Q&A with Veteran Labor Organizer Stewart J. Acuff

By Leo Gerard
Campaign for America's Future
July 6, 2010

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010072706/qa-veteran-labor-organizer-stewart-j-acuff

Leo W. Gerard: Stewart, you talk about power in a book
you've written with economist Dr. Richard A. Levins.
You called the manual, "Getting America Back to Work."
What's the relationship between power and getting
people back to work?

Stewart J. Acuff: A big part of the problem we have
with this economy or the biggest problem is that most
of the money has gone to the Financial Elite -- and the
power as well. To get America back to work we have to
reinvest in our country and our workers. That
necessarily means that the Financial Elite get less of
the wealth generated by the economy and workers will
get more. If you intend to take wealth from the richest
people in the history of the world, you have to have
enough power to do so.

GERARD: You say in the introduction that there are two
kinds of power: "The first is lots of organized money.
That is the kind of power the Financial Elite have used
to bring the rest of us to our knees. The other source
and form of power is lots of people: organized,
mobilized, united, and taking action." Do you really
think that organized people can succeed in a wrangle
with the financial elites?

Acuff: Absolutely! The economic history of the
twentieth century is crystal clear. When unions were
strong, working people had the lion's share of income
and the economy worked well. When unions were weakened,
we have seen the Financial Elite take over and run the
economy into the ground.

That's why passing the Employees Free Choice Act is
more important than ever. When we strengthen unions, we
strengthen the economy.

Gerard: Now, Stewart, you sound like some kind of
Socialist talking about the fact that at times in the
nation's history the financial elite received
collectively as little as 9 percent of the total income
earned by Americans but at other times - like right now
and right before the Great Depression - the financial
elite grabbed more than 23 percent of all income. I
mean, aren't you afraid the likes of Rush Limbaugh and
Glenn Beck will accuse you of opposing just rewards
earned by the barons of capitalism?

Acuff: Well, my friend, those aren't just rewards. As
my friend Jim Hightower said, members of the Financial
Elite were born on third base and say they hit a
triple. It's beyond comprehension that the trading of
phony financial instruments like derivatives produces
rewards. What produces just rewards is manufacturing
and producing goods and services that people need and
want. The person who needs just rewards today is the
hotel maid who cleans rooms for a living or the
overstressed nurse who can't get to all her patients or
the skilled but out-of-work construction worker waiting
for the chance to earn an honest day's pay.

Gerard: Okay, but then you start talking about income
tax rates. Are you really suggesting that the current
maximum of 35 percent be raised to the 90 percent that
it was during the 1950s? Would that not just enrage the
financial elite?

Acuff: Yes, it would enrage the Financial Elite and Dr.
Levins and I haven't made that case in this book.
Certainly the income tax rate for the richest among us
is far too low. When Warren Buffet himself says he pays
a lower percentage of his income in taxes than does his
secretary, that's a problem.

We wouldn't need to rely on taxes to redistribute
income if we had the right mix of union power and
corporate power. Instead of a few massive fortunes, we
would have millions of working people being productive
and using fair wages to stimulate economic growth.

Gerard: Since the days of Reagan, Republicans have told
us that taxes on the financial elite should be cut
because they need all that money to "re-invest" in the
system. That way, the GOP line goes, wealth will
trickle down on the "little people." This hasn't really
worked, has it?

Acuff: No! Not at all! Since the days of Reagan workers
wages have stagnated and declined while our
productivity has increased. Wealth does not trickle
down. Have you seen any of the TARP billions trickling
into your pocket lately? I sure haven't. All I saw was
obscene bonus payments to those who caused the mess in
the first place.

Gerard: Halfway through the book, you suggest working
people can have it all - family-supporting jobs, health
insurance, even Social Security. Those on the radical
right tell us daily that's impossible because of the
national debt. How can you justify such a vision?

Acuff: More income means more tax revenue, more
economic growth and economic activity. We lift the
economy from the bottom, not from the top.

Gerard: Then you have the audacity to quote some old
economists claiming, "An efficient and humane society
requires both halves of the mixed system - market and
government." We know, because the right-wing has told
us repeatedly, that government is bad, that it should
be shrunk and drowned in a bathtub. Where did you and
Professor Levins come up with this new-fangled idea
that government could help?

Acuff: It's not a new idea. It says right in the ECON
101 text that Dr. Levins used in his classes that
"markets without government is just one hand clapping."
From the destruction of 2 trillion dollars of America's
wealth by Wall Street to the incessant pouring of oil
from BP's hole in the bottom of the Gulf, we know that
capitalism must be regulated and constrained for the
sake of everyone.

Gerard: Which brings us to organized labor. You quote
President Kennedy saying, "Those who would destroy or
further limit the rights of organized labor - those who
would cripple collective bargaining or prevent
organization - do a disservice to the cause of
democracy." Isn't that exactly what has happened since
the days of Kennedy, a slow destruction of the labor
movement with corporations, union-busters and sometimes
government regulators all working together to rob labor
unions of the power they built between the 1930s and
1950s?

Acuff: Yes, you're absolutely right. The results are
the mal-distribution of wealth and power and massive
recession, a shrinking middle class, a starved consumer
demand, and a weaker America.

Gerard: The book was written and published before the
explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that was
drilling for BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Is it somewhat
prophetic, then, that you discuss the need to move from
a fossil fuel-based economy to one that creates jobs
with renewable energy sources?

Acuff: I can't speak to prophecy though I am a huge fan
or both Isaiah and Jeremiah. We've long known that
America needs to generate its own free energy from free
resources like the wind that never stops blowing on
Great Plains, the sun that never stops shining in the
deserts of Arizona, and incessant pull of the ocean's
tide.

Gerard: I was glad to see the chapter discussing the
importance of maintaining and supporting manufacturing
in America. For those still unconvinced, why is that so
important?

Acuff: Well, we don't need to maintain just current
manufacturing capacity. We need to increase
manufacturing capacity. That is how to generate wealth.
We create wealth by making things that other people
want to buy and that is the best way to build a sound
economy.

Gerard: You sound a little bit like a preacher at the
end where you state the four values that Americans can
believe in. Do you think America can organize around
those values and take on the financial elite?

Acuff: Yes, I do! I think what we need is a
reinforcement of fundamental human values. We're all in
this together; there is a common good; we are our
sisters' and brothers' keepers, and workers win and
have always won by exercising collective power against
the individual power of the Financial Elite.

__________

Stewart Acuff is chief of staff for the Utility Workers
Union of America. He has organized for 30 years,
beginning in 1982 with the SEIU. In 1990, he became
president of the Atlanta AFL-CIO. There he led the
campaign to organize the 1996 Olympics. A decade later,
he went to work for the national AFL-CIO, serving as
organizing director from 2001 to 2008. He led the AFL-
CIO campaign to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
__________

Dr. Richard Levins is professor emeritus of applied
economics at the University of Minnesota. He is an
award-winning author of books about policy and market
power.

_____________________________________________

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