Politics and greed keep us from having jobs for all -- An E-interview with Sheila Collins about the right to work: Part Two

Dr. Sheila Collins, political scientist and co-founder of the National Jobs for All Coalition, said in Part One of this e-interview that "there is ... nothing technical keeping us from creating jobs for all." Untied Methodist followed up with these questions:

What is keeping us from doing what we need to do so people can have jobs and make enough to live on?

In a word, politics, greed, and the individualism that permeates American political culture. Though we call ourselves a democracy, our system has become corrupted by big money that largely determines that on the big economic policy issues those who have will get more.

One has only to look at the so-called tax reform legislation passed during the past few years which gives enormous tax breaks to those at the very top of the economic ladder--the prescription drug benefit bill which prevents the government from negotiating lower drug prices, providing a boon to the pharmaceuticals, increasing the deficit and providing a weak and confusing benefit to seniors, and the recently passed energy bill which favors fossil fuels over renewable energy--to see the heavy hand of corporate influence and wealth in our politics.

Until we reform the way we fund elections, I am afraid we will not see much change on any of this. The excessive individualism in our culture also makes it difficult for individuals to see that unemployment, underemployment and low wages hurt the entire society, even those who are doing well. (Studies have demonstrated, for example, that overall mortality rates—-not just those of the poor—-are greater in countries with high levels of inequality than in those with lower levels.) In Sweden there was a 60-year culture that considered unemployment to be a social failure and full employment a basic right of citizenship. In our country, unemployment is considered a personal failure.

The United Methodist Church’s Social Principles affirm that everyone has a right to work and a livable wage. What role can churches play in reaching this goal?

There are many things that churches can do. Here are a few suggestions:

1.Educate your congregations about economic policy. In order to use our Christian principles in the service of a humane and just social order we need to be educated and informed. Most people know little about economics. They may have had a course years before in college, but they actually know little, for example, about how the Social Security system really works, how unemployment and poverty rates are calculated and why they mislead us about the true extent of human need, what the trade deficit and gargantuan debt we are accruing means for American workers, how much of our national treasury is actually going to preparing for and waging war versus meeting human needs, how the U.S. economy and social safety network compares with other industrial democracies, etc. Thus, when politicians and journalists talk about these issues, the public can be, and often is, quite mislead. The National Jobs for All Coalition, with which I work, has produced a number of helpful educational pieces that could be used in church study groups or as bulletin inserts; and each month when the U.S. Labor Department issues its monthly unemployment rate, using the Labor Department's own figures we present the real unemployment picture (that counts discouraged workers and those who want to work full-time but can only find part-time work) that is usually about twice the official unemployment rate. We are in the process of developing a regularly updated indicator of progress toward full employment by comparing the number of people who want jobs and the number of vacancies as reported in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ new job vacancy index which, by the way, the National Jobs for All Coalition was instrumental in getting them to adopt. Thus we can measure the extent to which we are moving toward full employment.

2. Provide training in the skills of effective citizenship. Church members, acting on their principles, can become more effective citizens in influencing public policy if they are both informed about the issues and concepts (as in #1 above) and know how to exercise the levers of citizenship that are available to us (lobbying, writing/visiting members of Congress, writing op-ed columns in local newspapers, supporting political campaigns, running for office, and even, when necessary, engaging in boycotts, protests and other non-violent forms of citizen action). The churches of the Religious Right have trained their congregants in all of these forms of citizen action, but the liberal churches haven't done as good a job.

3. Support the efforts of community and labor groups that are engaged in living wage campaigns. Dozens of such campaigns have been and are being waged in cities, counties and states across the country, and many have been successful in raising the local or state minimum wage. See here.

4. Support organizations that provide technical and political support for the self-organization of working people and their right to collective bargaining, adequate health and safety conditions, and job security, such as the Welfare Law Center, Center for Community Change, ACORN, Wider Opportunities for Women, Jobs With Justice, the LINC Project.

5. Support organizations like the National Jobs for All Coalition that are working to change national policy with financial contributions and/or membership dues and volunteer help. The Right Wing in the United States pours millions of dollars into policy organizations that have reshaped the ideological and policy climate in this country. The result is an economy that works for the very rich, but that leaves millions of people unemployed, underemployed, or overworked and over-stressed. Liberal foundations, surprisingly, have failed to fund the kind of broad policy organizations like National Jobs for All Coalition and United for a Fair Economy that are working to counter the corporate/Right assault on the social welfare state that emerged as a result of our experience in the Great Depression and the experience of near full employment during World War II.

