Just Say No - No More Cuts for Workers

By Rose Ann DeMoro Executive Director, National Nurses
United, AFL-CIO and California Nurses Association
Huffington Post
February 21, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rose-ann-demoro/just-say-no-no-more-cuts_b_826159.html

There should be two lasting lessons to emerge from the
heroic labor-led protests in Wisconsin.

First, working people--with our many allies, students,
seniors, women's organizations, and more--are inspired
and ready to fight.

Second, we need to send a clear and unequivocal message
to the right-wing politicians and those in the media
suggesting further concessions from working people.

Working people did not create the recession or the
budgetary crisis facing federal, state and local
governments, and there can be no more concessions,
period.

It should be apparent that the right wants to scapegoat
workers and their unions, and is trying to exploit the
economic crisis for an all-out assault on unions,
public employees, and all working people in a campaign
that is funded by rightwing, corporate billionaires
like the Koch brothers.

Their goal is no less than to break unions and silence
the voice of all working people to fight for better
working conditions and improved standards for all
working people.

For example, while demanding major cuts in public
pensions, the right also wants to make sweeping cuts in
Social Security , even though Social Security is in
sound economic shape.

What all working families should know:

1. Who caused the economic crisis? Banks, Wall Street
speculators, mortgage lenders, global corporations
shifting jobs from the U.S. overseas.

2. Who is profiting in the recession? Corporate
profits, 3rd quarter of 2010, were $1.6 trillion, 28
percent higher than the year before, the biggest one-
year jump in history. Meanwhile, average wages and
total wages have fallen for all incomes, except the
wealthiest Americans whose income grew five-fold.

3. Who is not paying their fair share? In U.S. states
facing a budget shortfall, revenues from corporate
taxes have declined $2.5 billion in the last year. In
Wisconsin, two-thirds of corporations pay no taxes, and
the share of state revenue from corporate taxes has
fallen by half since 1981. Nationally, according to a
General Accountability Study out today, 72 percent of
all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S.
companies doing business in the United States paid no
federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998
and 2005.

4. Are public employees overpaid? State workers
typically earn 11 percent less, local public workers 12
percent less than private employees with comparable
education and experience. Nationally, cutting the
federal payroll in half would reduce spending by less
than 3 percent.

5. Would pay and benefit concessions by public
employees stop the demands? The right has made it clear
it wants A- cuts in public pay, pensions, and health
benefits, followed by B- restricting collective
bargaining for public sector workers, followed by C-
prohibiting public sector unions.

6. Will the right be troubled if cuts in working
standards make it harder to recruit teachers and other
public servants? No. Take public teachers, many of whom
have accepted wage freezes and other cuts in recent
years. Many in the right have a fairly open goal of
privatizing education, and destabilizing public schools
serves this purpose. The right also salutes the
shredding of government workforce, part of its overall
goal to gut all government service and make it harder
to crack down on corporate abuses or implement other
public protections and services.

7. Will the right stop at curbing public workers
rights? Employers across the U.S. are demanding major
concessions from private sector workers, and breaking
unions. Rightwing governors and state legislators are
seeking new laws to restrict union rights for all
private and public employees.

8. Does everyone have a stake in this fight? Yes. It's
an old axiom that the rise in living standards for the
middle class in the 1950s was the direct result of a
record rate of unionization in America. It is of course
unions that won the eight-hour day, weekends off, and
many other standards all Americans take for granted
that are now often threatened with the three-decade-
long attack on unions spurred by that rightwing icon
Ronald Reagan. The corollary is that increased wages
and guaranteed pensions put money into the economy,
with a ripple effect that creates jobs and spurs the
economy for all.

___________________________________________

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