full-time household incomes replacing traditionally just one.
This poses a moral dilemma to anyone of conscience.
It would seem that what is considered fair here in the U.S. should also be true for workers over seas that manufacture goods that we consume here. It is illegal to employ children here and we have minimum wage laws here, but it is not illegal to purchase goods here that were made somewhere else under working conditions that would be illegal here. This represents a large disconnect in the American psyche and it is why folks like Marcie and David and others who promote “Fair Trade” play such a vital role in creating a more fair world. It is up to us as consumers to avoid supporting exploitation whenever possible and it is up to us as workers to actively stand up to exploitation everywhere, not just in our own backyards anymore. Capital is global and labor must also be global in order to stand up to it’s injustices.
The tug-of-war will be around as long as capitalism is around. The past victories of labor do not mean that organized labor is no longer necessary. Victories of decades past are not guaranteed forever. Legislation can be over turned, laws can lay unenforced, regulatory agencies can be stacked with corporate insiders.
If we are to define fair as the ability to earn a respectable living by working and still have time to live outside of work, we will realize that most of the working masses around the world are not treated fairly.
The UN’s gini index, which measures the standard of living in all countries, when compared with union membership data for the same countries shows a strong positive correlation between the percentage of union membership and the quality of life.
When workers are able to organize and make demands on very profitable employers they are able to increase their stake and make better lives for themselves. That’s fair.
And I think I’ve probably overrun my time although I’ve hardly said as much as a drop in a barrel of what I’d like to say, but perhaps some of your questions will bring other areas to light.
Thank You.
-------------------------------------------------
"What’s Fair? Current Issues in Trade and Labor Organizing"
Thank You for that wonderful introduction. I should start with a quick disclaimer and that is this: I’m here today sharing my personal thoughts and experiences, and not as a representative of any organization that I am affiliated with. The brief bio is meant merely for identification and proof of credentials I suppose.
So…that being said, I’d like to start by reading a short quote from Adam Smith’s book The Wealth of Nations . Is everyone familiar with this book? Or at least with Adam Smith and the concepts that his name embodies? Smith, in simple terms, is kind of like the Godfather of Free Market capitalism. The quote is this:
"It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased."
Sounds like something Karl Marx might have said?
So I’d like to use the premise of this quote as a starting point. “Labor creates wealth” is essentially what he said. “labor creates all wealth.”
It’s a very simple concept, and if you have any doubt, just consider any profitable corporation on an average day. What would happen if nobody showed up to work? There would be no product manufactured or services rendered or whatever the company does would not get done; hence the corporation would make no money .
Well… I guess the CEO and shareholders could go to work and do all the jobs in place of the wage earning employees and still share all of the profit….. but that would of course no longer be capitalism….It would be worker owned and controlled enterprise, or as some might say, socialism…
Okay. So we’ve determined that somebody has to do the work in order for the company to make money right? If the workers don’t show up the company goes belly up. Now lets consider the opposite. What happens if the owners or management doesn’t show up for the day? Well, this actually happens all the time and the company still makes money. Why? Because the surplus value, or profit, of any company is generated by it’s labor force.
The capitalist plays the important initial role of funding and starting the business, but the daily operations and hence income are results of the labor force.
Now some neoliberal economists might argue that that I’m all wrong about the necessity of paying workers in order to make profit…. Some would even argue that machines could do much of the work, but this fails to consider two very important issues: #1. Someone has to make the machines, and: #2. more importantly, even if machines made everything, including themselves, who would be able to buy their products? I mean if all the workers are replaced and presumably making zero income because they are unemployed, they certainly can’t afford to go out and purchase the goods and services made by these machines.
So the premise “labor creates all wealth” is actually a two-sided coin: Labor creates the wealth on one end as workers creating commodities, and on the other end as consumers purchasing them.
So, where the heck does fair labor practice come into this whole scheme?
Pretty much everywhere.
As we all know, corporations want to get as much work for as little pay as they can out of their employees in order to reduce their “bottom line” and increase their profits. Workers, on the other hand want to be paid as much as possible for their time and efforts.
This is a constant tug-of-war between employer and employee, between capital and labor, and it’s array of outcomes can be represented on a simple spectrum. On the far left of the spectrum, the worker would get back exactly what he or she produced. If I make one car per day, I should get paid 1 car per day, or the equivalent of 1 car per day of other goods, because really, who needs 260 cars per year? On the other end, the far right of the spectrum, there would simply be slavery, where the worker is given only enough to sustain his survival so as to continue working while all of the value of his or her work is kept by the employer.
What we have in the U.S. today falls somewhere in between these two extremes and in any given year can be further to the left or the right of where it was the previous year. Throughout the world we find varying degrees, more to the left in Europe and way to the right in parts of Asia, Central and South America.
