← Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff
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- [00:10]
A
Welcome, friends, to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic dimensions of our lives. Jobs, debts, incomes, those of our children, those of ourselves looking into the future. I'm your host, Richard Wolff. I want to begin by indicating that a few weeks ago we spoke about a strike, or actually an impending strike, of the New York State Nurses association and the decision of the union to forego the strike because of a tentative agreement that had finally been forced out of the hospitals and so on. I reported this as a victory for the workers there, which in part it was. But an alert listener, and indeed several let me know that there was quite a bit of disagreement in and among the nurses about that agreement and about whether they could have and should have struck for a much better agreement that their patients need and that they do. So, please, I want to correct my reportage. There is great division, and the struggle around these issues will continue within the union and between the union and the management. My next Economic Update strikes me as particularly remarkable. The latest Gallup poll results released in April of 2019 have a remarkable statistic. Membership in religious institutions in the United States has dropped to an historic low never seen before. 50% of the American people are members of any sort of religious institution. That's over the last 20 to 25 years, a drop from 76% to 50%. That is a staggering decrease. The new generation of people is clearly less committed to less interested in being members of religious institutions than earlier generations in America were. The reason I bring this up is because despite all of that, we still, as a nation, subsidize organized religion. Religious institutions are exempted in the United States from paying federal or state or local taxes. They use public services, police, fire, public schools, health, maintenance, roads, all of the things that everybody else uses. Everybody both members of religious organizations and not. But the difference is that if you're a member of a religious organization, you get to use these public services, but the religious organization is not required to pay for them. Those who get free services from the government and don't pay for them thereby put a burden on those who must pay for the delivery of services to institutions that don't contribute themselves to paying for it. 50% of Americans who are not members of religious institutions are subsidizing the 50% who are. And you might want to think about that. My next update has to do with a turning point. I mean, a big historical turning point for the United States getting way less attention than it deserves. Over the last few weeks, the head of the German government, Angela Merkel, and One of the biggest car companies in the world, Toyota, have made statements about the United States that every American ought to think about long and hard. Let me begin with Mrs. Merkel. She made a major speech that said that Europe, not just Germany, all of Europe, now has to deal with a world in which there are three great rivals. Her word, Russia, China and the United States. Europe has to go it alone. Europe has to develop the economic, political and cultural power to confront its three rivalsRussia, China and the United States. That's remarkable talk from what once was an ally. We are not an ally. We are a rival. Alongside Russia and China, Europe is a bigger economic unit than the United States. More people, larger gdp. That is big news for the United States, as we will see also over the same period of time, Toyota slammed President Trump and the GOP for issuing a statement which Mr. Trump made that foreign owned companies in the automobile industries constituted a danger to the national security of the United States. Wow. Toyota is a foreign owned automobile company active in the United States. Even the American association of Automobile Manufacturers, which includes both foreign owned and domestic automobile companies, is horrified by this and has spoken against the President. Why? And here's the important Toyota announces it no longer feels welcome in the United States, directly and indirectly. Toyota employs 475,000 people in the United States. If they're not welcome, they will leave. And what happens to American auto workers working for Toyota or VW or Lord knows who else? What are you doing? What are you engaging with? This is economic nationalism of a frightening sort. Is the United States going to become Fortress America? We're only going to produce here. If so. If so, if only American companies are going to get the benefit of the American government, we're going to have a problem. We're going to have a big problem. Why? Because to produce here in the United States is expensive. If you start doing that, prices are going to rise. That's what the Automobile association explains. And if prices rise, workers in America are going to demand more wages to pay the higher prices. This is a serious problem for us. This is a direction we really ought not to go into. It is a serious problem. And that direction may be good politics for Mr. Trump and and the Republicans. It is a disaster. If the rest of the world produces at lower prices, becomes itself a place where new technology is developed, the United States will fall behind. Going it alone with economic nationalism didn't work out real well for Mr. Hitler in Germany some decades ago. It's not going to work out well here either. Next update 40 out of the 50 states in the United States have filed suit against major pharmaceutical firms owning alleging mass price gouging, in some cases raising prices of drugs 1000% after a five year investigation. Leading that charge, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong referred to a multi billion dollar fraud on the American people. 