Making a Secure Retirement Part of the American Dream for

Everyone

IAM 751 Retirees

Mark McDermott

www.markmmcdermott.comFacebook: markmcdermottworkshops

June 17, 2013

Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action

Grassroots – diverse – activist – multi-generational1,200 dues paying members

Finding Our Common Ground

How many of you, your family or your close friends and their families are concerned about:•Adequate income in retirement?•A secure Social Security system?•Adequate services as we get older?•Stable Medicare system?•Quality caregivers available to help us stay in our homes?•A bright and secure present and future for our children and grandchildren?

How do you feel about these problems facing you, your family, and your friends

and their families?

4

The Power of Our Story

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Those who do not remember their past

are condemned to repeat their mistakes."

George Santayana, 1936

Telling the True Story of Labor’s Role in Creating the American Dream

“The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress…The captains of industry did not lead this transformation.”Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

My Family’s Story

A Nation DividedKu Klux Klan March in D.C. - 1925

Henry Ford - 1931

“The average man won't really do a day's work unless he is caught and cannot get out of it. There is plenty of work to do if people would do it.”

Hunger, Poverty and Homelessness Plagues Our Nation - Depression 1932

.

Growing Solidarity Between Black and White Workers – Early 1930s

Police Kill 5 Ford Hunger Marchers - 1932

100,000 in Funeral Procession for Martyrs of Ford Hunger March Massacre

GM Sit-Down Strikers:Occupy Flint, Michigan - 1937

National Guard Occupies Flint

Women Defending Striking Workers

Occupy GM in Flint: Victory

Sit-down Strikers Occupy Racist Woolworth Stores and Win Recognition – 1937

The Rise and Decline of the American Labor Movement - 1890 to 2012

Historic People’s Victories in the 1930s

• Social Security

• Home and farm ownership opportunities

• Right to organize unions in private sector and strong labor movement

• Unemployment insurance and public assistance

• Minimum wage, overtime pay, child labor and child welfare protections

• Strong regulation of financial industries

• Farm workers and domestic workers exclusions

Historic People’s Victories1960s and Early 1970s

• Medicare/Medicaid• Pensions and pension protections• Broader higher education opportunities• Environmental victories – Clean air and water• Safer workplaces – OSHA• Civil Rights and Voting Right Acts • Anti-poverty programs• Anti-discrimination• Open housing

30 Years of Shared Prosperity – 1947-1979

Corporate America Stealing our Shared Prosperity – 1979-2011

Poorest 20% of families’ average income drops while the richest 5%’s grows 75%. Lower middle class, middle class and upper middle class see very slow growth.

The Super-Rich Stealing our Shared Prosperity – 1979-2011

Richest 11,000 families’ average income rises 386%. Their minimum income is $8.6 million and their average income is $35.5 million (2006 data.)

Winning a Secure Retirement

Rising standard of livingSteady, long-term employment

Social Security with COLADefined benefit pensionsMedicare and Medicaid

Own your home

Sharing Our Stories:

How Have You and Your Families Benefited from these Great People’s

Victories?

“There’s Class Warfare, all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Warren Buffett, World’s Third Richest Man

Corporate America’s Class War1980 to Today

Lewis Powell – August 23, 1971

Confidential MemoTo: Eugene Sydnor, Chairman, Education Committee, U.S. Chamber of CommerceSubject: Attack on Free Enterprise System2 months later, President Nixon appointed Powell to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Corporate America’s Class War

