The New Fight for the 40-Hour Work Week

Workers of the industrial age fought long and hard to secure a 40-hour work week. According to labor historian Prof. Philip Foner, "No single issue in nineteenth-century labor history produced as many songs and ballads." Here's one for you:

       We mean to make things over; we are tired of toil for naught,
       With but bare enough to live upon, and never an hour for thought;
       We want to feel the sunshine, and we want to smell the flowers,
       We are sure that God has willed it, and we mean to have eight hours.

       We're summoning our forces from the shipyard, shop, and mill,
       Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will!

The Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 realized this dream on a national scale. Mission accomplished? Not exactly.

Like a cruel joke, we workers today have our own struggle for a 40-hour work week; unfortunately ours involves fighting to maintain a full 40 hours in the face of furloughs, hours cuts, "permatemps", and part-time reassignment. A 32-hour work week sounds bad when a person starts out with 40, but consider the plight of the 10% of the American populace who can't find any employment at all--for them, not even a 1-hour work week.

If employers could run companies with only managers and no workers, they would, and this nightmare becomes more and more plausible with innovation in technological advances. Even when employers owned slaves and had no obligation to pay their workforce, they still rejoiced at the introduction of the cotton gin that meant fewer laborers required to make even more money. That's been the name of the game since the beginning of capitalism.

With the abolition of slavery (excepting interns), employers may mask their contempt a little better, but they still find it obnoxious that workers always want stuff--like money, or healthcare, or dignity--that ultimately cuts into their pocketbooks. Sadly for the Boss, until SkyNet becomes self-aware and our robot overlords can fend for themselves, workers will remain a necessary evil to the people who employ them, much to the employer's chagrin.

The cunning employer recognizes this and attempts to persuade the worker into a new frame of mind. The ruling-class employer says to his working-class employee, "Now, now, I am no better than you; we are a team! We're all in this together to make the company the best it can possibly be!" Employers often embellish this lie with a call to sacrifice; "I'd like to pay you overtime, but would you really want to put the company in that position of financial burden?" or, "Think of the company before you come in here and selfishly ask for a week's paid maternity leave."

Our grandparents saw this for what it was--baloney. They recognized that if they had a job manufacturing gold-plated turds for TurdCom Incorporated, an attack on their integrity was not worth a nicer, sleeker, faster, shinier, more efficient gold-plated turd (now with less fragrance!). No amount of sacrifice on their part was going to result in a better gold-plated turd, anyway. It was the job of the Boss with the Seven-Figure-Salary (how quaint) to earn that salary with Big Money-Making Ideas about what kind of company to have and what to produce; the worker's only role was to keep production moving. If the company really needed to save money, why not let the Boss's paycheck take a hit? He (yeah, likely a dude in this scenario) could certainly afford it.

The disparity in wages made the class divide perfectly clear then, and the divide could not be clearer now when even "nonprofit" CEOs can make millions of dollars per year; workers today turn a blind eye to this, however, getting suckered into the "team" mentality only to find that they're the only ones on the "team" doing work for offensively low wages and making sacrifices of any kind. We've all had the experience of involuntarily doing the heavy lifting, and we all can agree it sucks; why are people falling for it now with such vehemence?

It can't be the recession, because our grandparents win that contest of financial hardship. Perhaps it is that the lie has become more believable, now that we live in a world where companies have more rights than humans enjoy. I'll let Jon Stewart explain:

We're all just grist in TurdCom Inc.'s mill, in other words. The company's rights override all others. As far as employers are concerned, workers should waive their right to ask for compensation that the law "guarantees" them--did you know that 75 percent of employers in California break the law by neglecting to pay their workers for overtime?--because it impedes the company's Supreme-Court-awarded right to make money, and the company's rights "win."

Too many workers buy into this and start having aspirations of working their way up through the company's ranks, riding the Gold-Plated-Turd-Train into Big-Money-Station; best way to do that they figure is to kiss ass, work extra hours for no extra pay (often just to keep up with their heavy workloads), and stay docile. Besides, complaints about working conditions are anti-"team" (i.e. "anti-company") and thus subject to punishment; too many complaints, and a worker gets furloughed, has hours cut, is reduced to part-time status, or is replaced.

This is even worse than where we started. Our GREAT-grandparents got paid 60 hours' wages for 60 hours' work; meanwhile, the workers at 75 percent of California's workplaces work 60 hours and get paid for 40. Welcome to 2010, everybody.

