Just Another Partisan
Hack Union Hater
In a recent rightist op-ed diatribe,
the well-educated, but prone to prevarication, Betsy McCaughey attacks the
Biden infrastructure bill. It is worth recalling that Ms. McCaughey used the
Big Lie to help scuttle the Clinton effort to reform health care in the 1990s.
She wrote a long op-ed claiming that the plan would make it illegal for
individuals to negotiate their own health care plans or pay their own doctors.
This lie gained traction even though the proposed legislation contained a
provision specifically stating that any such provision was illegal. She later,
thanks to the newly gained notoriety, ditched hubby number one and married future
Trump Commerce Secretary, millionaire Wilbur Ross. The Washington Post stated, "Her
toothy good looks, body-conscious suits, Vassar BA and Columbia PhD reduced
right-wingers to mush." (Probably not that hard).
She became Michael Pataki’s Lt. Governor in
New York, completely alienating him and his entire staff by the second
year and, being “uninvited” to the ticket in 1998, ran against him as a
Democrat, receiving only 1.56% of the general vote for governor.
She then sued her (by then) ex-hubby (Mr. Ross) because he “only” spent $20
million on her campaign, instead of the $40 million they had “agreed” on. In
later op-eds, she echoed the soon to be discredited Sarah Palin “death panel”
claims about the Affordable Care Act. That’s enough. If you haven’t figured out
that Betsy McCaughey is a political hack by now, stop reading.
To be sure, the
Infrastructure bill which, of course, the President didn’t personally write is,
unfortunately, encumbered by some entitlement type issues which, while listed
with expiration dates in the bill, may well, as these things frequently do,
become permanent. Examples include
a $25,000 freebie to first time, low income, home buyers who stay in the house,
etc., etc. It is a bit reminiscent of the Homestead Act. McCaughey’s complaint
goes on, however, to whine that it’s really aimed at “diversifying the suburbs”.
This sort of
rhetoric is vintage far right drivel. In
fact, there are far more Caucasian families on welfare (about 40% of all
recipients) in America than any other ethnicity. In states like West Virginia,
where Senator Joe Manchin lives comfortably, deep in the pockets of Big Coal,
far more of his constituents would benefit from such a program and the vast
majority of those are white.
Again, I am not sold on taxpayer dollars
buying homes (or at least providing a hefty down payment on them) but I
couldn’t care less who moves into my neighborhood. Pigmentation isn’t on my
list of good neighbor attributes, but character is. Bigotry is a big downer,
though. Now, if Tucker Carlson moved next door, that would be a disaster.
Another big
issue for McCaughey is that where incentives are offered in the proposed
legislation for homeowners who have energy efficiency upgraded (solar panels/
heat pumps, etc.) the bill requires that such work be done by union labor.
Again, I think that is a bit restrictive since, in some, locales the local
heating and cooling guy may be an independent dealer, may not be unionized, and
may well be the only game in town.
However,
McCaughey jumps from this into a generally vicious anti-union diatribe. Now, as
usual, here’s the history lesson:
Ms. McCaughey
would apparently (never having actually worked for a living) have us forget
what the labor situation was in America before the union movement began. Workers
were, in most, cases treated as chattel. This was only marginally better than
in the UK, where until 1824, labor organization of working men was a crime. Employers
like Ford, Big Steel and even worse, mine operators in Joe Manchin’s West Va.
and Kentucky region treated working individuals as if they owned them. Ford employees
on the factory floor were actually forbidden to talk with each other while
working. In fact, in many cases, they learned to speak with minimal lip
movement and referred to it as “Fordalization” of the face. Mine operators,
many of whom lived in New York while selling coal mined in Appalachia, paid
miners in “scrip”- paper chits only useable at a company owned store. When
miners even spoke of unionization, thugs hired by the operators killed several
leaders.
Even today,
coal miners as a group can expect to lose about 12.6 years of life span
compared to non-miners and this is better than in the 1930s. Yet Manchin signs on to much of the anti-union
rhetoric, as McCaughey does. Why? Because union workers with fair wages and
adequate safety provisions get a larger share of the profits than powerless
drones. Since becoming a Democratic U.S. senator in 2010, Manchin’s total coal
stock related income has topped $4.5 million!
I am not overlooking the fact that with unions,
as any organization, (even Congress!)
there are potential abuses which make realistic oversight necessary. But
factually, the industrial boom which followed WWII was actually almost as much
a result of the Roosevelt era labor legislation which empowered workers to
demand and obtain fair income which was, in turn, largely responsible for the
increase in home ownership and movement into the middle class of the 50s and
60s. As other nations rebuilt, Japan and Germany among them, America’s monopoly
in the mass auto market as well as other heavy industries faltered, and the Big
Three US Auto brands and Right-Wing politicians, such as Joseph McCarthy,
playing the “socialist/communist” card, were quick to blame labor.
What usually falls through the cracks is that,
for union retirees and active workers, much of the steadily increasing expense of
unionized labor was (and is) extravagant health care coverage, negotiated
in 1950, in the case of the United Auto Workers, when the corporations
would rather throw money at Unions than address quality of work life issues.
This is known as “welfare capitalism” and was actually invented by Henry Ford,
who paid the (at the time) very high wage of $5 daily, expecting absolute
obedience as the result.
Blaming unions for what is a steadily
increasing US health care cost debacle looks in the wrong direction. Don’t like
escalating drug costs? Look to a gutless Congress where the Big Pharma lobbying
bucks go. Look to Joe Manchin’s
daughter, who retired as CEO of Mylan Pharmaceuticals with $19 million as her
final, salary. On her way out the door she also, by the way, increased the cost
of potentially life-saving Epi-pens by 581%!
Once upon a
time patients could only see prescription drugs advertised to a greatly
restricted degree and then only subject to FDA approval. Fast-forward to the
1980s: while Nancy Reagan was telling Americans to "Just Say No," to
illegal drugs, the feds cozied up to the pharmaceutical industry, lobbied the
hell out of legislators and as a reward got relaxed legal restrictions.
Direct-to-consumer marketing, or what you know as "drug commercials,"
was first given the seal of approval in the US in 1985. Only we and New Zealand
today are subject to such mass media scare come-ons.
Unions are an easy target, and as auto makers
(rightfully) complain about rising employee and retiree health care costs, it
is essential to remember that most of these union perks were negotiated, well before
the last 45-year steady increase in Health care, and especially prescription drug,
costs. As a simple example: average worker earnings increased by 37% between
2000 and 2010. Over the same period, health insurance premiums increased by
114%. As a result, employee contributions to health care insurance increased by
147%. The Cost of living (CPI) increase over the same period was only 20.5%. In plain terms, the average cost of health
care nationally increased almost six times as much as the cost of living. While
some of this increase was borne by employers, the expense to the average worker
(increased co-pays and deductibles) increased by an even larger margin, a
factor of 7.2!
So, while the
McCaugheys and Manchins bitch about and finger point at Unions, much of which
is related to increasing health care demands, they rarely, if ever, mention
that the medical community, predominately Pharma and Insurers, especially
Medicare Advantage plans, are far more culpable. In fact, in 2009, the United Auto Workers
took over most retiree medical responsibility and are doing a better job of it at
lower costs, via the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, than the big three
managed to do. Still, unions are subject to Republican scorn and blame laying,
Why? Because unions tend to support Democrats. So, especially in the case of
Betsy McCaughey, it’s simply her typical partisan carping.
No comments:
Post a Comment