Monday
Global Capitalism Is Destroying the Middle Class
Friday, May 6, 2011
James P. Hoffa
General President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Some of the most trusted institutions in the world are finally awakening to the dangers of unrestrained global capitalism.
Unions, of course, have for decades warned about the emerging global order. The reason for integrating regional economies into global networks has always been to shift power away from workers. The imbalance, we warned, was dangerous to all of our futures.
It gives me no satisfaction to say we were right. The world's economy is now dominated by multinationals roaming the globe to sniff out tax havens and cheap labor; out-of-control banks extorting governments for bailouts again and again; and politicians catering only to greed. All the while, America's middle class grew poorer, and smaller. Workers lost their jobs, their savings and their houses. Now their Social Security and Medicare are attacked.
The new organization of the world economy, dreamed up by the bankers and the multinationals, has failed. Don't take my word for it: This is what the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Council on Foreign Relations are reporting.
The Council on Foreign Relations, for example, just published a paper that explicitly rejects the fantasy that everyone is better off when the free market prevails. The paper, written by economist Michael Spence, says that America will soon face a jobs crisis. He makes the striking argument (for the CFR) that so-called free-market solutions won't work. "That seems clearly incorrect and is supported by neither theory nor experience," he writes.
"Assuming that the markets will fix these problems by themselves is not a good idea... In truth, all countries, including successful emerging economies, have addressed issues of inclusiveness, distribution, and equity as part of the core of their growth and development strategies," he concludes.
You might think Spence was influenced by a union representative on the Council's board, but there are none. Its board consists of retired generals, bank presidents, Cabinet officers, prominent academics, and even one of the world's biggest union-busters, FedEx chairman Fred Smith.
Like the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Bank has long sided with powerful special interests in developed nations, often to the detriment of the lower and middle classes. So it was surprising to hear the World Bank call for justice and jobs earlier this month.
The Bank issued a report saying unemployment "was overwhelmingly the most important factor cited for recruitment into gangs and rebel movements." World Bank President Robert Zoellick said, "If we are to break the cycles of violence and lessen the stresses that drive them, countries must develop more legitimate, accountable and capable national institutions that provide for citizen security, justice and jobs."
This was a stunning statement coming from Zoellick, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs and President George W. Bush's trade representative. As a member of America's political and financial leadership, you would expect Zoellick to be blind to the need for justice and jobs, both as a moral duty and as a matter of self-interest.
The World Bank's sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, has typically taken a hard line against working people. For decades the IMF made emergency loans to troubled governments only after forcing them to cut spending on social programs. The IMF has even demanded worker's rights be weakened as a condition of granting a loan.
And so the IMF was perhaps the last institution you'd expect to argue that workers need more bargaining power. Yet the IMF came out with a paper last year that said exactly that.
The paper, titled "Inequality, Leverage and Crisis" presented evidence that extreme inequality between workers and the rich was a reason for the current Great Recession.
The paper said there will be "disastrous consequences" for the world economy if workers do not regain their bargaining power. It suggests radical changes to the tax system and debt relief for workers.
I am heartened that these respected institutions are sounding the alarm over the policies that are destroying the working classes around the world. Perhaps our combined voices will make some difference.
Make no mistake, however; the message cannot be denied, no matter who delivers it: Our economy rewards wealth, not work. It has impoverished the middle class and taken a savage toll on the growing ranks of the poor.
We need our leaders to hear this message clearly from all of us and to seek out a new economic course for our country. I've been waiting a long time for political leaders to show they understand this. I hope that I -- along with the IMF, the World Bank and the Council on Foreign Relations -- will not be waiting for much longer
.
Sunday
NH Senate rejects changes to anti-bullying law
By KATHY McCORMACK
Associated Press
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- New Hampshire's Senate voted unanimously on Wednesday to reject changes to the state's anti-bullying law that received strong support from the House, such as limiting school responsibility in dealing with off-campus incidents.
Senators said the current law is only months old and that schools have just put policies into place to handle bullying. Senators agreed the law needs further study before any changes are made.
Many states have been moving in this direction of extending school involvement to off-campus bullying, but some New Hampshire lawmakers wanted to restrict the boundaries to school grounds. The House passed a bill in March that would remove the off-campus provision and make other changes. The Senate's rejection leaves the measure's future in doubt.
