If This Is Prosperity, Where’s Mine?

If the economy is doing so well, why is my wallet still empty?

It’s the question of the season. Although signs of economic success are everywhere--thriving businesses, new jobs, no inflation, low unemployment, a balanced budget, a booming stock market--California workers live with an underlying sense of anxiety.

In a recent poll by David Binder, a majority of California voters said they were falling behind the cost of living. Record numbers feared that the new global marketplace was a serious problem for America as jobs shifted to foreign countries with lower wages. More than 2 to 1, those polled felt that new jobs being created paid less than the old jobs being lost. The three economic issues that concerned them most were the loss of American jobs to foreign countries, protecting workplace safety and improving job security.

Working people have every reason to be nervous. In California, job loss in the last decade has been concentrated in high-skilled, high-wage industries like aerospace, defense, heavy manufacturing and communications. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for the next decade’s growth industries, you’ll go to work as a relatively low-wage cashier, janitor, retail sales clerk or waiter. More and more, new jobs don’t provide the same security as the old ones. Few workers needed the UPS strike to teach them that the jobs of the ‘90s are increasingly temporary or part-time.

The rich get richer and the rest of us take on a second job just to stay in place. It’s not surprising that bankruptcies are up and credit card debt is at record levels.

The nagging malaise persists, not just despite the sunny economic news, but because of it. You can only hear about the hot mutual funds and Bill Gates’ new house for so long before you wonder: When do I get mine?

To make matters worse, big business is stepping up its political attacks against workers and unions. In Sacramento, corporate lobbyists, business trade groups and their political allies are pushing policies that would make life even harder for working Californians. Here’s what we’ve seen lately:

* Employer organizations conspired with the governor to end daily overtime pay for 8 million working Californians--a change that will cost California workers at least $1 billion a year in lost wages.

* Big business lobbies and their Sacramento allies are trying to change the formula that calculates prevailing wages, which would decimate pay for construction workers.

* In the name of government efficiency, business allies in government are continuing efforts to contract out public sector work to the lowest bidder. The privatization lowers wages, busts unions and reduces the quality of government service.

Meanwhile, corporate interests fight even the most benign efforts to improve life for employees. Labor unions recently sponsored legislation to allow California workers to use sick leave to take care of children or parents who are ill. Big business opposed it.

We supported a bill granting severance pay to employees if their company moves out of state or offshore in search of lower wages. Big business opposed it.

Another bill would increase penalties for employers who knowingly violate safety regulations and allow workers to be killed on the job. Big business opposed that one too.

This political onslaught puts the lie to claims that economic dislocation is the inevitable result of the market or new technologies or economic globalization. This is the very visible work of corporate chief executive officers and their friends in public office, whose main obsession is increasing the bottom line.

Regrettably, what’s good for General Motors or Intel or Microsoft is not necessarily good for America. In many unfortunate respects, the interests of corporate executives diverge from the interests of workers as much as corporate stock options differ from minimum wage paychecks.

This Labor Day, we call on business leaders to stand with their employees, not against them. We urge politicians to support sick leave, severance pay and daily overtime. Most important, we call on voters to take a good hard look at the anti-worker record of some elected officials and vote the bad ones out of office. What is at stake is nothing less than how we share the rewards of prosperity.