What's Fair?

Todd's opening remarks at The Holleran Center for Community Action's Panel:
"What’s Fair? Current Issues in Trade and Labor Organizing"

Thank You for that wonderful introduction. I should start with a quick disclaimer and that is this: I’m here today sharing my personal thoughts and experiences, and not as a representative of any organization that I am affiliated with. The brief bio is meant merely for identification and proof of credentials I suppose.

So…that being said, I’d like to start by reading a short quote from Adam Smith’s book The Wealth of Nations . Is everyone familiar with this book? Or at least with Adam Smith and the concepts that his name embodies? Smith, in simple terms, is kind of like the Godfather of Free Market capitalism. The quote is this:

"It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased."
Sounds like something Karl Marx might have said?
So I’d like to use the premise of this quote as a starting point. “Labor creates wealth” is essentially what he said. “labor creates all wealth.”
It’s a very simple concept, and if you have any doubt, just consider any profitable corporation on an average day. What would happen if nobody showed up to work? There would be no product manufactured or services rendered or whatever the company does would not get done; hence the corporation would make no money .
Well… I guess the CEO and shareholders could go to work and do all the jobs in place of the wage earning employees and still share all of the profit….. but that would of course no longer be capitalism….It would be worker owned and controlled enterprise, or as some might say, socialism…
Okay. So we’ve determined that somebody has to do the work in order for the company to make money right? If the workers don’t show up the company goes belly up. Now lets consider the opposite. What happens if the owners or management doesn’t show up for the day? Well, this actually happens all the time and the company still makes money. Why? Because the surplus value, or profit, of any company is generated by it’s labor force.
The capitalist plays the important initial role of funding and starting the business, but the daily operations and hence income are results of the labor force.
Now some neoliberal economists might argue that that I’m all wrong about the necessity of paying workers in order to make profit…. Some would even argue that machines could do much of the work, but this fails to consider two very important issues: #1. Someone has to make the machines, and: #2. more importantly, even if machines made everything, including themselves, who would be able to buy their products? I mean if all the workers are replaced and presumably making zero income because they are unemployed, they certainly can’t afford to go out and purchase the goods and services made by these machines.
So the premise “labor creates all wealth” is actually a two-sided coin: Labor creates the wealth on one end as workers creating commodities, and on the other end as consumers purchasing them.
So, where the heck does fair labor practice come into this whole scheme?
Pretty much everywhere.
As we all know, corporations want to get as much work for as little pay as they can out of their employees in order to reduce their “bottom line” and increase their profits. Workers, on the other hand want to be paid as much as possible for their time and efforts.
This is a constant tug-of-war between employer and employee, between capital and labor, and it’s array of outcomes can be represented on a simple spectrum. On the far left of the spectrum, the worker would get back exactly what he or she produced. If I make one car per day, I should get paid 1 car per day, or the equivalent of 1 car per day of other goods, because really, who needs 260 cars per year? On the other end, the far right of the spectrum, there would simply be slavery, where the worker is given only enough to sustain his survival so as to continue working while all of the value of his or her work is kept by the employer.
What we have in the U.S. today falls somewhere in between these two extremes and in any given year can be further to the left or the right of where it was the previous year. Throughout the world we find varying degrees, more to the left in Europe and way to the right in parts of Asia, Central and South America.
So, what determines this?
I would argue that the amount of the value workers create that they actually get to keep is determined by the extent of their power to demand a more fair share from their employers, a la unionism.
The business-side reply to this exercise of power by employees is pretty straight forward. “We are putting our capital on the line in hopes that it will have a good return. We deserve the extra value because we are willing to take the risk of losing it.”
This is logical to some extent, but it precludes several pertinent facts. Most notably, that the worker is also engaging in risky behavior, perhaps with more dire consequences, because his livelihood and family depend on his or her income and hence the success of the capitalists business venture.
Furthermore, the worker does not have the luxury of diversification that the capitalist enjoys. If workers could diversify their employment the way that investors diversify their portfolios, they might be more willing to engage in more risky behavior as well. I mean, if I could work Monday at Pfizer, Tuesday at The Day, Wednesday at Aetna, Thursday, etc… I could afford to lose one of those jobs and still have an income. But workers are instead forced to carry all of their eggs in one basket as the saying goes, and therefore they need that basket to be pretty sturdy and filled with as many eggs as possible.
So the worker wants his or her one job to pay well.
But how can this one individual worker ensure that her salary is not forced down to the point of subsistence? If she speaks up by herself or makes too much fuss, the boss can simply terminate her…. And a small check is better than no check after all, right?
Well, one proven way to improve wages and working conditions is to organize with fellow workers and make demands collectively. Through this process, the American labor movement has won much for working people in this country. Not just for union members, but for all workers across the board.
Corporate voices, on the other hand, say that unions stifle their competitiveness and profitability. But, few stop to consider that some of the most prosperous and stable decades of the past century were those where the percentage of workers who were in unions was the greatest. This balanced the play between employers and workers and in-turn created the modern middle-class… the folks who earned enough money at work to purchase goods from the companies they and their neighbors and friends worked for.
This fragile balance has been drastically shifted over the past 3 decades and with the decline of unions in America so too has the middle class eroded.
Wages for the bottom half of society have been stagnant and in many cases declined while those of the top 1% have doubled, those of the top 1/10th percent have tripled. The ratio of CEO income to average worker pay was anywhere between 30 and 70 to 1 in the 1970s, it is now between 500 and 700 to 1 and in some cases 1,000 to 1. After three decades of incredible economic growth the working class still remains in the same boat, a boat which was not “lifted by the rising tide” as the free-market trickle-downers like to argue.
The tug-of-war is obviously uneven, but how is it that the workers in their roles as consumers can still continue to support this economy?
Well, the corporations have managed to have their cake and eat it too. They have both reduced wages and at the same time maintained a large enough pool of consumers to purchase their goods and services.
The main way in which they have accomplished this over the past few decades in this country is by outsourcing jobs to countries with little or no labor or environmental laws. This tactic gives them: 1. Cheap labor- -often children, and 2. The ability to sell their products for lower prices back here in the U.S. to consumers who are earning less than they used to.
The American middle class standard of living was built by labor victories, but is now sustained by cheap labor in Asia and of course endless consumer credit debt and also two full-time household incomes replacing traditionally just one.
This poses a moral dilemma to anyone of conscience.
It would seem that what is considered fair here in the U.S. should also be true for workers over seas that manufacture goods that we consume here. It is illegal to employ children here and we have minimum wage laws here, but it is not illegal to purchase goods here that were made somewhere else under working conditions that would be illegal here. This represents a large disconnect in the American psyche and it is why folks like Marcie and David and others who promote “Fair Trade” play such a vital role in creating a more fair world. It is up to us as consumers to avoid supporting exploitation whenever possible and it is up to us as workers to actively stand up to exploitation everywhere, not just in our own backyards anymore. Capital is global and labor must also be global in order to stand up to it’s injustices.
The tug-of-war will be around as long as capitalism is around. The past victories of labor do not mean that organized labor is no longer necessary. Victories of decades past are not guaranteed forever. Legislation can be over turned, laws can lay unenforced, regulatory agencies can be stacked with corporate insiders.
If we are to define fair as the ability to earn a respectable living by working and still have time to live outside of work, we will realize that most of the working masses around the world are not treated fairly.
The UN’s gini index, which measures the standard of living in all countries, when compared with union membership data for the same countries shows a strong positive correlation between the percentage of union membership and the quality of life.
When workers are able to organize and make demands on very profitable employers they are able to increase their stake and make better lives for themselves. That’s fair.
And I think I’ve probably overrun my time although I’ve hardly said as much as a drop in a barrel of what I’d like to say, but perhaps some of your questions will bring other areas to light.

