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GOP Worships the ‘Hand,’ Disrespects Those Who Work With Them; Leo W. Gerard – USW CEO; Progressive Democrats of America – PA 12th CD Chapter; March 4, 2012.
This article originally appeared in The Huffington Post.
You can learn more about BCR’s leftster management here.
“Take back the original control of our country. Stop foreign nationals from controlling our politics. They are destroying our country. Only you can make a difference.” So wrote BCR VP Bob Schmetzer on his Facebook page (2/10/13).
Leo Gerard is not a U.S. citizen; he’s a foreign national (Canadian). The citizenship issue is not important because of what Mr. Gerard preaches; it’s important because of his position and the power of that position to affect local, state, and federal policies. According to their Department of Labor LM-2 forms, USW management spent over $6 million in 2010 on “Political Activities and Lobbying.” In additional to the cash, the USW has access to more than 600,000 members (as of 2010) for “volunteer” political campaign work. It’s also necessary to note truth in advertising would require USW management to change its business’ name. According to “Steelworkers a minority within their own union,” as of 2005 less than one-third (about 180,000 out of about 600,000) of USW “members [are] employed in the primary and fabricated metals industries.”
Mr. Gerard is also a VP of the AFL-CIO and AFL-CIO management spent over $29.6 million in 2010 on “Political Activities and Lobbying.” In additional to the cash, the AFL-CIO has access to more than 11.7 million members (as of 2010) for “volunteer” political campaign work.
The primary business of today’s labor unions is political advocacy for leftist politicians and lobbying for leftist policies/programs. Representing employees is simply a fund-raising chore labor union management must endure to provide funds for its lobbying and political activities. Heck, AFL-CIO CEO Richard Trumka conceded as much when he said, “I got into the labor movement not because I wanted to negotiate wages. I got into the labor movement because I saw it as a vehicle to do massive social change to improve the lots of people.”
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Despite spending the majority of his time in the United States, he said he wouldn’t give up his Canadian citizenship: ‘I don’t want to give up my health care.’” Maybe it’s just me, but that’s a pretty snotty answer. Mr. Gerard has apparently been living in the U.S. since at least 2001 and he thinks so little of the U.S. that he doesn’t want to be a citizen because of “health care?” Doesn’t the USW provide medical insurance for its employees?
Getting back to Mr. Schmetzer’s comment about foreign nationals, it disappeared from Facebook sometime after I commented on it.
The most recent Gerard piece I critiqued was “Occupy: Resurrecting Rev. King’s Final Dream” Previous critiques are here, here and here.
“March 4, 2013 – The invisible hand of the market, which the GOP worships as an infallible god, is curled into a fist and is pounding America’s lowest-paid workers.”
[RWC] Before you read this piece, I recommend you wrap your head in duct tape to keep it from exploding. It’s difficult not to be snarky when critiquing columns like this, so I apologize in advance. This is another truth-challenged piece of work from the CEO of a political-advocacy business posing as a labor-union CEO. When Mr. Gerard isn’t lying, he smears his opponents and engages in personal attacks. If Samuel Gompers were alive, I wonder what he would think of Mr. Gerard.
Using the language of the left, Mr. Gerard is an economics denier. As you read this piece, keep in mind its intended audience likely won’t question anything they read from their dear leader. This is not a piece written by someone who can defend his ideology and policies with the truth, history, and logic. This is a piece intended to exploit the less-endearing aspects of human behavior. This piece is not to educate, but to inflame.
As for Mr. Gerard’s imaginary “fist,” you’ll find some labor unions and their representatives use a real fist in their logos.
I’m sure it was an honest omission, but Mr. Gerard failed to mention he benefits from a minimum-wage increase because it results in windfall dues without union management increasing the fees/rates charged.
For some data on this topic, please read “Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers: 2012” by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. One of the things you’ll find is employees who worked for “wages at or below the federal minimum made up 4.7% of all hourly paid workers.”
