Change to Win

Years of Discontent Trigger American Autumn

Leo Gerard — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:15:10 -0400

To convey the significance of the Occupy Wall Street movement, NBC News anchor Brian Williams this week quoted the 1960s Buffalo Springfield song, For What It’s Worth:

“There is something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear.”

Maybe it’s unclear what the Occupy Wall Street movement ultimately will accomplish. But what’s happening – for the past three weeks in New York and now in hundreds of towns across North America – is a roiling, inspirational, grassroots expression of anger, disgust and revolution.

And, frankly, given what’s been going on in the United States since the bank bailout, it’s amazing that this uprising didn’t precede the Arab Spring. The powers-that-be, from the rich and influential to their coin-operated politicians and corporate-owned media, have mocked and belittled and ignored the protesters, the 99 percenters as they call themselves – everyone but the richest one percent. No matter what the critics say, these young people, with righteous outrage and new age communication, have launched the American Autumn.

This revolt could have started in the spring of 2009, immediately after the Bush administration pushed through Congress the Troubled Asset Relieve Program (TARP), the $700 billion in taxpayer money spent to prop up banks that had gambled and lost untold trillions. A Bloomberg News investigation later would show that the United States lent, spent or guaranteed as much as $12.8 trillion to save the banks. Despite that help, the Wall Street recklessness ruined the American economy, throwing tens of millions out of jobs and homes.

Poverty and hunger skyrocketed in the richest country in the world. As tax revenue fell, states, towns and school districts slashed essential public services and laid off teachers, librarians, firefighters and police officers.

Maybe it just took this long for the middle class to grasp all the horrible effects of the Wall Street gambling and to realize that a government held hostage by country club conservatives bent on cutting public services just made matters worse. Maybe young people looked at unrestrained war spending, Pell Grant slashing and voter disenfranchising and decided they were fed up and not going to take foreclosure of their futures anymore.

Whatever the spark, the American Autumn began three weeks ago in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, formerly Liberty Square. Late in September, some of the one percenters sipped Champaign on an upscale restaurant balcony as they looked down on the protesters in the streets below. This week, as protests spread, wealthy risk-takers at the Chicago Board of Trade put signs in the windows of their ritzy offices bragging, “We are the 1 percent.” They don’t get it.

Nor does Bank of America. Here’s a bank bailed out by taxpayers that just announced it would begin imposing a new fee – $5 a month, $60 a year – on debit card users. This bank also just announced that it would worsen the recession caused by bankster recklessness by laying off 30,000 workers.

This is a bank that engaged in the habitual, anti-capitalistic Wall Street practice of rewarding poor executive performance by giving its CEO Brian T. Moynihan a $9 million bonus immediately after the institution he runs lost $2.2 billion in 2010. Moynihan responded to criticism of the $5 fee by saying customers – and ultimately taxpayers -- must line his pockets and that of shareholders, regardless of how badly he runs the bank or how stupidly he gambles with its money. That’s because, he asserted, the bank has a “right to make a profit.” No matter what.

The media and country club conservatives belittled the protesters. Here’s what Herman Cain, a Tea Partier seeking the GOP nomination for president, said:

“Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks if you don’t have a job or you’re not rich. Blame yourself!”

He continued:

“It’s not a person’s fault because they succeeded. It’s a person’s fault if they failed. And so this is why I don’t understand these demonstrations and what it is that they’re looking for.”

He called the protesters “anti-capitalist,” although it was the banks that sought a socialist bailout from the government when they got themselves in trouble.

Cain didn’t blame banksters for unemployment, even though it was Wall Street gambling that took down the economy. He blames the teachers and police officers thrown out of work by local governments that are cash-strapped as a result of the recession -- caused by Wall Street recklessness.

Cain and the media keep saying they don’t understand what the protesters want. They just don’t get it.

A specific list of demands is unnecessary. What the 99 percenters want is obvious. They want the American dream restored. Good public education for everyone. Equity in opportunity. Shared sacrifice so that the rich pay a tax rate at least equal to that charged the middle class. An end to poverty and unemployment in the richest country in the world.

In the Buffalo Springfield song, For What It’s Worth, lyrics talk of 1960s youths criticized for their protests:

“Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind.”

This time protesters will get backing. The members of my union, the United Steelworkers, get it. Members of the unions of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win federations get it.

We’re here to support the young people of the American Autumn.

R.I.P., Circuit City

Dmitri Iglitzin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:11:54 -0500

On November 10, 2008, Circuit City, the nation’s second-biggest electronics retailer, filed for bankruptcy. It’s going to have a lot of company in bankruptcy court. More than a dozen U.S. retailers filed for bankruptcy in 2008, including Linens ‘n Things and Sharper Image. Already in 2009, KBtoys.com has followed suit, and more such filings are expected following what may have been the worst holiday-shopping season in 40 years.

What makes Circuit City’s collapse worthy of some special note, however, however, is the fact that this company, en route to its financial meltdown, tried to balance its books at the expense of its workers, a tactic that other companies may yet be tempted to follow, despite Circuit City's evident lack of success.

In March of 2007, Circuit City decided to fire approximately 3400 senior store employees who were making, on average, about $15 per hour. Some of these workers were replaced by new hires, while others were actually invited to return to work at $10.22 per hour. These layoffs represented approximately 8% of the in-store work force, or on average, 5 staff members per store.

The job cuts were "one of the most brazen examples of corporate America run amuck,'' said Greg Tarpinian, executive director of Change to Win, a coalition of seven international unions representing about 6 million workers. "It's workers as disposable commodities, put in and put out based on whatever happens to the stock price.''

Not surprisingly, this heartless move not only damaged Circuit City’s reputation, it failed to provide any lasting benefit to the company’s bottom line. By replacing its most experienced salespeople, Circuit City lost effectiveness in both sales and customer services. As a result, Circuit City's customer satisfaction rating has steadily declined, dropping 5.5% overall since 2003, and it now trails competitors Best Buy, Costco, and Wal-Mart, the first two by a considerable margin.

Nor did Circuit City’s stock price benefit. It dropped from over $19 per share on the date of the layoffs to $4 per share a year later, and it had dropped all the way to a quarter before the company filed for bankruptcy.

None of this stopped Circuit City from generously rewarding its management team for their lack of success, of course. In 2006, according to Bloomberg.com, then-Chief Executive Officer Philip J. Schoonover (he was forced out last September) raked in $8,520,000 in total compensation. In addition, at around the same time as the layoffs, the company's board approved "retention awards" of $1 million for each of its 3 executive vice presidents and $600,000 for each of its 10 senior vice presidents. Circuit City said the awards were intended "to ensure the stability of the company's leadership team by providing an incentive" for the officers to stay.

In court documents, Chief Financial Officer Bruce H. Besanko said that three factors led to Circuit City’s bankruptcy filing: erosion of vendor confidence, decreased liquidity and the global economic crisis. Maybe. But he should have added one more factor: a fundamental lack of respect by Circuit City’s management for the company’s own workers, who were the one company resource that might have been able to restore its tarnished reputation and save it from failure.

Circuit City is still selling gift cards, and it is promising to do its best to honor those cards if customers actually try to use them. Had Circuit City been willing to match its own workers' level of commitment, instead of kicking those workers to the curb as soon as times got hard, perhaps its promises would not ring quite so hollow.

R.I.P., Circuit City

Dmitri Iglitzin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:10:51 -0500