• Crush organized labor• Promote free trade and export manufacturing jobs

Undermine democracy with massive campaign spending by corporations and wealthy

• Voter suppression• Deregulate financial industries and corporations• Cut social programs for poor, unemployed and needy• Sharply reduce taxes on corporations and the

wealthy• Privatize government

Published on Thursday, February 10, 2005 by the Associated Press

As Union Nears Win, Wal-Mart Closes Store

The War Against Workers

Immigrants Didn’t Wreck the Economy: They are our Sisters and Brothers

Our American Dream is Being Stolen

Record profitsBig bank bailouts

Record number of foreclosuresRecord income and wealthy inequality

Tax breaks for corporations and the richInsecure retirements

Shrinking opportunities for our families

General Electric’s Legal Tax Evasion

U.S. profits – 2002-11:$80.2 billionAverage tax rate: 1.8%Official rate: 35%GE saves: $26.5 billionGE lobbying – 2002-11:$220 millionReturn on lobbying:12000%

“If there is no struggle, there can be no progress…find out what any people will quietly submit to and you will have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.”Frederick Douglass, 1857

Fighting for the American Dream:Finding Hope and Getting Organized

The People SpeakCorporations Have Too Much Power

National Harris Poll – June 2011These groups have too much power:•Major corporations – 88%•Banks and financial institutions – 85%•Lobbyists – 84%

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Stealing our Children’s Dreams: Harder to Move Up and Crushing Student Debt

“the U.S does not have as much mobility as most other advanced countries.”“Family background plays more of a role in the U.S. than most comparable countries.”

$1,000,000,000,000 and counting!!!

Militant Students Force Congress to Keep Lower Interest Rates for Student Loans

Stealing a Secure Retirement from Our Families and Us

Stagnant standard of livingKill defined benefit pensions; 401 (K)s

Attack Social SecurityAttack Medicare

Less stable, full-time employmentHarder to buy a home

Strengthening Social Security

Eliminating the income maximum “the cap” on which wage earners and employers pay Social Security taxes will preserve Social Security for decades.

Watch our Scrap the Cap video.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZQlbtlErLo

Bad Idea #2: Lower Benefits byChanging the Cost of Living Adjustment

Obama - YES U.S. Senate – BIG NO

Changing the COLA = Adopting the Chained Consumer Price Index (Chained CPI)

Take Action Today

Scrap the Cap

Say NO! to lowering Social Security Benefits by changing the Cost of Living Adjustment to

“The Chained Consumer Price Index.”

JOIN PSARA!!!!

People Like Us Have and Can Change the World. This is our Time.

• Women’s right to vote - 1920• American labor movement – 1930s• Sweeping New Deal victories – 1930s• Civil rights movement – 1950-60s• Sweeping Great Society victories – 1960s• Anti-war movement – 1960-70s• World-wide anti-apartheid movement – 1940-90s • Toppling the Berlin Wall – 1980-90s• The United States – 2013 forward

Discussion

What were your “aha” moments today?

Mark McDermottwww.markmmcdermott.com

Facebook: markmcdermottworkshops

The author wishes to acknowledge the financial contributions and technical assistance from United Food and Commercial

Workers Local 21 that helped create the original version of this presentation and slideshow. The author is solely responsible for

the content.

Corporate America Winning the War of Big Ideas

• 1973 – Heritage Foundation• 1977 – Cato Institute – 1977• 1970 – American Enterprise Institute – 10 staff and

$1 million; by 1980 – 125 staff and $8 million (1980)• 1980 – Heritage publishes Mandate for Leadership.

Reagan gives a copy to all Cabinet members at first meeting.

• 1988 – 2/3 of 2000 recommendations implemented.

What ideas does this story give you about how we can take back the American

Dream for the people you love and care about?

Children on the Picket Lines

A Brighter Future: Youth More Progressive

as Racial Differences Shrink

• Our young people strongly support:– Role of unions in protecting working people– Government should ensure that all people have adequate

food and affordable housing– Increased federal spending for public education

• Gaps between whites and blacks and Hispanics shrink• White youth reject conservative views of their elders.

