Bal Harbour, FL
Anti-worker interests are using their control of Congress and numerous state houses to launch an assault on working American families. Their broad legislative agenda would subvert workplace democracy and undermine virtually every social and economic gain the labor movement has ever achieved.
Republican economic policies created huge annual budget shortfalls and vastly increased the national debt during the 1980s. Now, the new congressional majority wants to constitutionally outlaw deficit spending by the federal government at the price of the nation's future. Its leaders are moving to sharply curtail, or to eliminate, a broad range of government programs that help working people. And, they promise to shower more money and license on the rich and powerful through tax cuts for the well-to-do and widespread deregulation of businesses.
Their obvious intent is to curtail government's role as an instrument of human progress and as a means of maintaining a just and decent society. Their goal is to place America's future in the hands of unfettered markets, and not the American people.
Though it is cloaked in populist rhetoric, this agenda would shift power away from elected government and hand it to un-elected, privileged interests -- those who are best able to flourish in a savage economy where market forces and the pursuit of profit reign supreme.
In their rush to serve private interests at all costs, the newly-ascendant powers in Congress scorn the genuine, ongoing concerns of working Americans.
In the face of falling wages, evaporating benefits and increasing job insecurity, they propose to relax wage and hour regulations, repeal prevailing wage laws covering government contracts and encourage precarious, contingent employment.
At a time when thousands of workers continue to die on the job each year, they propose to Transform The Occupational Safety And Health Administration From An Enforcement Agency Into A "Consultant."
While promising to protect the interests of older Americans, they advance a Balanced Budget Amendment that, if enacted, would leave no real choice but to reduce Social Security benefits.
Even though health care costs threaten to bankrupt millions of working families, they propose to shift more costs to workers and retirees through sharp cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.
While proposing to cut off welfare recipients and require them to work, they damn government job creation and child care initiatives.
They rail against crime and the deterioration of community life, but slash the ranks of the public workers who dedicate their lives to maintaining a safe and decent environment in our streets and throughout society.
They pretend to embrace the ideals of past struggles for civil rights, but propose to narrow the scope and weaken the enforcement of anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws.
While giving lip service to American leadership in the world, they move to diminish government's ability to promote peace and expand democracy through modest assistance to struggling countries.
They talk about "job creation and wage enhancement," but support the export of U.S. jobs to countries where governments oppress and abuse working people.
And, while they speak of "cooperation" as the essential key to the future of labor-management relations, they seek to enhance the power of employers to create undemocratic, company unions.
The American labor movement, which has struggled for more than a century to create clearings of civilization in the jungle of the marketplace, will vigorously oppose their efforts.
The vast majority of working Americans are proud of their country and the high standards they've built over many years -- air and water that is cleaner, workplaces and products that are safer, greater income and racial equality, and a system that protects workers from destitution when they retire. They continue to believe in a society dedicated to affording everyone the chance to make a decent living, to have some measure of job security and to provide their children with a good education and opportunities for a better life. They want a voice -- a genuine voice -- at their jobs. They continue to favor decent health care for all of their fellow citizens. They know that their country must actively pursue freedom, democracy and social justice in the world, lest America's own standards be threatened.
This is where working Americans stand -- today, tomorrow and far into the future.
