What This Country Owes Its Workers

By Don Hazen, AlterNet. Posted November 2, 2006.

Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), made labor history last year when his group broke away from the AFL-CIO to help form a new organization, the Change to Win Federation. In his new book "A Country That Works: Getting America Back on Track," Stern explores how both the government and the labor movement have failed to keep up with rapid changes in our society and the effect that's had on average American workers.

AlterNet’s Executive Editor Don Hazen sat down with Stern at SEIU Local 790 in San Francisco.

You're probably the most famous labor leader in America after engineering the pullout from the AFL and creating Change to Win. One of the reasons you bolted is because "rebirth," as you document, was not on the agenda of most American unions. But clearly, across the board, unions were all losing market share. Why were they so shortsighted? Every business or organization knows that you have to maintain market share.

It's amazing how we defied all the basic laws of economics: (a) putting extra cost on our employers that the competitors didn't, and thinking somehow they could compete; (b) at times slowing down the pace of change in a world that is ever-increasing; and (c) not adding value to employers, but in some cases adding problems. All of which makes no sense if you appreciate how an economy works in general, and how a global economy works at even a higher speed.

We all got brought up -- I certainly did -- believing that the employer is the enemy, he's The Boss, and somehow we just go to the bargaining table and make demands, and don't really worry about whether they can afford them or not, and we assume they're trying to short-change us.

Is it psychological? Is it denial? You see people voting for Bush because they don't want to hear about change.

I think you see people voting for Bush because people don't see an economic alternative in terms of a political party yet. One that stands up for economic change. I write a lot about my experience at the 2004 Democratic Convention, with Bob Rubin in the box with Teresa Heinz, people who fired workers when they tried to organize. There was only one elected official who went to the Bloggers' Ball, the rest were all in some high-class corporate event.

But they are changing. It took Howard Dean to teach them that there was another form of communication, which only proves that they're not leading, but they're learning at least. I think we're at a different moment.

I saw you recently on Wall Street Week, and you had great command of shocking statistics on the decline of most Americans, especially the gap between workers and CEOs. The minimum wage is so low, productivity is way up, but there's been no increase in wages. This seems to have gotten worse with Bush, to be sure, but the trend started in the Clinton administration. Are there any political leaders on the horizon, candidates for president that would be willing to put the brakes on the economic problems that you were presenting?

Most American political leaders have not yet come to grips with how profound the change is. It's not just an American change; it's a worldwide phenomenon. We have a global economy. The world is flat. I don't agree with what a lot of a lot of what Thomas Friedman thinks, but it is true. We have an integrated marketplace. Digitization is changing everything, and America has no plan.

I still think people don't understand that we're as far today from the New Deal as the New Deal was from the Civil War. I'm sure Roosevelt admired Abraham Lincoln, but he didn't build an economy in 1935 around 1865 America. And we can't build an economy in 2006 if even our context is wrong.

If you believe, which I do, that employers and employees are getting a divorce, the "one job in a lifetime" economy is over. My son, who's 22, might have nine to 12 jobs by the time he's 35. Only one-third of employers are even going to be around in 25 years, according to most economists. It just means that we're in a profound moment of change. I don't even think we're talking about the right issue yet. We're still talking about Democrats and Republicans.

So nobody's ready for it.

I actually compliment Newt Gingrich for at least getting it. I totally disagree with what he wants to do with it, but he understands it. I think actually Republicans -- you've probably experienced this in your own life -- get the much more individual orientation that people on the internet and young kids are looking at.

The old mass institutions like unions and political parties and churches are beginning to be taken over by evangelical churches, megachurches and MoveOns. The change is very profound. I think John Edwards gets a huge part of the question of inequality, I think a number of people like Barack Obama are figuring out health care. I think Americans are really anxious because of those statistics. And we have not laid out -- either as Americans or progressives, or Democrats or Republicans -- a plan yet that makes sense.

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Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.

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