Tell me what you’re for

 Tell Me What You’re For

Not What You’re Against

 

Many years ago, I worked with a former union organizer at the Credit Union National Association in Madison who had a motto that has stayed with me ever since. He often told me, “Tell me what you’re for, not what you’re against.” I try to remember this as I organize and work with folks who want to make the world a better place. 

 

Generally, I am for ideas and legislation that benefit working people and their families.

 

A prime example of what I am for was recently passed by Democrats in Congress and signed into law by President Biden. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 passed both houses without a single Wisconsin Republican legislator’s vote. 

 

Here’s what the new law does for us. 

 

It extends subsidies that help make the Affordable Care Act coverage more affordable. The subsidies were set to expire at the end of this year and the new law extends them through 2025. For those who were set to lose ACA coverage when the subsidies expired, you get to keep your health insurance.  The Act will save the average middle class family of four in Wisconsin $6,259 on their yearly premiums. 

 

The Act also reforms Medicare to lower prescription drug costs for those who have Part D coverage. Seniors with Part D coverage will have their out-of-pocket prescription drug costs capped at $2,000 per year and their insulin copays capped at $35 per month. The Act gives Medicare the ability to negotiate prescription drug costs with pharmaceutical companies which will drive costs down for consumers. 

 

The new Act contains the largest ever national investment in the fight against climate change, speeds up private companies’ transition to clean energy technologies, expands domestic manufacturing of clean energy products and boosts American energy independence.

 

The Act provides $80 billion in financial rebates to homeowners who buy clean energy products, such as solar panels, electric vehicles, and other more energy efficient products. They can get $8,000 for a heat pump, $4,000 for an upgraded breaker box, $2,500 for upgraded electrical wiring, $1,750 for a heat pump water heater, $1,600 for insulation, air sealing and ventilation, $840 for an electric stove and $840 for an electric clothes dryer. 

 

The Act pays for these measures and helps reduce the deficit by making large corporations pay their fair share of the tax burden. There will also be a 1% tax on stock buy backs to help reduce corporate executive pay boosts. The Act does not raise taxes on small businesses or on Americans who earn less than $400,000 annually. 

 

Closer to home, Governor Evers popular Main Street Bounceback Grant Program continues to deliver for local small businesses, especially those damaged by the pandemic. Recently, Evers and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation announced an additional $25 million investment in the program, bringing the total to $100 million. The program has helped over 6,200 small businesses across all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties have been approved for $10,000 grants to help them move or expand into vacant spaces. More businesses can still apply for this assistance.

 

Funded largely by federal American Rescue Plan Act, Evers’ Main Street Bounceback grants have helped our economic recovery, lower our state’s unemployment rate, increase Wisconsin exports, open more new businesses and attract businesses from other states. 

 

I support these government programs that use tax dollars to help us all grow and prosper. They are positive examples of government in action that must continue as we dig out from under the COVID cloud. I fail to understand why Republicans in Congress or here in Wisconsin oppose these efforts to help us all grow. 

 

Democratic legislators we send to Washington are getting it done. Send more Democrats to Wisconsin’s legislature and still more positive things will happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrate Labor

 Celebrate Labor

Collective Action Brings Change

 

Another Labor Day weekend is here to celebrate all the accomplishments brought to us all by the American labor movement. Most will enjoy the extra day off from working for someone else by spending time enjoying family, friends, and the fruits of our labor. We should take some of that time to recognize what collective action has accomplished.

 

The American labor movement grew out of the excesses of the robber barons in the coal, steel, garment, auto and transportation industries around the turn of the last century. Workers came to realize that if they banded together and came up with a list of demands, their employers would rather negotiate and meet those demands than suffer the consequences of a strike when those that produced their products withheld their labor. No labor, no product, so sales, no profits. 

 

Over time labor unions brought us all safer working conditions, living wages, 40-hour work weeks, overtime pay, fringe benefits like employer paid health insurance, paid vacations, sick leave, family leave, workplace safety regulation and enforcement, the weekend, paid holidays and many others. Unions, collective action, helped level the playing field between workers and employers and helped build a strong middle class. 

 

I worked my way through college and law school with a good paying union job. I was a proud member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 251 in Madison, Wisconsin in the 1970s. I put in long hours, often well into the morning, helping to put on shows at the Dane County Coliseum for traveling companies of rock and roll performers, folk singers, Ice Shows, Auto Shows, political events, and others. My union brothers taught me what I needed to know and how to do it safely. If issues arose with the roadies, our business agent was on hand to iron them out. I took UW college classes in technical theatre and got to help put on the Bernstein Mass in New York City with our lighting instructor under the watchful eyes of the brothers and sisters of IATSE Local 1. 

 

Before I finished college, I joined VISTA and trained as a community organizer. I was posted to Houston, Texas where our team helped organize poor people of color to make the Houston Public Schools more responsive to their needs. We put together alliances with other community groups, and organized voter registration drives. I came to understand that individuals are essentially powerless, but groups of like-minded folks are not. Organized groups have the power to put pressure on decision makers and public officials to bring about change. 

 

After law school, I came to realize that community organizers owe a large debt to labor unions and their organizing strategies. We both utilize the same techniques to achieve mutually desired goals. We both recognize the power of collective action. 

 

Organized labor has long had a home in the Democratic party. Other organized groups have found friends and alliances in Democratic party efforts as their platforms are often aligned. Groups advocating for civil rights, opposing unjust wars, promoting reproductive freedom, same sex marriage, and universal suffrage have all found success working together with Democrats to achieve their goals. We have learned that we get more done if we work together. 

 

This explains why big business and their political allies work so hard to destroy the power of collective action. Wisconsin’s Act 10 is a perfect example. Teachers were organized and their statewide union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), had become a powerful ally of the Democratic party working to get more resources into local public schools and paying teachers well. They helped advance other Democratic party objectives. WEAC opposed a darling of the right, school choice and the now failed voucher system which stole funds from public schools and paid them to unaccountable charter and religious schools. When Scott Walker and the Tea Party took over state government, they dropped the Act 10 bomb which stripped organized teachers of much of their power. Unfortunately, we have now seen the result in underfunded public schools, demonized teachers bolting from their careers, local school boards strapped for resources and parents wondering how their children will continue to learn. 

 

So called “Right to Work” laws have further diminished worker power and made it harder to organize workplace unions. 

 

In today’s labor market, workers are once again feeling some sense of their collective power. Whole new sectors of our economy are seeing union growth. Witness the 200 Starbucks coffee shops that are now staffed by union members. Recent polling shows the approval rating for unions and union activity continuing to rise, surpassing post-World War II levels. Workers are demanding higher wages, living wages, and withholding their labor until their demands are met. There is not a shortage of people willing to work. There is a shortage of employers willing to pay workers what they are worth and recognize that labor produces the product, not the employer. 

 

Celebrate Labor Day and join a union. If your workplace does not have one, start one. There is power in collective action.