- The Rush To Deregulate
- The Balanced Budget Amendment
- Tax cuts
- Unfunded Mandates
- Minimum Wage
- Health Care
- Food Assistance
- Welfare Reform
AFL-CIO Fact Sheet: The Needs of Working America <a name="THE RUSH TO DEREGULATE">THE RUSH TO DEREGULATE</a> The Republican leadership in Congress is rushing forward withlegislation that would tear down the federal government's entireregulatory system and roll back years of progress in protectinghealth, safety and the environment. Promoted as necessary reformsto make government regulation more efficient and less onerous, theRepublican proposals are ill-conceived, unworkable measures thatwould create chaos and leave the public and workers withoutimportant protections. The major anti-regulatory measures being advanced by HouseRepublicans are: The Regulatory Transition Act (H.R.450): Republicans have proposed a regulatory moratorium that would stop all federal rulemaking activity until the end of the year and delay the implementation of all rules issued since November 1994. This legislation would stop important new rules -- like the proposed OSHA ergonomics standard -- from moving forward. It would delay implementation of many important measures including the Family and Medical Leave Act rules issued in January 1995. The Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act (H.R.9): This is a far-reaching measure that would make it much more difficult for the government to issue important safeguards. It gives new rights to regulated businesses at the expense of protecting workers and the public. Among other provisions, this bill would: _ Require extensive risk assessments and cost-benefit analyses for safety, health and environmental rules, thereby doubling the time and money needed to issue new measures. The bill overrides all existing health, safety and environmental laws. Standards would no longer be set at a level to protect health, but rather at a level where the costs of the rule did not exceed the benefits. _ Allow representatives of regulated businesses to sit on peer review panels and judge the scientific basis of proposed and final rules. _ Give extensive new rights to regulated parties to challenge rules or enforcement actions and to be compensated by taxpayers if restrictions resulted in more than a 10 percent reduction in the value of property. _ Set a cap on the total cost of rules that could be imposed on the private sector. New rules could only be issued if others were revoked, so government protection would be rationed among the nation's citizens. _ Give the Office of Management and Budget much broader authority to review and disapprove rules that are deemed to create unnecessary paperwork burdens. The bill overturns the Supreme Court's decision in Dole v. Steelworkers and allows OMB to review and disapprove requirements for information to be given to third parties, including toxic chemical information and the results of workplace exposure monitoring. Anti-regulatory legislation also has been introduced in theSenate. Their proposals include a proposed regulatory moratorium(S.219) and a variety of proposals (S.244, S.291, S.343) that require more regulatory analyses and reviews and permit aCongressional veto of final rules. Though not as far-reaching asmost of the House proposals, these measures would make it much moredifficult for the federal government to issue important newprotections.
AFL-CIO Fact Sheet: The Needs of Working America <a name="BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT">BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT</a> The proposed balanced budget amendment to the U.S.Constitution is a $1 trillion pig in a poke that raises seriousquestions, both economic and constitutional. Backers of this drive in both the House and Senate refused tooffer any details of just how they plan to come up with theestimated $1.3 trillion in spending cuts needed to bring thefederal budget to balance by the year 2002, as proposed. Twicethey voted down measures that would have required a detailing ofthese massive cuts. A balanced budget amendment would assure a return to the boom-and-bust economic cycles of the pre-Depression era by dismantlingthe fiscal weapons needed to combat both unemployment andinflation. Recessions would be made more severe as such built-instabilizers as unemployment compensation and social welfareprograms would be choked off. Legislation needed to create jobsand stimulate the economy would be unlikely to secure the three-fifths vote of Congress required by the amendment to approvedeficit spending. Cutting $1.3 trillion from the federal budget would throw theU.S. economy into a deep recession or depression. Major federalprograms would be wiped out and the economy would almost assuredlygo into a tailspin, with even higher levels of unemployment. A balanced federal budget would reduce revenues to the states,forcing increased state and local property taxes. A new study bythe Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated state andlocal governments could lose some $100 billion annually in federalaid under the terms of the Republican plans. While the GOPpromises not to raise federal taxes, a family of four in the 10hardest hit states would see its state and local tax bill jump morethan $2,100 in order to maintain services now covered by thefederal aid. The amendment would eliminate Congress's ability to makefiscal policy decisions by majority vote. The three-fifths``super-majority'' vote required to approve deficit spending isrigid and politically unworkable. It undermines the concept ofmajority rule and gives control over the ``power of the purse'' toa congressional minority. The political will of the Americanpeople -- determined by the election process -- would becircumvented, with a 40 percent congressional minority woulddictate key policy decisions. A balanced budget amendment would cripple congressional fiscalpowers to fight recessions and inflation or otherwise maintainnational economic stability. It would undermine representativegovernment by limiting its power and by distorting the fragilesystem of constitutional checks and balances. At the same time itwould result in the dismantling of 50 years of labor-backed,progressive programs designed to achieve some measure of economicand social justice for all citizens -- which may be the real hiddenagenda behind this amendment.