Thank You.
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Demand HR676: National Health Insurance for All!

Hello All,

HR-676, the house bill for National, single-payer, health insurance has been reintroduced onto the house floor.
It currently has 93 co-sponsors including exactly ZERO from CT.

You can learn more about HR676 at: www.hr676.org

Please consider writing an email, a letter or taking a minute to call Congress and
contact the white house, too!

Rep. Joe Courtney's Email Page: http://courtney.house.gov/email/
Congressional switchboard: 202-224-3121
(ask for your representative’s office)

Please forward this message widely!

The government and elite class it represents are certainly not going to just give the tax-paying citizens anything unless they strongly demand it!



Peace & Solidarity,

Todd Vachon
SPCT

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Dear Rep. Courtney,

I'm writing today to urge you to please co-sponsor HR-676 if you have not already done so.

In this time of economic crisis, caused in part by excessive home foreclosures, I think it is important to consider that one of the top causes of bankruptcy and foreclosure is exorbitant medical bills. This is true for both the insured and those who cannot afford private insurance, but do not qualify for medicaid (a very large section of the population).

Health care ought to be a basic human right for all...especially in such a wealthy nation as ours. Congress seems to have no problems funding an extremely bloated, empire-sized military, multiple reckless wars abroad and bailouts for bankers (thank you for voting against TARP), but we can't seem to conjure up any money to take care of our own citizens? WE are the folks who pay all of the taxes to fund everything. Large corporations pay virtually nothing and yet their interests are constantly served by this government.

It's time to start putting the people's well being before profits and return to a more civilized society.

Please help to do this by co-sponsoring HR-676 and making the good fight for REAL universal health care a priority in this session.

Thank You,

Todd Vachon
Colchester

Testimony Before CT Legislature Regarding Ballot Access and Vote Counting

Testimony of Todd Vachon to the:
Government Administration and Elections Committee
Regarding HB6436 and HB6441
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

My name is Todd Eugene Vachon and I reside in Colchester CT. I am here today on this 18th day of February, 2009 to testify before the Government Administration and Elections Committee in support of HB6436 and HB6441.

