Twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Hightower believes that the
true political spectrum is not right to left but top to bottom, and he has
become a leading national voice for the 80 percent of the public who no longer
find themselves within shouting distance of the Washington and Wall Street
powers at the top.
He broadcasts daily radio commentaries that are carried in more than 150 commercial and public stations, on the web, and on Radio for Peace International. Each month, he publishes a political newsletter, "The Hightower Lowdown," which now has more than 135,000 subscribers and is the fastest growing political publication in America. The hard-hitting Lowdown has received both the Alternative Press Award and the Independent Press Association Award for best national newsletter. In the following slightly abridged piece Hightower's comments are applicable to Australia where the nation is being carved up by powerful interests with little regard for the workforce, community services , the environment .
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Webster’s
dictionary tells us that Labor Day was
"set aside for special recognition of working people." That's
nice, but "set aside" by whom? It certainly wasn’t the Wall Street corporate
and political powers that be. They nearly swallowed their cigars when the idea
of honoring labor’s importance to America’s economy and social well-being was
first proposed in 1882. Rather, this holiday was created by the workers
themselves, requiring a 12-year grassroots struggle that finally culminated
with an act of Congress in 1894.
The
campaign helped coalesce unions into a national movement. And its message of
labor's essential role also countered the haughty insistence of the robber
barons of that time. The barons insisted they were America's "makers"
— the invaluable few whose monopolistic pursuits should be unfettered. For they
claimed that they and their corporations were the God-ordained creators of
wealth.
Despite their bloated sense of self-importance, notice that the American people do not celebrate a CEO Day. Indeed, as Abraham Lincoln put it, the real makers are the many ground-level workers who actually do the making: "Labor is prior to and independent of capital," Abe declared in his first state of the union address. "Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
Yet on
Labor Day 2013, robber barons are again ascendant, declaring that they owe
nothing — not even a shared prosperity — to the workers, consumers, taxpayers,
and other American people who sustain them. Quite the opposite, they and their
political henchmen are blithely shredding America's social contract and again
insisting that the corporate elite must be unfettered, unions eliminated, and
middle-class jobs Wal-Marted.
This intentional hollowing out of our middle class is not just ignorant, but also immoral .Yet today's establishment economists are asking: Why are so many people so glum? The Great Recession ended in 2009, they note, and even job creation is picking up. So come on people — get happy !Maybe Labor Day is a good time to clue them into one big reality behind this so-called "recovery:" Most Americans haven't recovered. Not by a long shot. In June, median household income was still $3,400 less than in 2007, when Wall Street's crash started the collapse of our real economy.
Why are working people still so far down? Take a peek at those new jobs the
economists are hailing. They're really "jobettes," paying only
poverty-level wages, with no benefits or upward mobility. In the recession,
about 60 percent of the jobs we lost were middle-wage positions, paying
approximately $14 to $21 an hour. Most of those jobs have not come back.
Instead, of the jobs created since the recovery began, nearly six out of 10 are
low-wage, paying less than $14 an hour. A central fact of the new American
economy is that working-class people are increasingly unable to make a living
from their jobs.
To grasp
this widening inequity, befuddled economists might bite into a burger or pizza.
Seven of the 12 biggest corporations that pay their workers the least are
fast-food giants. Yum! is one. It's a conglomerate that owns Pizza Hut, KFC,
and Taco Bell. Workers don't find these chains so yummy; for pay averages $7.50
an hour, with no health care, pensions, etc. In contrast, Yum!'s CEO hauls off
about $20 million a year, even as he dispatches lobbyists to oppose any
hike in our nation's miserly minimum wage.workers are beginning to kick back.
It's a matter of justice.Yes ... and that's what Labor Day has always been about. (This article published at NationofChange-Progressive Journalism for Positive Action. )
It's a matter of justice.Yes ... and that's what Labor Day has always been about. (This article published at NationofChange-Progressive Journalism for Positive Action. )