AFL-CIO Fact Sheet: The Needs of Working America <a name="TAX CUTS">TAX CUTS</a> The AFL-CIO would support any measure that would bring greaterprogressivity to the tax code and do so without reducing federalrevenues and increasing the deficit. We strongly oppose the taxprovisions of the "Contract with America" that would deprive thenation of badly needed revenues while providing wealthy individualsand corporations with massive, ill-deserved tax breaks. Real tax relief for working families could be paid for byclosing wasteful tax loopholes that mainly benefit corporations andthe wealthy. Republican tax cut proposals would result in $725 billion inlost revenues over the next 10 years. More than 54 percent of allthe proposed tax cuts would go to taxpayers with incomes above$100,000 per year, the richest 5 percent, according to TreasuryDepartment estimates. Beyond the enormous revenue loss and the inequitableapplication of the cuts, the AFL-CIO has other serious concernsabout how the cuts would be financed and the net effect on workingfamilies: if federal aid to education or student loans are cut atthe same time; if a family breadwinner who loses a job findsfederal retraining programs are cut at the same time; and if theFederal Reserve continues to raise interest rates, causing aneconomic slowdown, the elimination of jobs and increases inmortgages and other loan payment. Among the tax provisions that primarily benefit corporationsand the wealthy, including the capital gains tax cut, "neutral costrecovery" depreciation changes, the increased estate and gift taxexemption, and most of the proposed IRA liberalizations, especiallythe so-called "American Dream Savings Account." The proposed cuts in capital gains taxes would cost $183billion between 1995 and 2005. The dogged insistence by some thatdeep cuts in capital gains taxes will not cause revenue loss issheer economic nonsense. Tax preferences accorded income from capital gains areinherently unfair. They result in taxing the wages and salaries ofworking people at a higher rate than the profits for the wealthyfrom such transactions as the sale of stocks, bonds, real estate orother property. It is a tax preference not available to mostworking men and women who pay the lion's share of taxes and whomust meet their income tax obligations every payday. More than two-thirds of all the benefits from capital gains tax preferencesaccrue to taxpayers with annual incomes in excess of $200,000. Cutting capital gains taxes also will stimulate the taxshelter industry, which is based heavily on schemes to convertordinary income into preferentially taxed capital gains. The huge50 percent differential, plus indexing, would exclude almost two-thirds of capital gains from taxation. The AFL-CIO is concerned that the proposal to phase out the1993 increase in the taxable portion of Social Security benefitsreceived by upper income retirees would worsen the looming Medicarefinancing crisis.
AFL-CIO Fact Sheet: The Needs of Working America <a name=" MINIMUM WAGE">MINIMUM WAGE</a> President Clinton has called for a 90-cent adjustment in theminimum wage over the next two years. The AFL-CIO supports thisadjustment. The minimum wage is now $4.25 per hour and has been at thislevel since 1991. The historic level of minimum wage, 50 percentof average hourly earnings, calls for a minimum wage of $5.69today. Clearly a minimum wage of $5.15 two years from now is astep in the right direction, but a modest one. The high point inpurchasing power of the minimum wage, in 1968, translates to aminimum wage of $6.29 per hour today. The myth that an increase in the minimum wage will lead to aloss of jobs is refuted by recent surveys. In a series of studies,economists Lawrence Katz and Alan B. Krueger found that the 1990and 1991 increases in the minimum wage had no negative impact onfast food industry jobs in Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina, NewJersey and Pennsylvania. In fact, they discovered that employmentactually increased, rather than decreased. Their conclusions were based on interviews of managers at 400fast food establishments since fast food, theory says, is oneindustry most generally affected by minimum wage increases. Therise in employment could not, however, be credited to thesubminimum training wages, enacted as part of the 1989 bill. TheLabor Department found that only 5 percent of businesses even usedthe subminimum wage. Finally, increasing the minimum wage also serves to reducepoverty and taxes. When the minimum wage is too low, as it is now,the burden on the working poor and public assistance programsincreases. And this increases the burden on taxpayers.
