In today’s On the News segment: Last year, median CEO pay jumped to $10.5 million, an increase of about 13 percent, however most workers didn’t see their paychecks go up by a single dime; corporate lobbyists say that most Americans support the Trans Pacific Partnership, but it turns out that their claims are a bunch of hype; Oregon state Sen. Mark Hass says, “Higher education for kids should not break families down”; and more.
TRANSCRIPT:
Thom Hartmann here – on the best of the rest of Economic and Labor News
You need to know this. Last year, median CEO pay jumped to $10.5 million – an increase of about 13 percent. However, most workers didn’t see their paychecks go up by a single dime. According to an analysis by USA Today, corporate executives scored huge pay bumps thanks to big gains in the stock market. But, earnings for average workers stayed pretty much stagnant – only increasing 1.4 percent in all of 2012. According to the myth of Reaganomics, when those at the top make tons of money, some of that wealth should trickle down to the rest of us. But, for more than three decades, we’ve seen how that could not be farther from the truth. Last year, degenerate gamblers on Wall Street made 20 billionaires $81 billion dollars richer, but that did nothing to boost our real economy, or provide more financial security for the average American. Our economy is so rigged that the very banksters who crashed our economy – and the CEOs who pay workers poverty wages – continue to be rewarded, while hard-working Americans can’t even keep up with the cost of living. If we don’t change this system, the billionaires will keep raking in hoards of cash, and we can kiss the American Dream goodbye forever. As it stands, the middle class is shrinking day by day, and the super-rich control the very lawmakers who should be working to protect us. We need to get money out of politics. We need to ensure that workers share in our nation’s prosperity. We need to stop rewarding the very folks who’ve rigged the system. That’s why we need progressive policies that will strengthen the middle class, stand up to the banksters, and rebuild the American Dream.
Progressive groups just had a week of action for better wages! According to Americans United For Change, last Monday, state lawmakers in 20 states and the Progressive States Network kicked off a week of action to raise the minimum wage. Americans United For Change’s Brad Woodhouse, said “The issue of the minimum wage is pretty simple, if you work full-time in America you should not be living in poverty. This is something so obvious to most of us – so fundamentally decent and so clearly in line with what the American people want – that it’s hard to believe we have to have this call, to have a campaign, to have a bus tour to convince Republicans to do the right thing.” Let’s just hope that the week of protests, bus tours, and rallies was enough to make lawmakers finally act on minimum wage.
Corporate lobbyists say that most Americans support the Trans Pacific Partnership, but it turns out that their claims are a bunch of hype. Back in February, two pro-TPP lobbying groups deceptively worded poll questions so that they could claim that 80 percent of Americans support this massive trade agreement. According to the magazine, In These Times, the lobbying groups, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable, never specifically mentioned the Trans Pacific Partnership, or the controversial “Fast-Track” authority that would cut Congress out of negotiating any details of that agreement. The poll asked respondents misleading questions like, “Do you support the United States negotiating trade agreements to open foreign markets for America-made goods and services to ensure fair and enforceable rules for U.S. trade with other countries?” No where in that poll did they ask whether people support more American jobs being shipped over seas, or whether Americans want to compete with the slave wages of foreign workers. And, these lobbyists certainly didn’t explain how they know the agreement includes “fair and enforceable rules” when the whole thing has been negotiated in secret. These so-called polls are nothing but hype, and we need to make sure that our lawmakers know how we really feel about the Trans Pacific Partnership.
Documents discovered by Nashville’s News Channel 5 investigative reporter Phil Williams apparently show that millions of dollars in tax incentives were used as leverage to keep Volkswagen workers from joining a union. And, United Auto workers’ Gary Casteel said that the documents show that Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam’s administration took part in coordinating the anti-union campaign. Of course, the governor has denied this, but these documents are said to be damning. News Channel 5 also says that they have emails showing that Senator Bob Corker’s chief of staff worked with anti-union organizations to influence the outcome of that vote. Even before these discoveries, the United Auto Workers had asked the National Labor Relations Board to overturn the outcome of that election. This new information has only strengthened their argument that politicians actively worked to negatively impact that vote. No one should get away with conspiring against workers, and hopefully the NLRB will agree that these politicians don’t have the right to block the Volkswagen union.
And finally… Oregon state Senator Mark Hass says, “Higher education for kids should not break families down.” More and more students are graduating college with mountains of debt, and Senator Hass wanted to do something about it. So, he sponsored recent legislation in his state to make community college free for Oregon high school graduates. Hass explained that in previous generations, Oregonians could earn a decent living with only a high school education, but these days, even jobs in manufacturing and the service sector require some technical training. Free community college makes it possible for students to get the training they need, without facing a lifetime of debt. And, Senator Hass says that this change also means cost savings for middle-class families whose kids can attend two years of college for free before transferring to a four-year university. Oregon joins Tennessee, where Governor Bill Haslam has also put forward a plan to provide free community college, and other states have considered similar measures in recent years. Lawmakers are finally realizing that higher education should a right, not a privilege, and hopefully more of them will be brave enough to do something about that.
And that’s the way it is – for the week of April 14, 2014 – I’m Thom Hartmann – on the Economic and Labor News.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.