The Race to the Bottom

Jonathan Kissam

Most working people in Vermont are faced with economic insecurity on a daily basis. Fewer and fewer workers enjoy health care coverage, real retirement security, or even a livable wage. Too many workers are forced to work two to three jobs, taking a toll on families and communities. And we are seemingly always caught between the rock of rising regressive taxes (such as the property tax, sales tax, and user fees) and the hard place of cutting public education and public services -- illustrated no more clearly than in our Vermont town meeting debates over school budgets every year.

Some people, especially the few who are benefitting from the situation, would like us to believe that economic insecurity for the many is simply a byproduct of uncontrollable forces of the economy, and that there is no other option to the status quo. However, the reality is that economic insecurity is a result of specific policies promoted by large corporations, the wealthy and their far-right allies. Federal trade policy has promoted outsourcing, off-shoring, and plant closings that have devastated many communities. Health insurance and pharamceutical companies have poured millions of dollars into defeating any kind of health care reform. Billions of dollars have been wasted on an unneccesary and unjust war in Iraq. These policies add up to a "race to the bottom" for workers, and a race to the bottom is one that no one wins.

Throughout history, whenever economic elites have defended the status quo with the argument that there is no other option, working people have stood up for an alternative vision, a vision of an economy that works for everyone. We can see that happening locally in the Verizon workers who are standing up to stop a sale that could not only destroy good jobs but frustrate Vermont's aspirations for quality broadband, in the fight that Specialty Filaments workers made for a just severance when their factory closed, in the struggles of nurses at Fletcher Allen for quality care, of COTS workers for a voice at work, and of school support staff for livable wages.

On February 19th, the Vermont Workers' Center, the Vermont Livable Wage Campaign, and dozens of other local sponsoring organizations will be holding a Workers' Rights Board Hearing, where elected officials, faith leaders and community leaders will hear testimony from those workers, and engage in a critical community discussion regarding poverty wages, livable wages and the future of jobs in our community. It is only by linking our struggles together to create a common vision of economic and social justice, and a movement based on that vision, that we will be able, as a community and a nation, to stop the race to the bottom.

Jonathan Kissam is Secretary-Treasurer of UE Local 221, the Vermont Nonprofit Workers' Union.