AFL-CIO Fact Sheet: The Needs of Working America <a name="HEALTH CARE">HEALTH CARE</a> Recent reports about declining average employer payments forhealth benefits are certainly welcome news to employers andemployees alike. But they mask a wide disparity in costs betweenbig and small employers and continued cost-shifting from employersto employees. Most significantly, they disguise the underlyingtrend of health costs still rising at twice the rate of overallinflation, a rate that is devastating family, business andgovernment budgets. The price Americans will have to pay for the success thatRepublicans and anti-reform Democrats had in defeating health carereform in the 103rd Congress is enormous. In the long-term, high health costs wreak havoc with thecountry's economy. A recently released estimate puts the loss inreal GDP at half a percent over five years and 1.3 percent over 17years; employment will be off by 1.7 percent in manufacturingindustries and by 1.9 percent in construction. In the short-term, high health costs devastate the healthcoverage and wages of average-earner Americans. Falling real wagescontinue to be the rule for working families -- despite impressiveimprovements in productivity -- due in large measure to high healthcosts. A recent study of private pension coverage by the AFL-CIODepartment of Employee Benefits shows that deteriorating retirementincome security also is directly related to excessive health carecosts. American families are paying in another way for the failure ofthe 103rd Congress to act against excess health costs. Employersare adopting more and more aggressive managed care techniques asthey attempt to stem hemorrhaging balance sheets. When done in a balanced manner and with proper consumersafeguards, managed care has delivered significant savings whilemaintaining and sometimes improving quality and consumer choice.But the rush to managed care is now fueling an industry-widerestructuring, with for-profit conglomerates controlling a largerand larger number of facilities. Curbing the growth of employerhealth costs has become the overriding, if not sole, objective inmanaged care, and reports of problems with the quality of care arewidespread. A sharp debate over efforts by state medical associations toenact anti-managed care statutes is under way throughout thecountry. There is a clear need for a coordinated effort to developconsumer-oriented quality standards for managed care. Health programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid, are comingunder sharp attack in the new Congress. Recent statements byRepublican leaders target these programs for some $300 billion incuts over the next five years, amounts that would decimate healthcoverage for the poor and the elderly. Labor's position on this question is the same as it was duringthe health care reform debate of 1994: Medicare and Medicaid shouldcome under the same strong cost containment regimen as privatehealth coverage and any savings from these programs should bereserved for extending coverage to those now without coverage. A vigorous defense of Medicare also is necessary to protectexisting health plans from additional cost-shifting, which alreadyadds 20 percent to 40 percent onto health costs of existingcoverage. Medicare cuts also must be resisted as part of the overalldefense of Social Security. Republican proposals to means-testMedicare are the forerunner of a large-scale attempt to underminethe social insurance structure of Social Security. Scaling backhealth care for retirees is a direct attack on the retirementincome security of average-wage Americans and a back-door assaulton the entire Social Security system. The best defense against these attacks lies in a spiritedrenewal of last year's effort to win comprehensive health carereform. The administration should press the case for reform andchallenge the new Congress to act in this session to preserve thehealth coverage of working American families. No-loophole costcontainment, quality assurance and coverage for all Americans isstill within reach for our society, but the difficulty of the taskgrows with each year we fail to muster the political will to act. While prospects look bleak for genuine reform because of theopposition of the new congressional leadership, an opportunityshould be sought to press for expanding coverage for children,pregnant women and the unemployed. Such improvements advance ustoward comprehensive reform. We will continue to support stepswhich move the country toward labor's long-time goal of universalcoverage to quality, affordable care based on social insuranceprinciples. On the other hand, we oppose incremental steps, such asinsurance market reform, that would put further strain on existingcoverage. We also oppose those plans that offer nothing but theillusion of reform, such as medical savings accounts. And we willcontinue to oppose taxation of health benefits, which is an attackon the real wages and living standards of working Americanfamilies.
