Pension Envy

By Dave Johnson

Campaign for America's Future

January 11, 2011 - 8:10 AM ET

http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011010210/pension-envy

Since the 80s many employers have stopped offering health
care, pensions and other benefits to their employees. Many
are also cutting pay and hours, while increasing the
workload. So more and more people are hurting. As more and
more of us fall further and further behind,
corporate/conservative propagandists use resentment to drive
anti-union feelings. They tell people to oppose unions,
saying, "Why should they have it so good?" The real question
you should ask is, "Why should we have it so bad?"

The New Yorker's James Surowiecki, in "State of the Unions,"
examines why "public support for labor has fallen to historic
lows."

    More than seventy per cent of those surveyed in a 1937
    Gallup poll said they favored unions.

    Seventy-five years later, in the wake of another economic
    crisis, things couldn't be more different. ... In the
    recent midterm elections, voters in several states passed
    initiatives making it harder for unions to organize.
    Across the country, governors and mayors wrestling with
    budget shortfalls are blaming public- sector unions for
    the problems. And in polls public support for labor has
    fallen to historic lows.

    . . . In 2009, for the first time ever, support for
    unions in the Gallup poll dipped below fifty per cent. A
    2010 Pew Research poll offered even worse numbers, with
    just forty-one per cent of respondents saying they had a
    favorable view of unions, the lowest level of support in
    the history of that poll.

Surowiecki suspects that the gap between workers in and out
of unions is the reason,

    Union workers, on average, get paid more than their non-
    unionized counterparts - most estimates put the
    difference at around fifteen per cent - and that wage
    premium widens during recessions. Similarly, union
    workers often still have defined-benefit pensions, which
    sets them apart from all those Americans who watched
    their retirement accounts get ravaged by the financial
    crisis. That's given rise to what Olivia Mitchell, an
    economics professor at Wharton, calls "pension envy."

    This resentment is most evident in the backlash against
    public-sector workers (who now make up a majority of
    union members).

The problem is that working people feel increasingly
powerless, and this weakens support for the very institutions
that would, in better circumstances, come to their
assistance: government and unions. Normally you would think
that when people see that workers who are in unions have it
better they would reach a simple and obvious conclusion: they
should JOIN A UNION! DUH! But circumstances in our economy
today lead people to the wrong conclusions.

Today they see people who try to organize unions fired. They
see whistleblowers persecuted. They see fellow employees lose
their jobs for calling in sick or taking time off to care for
a family member. They see people lose jobs for just reaching
"a certain age." Many are even afraid to take vacations using
time they have earned. And they don't see any way to do
anything about it. Unions are unable to organize and workers
are told facilities will close or their jobs will be moved
overseas. Government inadequately enforces its own laws, or
blatantly favors the wealthy and powerful. People don't feel
that elections make any difference. So workers don't see any
help on the horizon.

Crabs In A Bucket

Meanwhile many public employees still have unions, so as a
result they in many cases have pensions, health care plans
and dignity on the job. People look at that and the
temptation toward "crab mentality" is strong. The
corporate/conservative anti-union propagandists see an
opportunity to set working people against each other and
strike at support for unions:

    Crab mentality, sometimes referred to as crabs in the
    bucket, describes a way of thinking best described by the
    phrase "if I can't have it, neither should you." The
    metaphor refers to a pot of crabs. Individually, the
    crabs could easily escape from the pot, but instead, they
    grab at each other in a useless "king of the hill"
    competition (or sabotage) which prevents any from
    escaping and ensures their collective demise. The analogy
    in human behavior is that of a group that will attempt to
    "pull down" (negate or diminish the importance of) any
    member who achieves success beyond the others, out of
    jealousy, conspiracy or competitive feelings.

    This term is broadly associated with short-sighted, non-
    constructive thinking rather than a unified, long-term,
    constructive mentality. It is also often used
    colloquially in reference to individuals or communities
    attempting to "escape" a so-called "underprivileged
    life", but kept from doing so by others attempting to
    ride upon their coat-tails or those who simply resent
    their success.

The other day in Understanding The Attacks On Public
Employees,

    What do we see if we look around at the state of the
    economy? Stocks are soaring, corporate profits are way
    up, Wall Street gets trillions in bailouts and pays
    millions upon millions in bonuses. But regular people are
    having a hard time making ends meet and unemployment is
    still through the roof. Instead of programs to create
    jobs, stop foreclosures and rebuild our crumbling
    infrastructure the government passes more tax cuts for
    the rich. A few Wall Street and big-corporate types are
    getting very rich (richer) at the expense of the rest of
    us. If you are sitting pretty on Wall Street, you
    probably don't want people thinking about these contrasts
    too much.

    "Look Over There!"

    How do you get regular people to "look over there" with
    all of that going on? Simple: launch a big campaign to
    blame the librarians, firefighters and other public
    sector workers for the hard times. "don't blame US," Wall
    Street says, "Look over there!" Blame the economy's
    victims for economic crimes. And, do you know what? This
    is a strategy that is proven to work every time.

So the corporate/conservatives pit people against each other,
hoping to provoke the behavior of crabs in a bucket, instead
of reaching the correct conclusion: stand together and join a
union and fight for your rights and a share of the pie and
you can have it better.

STOP THE LIES!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyCHV3DSQZE

    You can help Stop the Lies. Go to
    http://www.afscme.org/stopthelies

    Public service workers are under attack -- but the real
    cause of our country's economic troubles are greedy Wall
    Street CEOs, their friends in Washington who turn a blind
    eye, and the right-wing talking heads who spin the lies.
    Add your name to stop the lies:
    http://www.afscme.org/StopTheLies

This video directs people to a STOP THE LIES website where
you can sign up to add your voice, download a fact sheet and
find other resources. <http://www.afscme.org/stopthelies>

[Dave Johnson is a Fellow at Campaign for America's Future,
the Commonweal Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Institute
for the Renewal of the California Dream.]

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