Elana Levin
recommended reading: inequality and un-reality
In case you missed it yesterday's New York Times Magazine was about economic inequality. One of the things I liked about the special section they devoted to this issue is how often the writers spoke about poverty from the standpoint of helping people to enter the middle class, not just alleviating hardship but helping people access the American Dream.
A particularly powerful story in the magazine was about an SEIU organizing campaign in Florida to unionize service workers in one of the richest gated communities in the country. One of the most striking lines was a quote from the president of the Fisher Island Community Association. He said "I have great respect for unions in general. But at Fisher Island I don't think we need one." He continued, "I do want them in the middle class. I just don't believe we need a union to get them there."
If the Fisher Island workers didn't need a union they'd already be earning a living wage and have affordable health insurance-- but they don't have either. If the staff doesn't unionize how will they ever be able to obtain a middle class standard of living and help their children go to college? The Fisher Island workers DO need a union. They aren't going to collectively improve their job quality through telepathic suggestion.
The president of the gated community's statement really shows a window into the thinking of those leading anti-union campaigns. They say they aren't against a union but then they haul staffers involved with the organizing drive in to watch anti-union propaganda films like "Little Card, Big Trouble," a notorious and deceitful anti-worker tool. Historically union membership has been a key part to making bad jobs become good paying, family sustaining jobs. If employers really cared about their employees ability to enter the middle class, they wouldn't be engaging in such vile tactics.
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Other recommended reading is Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times. He calls journalists to task for obsessing over the undefinable quality they call "authenticity" in candidates rather than looking at the substance of presidential candidates policy proposals. As a person whose organization deals in policy, of course I'm happy to see that problem getting ink. But also as Krugman points out, by today's bizarre standard non other than Franklin Delano Roosevelt would have been labeled as "inauthentic" by the press because he was a rich man fighting for economic justice. And yet, somehow it's been my recollection that the New Deal- you know- may have helped America or something like that... Yeah but was he the "kind of guy you could have a beer with?"
O.k. political press. Let's try to do a better job sticking to substance this time.
Elana Levin: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 9:25 AM, Jun 11, 2007 in
Economic Opportunity | Labor
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