Sen. Molly Kelly, a Senate Education Committee member, described the strong testimony at a recent hearing from students who were bullied and from educators and parents who support the current law. "They were close to begging us to keep the law the way it is," she said.
New Hampshire amended its 10-year-old anti-bullying law last year for the electronic age, now that tools like Facebook and Twitter also present golden opportunities for belittling and bullying. The change also allowed districts to step in "if the conduct interferes with a pupil's educational opportunities or substantially disrupts the orderly operations of the school or school-sponsored activity or event."
Some legislators believe the revised law gives schools too much authority over children. They say once a child leaves school grounds, it's the parent's responsibility to combat bullying.
"Bullying's bad; it's always existed, and nothing we do is going to stop it," said Republican House member Ralph Boehm, the bill's main sponsor and a former Litchfield school board member who said he was bullied as a child in the 1960s. "But the thing is, people do have freedom of speech and the freedom of speech can be mean," he said, so it's unconstitutional for school districts to punish children for what they say or do outside of school.
Sen. James Forsythe, a Republican, said Wednesday there were some provisions in the bill that did strengthen parental rights. However, he noted, no parents testified in favor of them during the hearings.
Nancy Willard, a Eugene, Ore., resident who runs the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, providing help with youth risk online issues, noted that courts have given schools the reach to combat off-campus bullying.
"School officials clearly have the authority to respond to any situation - regardless of the geographic origin - if that is causing a substantial disruption at school or making it impossible for another student to receive an education," she said.
All but five states have laws addressing bullying and 29 of them have provisions addressing cyberbullying. Last year, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed into a law a bill cracking down on bullying, passed after the suicides of two students believed to be victims of intense harassment, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of South Hadley and 11-year-old Carl Walker-Hoover of Springfield.
When cyberbullying issues started emerging several years ago, Willard said, school administrators were afraid of the additional liability.
"It appears they are shifting because they know that they have to respond to these off-campus incidents because they sure as heck are going to have an impact at school," she said.
Educators and administrators - many of whom worked to revise New Hampshire's law last year after four teenagers were accused of coercing a special-needs student into getting a tattoo against his will - strongly support keeping the additional authority to fight bullying off school grounds.
Malcolm Smith, a family education and policy specialist at the University of New Hampshire who was part of a team working on the law last year, said research showed a direct link between "what happens at the burger joint, what happens at the skating rink and what happens in the school."
When parents or schools try to deal with bullying issues on their own, he said, they usually don't get resolved.
"It takes a community working together to solve this meanness that we're seeing," he said. "When you look at the data, our kids are becoming meaner than they've ever been before."
When schools want to fight off-campus bullying, it's not their intent to infringe of free speech or expression, said Robert Trestan, a civil rights counsel for the Anti-Defamation League in the East.
But, for example, if a student tweets from a home computer something that threatens the safety or learning ability of another student, he said, schools need to be on top of that.
"Social media is their social scene," he said of schoolchildren.
Rep. Donna Schlachman, a Democrat from Exeter, introduced last year's bill to update the law because of concerns she was hearing from parents and educators about bullying. She characterized the recent House vote approving the changes as "an overgeneralization about parents' rights."
"There's a sense where `We don't want the state telling us as parents how to raise our kids, how to educate our kids, or what our disciplinary rights are,'" she said. "I think it's a misreading of the law that occurred that made people feel schools were overreaching into the rights and privacy of kids and parents."
Boehm's bill would require school district employees or board members who know about an instance of off-campus bullying to tell the school principal, who would then have to bring it up with the parents of both bully and victim within 48 hours.
That provision has some school officials worried that the law revision would actually ratchet up the responsibility of schools.
"Every school board member under the existing law would as a citizen still have the opportunity to report bullying if they observed it," said Dean Eggert, a lawyer who has represented school districts throughout the state. "I'm not sure if the idea of reducing liability for school districts is consistent with imposing a duty on school board members to report bullying. The two seem to be moving in different directions."
Associated Press
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- New Hampshire's Senate voted unanimously on Wednesday to reject changes to the state's anti-bullying law that received strong support from the House, such as limiting school responsibility in dealing with off-campus incidents.
Senators said the current law is only months old and that schools have just put policies into place to handle bullying. Senators agreed the law needs further study before any changes are made.
