President's Message

The recent debates over the U.S. auto industry bail out and the controversy surrounding the bonus compensation being paid to AIG executives illustrates a glaring, and potentially damaging, disconnect in American society today. Namely, that when it comes to making sacrifices for the good of the American economy, it’s always the blue-collar American who is asked to do most of the sacrificing.
 
In just about every example you can think of, America’s workers have sacrificed for the good of their employers, their industry, and their country. The United Auto Workers has a pretty extensive history of negotiating contract concessions and give-backs in an effort to shore up the competitive position of Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors – irrespective of the disastrous strategic executive decisions that have worked to diminish their market share. Conservatives in Congress recently demanded further steep cuts in the wages and benefits paid to UAW members as a condition for a government-funded bailout for the Big Three U.S. automakers. This is consistent with the conservative playbook of never missing an opportunity to stoke the fires of populist political outrage over issues like guns and gay marriage in order to attract the votes of blue-collar working Americans, only to turn around and enact policies and laws that run directly counter to their economic interests.
 
Over the years, union members in industries such as airlines, steel, communications, manufacturing and construction have all been asked and pressured into negotiating concessions and give-backs for the good of their employers and their industries. While we were certainly not happy about doing so, our unions and our members demonstrated a willingness to act as valued partners with their employers to secure a better competitive position that would allow those companies to weather a period of economic difficulty. To be sure, when the economic good times returned, we have had to fight like hell to share in that prosperity.
 
Especially today in the construction industry, our unions are working with our signatory contractors to find ways to reduce costs that will enable projects to get off the ground in this time of tight credit and scarce financing. In New York City, for example, our metropolitan building trades council is working in conjunction with the Building Trades Employer Association to uncover ways in which they can reduce overall construction costs. Nobody enjoys those types of negotiations…but often we accept them in a forthright manner because we have a demonstrated loyalty to our members, our contractors, our industry, and our country. As Samuel Gompers, the great American labor leader and founder of the American Federation of Labor once said, “The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to make a profit.”
 
Now contrast that scenario with what is taking place today with regard to the public furor over AIG and its bonus compensation system that requires the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in executive “retention” bonuses – many to the same people who devised the credit default swap system that brought us to the brink of economic Armageddon in the first place. Everyone agrees – including both government and AIG – that it is unconscionable for these payments to be made in light of the economic havoc reaped by AIG upon the entire global financial system. And the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars being used to prop that company up. And yet, we are told that these payments must go forward because of “contractual obligations.”
 
In other words, these AIG employees had a contract stipulating their compensation structure. Hmmm…that sounds awfully like the negotiated contracts that the United Auto Workers, the United Steelworkers of America, the Communications Workers, the International Association of Machinists, and many Building Trades Unions each had (as well as numerous others) when their employers and industry representatives told them that they could not afford to pay those compensation levels if those companies were to be in a position to compete in today’s competitive global economy.
 
In those instances, demands were made for unions to re-negotiate the “contractual obligations” governing their pay and benefit structures. I have yet to hear anyone offer credible evidence as to the difference between a contract that stipulates the compensation arrangement between General Motors and its employees, and a contract that stipulates the compensation arrangement between AIG and its executive employees. Why is it that one can be re-negotiated and the other seemingly cannot? Since I have yet to be made aware of any credible answer on that question, I can only conclude that our society – especially in the corporate world – believes that the lives and well-being, not to mention the rights and privileges, of those who toil for blue-collar wages are not viewed with equal regard as those “captains of industry and finance” who are somehow viewed as being more superior, and more valuable in our society.
 
Isn’t it enough that these folks actually have a job today? You would think that every AIG executive would be begging for the public’s forgiveness each and every day and making every conceivable effort to demonstrate their thankfulness that, in horrid irony, the hard-earned tax money of American working families is keeping them employed and their families fed, even though their reckless and despicable actions have caused inexpressible economic, emotional and psychological hardship for millions of working American families.
 
And yet, as I think about this, I find that I am not all that surprised that these AIG executives show little contrition…either for their behavior or their acceptance of these bonuses…or little inclination to sacrifice on behalf of America. When you think about it, it has always been American blue-collar middle class families, not the Wall Street bankers or the executive suite titans, that have always shouldered the burdens and sacrifices that have allowed our nation to prosper in both war and peace. It is always the sons and daughters of the American working class who constitute the majority of the troops that have fought for, and continue to fight for, the freedom and values that we hold so dear. And it is the American worker who is always asked to give back, and do with less, so that American business (and American businessmen!) can prosper.
 
But American workers would have to be fools to continue to do so when other sectors of our society continually fail to demonstrate an equal commitment to the same cause.
 
Our nation’s motto is: E pluribus unum - which is Latin for “Out of Many, One.” It succinctly describes the American ideal: that we are a nation of diversity and differences, but we are all united through the simple, yet powerful identity of being “an American.” One for All…All for One! Our nation will once again enjoy sustainable economic growth when we return to an era of “trickle up” economics where work…not wealth…is valued, respected and rewarded. And where those at the top of the American income ladder show the same level of love and commitment and sacrifice to this great country as its blue collar heroes – rather than retreat behind their gated communities with their “contractually obligated” bonus checks in hand, and offer a middle finger salute to everyone else.