Hey, Boss! Got too many employees qualifying for full-time benefits? Fire them all, and hire twice as many part-timers with zero benefits to replace them. Better yet, hire a "temp" from an agency to work for you permanently--no benefits AND no promotions, guaranteed. Best of all, ship all your jobs to someplace like India where workers can live in your factory like this:

Heck! If they live there, you'll never have to pay them overtime! Problem solved!

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 12.3% of American workers (11.3% of female workers) in 2009 were represented by a labor union; I figure that makes my being a lesbian union maid especially rare. I would like to say that none of this applies to the labor union world, but I can't. Where the union worker of 1933 stared down hired guns (and occasionally lost to them) to defend the right to a fair wage, union workers today toil furiously for nothing, disillusioned by labor leaders who work hand-in-hand with management in propagating (and propagandizing) the "coalition" mentality and fearful of becoming the next ex-TurdCom former employee battling to find even part-time employment.

That being said, strong unions could win the new fight for the 40-hour work week just as they did the old one; whether or not working- (or even middle-) class Americans can (or even want to) organize themselves well enough to take on such an endeavor remains uncertain. My own union puts into practice every day that jobs not only can be protected but made better, yet the successes we achieve are possible only with formidable and vigilant effort (and a good measure of unpleasantness between managers and union personnel). Until America's workers quit empathizing with the glorified pimps running her businesses today, this codependent abuse of her working people will continue. As The Boss likes to call it, that's "teamwork."

Pay and Prejudice: Gender Change Means Loss of Pay for Some

A recent blog post at the NY Times site discussed the impact of gender change on one’s economic status. The post was based upon a B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy article prepared by Kristen Schlit and Matthew Wiswall found here http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol8/iss1/art39/ . What Schlit and Wiswall found was that much of the stigma behind gender change tended to be very different for transwomen versus transmen. Transwomen faced greater stigma and prejudice than transmen and this was often reflected in the economic impact of the shift. For instance, transwomen tended to have a greater number of pay cuts, and tended to loose their jobs more often than transmen did. Schlit and Wiswall theorized that the issues might be more about male/female prejudices than those based upon transgender perceptions.

The article got me to thinking about the variety and level of prejudices that may exist towards the LGBTI community. After all, most of the time, prejudice is based upon a number of complex rules that often stratify society based upon varying degrees. If you watch the Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles, you hear an echo of those prejudice when the townsfolk try to refuse having any Irish join them in Rock Ridge.

As a lesbian transwoman, I have had to wonder how the stratification of prejudice against the LGBTI Community works, and how much the perceptions of me prior to my transitioning affected the attitudes after I went full time. Prior to going full time, the majority perception that others had of me was that I was a gay man. After all, I was feminine. My clothing and mannerisms were more female than male, and I was not dating any woman anyone knew about. What I never said to anyone was that I did not date because of my dislike and even disgust with heterosexual sex and an inability to engage in sexual expressions which felt more normal and natural to me. But, pegged as a gay male, I found my transition time far easier than the horror stories that I had heard. Except for hitting some entrenched prejudices with certain professors, I found that most people accepted me without batting an eyelash. I chose not to tell them I was lesbian, and let their assumptions go unanswered. Except for a few friends in the very small LGBTI community where I lived, no one knew about my sexuality, and I decided it was for the best. At least my friends never had an issue with this.

I have wondered after that if I had inadvertently stumbled into the way that society perceives gays, lesbians and transpeople. Is it, shall we say, more alright for women to love women than for men to love men? Is it more acceptable for a ‘gay’ man to become a woman than for a ‘straight’ man to become a woman? Is a transman more acceptable to society than a transwoman? This is a complex issue. I have certainly seen the patterns that this issue make. It can be little things like how DeGeneres and DeRossi’s wedding got a full, multipage write up in People Magazine, but the wedding of Takai and Altman got two pages and around two-thirds of a column. Could there be other issues regarding why they chose to do that? Certainly, after all, DeGeneres is a big star right now, and Takai’s stardom is far more muted. They may have also chosen to do more on DeGeneres rather than Takai because People’s core audience is women. However, you still have to wonder. . .

I will, as time goes along, write more about this, but I am also curious to hear from others. This is something that, truthfully, I have not seen a lot discussed about. Are there subtle differences in the prejudices that the LGBTI community faces?

Before That Sex Change, Think About Your Next Paycheck

Lesbian politics: Why exactly $700 billion?, and why are these Democratic Senators smiling?

