4/23/18: Public sector workers are on strike or wrapping up strikes in several Republican-dominated states.
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A giant
GOP sucker’s bet.
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Teachers in Oklahoma have walked off the job, after going without a pay raise for a decade.
Arizona teachers, among the lowest-paid in the nation, have staged a massive walkout.
Kentucky teachers participated in a walkout over pension cuts and Colorado teachers have taken similar action.
Funding problems in Oklahoma worsened when a Republican governor and Republican-controlled legislature slashed income taxes and cut the tax rate on oil and gas extraction from 7% to 2% in 2014. Already strapped for cash, the state dived into a lake of red ink and sank like a stone. That’s how it goes in Republican states. Cut taxes. Promise cuts will lead to booming business and pay for themselves. When fiscal miracles fail to materialize freeze or reduce pay for teachers, firemen and sanitation workers.
Teachers in West Virginia also walked off the job, even though state law makes it illegal for public sector workers to strike. For some reason, they were mad because they made less than teachers in 46 states.
At least they’ve got Oklahoma beat.
Yes, I know: You can make an argument that states may not be able to fund public employee pensions in the future. (Full disclosure: this blogger is collecting a teacher’s pension from the State of Ohio.)
But it might be nice, if Republicans would stop giving fat tax cuts to Big Oil and billionaires at the same time they cry red ink wolf. It might be nice if Republicans closed a few loopholes which allow multinational corporations to hide profits in offshore tax havens. It might also be nice if the average American worker realized what the GOP means when the party talks about making America great again. Republicans have worked hard to cripple private sector unions. Worker pay has stagnated. Now they hope to gut public sector unions too.
It’s a giant GOP sucker’s bet. Republicans promises to “bring
jobs back” to America. It was their corporate allies, who donate
consistently to Republican candidates and who have been rewarded with
massive tax cuts, who shipped jobs overseas. The GOP might warn your average
gun-owning, working stiff that liberals are coming to take his or her firepower
away. It was the GOP that stood by and applauded when corporations started
slashing workers’ pensions, moving jobs from “high-wage” states to “low-wage”
states (always Republican-controlled) and screwing the ordinary employee.
What the GOP really wants is to make America great, c. 1918.
In those days, if workers tried to join a union they were fired and
“black-listed” to insure they never caused trouble again. Government
regulations were limited, pretty much what Republicans would love to see today.
If a coal mine was unsafe there were no pesky federal mine safety
inspectors snooping about. In 1918, for example, 2,696 coal miners were blown
to bits or smashed flat at work.
Let’s make America “great” again. Let’s return to an era when workers had few rights and fewer benefits, and pay was low, and Robber Barons ruled. In 1918 companies could require workers to live in company towns, pay workers in scrip, good only for purchases at the company store, and then jack up prices. There were no paid sick days, no paid vacations, no overtime pay. The typical worker toiled six days a week. The twelve-hour shift was not unusual. If a worker smashed a hand in a machine or fell into a vat of molten steel at a foundry the injured worker was fired and the cost of burying what was left of the employee who fell in the vat (if anything) fell on the family.
That’s the way it used to be – before workers began to fight
for improvements. And that’s where we seem headed again. (For further
discussion, see: 5/26/18; 5/27/18; 6/22/18 and 8/24/19.)
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Company town in West Virginia. |
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