The relevance of my testimony today stems from my recent experience as a write-in candidate for U.S. Congress in Connecticut’s 2nd Congressional District in the election held November 4th, 2008.

This long and tiresome process began by seeking ballot access for Brian Moore for President and myself as the congressional candidate chosen to represent the Socialist Party, USA. After a couple months of burdensome paperwork, bureaucratic procedure and pounding the concrete with thousands of petition pages, we fell short of acquiring the exclusionary number of petition signatures required to appear on the ballot.

The Socialist Party then met and opted to continue the campaigns with write-in candidacies. We felt it was important to offer our supporters and other voters that do not feel they are represented by the two major parties a real alternative at the ballot. Knowing from the beginning that write-in candidates do not win elections, we decided that it was our right to vote for candidates of our choice regardless of the outcome. What we did not expect was that our votes would not be counted.

Immediately following the election we found that many towns were reporting ZERO write-in votes. Individual voters began contacting the campaign to complain that they had written in a vote for myself and/or Brian Moore for President, but their town was still showing "zero" votes for write-in candidates.

We contacted the Elections Division at the Secretary of State's Office and various individual town clerks to complain. As a result, some numbers changed, but many towns still did not reflect the proper number of votes. We contacted the CT Green Party to see if they had similar concerns with the number of votes received for Cynthia McKinney, their write-in candidate for President, and they said that they had.

In my case, having a very small and identifiable base, it was very easy for us to locate problems. For instance, my wife and I both voted in Colchester for Brian Moore and myself, but Colchester only reported one vote. My family's hometown of Salem showed zero write-in votes until we complained. The number was increased to 4, which was still 2 shy of the six voters that initially complained that their vote was not counted... The story is similar for various other towns including Glastonbury, New London and Mansfield. These are all definite and identifiable discrepancies. They, however, say nothing of other potential counting errors involving voters that I do not personally know. Considering that literally half of the known votes cast for my campaign were not counted certainly opens ones mind to speculation about the potential likelihood of other errors.

We of course understand that this small number of votes will not effect the outcome of the election, but it does represent the disenfranchisement of at minimum, 12 voters, and that is in and of itself an injustice.

Leaving the past now and looking toward the future, what steps can be taken to alleviate these problems in upcoming election cycles?

First and foremost, our current ballot access laws are very prohibitive and wasteful. Countless hours and resources are expended in attempts to gain the extremely difficult goal of ballot access. Lowering the number of signatures required to get on the ballot would combat this problem while still requiring a political entity to show some public support before it may appear on the ballot. HB6436 does exactly this. This bill would reduce the required number of signatures for statewide and federal offices to 1,000, a number which is on par with our neighboring New England states of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. In addition to the provision in HB6436 to reduce the number of required signatures it might be worthy to consider allowing online petitioning in order to save paper, energy and time.

Opening the political process to more varied and diverse voices will definitely increase voter participation in our state by confronting the anti-democratic nature of a two-party duopoly which limits the scope of democracy; ultimately stifling any real progress. More options on the political menu can only enhance public discourse and increase democracy in our state and country.

Second, in addition to a more clear write-in voting and counting procedure, I feel that stronger oversight of voting integrity would solve some of the counting problems that my supporters have encountered.

HB6441 seeks to strengthen voting integrity in the state of Connecticut by implementing more oversight, stricter guidelines and enforceable rules. This bill will address many deficiencies in our current system by increasing accountability in three ways:

First, it would strengthen the accounting system by making a public record of actual election results. This is achieved by three simple steps:

1) It would require the entire Moderator’s Return, checklist report, and optical scanner tape copy from each district to be faxed to the Secretary of the State’s office.

2) The Secretary of the State would have to post all those document images on the web, indexed by town and date.

3) All data would be inputted at the same level of detail required on the Moderator’s Returns and posted on the SOTS website in a downloadable format.

This procedure would allow anyone to check the documents vs. the data, see the actually results at any level of detail and search for anomalies. Furthermore, it would eliminate the need for three levels of transcription and addition late at night.

The second thing this bill does, which may help in circumstances such as mine, is to make the Secretary of the State’s procedures enforceable; it would become possible to complain to the SEEC if your votes were not counted as required in the Moderator’s Manual.

Finally, the third thing that this bill does is to improve the ballot chain-of-custody, making it more difficult for someone to tamper with ballots.

There are of course many other benefits to these pieces of legislation, but I want to keep my testimony relevant to my personal experience.

That being said, I’ll conclude by reiterating that an expansion of the number and diversity of voices represented in the political arena can only enhance democracy, HB6436 would do this by giving minor parties a fighting chance to get on the ballot. Furthermore, increased oversight of the election and vote counting process to ensure the highest possible integrity of our voting process can only be a good thing. Anyone who agrees would likely support HB6441 and hope that you will.


Thank you for your time.

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***You too may submit written testimony in support of making ballot access easier in CT by emailing a written statement in support of HB6436 to len.greene.cga.ct.gov

Cheers,
Todd