Youth Brigade

1
Youth Brigade

• Welcome
• Friday Afternoons and Me
• You, Social Movements and Inequality
• Solidarity Bingo
• A Snapshot of America
• Wealth and Income

2
Stuart Eimer

• Raised in Sayreville, NJ
• Working class union family IBEW Local 3 in NYC
• Rutgers University
• Union scholarship first to go to college
• Student Activist on range of issues Strike
  Support, University Democracy, Tuition Hikes,
  Third World Solidarity Work, National Student
  Organizing
• Graduate School _at_ University of Wisconsin
• Student Activist local third party called the
  New Party
• Shop Steward Delegate to AFL-CIO Central Labor
  Council
• Professor of Sociology
• Teach courses on social class, poverty, unions
• Research focuses on labor politics, labor
  history, central labor councils and SEIU
• Youth Brigade Educator Since 2002

3
How About You

• Name and where you are from
• College you attend or job that you work if you
  are not a full time student
• Main Groups or Organizations that you work with
• Why you decided to spend your summer working in
  the organizing department of a union
• One way you see inequality growing (or lessening)
  in your life or the life of your community

4
Solidarity Bingo

• Go around the room and find someone who knows the
  answer to one of the questions. If they know the
  answer have them print their name in the box of
  the question they can answer.
• Each person may only sign one of your boxes. You
  may sign your own name in one box.
• If you get bingo down, across, or diagonally,
  yell BINGO! and youll win a prize.

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The Untold Story

• The role that social movements played in shaping
  our nation is often invisible in our schools,
  media and society at large
• Much of what is taught in the schools, reported
  in the media or talked about by politicians does
  not critically examine the way our economy and
  society have developed or how it works now
• We need to change this

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Today Well Examine Economic Inequality

• Income-money, wages, and payments that are
  periodically received from investments
• For most people a paycheck
• Lets take a look at the distribution of income
  in the US

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Inequality in America

• Income-money, wages, or payments that are
  periodically received from investments
• For most people a paycheck
• 6 Volunteers Up Front
• Quintile?

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Real Family Income Growth1949-1979
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Inequality in America

• 1 More Volunteer Up Front

10
Real Family Income Growth 1979-2009
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Reactions to this? Comments?
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In 2010 93 of Gain went to the top 1

• 100 people
• 99 take seven steps forward
• 1 takes 93 steps forward

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Income Inequality in America

• 10 Volunteers Up Front

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In 2010 the richest 10 of American Families took
home 48 of the Income
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The Great Divergence

• Top 1 now takes nearly 20 of the income on
  payday
• In NYC, the Top 1 took 44 in 2007, up from 17
  in 1987
• So how does this impact your lives, our
  communities, the nation as a whole?

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Income buys Wealth

• Wealth-assets, particularly those that are income
  producing.
• For most households their home is the only real
  wealth they have
• For many peopleno net worth
• But for some people a second home in the Hamptons
  or in the Virgin Islands, an apartment in London,
  a Van Gogh painting, race horses, shopping malls,
  hotels, ships, sports teams, bonds, stocks, cash

17
Wealth

• So how wealth distributed among our societys
  population?
• Lets explore this via Sound
• The Sound of Inequality

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Fewer People Own More Wealth

• 1976 richest 10 of the U.S. population owned
  50 of all wealth.

• 2007 richest 10 of
• the U.S. population owned 73 of all wealth.

Source Edward N. Wolff, Recent Trends in
Wealth Ownership
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Wealth Top 10 Owns 73 of the Wealth

• Reactions? Feelings about this?
• Impact our lives and communities?

20
Fight for a Fair Economy

• Research Suggests That the US Public Doesnt
  Fully Understand Whats Going On
• And That They Prefer a Society More Like FFE
  Suggests

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• It doesnt have to be this way
• Brainstorm policy and/or rule changes that would
  close the income and/or wealth gap

22

• Brainstorm policy and/or rule changes that would
  close the income and/or wealth gap
• What would it take to enact these changes or
  policies?

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Closing For Today

• What Brings You Hope ?

24
Closing For Today

• What Brings Me Hope?

