The Wall Street Journal reports today that Chicago's Democratic Mayor is offering city worker's and residents quite a deal; layoffs or 16 days off without pay; they call them, "involuntary furloughs". Public services would be shut down on those days naturally. Michael Bloomberg, the multi-millionaire mayor of NYC is also laying off a couple thousand workers and reducing services. Around the country, the scenario is the same, Detroit, LA, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other major urban centers.
In Chicago, the Union leaders' answer has been to ask, politely of course, for a no layoff guarantee if worker's agree to the 16 days off without pay. How inspiring is that? How can you build a movement against the employer's offensive with this strategy? The answer is you can't.
City workers will most likely accept one of these two bad alternatives--we accept lots of things that are not in our interests when we see no other alternative; it's a coerced acceptance.
But we know there is plenty of money in society, we don't need to have PhD's in economics to see this. We've seen them dole out trillions of dollars to their friends. We've seen them with their snouts in the public trough for years. And, are the Union officials taking 16 days off without pay? I'll bet they would be a little less willing to offer such a position to their members were this so; they'd get a bit more aggressive if they were losing their living standards.
All Union officials should not receive compensation greater than the wages of the worker's they represent, and, if worker's take cuts, Union officials should take the same cuts.
Chicago has cut its workforce by 15% not including the anticipated 1500 new layoffs. Meanwhile, the city gave a 75 year year lease to a bunch of investors from Morgan Stanley, the moneylenders, group. The lease privatizes the city's 36,000 parking meters. What a crock. Worker's pay the fines due to a failed urban planning system based on market priorities (poor transit system) and the method of issuing these fines and collecting the cash is a healthy, for profit business. The sale raised $1.2 billion and the new private owners have already "quadrupled" rates in some areas and in others, numerous broken meters have been reported.
One woman who was forced to park at a broken meter ended up paying $300 after her car was towed. "It feels like your paying more and getting less" the woman tells the WSJ. She feels that way because her perception is real--she is paying more for less.
I have raised numerous times on this blog the absurd situation we are in. The politicians of big business who control and distribute the national wealth, hand over our money to moneylenders, speculators and other parasitical characters so they can either lend it back to us at a price so we can buy the commodities we produce and pay for the services we ourselves provide. In other instances they hand over our money so their friends can invest it in the marketplace; this is what happened with much of the TARP money.
Regardless of our so-called political affiliation, this is just an inefficient way to run society. Any worker can see that. Were workers in possession of, and had control over the allocation of the surplus we produce through our labor, we would undoubtedly do a better job of it.
What working class person would disagree with that? I'd be interested in hearing from them.
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