Senators report that they have reached a compromised draft of a bill that reportedly would bail out Wall Street with $700 billion of taxpayer money. The reports of the text immediately scare me and force me to wonder why these Democratic Senators here are smiling in this photo. I think it has something to do with Rosh Hashanah; let me explain.

Zubin Jelveh of SeekingAlpha.com asked the question a couple of days ago: "Does It Have To Be Exactly $700 Billion?" Jelveh writes:

In further testimony this morning Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke expanded on how the $700 billion number came about.

"It's not science," Bernanke said. But there are roughly $14 trillion in outstanding residential and commercial mortgages and five percent is also roughly the loss rate on those categories, he added. Five percent of $14 trillion is = $700 billion.

For once I agree with Bernanke--that's not science, especially in light of where the $700 billion is now proposed to go based on the text the Senators released today:

1. The government (the Treasury) would immediately get $250 billion.

Now, I had never really thought about what the Treasury actually does. I knew that Treasury Secretary Paulson was the guy who supposedly came up with the $700 billion figure, but that was about it. Here's what Secretary Paulson actually does all day:

· He makes sure Uncle Sam's debts get paid. That means when Russia and China come calling for their cash back, Paulson makes sure we drive inflation up by issuing new bank notes with which to pay them.

· He is the President's chief economic advisor. Wow, doesn't that convince you to give him your tax dollars right there?

· He is the administration's #1 lobbyist; he sells the President's economic plan to Congress and tries to put a happy face on things.

· He is also the administration's #1 reverse lobbyist, in that he goes to Fortune 500 companies and banking magnates to push the President's agenda.

· He provides that little sample signature that goes on dollar bills. Oo, neat!

So you heard me; that guy gets $250 billion dollars. What's he going to do with it exactly? He's going to bail out these companies that lied to the top and get banks predatorily lending again. Some economists have said that this a cheap ploy to extend the control of the President over this plan and to keep Congress out of it; others have argued that smaller measures haven't worked well in the past (AIG, Fannie and Freddie) so now we must resort to larger measures.

Might I point out here that if throwing little money at the problem didn't work the first time, throwing more money in that direction might not be the solution?

This new bill would allow the Treasury to buy company stocks and conversely allow companies to buy government insurance. I would like to remind everyone of one of the characteristics of fascism: unstable capitalist markets in which business and government become a single economic unit. Is everyone paying attention??

Okay, so that's where your first $250 billion would go! What's next?

2. $100 billion more would go to the Treasury Secretary if the President were to think it would be a good idea.

Seriously!

3. The remaining $350 billion would also go to the Treasury Secretary, but only with a separate certification subject to a congressional resolution of disapproval; however, even were the disapproval resolution to pass, the President could still veto it, meaning Congress would have to develop an extremely large majority to override the money still going to the Treasury Secretary.

So aside from that painfulness, look at the rest of this bill they've come up with. Another provision accounts for an oversight board that would include the Chairman of the Federal Reserve (Bush appointee and guilty villain in this horrible mess), the Security and Exchange Commission Chairman (Bush appointee), the Federal Housing Finance Board Chairman (Bush appointee), and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (member of Bush's cabinet, for real). Doesn't it seem like a problem to put them in charge of catching mistakes since they've caused many of them?

This measure will help no one and will continue to prolong the inevitable collapse of a system that only works in theory. My free market friends complain to me that I just don't understand; that free market economies are not meant to be profitable for everyone, and that workers are not to be considered when companies are at stake. I argue that a system that does not profit anyone except Senators and their favorite lobbyists and turns socialist when banks that foreclosed on people are now desperate for government handouts isn't a free market at all.

So anyway, why are those Democrats up there smiling??

Well, they came up with an extremely smelly piece of legislation after being bullied by the Bush administration into passing it, and they were able to report this on a Sunday, which means hardly anyone is paying attention. Also, they were able to come up with a resolution prior to Tuesday, which is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year--and also a congressional holiday. Hey, message to Jewish and gentile lawmakers alike: 5769 will now be remembered as the year the American financial system collapsed because both Democratic and Republican lawmakers refused to stand up to the Bush administration.

L'shana Tovah.

Lesbian politics: Free Sarah Palin!, or, These Damn Economic Rape Kits are Expensive!