“Those workers have complained about the grinding poverty level of minimum wage. Wal-Mart warehouse workers and New York fast food workers recently demonstrated. They’re fed up. Well, they would be if they could afford enough to eat. President Obama responded, asking Congress to raise the minimum wage, which was last increased to $7.25 an hour in 2009.”
[RWC] If the alleged employees don’t like the economic value of their current jobs, they should get jobs with greater economic value.
You can learn more on this topic in my paper entitled “The Minimum Wage.”
“Republicans, the party of NO, replied to Obama’s request with a surly, ‘No way!’ Respect the hand, they said, referring to their beloved spectral regulator of the market. Government, Republicans said, must not tell business what to do, must not ‘burden’ business by requiring it to pay a little more. Republicans never mention the burden under which 18 million minimum wage workers struggle, working full-time for $15,080 a year, barely enough to feed, clothe and house themselves. That’s because Republicans revere non-humans — corporations and invisible hands — while denigrating and disrespecting humans who work with their hands to serve food, care for the elderly and stock shelves.
“The disrespect could be heard in Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s voice as he derided 47 percent of all Americans as ‘takers.’ That huge number Romney despises includes minimum wage workers – 84 percent of whom are 20 or older — whose children receive immunizations and antibiotics through Medicaid because employers paying minimum wage virtually never provide health insurance.”
[RWC] Mr. Romney didn’t “deride 47 percent of all Americans as ‘takers.’” You can read what Mr. Romney really said in my critique of “Republicans will do anything to win.”
I didn’t hear Mr. Gerard complain when House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) referred to those without medical insurance as “free riders.”
“That GOP disrespect for low-wage workers was in the voice of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, when he rebuffed the president’s proposal to increase minimum wage by asking:
“ Why would we make it harder for small employers to hire people?
“Clearly, Boehner doesn’t care that each year, as inflation rises and minimum wage remains flat, survival gets harder and harder for working people. Clearly the Speaker doesn’t care that the minimum wage now, because it hasn’t kept pace with inflation over the past four decades, is effectively $3.30 an hour lower than it was in 1968, making life significantly harder for this century’s low-wage workers. The hardship of humans doesn’t concern Boehner.”
[RWC] I would be completely embarrassed if I felt had to resort to ridiculous smears to “support” my positions.
“Boehner’s response suggests that he actually cares about hiring, but this is the guy who just refused to close tax loopholes or end oil subsidies to soften the blow of the sequester cuts — reductions that the Congressional Budget Office calculates will cost 750,000 jobs. Eliminating jobs definitely is worse than making it harder to hire.”
[RWC] A “cut” of 2.2% (about $85 billion) for fiscal year 2013 will cost 750,000 jobs? That’s about $113,333 per job. Mr. Gerard and his comrades are squealing like stuck pigs about 2.2%, a figure that would still leave spending about $115 billion greater than FY 2011.
I suspect Mr. Gerard’s definition of a “loophole” is a legal provision of the tax code he doesn’t like, probably because he believes it doesn’t benefit him personally. For example, if you didn’t like the home-mortgage interest deduction because you rent or your house is paid for, you would call it a loophole because the deduction reduces the tax liability of taxpayers who can use it. You would claim the deduction (loophole) allows some taxpayers to escape paying their “fair share” of taxes.
As I’ve written since at least 2005, there’s no question the oil and gas industry needs no subsidies, tax breaks, et cetera. That’s my position for all businesses, not just oil and gas. That said, my experience is when someone complains about subsidies for oil companies and other industries they don’t like, those “subsidies” or “loopholes” turn out to be provisions (deductions, exemptions, etc.) of the tax code available to all businesses. For example, all businesses can deduct most business expenses like employee pay, depreciation, raw materials, etc. from their gross income for tax purposes. Of course, not all businesses/industries have the same expenses so some provisions don’t apply to all businesses. For example, if a business doesn’t make capital investments, that business has no depreciation expenses to deduct.
