Labor & Employment Law

Economy and Jobs at Heart of Working-Class Anger

By Mike Hall

From left to right are Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum; The Nation?s Christopher Hayes; Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.); Thea Lee, AFL-CIO deputy chief of staff; AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka; and The Wall Street Journal?s Peter Wallsten.

Working America’s canvassers knock on some 25,000 doors a week in neighborhoods across the country to talk with working people about the economy, jobs, health care, Wall Street reform and more. And, says Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum:

Glenn Beck is often on the other side of that screen door.

The flame-fanning influence of extremist media monsters like Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News’s hard right news coverage are often cited as the engine driving what is undeniably a growing working-class anger.

But, as panelists at a special AFL-CIO and Working America forum explored today, it isn’t Beck’s bellowing or Rush’s ranting that’s really behind that anger?they’re just exploiting it.

Working people are mad about an economy that’s punished them with vanishing jobs and lost homes and rewarded Wall Street with bailouts and bonuses while they see a government that doesn’t seem capable of fixing what’s gone wrong or holding anyone accountable. Says Nussbaum:

They’re worried about jobs, they’re angry at Wall Street and they don’t trust the government.

But will the far-right be able to continue to exploit people’s legitimate economic anger into ballot-box victory in the fall elections and move the nation down an extremist path marked with divisive social issues and pro-corporate, free-for-all economy?

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the nearly 200 people attending the Working Class at the Tipping Point forum at the AFL-CIO here in Washington, D.C.:

It’s up to us to continue to educate, it’s up to us to continue to give people hope…to channel that anger to a positive direction….We’ve e been successful in the past when we give people economic facts, union members stuck together while the other side tried to use divisive social issues to tear us apart.

Joining Trumka and Nussbaum were Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), The Nation’s Christopher Hayes and The Wall Street Journal’s Peter Wallsten. Thea Lee, AFL-CIO deputy chief of staff, moderated the discussion.

The anger and distrust toward government isn’t new, says Hayes:

Historically there has been a low-level of trust in institutions, but now this distrust is being captured and channeled toward reactionary ends.

People tell Working America organizers every day that jobs and job creation are their key concerns. Two out of three people cite jobs and a just economy as their reason for joining the now 3 million-strong Working America.

Edwards says that the best way Congress can win back trust is to

get back to the business of creating jobs in this country, not just talking about it. We need to use Americans’ taxpayer dollars to invest in American jobs and America’s workers.

Without that emphasis on jobs and job creation, says a briefing paper prepared for the forum:

Economic populism is the hinge of the tipping point. If elected leaders don’t lead on jobs, people look rightward for economic answers.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on June 03, 2010 (boomark / email).