Many states have been moving in this direction of extending school involvement to off-campus bullying, but some New Hampshire lawmakers wanted to restrict the boundaries to school grounds. The House passed a bill in March that would remove the off-campus provision and make other changes. The Senate's rejection leaves the measure's future in doubt.
Sen. Molly Kelly, a Senate Education Committee member, described the strong testimony at a recent hearing from students who were bullied and from educators and parents who support the current law. "They were close to begging us to keep the law the way it is," she said.
New Hampshire amended its 10-year-old anti-bullying law last year for the electronic age, now that tools like Facebook and Twitter also present golden opportunities for belittling and bullying. The change also allowed districts to step in "if the conduct interferes with a pupil's educational opportunities or substantially disrupts the orderly operations of the school or school-sponsored activity or event."
Some legislators believe the revised law gives schools too much authority over children. They say once a child leaves school grounds, it's the parent's responsibility to combat bullying.
"Bullying's bad; it's always existed, and nothing we do is going to stop it," said Republican House member Ralph Boehm, the bill's main sponsor and a former Litchfield school board member who said he was bullied as a child in the 1960s. "But the thing is, people do have freedom of speech and the freedom of speech can be mean," he said, so it's unconstitutional for school districts to punish children for what they say or do outside of school.
Sen. James Forsythe, a Republican, said Wednesday there were some provisions in the bill that did strengthen parental rights. However, he noted, no parents testified in favor of them during the hearings.
Nancy Willard, a Eugene, Ore., resident who runs the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, providing help with youth risk online issues, noted that courts have given schools the reach to combat off-campus bullying.
"School officials clearly have the authority to respond to any situation - regardless of the geographic origin - if that is causing a substantial disruption at school or making it impossible for another student to receive an education," she said.
All but five states have laws addressing bullying and 29 of them have provisions addressing cyberbullying. Last year, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed into a law a bill cracking down on bullying, passed after the suicides of two students believed to be victims of intense harassment, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of South Hadley and 11-year-old Carl Walker-Hoover of Springfield.
When cyberbullying issues started emerging several years ago, Willard said, school administrators were afraid of the additional liability.
"It appears they are shifting because they know that they have to respond to these off-campus incidents because they sure as heck are going to have an impact at school," she said.
Educators and administrators - many of whom worked to revise New Hampshire's law last year after four teenagers were accused of coercing a special-needs student into getting a tattoo against his will - strongly support keeping the additional authority to fight bullying off school grounds.
Malcolm Smith, a family education and policy specialist at the University of New Hampshire who was part of a team working on the law last year, said research showed a direct link between "what happens at the burger joint, what happens at the skating rink and what happens in the school."
When parents or schools try to deal with bullying issues on their own, he said, they usually don't get resolved.
"It takes a community working together to solve this meanness that we're seeing," he said. "When you look at the data, our kids are becoming meaner than they've ever been before."
When schools want to fight off-campus bullying, it's not their intent to infringe of free speech or expression, said Robert Trestan, a civil rights counsel for the Anti-Defamation League in the East.
But, for example, if a student tweets from a home computer something that threatens the safety or learning ability of another student, he said, schools need to be on top of that.
"Social media is their social scene," he said of schoolchildren.
Rep. Donna Schlachman, a Democrat from Exeter, introduced last year's bill to update the law because of concerns she was hearing from parents and educators about bullying. She characterized the recent House vote approving the changes as "an overgeneralization about parents' rights."
"There's a sense where `We don't want the state telling us as parents how to raise our kids, how to educate our kids, or what our disciplinary rights are,'" she said. "I think it's a misreading of the law that occurred that made people feel schools were overreaching into the rights and privacy of kids and parents."
Boehm's bill would require school district employees or board members who know about an instance of off-campus bullying to tell the school principal, who would then have to bring it up with the parents of both bully and victim within 48 hours.
That provision has some school officials worried that the law revision would actually ratchet up the responsibility of schools.
"Every school board member under the existing law would as a citizen still have the opportunity to report bullying if they observed it," said Dean Eggert, a lawyer who has represented school districts throughout the state. "I'm not sure if the idea of reducing liability for school districts is consistent with imposing a duty on school board members to report bullying. The two seem to be moving in different directions."
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