“Then there’s the question about whether Boehner’s hiring assertion is even true. Economists dispute the effect of minimum wage on employment. More than 160 studies haven’t resolved the issue. Some say raising it costs jobs; others say raising it increases jobs. It seems to affect employment minimally and the overall unemployment rate not at all. For example, in 1968, when the minimum wage was effectively much higher, unemployment was very low. But in the 1980s, when the value of the minimum wage eroded, unemployment rose. In North Carolina, where the national $7.25 minimum wage is the standard, the unemployment rate is almost twice as high as that in Vermont, which legislated a higher $8.60 minimum wage.”
[RWC] This is like the lefty claim then-President Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax-rate increases were responsible for the 1990s economic expansion. In truth, the economic expansion began in March/April 1991, about 20 months before Mr. Clinton took office. The economy continued to grow in spite of the tax increase, not because of it.
To cut through Mr. Gerard’s smokescreen, ask yourself the following question: When the price of something goes up, do you buy more of it, or less?
“Republicans in Florida and Arizona actually proposed reducing their minimum wages for some workers last year. Eric Cantor, the Republican from Virginia and House Majority leader, introduced legislation last year, and has promised to do it again this year, to terminate workers’ rights under federal law to receive overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week. And former Republican presidential primary candidate Newt Gingrich wanted to get rid of child labor laws, recommending schools fire their adult janitors and employ poor children at lower rates.”
[RWC] As for the comment about Newt Gingrich, Mr. Gerard lied. In the interest of full disclosure, along with some fellow eighth-graders I washed dishes in my grade school’s cafeteria during lunch. I believe some of us mopped the cafeteria floor afterward, but I could be mistaken. Lunch was our pay. I don’t believe the experience scarred me. Indeed, though my family wasn’t poor and I didn’t need to work for my lunch, I chose to do so because I was proud to help even a little bit. This program directly benefited participating kids and our families. The program indirectly benefited other families by helping to keep the price of school lunches low.
“The consistent theme is that Republicans don’t want to control corporations at all. Their mantra is: Let the hand do its work!”
[RWC] This is the old “Republicans don’t believe in government” straw man. Mr. Gerard can’t argue against limited government (not no government), so he throws up the straw man of no government to rail against. When folks like Mr. Gerard can’t argue with the truth, they make up stuff.
You’ll find Mr. Gerard uses the term “corporation” as a synonym for business. That is, Mr. Gerard’s animosity applies to all businesses (except his own), regardless of their size or organization.
“Historically, that hasn’t gone so well for workers and citizens. From air pollution to worker health to product safety, the hand has failed to protect the people. Without laws safeguarding quality and purity, ‘swill milk,’ sold by ‘dairymen’ who knew it was dangerous, killed 8,000 babies a year in New York City in the 1850s. Without laws regulating pollution, smog from mills in Donora killed 22 people and sickened 13,000 nearly a century later in 1948. Without laws or adequate government enforcement, workplace exposure has killed – and still kills to this day — untold thousands of workers, including far too many painfully struggling for breath from asbestosis, silicosis and black lung.”
[RWC] Regarding Donora, Mr. Gerard omitted a couple of points. First, Mr. Gerard didn’t mention the air inversion that trapped and concentrated “normal” (still not good) pollution at ground level for about five days. According to “A Cloud With a Silver Lining: The Killer Smog in Donora, 1948,” “The federal investigation yielded little results as well. The Public Health Service released its findings in 1949. The results said that the temperature inversion was the cause for the incident. The report called the incident a ‘freak of nature’ and an ‘act of God.’”
Second, and more important, Mr. Gerard failed to mention employees at the U.S. Steel plants in Donora were represented by the USW. Aren’t “labor unions” like the USW supposed to look out for the health of its members? What did the USW do to avert the disaster?
“Knowing that history, Americans support government regulation. Wall Street is a perfect example. Gambling on Wall Street caused the Crash of 1929. Government responded with the Glass-Steagall regulations in 1933. Wall Street persuaded Congress to repeal them in 1999, then resumed gambling and crashed the economy again in 2008, after which Americans strongly supported restoring financial regulation.”