Source: Amanda Logan and David Madland, “Millennial Economics: It Don’t Matter if You’re Black or White or Hispanic”, Center for American Progress Action Fund, October 2008. http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/pdf/progressive_gap.pdf

Who Gets What Share of the National Income: The Top 1% versus the 99%

Source: Saez, Emmanuel, “Income Inequality in the U.S., 1913-1998 - Updated to 2008, http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/ See article and the Updated to 2008 in Excel - Table A0

Record After-Tax Profits for U.S. Corporations

2010: $1.93 Trillion Cash and $1.5 trillion in Offshore Corporate Profits

The Great Racial Wealth Divide2009

Source: Pew Research Center, “Twenty to One: Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks and Hispanics, July 26, 2011., page 15. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2011/07/SDT-Wealth-Report_7-26-11_FINAL.pdf

Gender Gap in Hourly Wages - 2009

Source: Economic Policy Institute, “Change in real hourly wages for men and women by wage percentile, 1973-2009.” http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/charts/view/188 http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/charts/view/187

Our Youth Face a Difficult Future

• High levels of unemployment • Skyrocketing tuition costs• Huge student loan debts• Education cutbacks• Upward mobility in the U.S. lower than many

wealthy industrialized countries

What does the American Dream mean to you and your family?

Police and U.S. Army Kill 2 Bonus Marchers and Destroy Occupy D.C. - 1932

Source: M. B. Schnapper, American Labor: A Bicentennial History, Public Affairs Press, 1975, page 460. Copyright.

Why do you think we can win big election victories but then are unable to win big

reforms needed to turn our country toward a new shared prosperity and

brighter future?

Pop QuizRight-wing Republican Governors Attack Public Employees and their Unions - 2011

Which group most supports public sector unions and public sector employees against these attacks?

•18 to 34 year olds

•35 to 55 year olds

•55 and older

Young People Strongly Support Public Sector Unions

Racism Dividing Working People and Undercuts Needed Unity

“The net result of all this (union racism) has been to convince the American Negro, that his greatest enemy is not the employer who robs him, but his fellow white workingman.” W.E.B. DuBois (1913); founder of NAACP (1909)

Source: Howard Zinn, People’s History of the U.S., page 321. Michael D. Yates, Why Unions Matter, page 147.

What lessons can we learn from this history that will help us move toward making the American Dream real for

everyone?

How do you feel about these problems facing you, your family, and your friends

and their families?

What values and principles that you hold dear are violated by our shared prosperity

being stolen from us?

Taking Action

• What are the most important things you learned today that can help you in your work as stewards, union leaders and community leaders?

• How can this information be used to help build a stronger Teamsters Union and broader labor movement?

President Herbert Hoover - 1929Darling of Corporate America

“We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.”

100,000 in Funeral March of IBT 574 Martyr in Victorious 1934 Minneapolis Strike

Economic Hard Times Hits Unevenly• Record levels of income and wealth inequality• People of color – higher unemployment and smaller

wealth than whites• Construction workers devastated• Manufacturing workers hit hard by offshoring• Women’s wages continue to trail men’s• Our youth face growing challenges in pursuing

education• Upward mobility is lower in the U.S. than in much of

Western Europe

A Corporate Prophet Speaks

“Yet it will be a hard pill for many Americans to swallow – the idea that doing with less so that big business can

have more…..Nothing that this nation, or any other nation, has done in modern economic history compares with in difficulty with the selling job that must now be

done to make people accept this new reality.” John Carson-Parker, Business Week, 1974.

It took more than a sales job to create this new reality.

Many Movements: Too Little Justice

• Labor• Communities of color• Seniors• Women• Immigrant rights• Environmental• Hunger, housing,

homelessness, human services

• Occupy• Gays and lesbians• Faith• Students and youth• Fair trade• International solidarity• Corporate responsibility• Political reforms

General Electric Legal Tax Evasion

U.S. profits – 2002-11:$80.2 billionAverage tax rate: 1.8%Official rate: 35%GE saves: $26.5 billionGE lobbying – 2002-11:$220 millionReturn on lobbying:12000%

What does the American Dream mean to you and your family?