20 firms have been named and over 100 drugs. I find this astonishing. But more astonishing than this kind of fraud is the fact that no systemic solution is being proposed. What are we going to do? Slap them on the hands? That's what we've done in the past and clearly it made no difference. Something much more fundamental has to be changed. Maybe the government and a cooperative of workers ought to run the pharmaceutical industry. So we begin to do something that might slow this down. To give you an idea of what's upsetting people who have to live with this outrageous profiteering, I did some work and I got the average out of pocket cost for insulin, something needed by diabetics, which is a global disease. In Italy, the out of pocket monthly cost for an Italian to get insulin is $19. In the United Kingdom, the monthly cost out of pocket of an individual to get the Same insulin shots, $65. In the United States, the monthly out of pocket cost today, $360. There's no excuse for this. This is called price gouging. Let me give you another example. In the United States, the richest Americans live ready, if they're men, 15 years longer than the poorest, and if they're women, it's 10 years. Put that in a different way. The average difference between rich and poor in the United States who can afford medical care and who can't, is wider. That gap between rich and poor in America is wider than the gap between the average American and the average length of life of a Yemeni or Ethiopian citizen. Think about it. Trump keeps saying that the Chinese will pay the tariff that he's putting on Chinese goods. And Mr. Trump doesn't understand economics. A tariff is a tax. If the government of Mr. Trump puts a tariff on Chinese goods, it means that whoever imports the goods into the United States, whatever American company does that, they will be charged that tax. So the tax is not paid by the Chinese. The tax is paid by American importing companies. And guess what? They don't want to have to pay that tax. So here's the only thing they can do. They can pass that on at a higher price to you and me. So the people who end up paying the tariffs are the American companies and the American consumer. Mr. Trump's tariffs are an immense tax increase. On America, which as a Republican, he's supposed to be against. Remarkable. Don't be fooled. Mother's Day recently passed and it reminded me that there is a bill which has been introduced to the United States Congress called the Raise the wage act of 2019 that has still not been passed. This act would raise the minimum wage in the United States from the current $7.25, one of the lowest in the world, to $15 per hour by 2024. If it were enacted, 7.8 million mothers would get an actual Mother's Day gift. That mattered. It's sitting in the Congress and nothing is happening to it. Meanwhile, Mother's Day cards are being sent in large numbers. Finally, in Russia, a couple was recently. Excuse me, in France, my mistake, A couple, the Balkanis, they are called, were arrested. They were the political leaders, both the man and his wife, for the Center Right Party, the party of Sarkozy and Chirac in the Levallois per suburb of Paris. Here's what they were found. They were accused of tax fraud, taking bribes, using the money to buy mansions in France and the Caribbean. Why do I bring you this? You're wondering, probably. Gee, this happens all the time. And you're right. But it's a lesson nonetheless. Here's how it works. Capitalists have a lot of money. That's what they're in the capitalist business to get. They make profits. They had a lot of people working and they pay them as little as possible and get as much profit as they can. And in order to get even more profit, because they're competing with other profiteers, they use part of their profits to bribe public officials to give them more benefits. And occasionally, very occasionally, they get caught. You know, we had one recently in this country when Conrad Black, who went to jail for bribing politicians, was given a pardon by President Trump. Of course, here's the no end of arrests, no end of this problem. It's not solved by slapping people on the hands, even if they don't get a pardon from a president. The problem is if you allow some people to have this much money and the rest of us, not those people with the money, are going to bribe government to keep the wealth going their way. It's as old a problem as the human race, and it's particularly bad in a system that gives so few people so much money. Well, we've come to the end of the first half of Economic update. Please stay with me for a remarkable interview to follow. But again, please support us on YouTube. It's a big help to us make use of our rdwolff with two Fs com and and democracyatwork.info there. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and communicate directly to us with your questions and suggestions, which we welcome. And finally before our break, one more thanks to the Patreon community for the support, the encouragement and the enthusiasm they show. We are grateful. Stay with us. Will be right back. Welcome back friends, to the second half of today's economic update. It is my pleasure to welcome to the microphone and to the camera Neha Matthew Shah. She is the president of the Progressive Workers Union and currently employed with the Sierra Club as an international environmental justice representative. As a non profit employee for over seven years, NEHA participated actively with the two unions that now represent two thirds of Sierra Club, the PWU and the Sierra Employee Alliance. Because of the importance of nonprofit institutions in the American economy and the relatively new effort to organize them as union members, I thought it was particularly important to talk to NEHA about that whole project. So first of all, let me thank you, neha, for joining us.