I don't know if John McCain and his advisors are not so up on the computers, but John McCain's website very much still wants you to watch the debates tomorrow. The word out on the street is, we're still not so sure John McCain is going to show up.

There's a nasty rumor that John McCain wants to delay the debate with candidate Barack Obama until Thursday, which would oh-so-coincidentally keep Sarah Palin's debate with Joe Biden from going forward. Far be it from me to traffic in nasty rumors . . .

And last I checked, when a President gets bogged down in a crisis, isn't that what a Vice President is for?

In fact, I'm here today to join with Campbell Brown from CNN in saying, Free Sarah Palin! [Text below]

Campbell Brown:
Bear with me for a short rant on another subject, because frankly, I have had it, and I know a lot of other women out there are with me on this. I have had enough of the sexist treatment of Sarah Palin. It has to end!

She was here in New York City today meeting with world leaders at the U.N., and what did the McCain campaign do? They tried to ban reporters from covering those meetings, and they did ban reporters from asking Governor Palin any questions.

Tonight, I call on the McCain campaign to stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower that will wilt at any moment. This woman is from Alaska for crying out loud. She is strong! She is tough! She is confident!--and you claim she's ready to be one heartbeat away from the presidency; if that is the case, then end this chauvinistic treatment of her now!

Allow her to show her stuff. Allow her to face down those pesky reporters--just like Barack Obama did today; just like John McCain did today; just like Joe Biden has done on numerous occasions. Let her have a real news conference with real questions. By treating Sarah Palin different from the other candidates in this race, you're not showing her the respect she deserves.

Free Sarah Palin!

Free her from the chauvinistic chains you are binding her with. Sexism in this campaign must come to an end. Sarah Palin has just as much a right to be a real candidate in this race as the men do, so let her act like one.

* * *

Well, that'll never happen. In the meantime: Hey, John McCain! Being President sometimes involves doing more than one thing at a time, and frankly, you are the last person on the face of the planet--excepting some of your friends and campaign advisors--that I would want rushing to Washington to fix anything with dollar signs on it. Stay away!

And while we're on the subject of the economy, dear readers, isn't it interesting how all these free market neocons sure seem pretty socialist all of a sudden when it's their buddies and companies that need government money? To make a Sarah Palin analogy, we all got raped by the economic system, and now we're having to pay for our own rape kit with our tax dollars--it's the Right-wing answer to everything, no?

We all know someone losing a home, but I don't think the "crisis" is as bad as Bush is making it out to be; the American people--the actual workers--have been suffering for months and years now, and only now that the rich people at the top are suffering does anybody in the government care. Unfortunately, the American people tend to jump to any weird conclusion based on fear, so it is in Bush's best interest to say, "WE HAVE TO ACT NOW. NO, DON'T TAKE TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT. DO IT NOW. GIVE ME YOUR MONEY $$$ AND ASK QUESTIONS LATER."

The scariest part to me of this whole bailout is not that the government wants my tax money--hell, they're already spending it on killing Iraqi children, so not like I have any say--the scariest part is that the Treasury wants to expand its powers.

So all of a sudden we'd have Duke of Paulson up there in the Treasury giving tax dollars to anybody--his buddies, the Bushies, his grandma. It wouldn't matter, and we wouldn't be able to say shit! I am more interested in "pressuring" my Congress people (O.K., they don't care, but) into blocking the expansion of Treasury powers than I am in keeping them from giving all that money away. (The money's not worth anything, anyway, so whatever.)

I will say in closing that banks should be engaging in development--not in speculation. Simple as that. Most states had outlawed predatory lending until Bush came along in 2003 and said, "predatory lending for everybody! Cheers!" And who has been in favor of deregulation this whole time? One clue: a privileged old man who used to be a war hero but who is now cowering somewhere from the American people's questions at a time everyone is looking for a strong leader with answers.

I personally need a President who's going to make me want to invest in American roads that are crumbling and in dumb-ass American kids who can't fucking read and in a green economy that creates American jobs that save this god-damn planet run by imperialist morons. If I can't believe in that, I've got to move, which totally bums me out because I love southern California, man.

So I'm going to watch the debates whether John McCain shows up or not. I want to hear what Barack Obama has to say; and since John McCain has suspended campaigning, that makes Huckabee the new de facto Republican nominee, right? I'm calling for Obama, Huckabee, and Palin to stand up for their country and tell us how they would lead us out of this mess; when we Americans are looking to them for answers, it's their duty. Why doesn't John McCain think that?