[RWC] Though I disagree the deregulation to which Mr. Gerard refers was the cause of the current economic mess we’re, that deregulation happened during the Clinton administration. Public Law 106-102 repealed the “Glass-Steagall Act” in 1999. 75% of House Democrats, 98% of House Republicans, 84% of Senate Democrats, and 94% of Senate Republicans voted for the repeal and then-President Clinton signed the bill.
Though most of us are guilty, use of the word “repeal” is incorrect regarding Glass-Steagall. Only some aspects of Glass-Steagall were repealed.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is a big fan of extensive regulation, supports reinstating the “Glass-Steagall Act,” and is a darling of the left. Even so, according to The New York Times, when Ms. Warren was asked if “the financial crisis or JPMorgan’s losses could have been avoided if Glass-Steagall were in place, she conceded: ‘The answer is probably ‘No’ to both.’” Oops.
Mr. Gerard wants his readers to believe the repeal of portions of Glass-Steagall eliminated “financial regulation.” Mr. Gerard seems to have forgotten the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, supported and signed into law by President Bush. The major cause of the recession was the subprime lending program championed by leftists like Mr. Gerard.
By “Gambling on Wall Street,” Mr. Gerard really means speculation by investors. Check a thesaurus and you’ll find “speculation” is a synonym for “investment.” ALL investments are speculative. Unless you have a crystal ball, no investment is a sure thing. Finally, Mr. Gerard would probably like us to believe “the Crash of 1929” caused the Great Depression. It did not.
“Similarly, Americans support government-mandated raises for low-income workers now. An overwhelming majority – 71 percent — wants the government to increase minimum wage. USA Today/PewResearch conducted that poll after President Obama called for raising minimum wage to $9 and linking future increases to inflation.”
[RWC] Mr. Gerard appears to be “gilding the lily.” The question was, “Do you strongly favor, favor, oppose, or strongly oppose an increase in the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.00 an hour?” This poll didn’t ask about “linking future increases to inflation.”
We have no idea how well-informed the respondents were on this topic. What polled Americans may or may not want doesn’t make it right. I’d be willing to bet emotions played a role in the poll results. That is, who doesn’t want employees to earn a good living? There’s also the issue of respondents not always being honest about questions like these. Further, these are not truly anonymous polls; if they want, the pollsters can learn the names of the respondents. Regardless of the facts and logic, who wants to tell a stranger on the phone he doesn’t want employees to earn a better living?
“Another important poll taken after President Obama’s call was conducted by the IGM Forum, which is run by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The Forum asked a group of top economists whether they thought increasing the minimum wage to $9 was worth any potential disadvantages. When weighted by their confidence, the poll found 62 percent agreed the raise was worth the risk.”
[RWC] Rather than use Mr. Gerard’s questionable translation, let’s go directly to the poll.
The IGM Forum’s poll asked two questions. “Question A: Raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour would make it noticeably harder for low-skilled workers to find employment.” “Weighted by each expert’s confidence,” 40% agreed, 38% disagreed, and 22% were uncertain.
“Question B: The distortionary costs of raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour and indexing it to inflation are sufficiently small compared with the benefits to low-skilled workers who can find employment that this would be a desirable policy.” “Weighted by each expert’s confidence,” 62% agreed/strongly agreed, 16% disagreed/strongly disagreed, and 23% were uncertain.
You probably noticed Mr. Gerard didn’t mention Question A, and that Question B acknowledged “distortionary costs of raising the federal minimum wage.”
Thank goodness “top economists” don’t let their political ideology get in the way of their positions. <g>
“It seems wise in a democracy to go with the judgment of the great majority of citizens and experts rather than with the invisible fist, which has proven itself evil and which, at this moment, has low-wage workers down for the count.”
[RWC] As a Canadian, Mr. Gerard may not know the U.S. is a republic, not “a democracy.” I’m sure Mr. Gerard would prefer the mob rule of “a democracy,” though.
As for “the invisible fist,” the logo of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO includes a blue, raised fist. An employee, Dan Bosh (Field Services Representative), of the Steelworkers Pension Trust uses the same blue, raised fist for his Facebook profile picture. Perhaps Mr. Gerard should clean his house first.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity. <g>
© 2004-2013 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.