Monday, September 3, 2007
Oped / Bill Londrigan
Louisville Courier-Journal
Workers face squeeze
By Bill Londrigan
For children, Labor Day means heading back to class and saying
goodbye to summer. For too many adults in Kentucky, Labor Day is just
another day spent searching for work. In fact, almost 120,000 people in
Kentucky are without jobs this Labor Day.
Across the board, it's getting harder and harder to make ends meet.
The median family income in Kentucky has dropped by 10.7 percent between
the year 2000 and 2005 -- that's over $4,000 lost! The cost of living
itself is getting out of control. Even a simple trip down to the
grocery store or gas station is enough to have people scratching their heads
and wondering, "When did it get so hard to get by?"
Dwindling retirement benefits are forcing grandparents to move in
with their adult children. Students and their families are staggering
under the weight of college tuition and loans.
Meanwhile, CEOs and other corporate insiders turn a blind eye.
Whereas CEOs used to be paid 42 times more than the average worker, today
they make 411 times as much. The average CEO earns more on the first day
of the year than the average worker earns all year.
This Labor Day, the health care crisis in America has reached an
apex. Rising health costs are battering families and leaving businesses
struggling to compete. Forty-five million Americans don't have health
insurance, including 639,000 in Kentucky. If nothing is done, that figure
will continue to spiral upward.
This can't be right. American workers are the most productive in the
world and work longer hours than workers in any other developed
country.
We deserve an economy that meets our needs and allows us to
participate in the prosperity our work helps create. And in America, no one
should be without the security of health care for the family.
Ninety percent of Americans believe it is time to reform our broken
health care system. Business is getting on board. Many of the
presidential candidates have heard this cry for help and are proposing sweeping
health care plans that only a few years ago might have seemed
unrealistic. Leaders elected will enter office with a mandate for change on
health care.
But while the ground is fertile for reform, there's no guarantee it
will happen without a major push from working people. That's why this
Labor Day union members are ramping up a major health care drive,
committing the AFL-CIO's full resources to ensuring not only that this is
indeed a turning point in history, but that it turns in the right
direction. We demand high quality, secure health care available to all. Nothing
less will do.
Making health care available to anyone who needs it will benefit
everyone in the long run, giving a tremendous boost to our economy,
allowing businesses to compete in a global marketplace and create the kind of
good jobs we so desperately need.
It's time to put the interests of working families first, not
continue to transfer millions in taxpayer dollars to billion dollar
corporations for illusory promises of good jobs.
We want to hear politicians speaking out about the issues that
concern us -- stagnant earnings, growing income inequality and insecurity,
spiraling health care costs, and disappearing pensions. We also want more
laws to make sure corporations act responsibly and honor workers'
freedom to improve our lives through unions. After all, unions are the best
middle-class booster program in our nation. Union members earn 30
percent more than workers without a union, and are much more likely to have
health benefits and pensions.
Gov. Ernie Fletcher hasn't done enough to stop the slide. One of his
first actions in office was to make it even harder for people to join
unions.
It's time that our nation's laws and economy worked for everyone.
Working families are watching our elected leaders closely, and we will
keep their actions in mind the next time we head to the ballot box. This
Labor Day, working people are ready to be heard loud and clear, and
we're ready for an America that works for all.
Bill Londrigan is president of the Kentucky AFL-CIO.
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