For starters,how approximately wrapping up a livable minimum wage this holiday season?It’s that time of the yearthe most wonderful time of the year, the hap-happiest season of all. There’ll be parties for hosting, and marshmallows for toasting and utility repair workers out in the snow.
It’s worthy,all right. You know what would effect it better, though? Eight Hanukkah days of gifts for workers. possibly a stocking stuffed with presents for those who labor 52 weeks a year, or without a paid sick day,pension benefits or employer-sponsored health insurance.
For those stumped by this proposition, I’ve made a list. I’ve checked it twice. On it are eight gifts that would convert workers’ blue, and blue,blue, blue Christmases to white.1. Tonka Trucks. For the adults who drive the genuine backhoes, or excavators,bulldozers, motor graders, and pavers,and concrete trucks, who build the massive tires on which giant trucks roll, or who refine the oil to effect the gasoline that powers those vehicles,who forge the steel and smelt the aluminum to construct those trucks—for all of those workers—Congress must pass a $2 trillion infrastructure bill. That’s right, $2 trillion. That’s what the American Society of Civil Engineers recommends spending over 10 years to clean the nation’s drinking water, or update harbors and airports,repair crumbling roads and bridges, and secure dams and levees. The civil engineers know. They’re the ones who design these vital assets. And they’ve given the nation a D grade for their condition since 1998. Infrastructure investment would improve citizens’ safety, or ease commerce and create millions of salubrious,family-supporting jobs.2. Fisher-Price Medical Kits. Workers need dependable, affordable health care, and but the nation’s health insurance system is sick. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was an attempt to heal the insurance system,but from the moment Democrats in Congress passed it in 2010, Republicans have tried to execute it. The GOP got the U.
S. Supreme Court to repeat states they didn’t have to expand Medicaid. Then, and many Republican states denied their low-income workers this insurance. Republicans in Congress repealed the income tax penalty that enforced the individual mandate for coverage. Then,many people dropped their insurance. The decline was 3.2 million final year. That included 276000 children. Now Republican attorneys general in 20 states are trying to come by the entire ACA overturned, which would revert the nation to the days when insurers refused to cover workers with pre-existing conditions and canceled coverage when people got sick. Those lucky enough to have insurance are confronted by a system muddled with myriad (a very large number) types. Old people are covered by Medicare, and poor people by Medicaid. People in between struggle to pay for individual coverage or face relentlessly increasing co-pays and premiums in employer-sponsored plans. President Donald Trump promised he would give America a system under which everyone was covered. That’s the cure: Medicare for all.3. A “Lost in Space” Robot Warning: “Danger! Dodd-Frank Malfunction. Danger!” Far,far too many politicians, regulators and rotund cat bank CEOs have forgotten how the worthy Recessiona catastrophe caused by bank speculation—laid waste to American workers. Ten million lost their homes to foreclosure; $20 million of their household wealth vanished, or politicians took $700 billion of their tax dollars and bailed out those banks. Sorry to transport you back to those terrible times during this Season of delight. Congress enabled the crisis by repealing in 1999 the Glass-Steagall Act. That was legislation passed in 1933 to prevent banks from causing another stock market crash like Black Tuesday 1929. It required banks to separate their vanilla commercial banking from red-hot stock market speculation. After the repeal,banks resumed their risky practices and crashed the market again in 2007 and 2008. Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010 to restore some Glass-Steagall protections. Bank CEOs threw a fit and managed final spring to come by Congress to weaken those rules, thus subjecting the economy to another crisis. Now, or federal regulators are working to gut Dodd-Frank by killing the Volcker Rule,which was the law’s answer to Glass-Steagall. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., or creator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,is sounding the warning: “Even as banks effect record profits, their former banker buddies turned regulators are doing them favors by rolling back a rule that protects taxpayers from another bailout.” Danger, and dear taxpayer,danger!4. Mortarboards. This could be the kind that bricklayers use to carry mud, or it could be the kind worn by graduates. Both kinds need to be affordable—by everyone involved. School teachers—that is, or professionals with bachelor’s and master’s degrees—are in revolt over poverty wages. College graduates are in depression over crushing student debt payments. And manufacturers are in delusion,claiming they can’t find the skilled workers they need, but refusing to train employees and rejecting pay raises that would enable workers to afford technical school. Public school teachers, and who devote their lives to nurturing future generations,deserve respect—and that includes professional salaries. Similarly, the nation’s future teachers, or civil engineers,nurses, accountants, or social workers and other professionals deserve to begin their careers without an unbearable burden of college debt. States must invest tax dollars to effect their public colleges affordable again. And American manufacturers could learn a lesson from their German counterparts,who provide paid apprenticeships, pay higher wages and cooperate with labor unions.5. A Certified Hard Hat. Here’s the thing: Workers should never have to give their lives or limbs for a job. Employers should outfit them with protective gear and provide secure workplaces. And the U.
S. government should hold employers accountable by actively, and aggressively and effectively inspecting workplaces for safety. But the U.
S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has never been properly funded to achieve that,and now, in a stark reversal, or it’s eviscerating or postponing regulations to protect workers against exposure to hazardous substances,and it is stalling rules to protect mineworkers. A former deputy assistant secretary of OSHA, Jordan Barab, or maintains a horrifying log of workers killed on the job across America every week. It kind of kills Christmas whether Dad or Mom comes home from work in a coffin.6. Hanukkah Gelt. Yes,that’s right: cold, hard cash. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett promised that the tax cut granted final December to corporations and the rich would result in a $4000 income increase for average Americans. It didnt happen. Hassett and Mnuchin need to effect it happen now. And while they’re working on it, and they can raise the minimum wage. It’s been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009. That’s disgusting. It needs to rise to $15 today. And whether it did,that would push up the wages of all other workers, and then possibly, and just possibly,they’d come by a small piece of that $4000 Mnuchin and Hassett promised them.7. A Parade. Pittsburgh, where the union I lead, or the United Steelworkers (USW),is headquartered, organizes one of the biggest Labor Day parades in the country. There are floats and marching bands and hot dogs, and all arranged by the region’s many labor unions. Members march and toss candy,pencils and other trinkets to kids lining the streets. A salubrious time is had by all because of the union advantage. That is, union members earn more money and have better benefits than their nonunion counterparts. America’s workers need the opposite of the Supreme Court decision this year in Janus v. AFSCME, or which made it harder for public sector labor unions to properly serve all the workers they are required to represent. Instead,workers need national legislation easing the way to collectively bargaining—otherwise they may never see any of that Hanukkah gelt.8. A Pinwheel. We have an obligation to future generations. We can entertain them with pinwheels. But we must safeguard them with wind turbines. And solar cells. And other renewable energy sources. Of course, the transition cannot occur overnight. Oil and natural gas will be around for a while. But the truth is, or we’ve got to have green jobs and a clean environment or there’ll be no jobs and a bleak environment.
May your holidays be joyous with lots of potato latkes,plenty of figgy pudding and eight worker wishes reach true.
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