Departments

Summer School 2008
by Randy Rakes

I would like to thank the local for sending me to Region 8 Summer School.

I was very pleased with our regional staff. They took very good care of us, and tried hard to educate us. I can’t imagine anyone going to Summer School or to Black Lake and not leaving with valuable information to take back to their locals and to use in their personal lives.
In the past, I have been low-key in my political views and kept them pretty much to myself. But after hearing so much about where America is headed, I feel I can no longer be low-key; especially concerning labor issues.

We had a fantastic speaker for our morning classes. His name is Rick Gregory. He is a labor educator. He taught us for three days, about the history of unions, economic and social justice, and lateral thinking. Lateral thinking says that you must not only see the facts that support what you already believe, but you must look at all the facts before you decide what you believe. Would the war in Iraq have happened if President Bush had used lateral thinking? Or did he use only the facts that supported what he already believed? How much has the war in Iraq already cost? So far, over six hundred billion dollars. It is already the second most expensive war in American history. Second only to WWII. Where did our government get the money for your economic stimulus refund? They borrowed that money from China. Essentially, our country is bankrupt at this time.

This year, Toyota has passed General Motors to become the world’s largest producer of cars. In 2007, GM lost $39,000,000 while their CEO, Rick Wagner, gained 64% in his pay making his annual salary $15.7 million.

Now I will share an article with you written by our Senator Jim Webb in November 2006.
The most important—an unfortunately the least debated--- issue in politics today is our society’s steady drift toward a class based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America’s top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic’s range. The average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn’t happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as the percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners’ pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate “reorganization.” And workers’ ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.

This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nations most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the “rough road of capitalism.” Others claim that it’s the fault of the workers or the public education system that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled.

WOW, A POLITICIAN THAT ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDS LABOR!
This is a sobering thought. The next generation in America will probably be the first to have a lower standard of living than their parents did. We must not forget who came to visit us when we were on strike, and who sent us a letter of support for our strike. We must support the people that support us. This is an election year. Did you know that half of working class American voters vote for anti-labor candidates? We must stand up for labor. Why would they represent us, when we do not stick together enough to make a difference in who gets elected. When the shoe and garment industries were sent out of this country, we did nothing to protest. And now, look what is happening. … Its cars… Next, it may be heavy trucks. We must stop outsourcing American jobs. We must organize satellite car plants. Buying American is not enough. We must seek out and buy union made products in America. We must stop doing business with anti-union corporations such as WAL-MART, 80% their products are made in China. You all remember the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The Walton Family Foundation is a large donor to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

Between 1998 and 2006, 3.4 million manufacturing jobs were lost in the U.S. Your governments officials have chosen remove the cost of fuel and health care from the consumer price index to get the numbers they want concerning the economy. Some of you have asked why your COLA check has not reflected the cost of gasoline. Now you know… America is in the shape it’s in because of poor decisions by politicians. We must go to the polls and vote and we must vote for labor friendly candidates.

On Monday, June 23rd, PACCAR, the parent company of Peterbuilt, locked out over 300 UAW workers in Madison, Tennessee. On Thursday, June 26th, over 100 summer school participants visited Peterbuilt to show their support. They were blown away by our two buses rolling in and we were equally proud to stand with our brothers and sisters fighting for their jobs and their families’ futures.

In Solidarity Randy Rakes