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B
Thank you.
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A
Okay, tell us a little bit so the audience can get with us on this. A little bit about brief history of the PWU and kind of what your goals are.
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B
Sure, absolutely. So back in 1991, when I was one years old, there were employees in our San Francisco office of the Sierra Club that were facing a layoff of about 22 employees and an increase to the work week of 40 hours. And so they quickly realized that unionizing was really the only way to protect their worker rights. And, and so after what I can imagine was an incredible organizing story, the National Labor Relations Board made a decision to create two separate unions, the Sierra Employee alliance, which is affiliated with the United Auto Workers and represents the workers based in our corporate in our headquarters in Oakland, California. And then everyone else working for the Sierra Club on national campaigns is represented by the John Muir Local. 100. Three years ago, we renamed our union from John Muir Local to Progressive Workers Union.
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A
Okay, and let me ask you almost a provocative question. As a new union, as a union involving young people like yourself, do you have a plan for what union organizing means that is different from the tradition of the union movement? In other words, are you part of a new wave? Are you doing within the union movement? I don't know what Bernie and AOC are trying to do within the Democratic part. It's that kind of question I'd like to hear your thoughts about.
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B
Yeah, and I believe we're part of that new wave. And I believe we're leading that new wave. So just from my personal experience, I don't come from a union background. I wouldn't have been in a union had I not landed into an organization that happened to have union represented positions. I think it is so fortunate that after I think about five years in the organization, I tried to join through various committees and task force forces trying to hold the organization accountable to change. You know, how can the organization walk the talk around issues of social justice and equity?
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A
You mean the Sierra Club?
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B
The Sierra Club. Correct. As a nonprofit, and the reality is that all nonprofits are dealing with something called the nonprofit industrial complex. The nonprofit industrial complex basically results in such a way where employees have been facing a legacy of exploitation. And that shows up in very different ways. But what I discovered as a union worker and as a union leader was that once we developed a way to organize collectively and talk about our issues within the organization, we were actually directly holding the organization accountable and directly combating this issue of the nonprofit industrial complex. So to me, and I would say to the broader progressive workers union at this point, unionizing organizations like the Sierra Club and building our collective voice and action around not just workers rights, but economic justice, social justice, racial justice issues is really about making progressive organizations practice what they preach and therefore strengthening movements from within.
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A
Interesting. So is it correct for me to infer from what you say that your goals are both the economic advancement of the employee faced with what managements typically do, but also that you're part of a broader social movement and feel that as intrinsic to your unionization?
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B
Absolutely. I mean, we have to do that. Right. For example, I think when AOC came into office, one of the first articles I saw was that she was trying to pay for her interns. Right. And that's actually one of the first things our members fought for a few years ago was Sierra Club had been trying for a long time. Many staff had been trying to get their interns paid. But that's not traditionally something that nonprofits do. But in the past few years, we were able to successfully, through the union's efforts, push for paid internships. And now every intern that is at the Sierra Club has a paid internship.
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A
Right. So the reason I ask is that there's a long legacy in the American labor movement for sure, of a split between those who think the union should be focused just on improving the conditions for its members on the job and those who believe that that task improving your members situation requires you to be part of a larger social movement. In other words, the experience of workers on the job is shaped not just by the job, but by the larger society. Are you making a choice? Is the PWU committed in this controversy? If you like which way to go.
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B
I'm wondering if you could rephrase the question. Okay.
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A
How important is the broader social activity for pwu? Is it intrinsic to what you're trying to do? Are you as committed to participating in the broader social movements as the immediacy of your own workers situation?
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B
Yes. And I can offer a few examples of why. I think that we aren't just related to movements that are around antisexism around, we are a part of those movements. Some examples I can offer. So I told you earlier about how our union changed its name from John Muir Local to Progressive Workers Union. This happened a few years ago when our our leaders, basically we came together and demanded of our membership, who are we? What do we represent? Who do we represent? And what we came together was that we stand absolutely for anti racist initiatives and we stand for any movement that is striving towards equity and justice. We stand against anything that impacts our members, whether that's ableism, sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia. You know, all of these issues impact our members. And so we are whole people. Just because we work at an environmental nonprofit that has one mission doesn't change how we exist on a day to day basis. And so I think the way that we function as a union is we're talking about our day to day lives and that what we live and do day to day should be a lived reality of how we do our work as well.
