[lbo-talk] Short-Term Tactics at Odds with Medium-Term Needs

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Thu Feb 9 19:06:53 PST 2006


Nathan wrote:


> -Corporations need to pay more taxes, and I'd love to cut the tax
> -burden on lower-income workers (especially mine :->), but I want to
> -have corporations pay taxes to help fund a single-payer health care
> -system.
>
> That would be nice, but that's not what's on the table.

One of the reasons it's not on the table is that organized labor has refused to put it on it. Whether that's because union officials themselves have an interest in not putting it on the table because they want to keep it one of the reasons for joining unions, as Robert Fitch argues, is debatable, but it's indisputable that they don't want to campaign for it at this point, and whether they will ever do so is in doubt.


> > an actual legislative victory that helps working families
>
> -Since it's being litigated, we actually don't have any victory yet.
>
> No, the victory holds until the courts suspend the law. As of now,
> the law is the law of the land.

"Giant Vice President Barry F. Scher said that health care costs now account for 20 percent of Giant's payroll expenses. By comparison, Wal-Mart spends between 7 and 8 percent, Hurst said" (at <http:// www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32850-2005Apr6_2.html>).

Requiring a company that is already spending "between 7 and 8 percent" of payroll expenses on health care to spend at least 8 percent on it doesn't make much of a difference even for Wal-Mart workers.

Moreover, "fewer than 0.5% of Maryland's uninsured are Wal-Mart workers" (at <http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi- walmart3feb03,1,7258407.story>).

The "Fair Share for Health Care" campaign is a way of looking like doing something while postponing what needs to be done. The longer organized labor postpones it, the harder it will be to fight for it, as the labor movement loses more and more power and ranks of the uninsured and insecure swell as time goes by.

Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>



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