6. Support campaigns to pass or improve specific pieces of national legislation relating to work, workers and wages. For example, Congress failed to pass extended unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed (a sector that has increased in size in the last few years). An alternative plan for the long-term unemployed being pushed by the Bush administration, the "personal reemployment account," would provide far less financial security to unemployed workers than unemployment insurance. To read more about this, see unemployedworkers.org. The National Employment Law Project also has a number of campaigns that can be supported.

7. Support campaigns aimed at exposing the abuses of specific industries or industry sectors and changing their practices, such as the Wake-Up Walmart Campaign and the work of the National Labor Committee.

8. Become involved in "Religion and Labor Coalitions" that have sprung up in cities across the country. Through working directly with workers who are on the front lines of the struggle to secure adequate jobs at decent wages church members can become better informed about the issues and motivated at a deeper level to act in solidarity with workers' organizations. Through such coalitions, church leaders and members have become involved in supporting striking workers, campaigning for adequate pay, etc. The National Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice coordinates the work of dozens of local and state-wide religion-labor coalitions.

9. Support efforts to stop free trade agreements that don't include labor and environmental protections. Since we live in a globalized economy, what hurts workers in other countries also hurts us. It is in the interest not only of justice for workers in developing countries but of ensuring full employment at living wages for American workers that we support raising wage levels and working conditions in poorer countries. There have been numerous campaigns that have exposed the deleterious effects of free trade agreements without such safeguards on both workers in the United States and the developing world. Recently, Congress passed by only two votes the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which in the opinion of critics will have a devastating effect on Central America and further erode the job security of low wage American workers (See stopcafta.org.) The Bush Administration has tried to negotiate the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) which would have extended similar provisions to all of Latin America, although it met with stiff resistance from most of Latin America's leaders and from the majority of that continent's population, who have already seen the effects of such so-called "free trade." As a result, the administration is striking a number of bilateral "free trade" agreements with individual countries as a backdoor way of achieving the same end. For further analysis of the FTAA, see here.

Watch for the conclusion of this e-interview tomorrow.

Comments

[Revwilly]

I agree that politics, greed and indivudualism is one of reason more people are not working. Those three things are also the source of many other problems we have. I do not agree, however, that anyone has a right to work. I know, I know our Social Principles affirm the "right", but again I have to ask, who grants rights? Who gets to determine what is a right? Does all it take is a simple majority of people? Is then the majority always right? (by the way - Ms. Collins needs to be reminded we are a republic, not a democracy). And do some people have rights that others don't? For example, women are said to have "reproductive rights" which means they have the "right" to kill a child in the womb if it posses an inconvience. Men do not have the same reproductive right. When a man contributes to the creation of a life he has not right to put that life to death if it will be an inconvience to him or pose some kind of hardship. To me, if somethig is truly a right, it is equally applicable to all people.

If there is a right to work do I have the right to work in a union shop and not join the union? If there is a right to work, can't I to to any place which employees people and demand a job? If I get turned down for a job can't I complain that my right has been violated?

I do believe everyone has the right to the opportunity to work. I do believe work is a responsibility and a privilege. I do believe that everyone has been given gifts and abilities to work and even the ability to create work for themselves and others.

Yes,politics, greed and individualism do contribute to the lack of jobs and sufficient pay. This is why the church much work all the harder to get people to commit their lives to Jesus Christ and spend the rest of their lives becoming like him. He deals with those issues in people's lives. But here's the problem, the UMC doesn't really believe the world would be a better place if there were more Christians. If it did our Bishops would expect churches to grow or even demand it. If we really believed that making disicples is the main thing we would find ways of either training pastors to be effective or get rid of them. I truly believe there would be plenty of work and money for all to live a healthy life if there were more mature followers of Jesus in the world today.

[Revwilly]

After reading Ms. Collin's interview again I can see that she needs to be a little more intellectually honest. She needed to include in her list of three things which keep people from being employeed,(politics, greed and individualism) conservative Christians and right-wing politicians. She makes regular reference to them both implying they are a big part of the problem.