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Finding Our Common Ground

How many of you, your family members, your close friends or their family members have experienced the following in the past five years?•Lost a job or worried abou•Worried about losing job or can’t find full-time work•Couldn’t get or exhausted unemployment benefits•Lost or didn’t have health insurance

Racism and Bigotry as Corporate Strategy

“We pursue policies to keep the races and nationalities apart…Stir up suspicion, rivalry and hatred among them.”Philip Armour, CEO of largest meatpacking company in the world.

Finding Our Common Ground

How many of you, your family members, your close friends or their family members have experienced the following? •Difficulties in paying the bills or facing bankruptcy•Lost their home, facing foreclosures, underwater mortgage, or difficulties in paying the rent•Moved in relatives because they can’t pay the rent

Racism Divides Working People and Undercuts Needed Unity

“The net result of all this (union racism) has been to convince the American Negro, that his greatest enemy is not the employer who robs him, but his fellow white workingman.” W.E.B. DuBois (1913); founder of NAACP (1909)

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Source: Howard Zinn, People’s History of the U.S., page 321. Michael D. Yates, Why Unions Matter, page 147.

Police and U.S. Army Kill 2 Bonus Marchers and Destroy Occupy D.C. - 1932

Source: M. B. Schnapper, American Labor: A Bicentennial History, Public Affairs Press, 1975, page 460. Copyright.

78

Racism and Anti-Immigrant Bigotry in the Great Depression: 1 to 2 Million Mexican-

Americans and Mexicans Deported

Solidarity Critical in Victory in 83-Day 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike

Growing Racial Solidarity Key to Victories in the 1930s

Probably the greatest and most effective effort toward interracial understandingamong the working masses has come about through the trade unions…Probablyno movement in the past 30 years has been so successful in softening race prejudice among the masses.W.E.B. DuBois, Founder of the NAACP

Democratic President, Big Congressional Majorities - What Happened?

• 1965-68, 1977-80, 1993-94, and 2009-10. Democratic President and large Congressional majorities.

• We only won broad reforms in 1965-68 – Great Society victories.

• Labor law reform beaten four times. • Last three periods – major reforms largely blocked

How to Take Our Country Back

• Clearly vision, values and agenda • Growing labor movement• Effective education and communication• Permanent long-term broad coalitions• Aggressive mass movements• Critical to involve our young people• Credible threat to replace Democrats who oppose

reform agenda

Major Victories Led by Young People 2011-12

• Bank of America $5 debit charge stopped• Verizon $2 pay online charge stopped• Student loans – Congress forced to keep 3.4%

interest rate• President’s directive staying deportations of young

immigrant students• Anti-sweatshop victories on campuses

Taking Action

• What are your “aha” moments today?• How can you use this information to be more

effective in your political work, bargaining and new organizing?

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FIGHTING FOR A BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR OUR FAMILIES AND OURSELVES

Our Nation is Not Broke: Corporate America and the Wealthy Are Hijacking the American

Dream

Corporate After-Tax Profits Hit All-Time Highs – 2010-11

Corporate after-tax profits hit all-time record highs in 2010 and 2011 as a share of the national income while claiming the need for tax cuts and higher profits.

Workers’ Share of National Income Hits Record Lows – 2010-11

$950,000,000,000

Divided equally between the lowest 80% of households =

Additional $10,000 per year

Community Rallies Behind Strikers

A New Woman Emerges in the Strike Wave – 1930s

“The women that participated actively became a different type of woman, a different type from any we have ever known anywhere in the labor movement and certainly not in the city of Flint. They carried themselves with a different walk, their heads were high, and they had confidence in themselves.”

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We Pay Our Taxes – What about the Rich?

In 2010:•3,000 earning more than $2 Million paid $0•24,000 earning more than $550,000 paid $0 •78,000 earning $200,000 - $550,000 paid $0