Attacks on union workers have ratcheted up to a fever pitch in recent years. You can turn to one news channel after the other or on talk radio, and you will hear endless commentary from pundits about union workers and their exorbitant salaries.
The new wave of attacks surrounds public workers like teachers, police, and firefighters. Public workers, they say, should take pay cuts and reductions in benefits during a "down" economy to keep their jobs and help to close budget shortfalls in localities, states, and in the federal budget. Public workers are blamed for bankrupting localities and states. But are these assertions supported by facts?
In most places in America, public workers have already taken salary freezes and reductions in benefits. Case in point, just today it was reported in the Lansing State Journal that Michigan public workers have already given roughly $4.7 billion in pay and benefit cuts. How much more much should they be asked to give up?
Will protectors of corporations and the wealthy be satisfied when American workers all earn no more than $9 per hour? How much more will working class Americans have to give up so the wealthy can continue to have their taxes lowered?
CSPAN recently had a viewer call-in segment on Washington Journal about state budget cuts around the country. The common cuts to budgets were reductions in police, firefighters, teachers, and other public service areas. Viewers called in with stories about extreme reductions in their town in critical areas that frankly endanger not only us as citizens but the men and women who work each and every day to protect us from crimes and fires.
The middle class is always being asked to sacrifice. But when was the last time you heard the wealthy asked to sacrifce?
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