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A
Yeah, it's interesting because if you go back a few decades in American history, it was almost commonsensical, say not that far back, 50s and 60s even, and certainly even before for unions to think of themselves as the leaders of a broad social movement, wanting to be seen that way and understanding that if the union was in the forefront of broad social issues, it would bring more people in touch with the union and build its memberships too. So there was no contradiction. Okay. I noticed in one of our earlier conversations you made a distinction between an organizing model of unionism and a service model. Could you tell a little bit about that and where the PWU puts its emphasis?
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B
Yeah, absolutely. So a service model of a union, right, is one where you're not really very engaged within your union structure. You know, you might have an issue, so you might contact someone that you think might be involved with the union, you might contact a leader and then there's some sort of leadership structure that Deals with management and there's some sort of a response. What we've built, especially in the last three or four years, is what I would say an organizing model. And an organizing model is one where for example, we've built a steward program that is constantly changing with our members input. So we have head stewards, we have stewards as well. And every member and steward is required not only to communicate with when there's an issue, it's really about having more of a transformational relationship than simply a transactional one where there's an expectation out of some hierarchical structure that something will happen. Something that I constantly say on our member calls, our PW member calls is, you know, I'm not the union. Neha Matthew is not the union. We are the union. And anywhere where we're operating, we have to think about what we have as our collective voice, our collective action. And what does that look like? I also think another part of an organizing union is one where we have specifically realized the importance of centering impacted the most, impacted the most marginalized identities. So you know, if I can point to our logo, our logo is really of two people of color, hands joined together. That doesn't mean that we don't have folks that identify as not people of color. Actually I would say we're majority white. But the reality is that we have realized the importance of when you bring up the most marginalized folks in any situation, what that results in is bringing up not just the unionized folks. Our bargaining ended up resulting in impacting not just those that we unionized non represented folks as well as management.
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A
Okay, let me ask you if your sense is that nonprofits present some special problems. In other words, you're focusing on nonprofit employees. My gut reaction from my own experience working in nonprofits, which I've done, is that you have a problem. Because there's this ethos, there's almost this ideology that we're all in the nonprofit business, we're all here about doing good. And we shouldn't have a problem between management and labor because we are all nice people doing good. And what that does is kind of make the union push it out in an unusual way. Have you found this and what are you doing about it?
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B
Yeah, I think it's this idea that there is no gray. Right. We always want to claim that we're the good guys. Don't come after us because we're the good guys. We're trying to save the environment, we care about all these issues. But I think that's where so much of our Efforts have really brought the organization to accountability. So last December, we actually both the unions pushed Sierra Club to come out in support of organizers at the Tesla factory in Buffalo who were trying to organize to unionize. And we were able to come out in support of these workers who are trying to unionize at a Tesla factory. I think the overall message there that we are putting forward also because our membership represents organizers, community organizers, campaigners that are based across the country, communications professionals, we really understand what's happening in community. And it's not just about shutting down plants and moving towards clean energy. That's not it. It is about people. It's about changing and transforming our economy, about paying attention to what that results in for whole communities. And so to be able to bring out that voice, I think finally through the union, we're actually able to live this talk about being a bottom up organization, being a grassroots based organization. Right? We're actually able to do that because we have a voice sitting across the table from management.
- [27:43]
A
I also like the idea that the workers at Sierra Club are beginning to shape what Sierra Club is because after all, that's what being a democratic organization should have meant all along. I wish we had more time, but I want to thank you and I want to say something to our audience. The labor movement and larger, broader social movements went their separate ways over the last 50 years on many occasions, not all, but many. And that came out of a lot of political struggles. And it was a service to the people who run this society that that was a split. It's now coming back together again thanks to a new generation of labor activists and leaders such as neha. And I want to be the first to welcome that development and to look forward to the reunification of the labor movement and other social movements to change the direction of this society. Thank you all for watching and I look forward to being with you again next week.