COLUMN LEFT/ BERNARD SANDERS : Workers Need Help to Regain Their Rights : Wages, jobs, purchasing power are all abysmal; Congress should make this a federal case.

One of the major economic crises facing our nation is that not only are 10 million workers unemployed and 6 million underemployed, but the wages of those who are employed are in significant decline. Twenty years ago, the United States led the world in the wages and benefits we provided our workers. Today, we’re in 12th place and declining.

It should not be acceptable to President Clinton and Congress that the average weekly earnings of production workers have declined by more than 15% since 1973, and that we have lost millions of decent-paying manufacturing jobs in the last dozen years. It should not be acceptable that there has been a major increase in the percentage of Americans working at low-wage jobs, and that the minimum wage today has 26% less purchasing power than it had in 1970. It should not be acceptable that Americans work longer hours and enjoy less paid vacation time than almost any other industrialized country’s workers, or that we are the only major nation without a national health-care system.

During the 1980s, the richest 1% of our population saw a doubling of their real income, and the gap between the rich and the poor became greater than at any time since the 1920s. If the Reagan-Bush era was the period when government functioned to protect the interests of the wealthy and the powerful, the time has come for government to forcefully represent the interests of the ordinary working person. In fact, Congress needs to pass a Workers’ Bill of Rights, which at a minimum should protect working people in the following five areas:

* Congress needs to raise the minimum wage to at least $5.50 per hour. The minimum wage today is really a poverty wage, leaving a family of three 29% below the poverty level. It is absurd that the U.S. taxpayer today must subsidize low-wage employers by supplementing those wages with federally supported food stamps, Medicaid and other programs.

* Americans are now working longer hours in order to maintain a lower standard of living. Americans after one year on the job have 10 days of paid vacation, compared with 27 days for the Swedes, 25 days for the French and 18 days for the Germans. We must lower the amount of time that Americans work by increasing paid vacations and providing more flexible work hours. Not only will this lessen the terrible stress that millions of Americans are experiencing, but it also will allow more to enter the workplace and lower the unemployment rate.

* While 16 million Americans remain unemployed or underemployed, our roads, bridges, mass transit, sewer systems, landfills, schools and housing continue to deteriorate. It is absolutely absurd that, despite the end of the Cold War, we continue to spend $280 billion a year on the military--$130 billion defending Western Europe and Asia. We must cut military spending in half and reinvest hundreds of billions of dollars into rebuilding America and thus creating millions of decent paying jobs. A portion of that money should also go toward cutting the deficit.

* Working people will continue to see a decline in their standard of living until a strong trade union movement re-emerges. Workers today, without decent unions, have little protection from their bosses and relatively little political clout. After 12 years of Reagan-Bush labor law, it is now extremely difficult for workers to organize unions. It is necessary for Congress to pass legislation that will provide workers with the legal protection they need to form unions and to negotiate fair contracts with their employers.

* The United States spends far, far more per capita on health care than any other country, yet 80 million Americans are either uninsured or underinsured. The only way to provide all Americans with comprehensive health insurance and control the exploding cost of health care is through a single-payer Canadian-style national health-care system. By eliminating the waste and inefficiency inherent in 1,500 private insurance companies, each with its own program and paperwork, and by controlling doctors’ fees and drug company profits, we could save more than $80 billion a year--more than enough money to provide comprehensive health insurance for all Americans.

The United States today faces its most serious domestic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Now is the time for President Clinton and Congress to show the American people that our government represents all our citizens, not just the rich and the powerful. Now is the time to pass a Workers’ Bill of Rights.