So, what determines this?
I would argue that the amount of the value workers create that they actually get to keep is determined by the extent of their power to demand a more fair share from their employers, a la unionism.
The business-side reply to this exercise of power by employees is pretty straight forward. “We are putting our capital on the line in hopes that it will have a good return. We deserve the extra value because we are willing to take the risk of losing it.”
This is logical to some extent, but it precludes several pertinent facts. Most notably, that the worker is also engaging in risky behavior, perhaps with more dire consequences, because his livelihood and family depend on his or her income and hence the success of the capitalists business venture.
Furthermore, the worker does not have the luxury of diversification that the capitalist enjoys. If workers could diversify their employment the way that investors diversify their portfolios, they might be more willing to engage in more risky behavior as well. I mean, if I could work Monday at Pfizer, Tuesday at The Day, Wednesday at Aetna, Thursday, etc… I could afford to lose one of those jobs and still have an income. But workers are instead forced to carry all of their eggs in one basket as the saying goes, and therefore they need that basket to be pretty sturdy and filled with as many eggs as possible.
So the worker wants his or her one job to pay well.
But how can this one individual worker ensure that her salary is not forced down to the point of subsistence? If she speaks up by herself or makes too much fuss, the boss can simply terminate her…. And a small check is better than no check after all, right?
Well, one proven way to improve wages and working conditions is to organize with fellow workers and make demands collectively. Through this process, the American labor movement has won much for working people in this country. Not just for union members, but for all workers across the board.
Corporate voices, on the other hand, say that unions stifle their competitiveness and profitability. But, few stop to consider that some of the most prosperous and stable decades of the past century were those where the percentage of workers who were in unions was the greatest. This balanced the play between employers and workers and in-turn created the modern middle-class… the folks who earned enough money at work to purchase goods from the companies they and their neighbors and friends worked for.
This fragile balance has been drastically shifted over the past 3 decades and with the decline of unions in America so too has the middle class eroded.
Wages for the bottom half of society have been stagnant and in many cases declined while those of the top 1% have doubled, those of the top 1/10th percent have tripled. The ratio of CEO income to average worker pay was anywhere between 30 and 70 to 1 in the 1970s, it is now between 500 and 700 to 1 and in some cases 1,000 to 1. After three decades of incredible economic growth the working class still remains in the same boat, a boat which was not “lifted by the rising tide” as the free-market trickle-downers like to argue.
The tug-of-war is obviously uneven, but how is it that the workers in their roles as consumers can still continue to support this economy?
Well, the corporations have managed to have their cake and eat it too. They have both reduced wages and at the same time maintained a large enough pool of consumers to purchase their goods and services.
The main way in which they have accomplished this over the past few decades in this country is by outsourcing jobs to countries with little or no labor or environmental laws. This tactic gives them: 1. Cheap labor- -often children, and 2. The ability to sell their products for lower prices back here in the U.S. to consumers who are earning less than they used to.
The American middle class standard of living was built by labor victories, but is now sustained by cheap labor in Asia and of course endless consumer credit debt and also two full-time household incomes replacing traditionally just one.
This poses a moral dilemma to anyone of conscience.
It would seem that what is considered fair here in the U.S. should also be true for workers over seas that manufacture goods that we consume here. It is illegal to employ children here and we have minimum wage laws here, but it is not illegal to purchase goods here that were made somewhere else under working conditions that would be illegal here. This represents a large disconnect in the American psyche and it is why folks like Marcie and David and others who promote “Fair Trade” play such a vital role in creating a more fair world. It is up to us as consumers to avoid supporting exploitation whenever possible and it is up to us as workers to actively stand up to exploitation everywhere, not just in our own backyards anymore. Capital is global and labor must also be global in order to stand up to it’s injustices.
The tug-of-war will be around as long as capitalism is around. The past victories of labor do not mean that organized labor is no longer necessary. Victories of decades past are not guaranteed forever. Legislation can be over turned, laws can lay unenforced, regulatory agencies can be stacked with corporate insiders.
If we are to define fair as the ability to earn a respectable living by working and still have time to live outside of work, we will realize that most of the working masses around the world are not treated fairly.
The UN’s gini index, which measures the standard of living in all countries, when compared with union membership data for the same countries shows a strong positive correlation between the percentage of union membership and the quality of life.
When workers are able to organize and make demands on very profitable employers they are able to increase their stake and make better lives for themselves. That’s fair.
And I think I’ve probably overrun my time although I’ve hardly said as much as a drop in a barrel of what I’d like to say, but perhaps some of your questions will bring other areas to light.
Thank You.
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