AFL-CIO Fact Sheet: The Needs of Working America <a name="FOOD ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS">FOOD ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS</a> Federal food assistance programs, such as food stamps, schoollunch and WIC (Women, Infants and Children), are facing a crisis. Despite their solid achievement of ending mass hunger andmalnutrition in the United States, efforts are under way to cripplethese programs. Members of the House of Representatives, in particular, areseeking to severely cut the food assistance programs, bring themtogether with welfare in block grants to the states and strip foodstamps and other programs of their current entitlement status. A few of the results would be: _ A sharp increase in hunger and malnutrition among Americans. _ State authority to change programs as they see fit, so thatanti-hunger efforts vary from state to state. _ The shredding of the food safety net during recessions andtimes of increased unemployment, since eligible recipients would beaided only to the extent that Congress provides appropriations. The food stamp program, the largest of the food assistanceefforts, provided an average benefit of $69 per person per month or76 cents per person per meal in 1994. Some 97 percent of thebenefits went to households with incomes at or below the povertyline and some 56 percent to households with incomes of only one-half of the poverty line. Food stamps prevent hunger among family members of hard-working Americans whose wages are so low that they are unable toprovide adequate nutrition. According to the U.S. Department ofAgriculture's 1993 survey, some 7,750,000 recipients were inhouseholds that had income from wages, salaries or self-employment. Food stamps provide a temporary, but needed safety net. One-half of food stamp households leave the program within six monthsand two-thirds leave within a year. Some 89 percent of food stamp benefits went to households withchildren, or elderly or disabled family members. In fact, childrenwere 52 percent of all recipients. The WIC program has helped improve the health of poverty-stricken mothers and children. For example, each dollar spent onWIC's prenatal care saves as much as $4 in Medicaid costs. The current food assistance programs have proved their worthin protecting the most vulnerable Americans against hunger andstarvation.
AFL-CIO Fact Sheet: The Needs of Working America <a name="WELFARE REFORM">WELFARE REFORM</a> The part of the GOP "Contract with America" that includeswelfare reform is euphemistically called the "PersonalResponsibility Act of 1995." The proposal, introduced in the House as H.R. 4, wouldbasically change welfare programs from entitlements for individualswho suffered deprivation and had minor-age children, or who weredisabled or elderly, to a block grant program to states that wouldadminister their own welfare programs. In addition, funds would becut by $38 billion and no special allowance would be provided fora new recession or regional disaster. The program would cut eligibility for various groups ofrecipients, without providing any real alternative. There is noconsideration of policies to achieve full employment; there are nonew job training funds; there are no safeguards that subsidizedtemporary work assignments would not replace already existing jobs. There are no provisions for wage protection or equal pay andbenefits. The plan would severely cut Supplemental Security Income(SSI). The proposal prohibits alcohol and drug abusers fromreceiving SSI and restricts participation of low-income disabledrecipients. It would combine numerous programs that provide assistance tochildren who have been abused and neglected -- or who are at riskof being removed from their homes because of abuse -- and turn themoney over to the states in a lump sum. Spending would grow overthe next five years, but the federal government would no longer berequired to support all low-income children in foster care or whoare being adopted. States would no longer have to contribute inthis area. Unwed mothers under age 18 would be barred from receiving cashassistance, as wouldlegal immigrants, with some exceptions for refugees and the veryelderly. Further, any citizen who has received assistance in thelast 5 years would be ineligible. The AFL-CIO is deeply concerned that one method proposed tofinance a large portion of welfare reform will be the denial ofbenefits to immigrants legally in the United States. It isunacceptable to finance a public policy aimed at reducing povertyin the United States by creating and exacerbating poverty in U.S.ethnic communities. Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) is the majorsafety net program designed to alleviate child poverty. It isgenerally recognized that children are far better off if theirparents are working at decent jobs rather than receiving welfarebenefits. However, the commitment to assist families in becomingself-sufficient and moving off welfare should be coupled with acommitment to avoid causing more suffering for poor children byweakening or limiting AFDC.