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Next Week

• Lunch and then a visit to the Museum of the City
  of New York Check out Activist New York
• Next Week The Emergence of Class Based Social
  Movements

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Appendix
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Similar Point Can Be Illustrated With Candy

• Lets look at this another way
• 7 Volunteers up front

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In 2010 The richest 10 of American Families take
48 of the Income

• Do you see any trends?
• What do you think explains the trends you see?

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What Do the Following Have in Common?

• The weekend
• The 8 hour day
• Minimum wage laws
• Laws prohibiting child labor
• Laws prohibiting discrimination based on race or
  gender
• Social Security
• Medicare

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Inequality, Pizza

• Homework
• Try this with 10 friends and a pizza tonight
• What problems do you think this kind of
  distribution of income and wealth might cause?

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Lowest 20 Percent

• 0 - 25,394

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Second Lowest

• 26,934 - 47,914

33
Middle 20 Percent

• 47,914 - 73,338

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Second Highest 20 Percent

• 73,338 - 112,540

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Top 20 Percent

• 112,540 and higher

36
Top 5

• 200,000 and up

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Top 1

• 1.2 million and up

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Budget Crisis or Revenue Crisis

• Camden, N.J., Braces For Police, Firefighter
  Layoffs, January 17, 2011
• PA Hospitals Face Cuts In State Budget, March 24,
  2011
• Cuomo's budget cuts education, Medicaid, Feb
  2011,
• State budget cuts to students in poor districts
  could be ten times higher than those in wealthier
  districts, March 16, 2011,
• Budget cuts deter Baltimore's promise to back
  affordable housing fund
• Housing, April 8, 2011
• N.J. public school breakfast, private school
  lunch subsidies to be cut, April 2010

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See a Pattern Again???
Year Pct. Of Wealth Held by Top 1
1922 32
1929 36
1939 31
1949 21
1958 24
1969 20
1989 38
1998 38
2007 34
40
What Do the Following Have in Common?

• The weekend
• The 8 hour day
• Minimum wage laws
• Laws prohibiting child labor
• Laws prohibiting discrimination based on race or
  gender
• Social Security
• Medicare

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Try this with a pizza tonight

• Top 1 of our society controls 35 of wealth
• Gates, Trump, Hilton
• Top 5 controls 62
• Top 10 controls 73
• The rest of us split whats left

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It Isnt Like this Everywhere
Wealth Owned by Top 10 (2000)
US 70
France 61
Sweden 59
Norway 51
Germany 44
43
April 20, 2011Washington Post Public Opinion
Supports Change, but Disorganized Public Opinion
Isnt Worth Much
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Present MomentTremendous Economic Inequality in
US

• When so much is controlled by so few, what impact
  do you think this has on working families and our
  communities?
• Pay, Schools, Parks, Libraries, Pools, Job
  training, Health Care, Etc.

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Quiz

• Inequality matters
• Rank of the U.S. among the seventeen leading
  industrial nations with the largest percentage of
  their populations in poverty

47
Quiz

• Rank of the U.S. among the seventeen leading
  industrial nations with the largest percentage of
  their populations in poverty
• Were 1
• (United Nations Human Development Report
  1998,N.Y.C.)

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Child Poverty, March 2005
49
CEO Pay Compared.

• Were number 1

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Poverty in America
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Social Mobility

• O.Kimmense inequalityand a lot of povertybut
  if people in the bottom 90 dont like it, they
  can always work harder and join the top 10
• Work hard and youll get aheadRags to riches..
• Of the poorest 20 percent of Americans in 1989,
  what percent were still in the poorest 20 percent
  in 1998?

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Mobility and Race

• 2/3 of the Black children born in the bottom 25
  will remain in the bottom 25
• Reactions to this?

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So

• Growing levels of inequality in the United
  States
• Research suggests that most people in lower
  economic classes are not likely to move out of
  those classes
• Some willbut most will not
• And then we have the AMBITION PILL problemthe
  structural problem

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Ambition, talent and hard work are not
enoughSociety needs GOOD JOBS
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So

• Questions emerge
• If we know that most people will not experience
  individual mobility into a higher class
• And we know that no matter what, someone will
  have to work as bakers, teachers, truck drivers,
  janitors, security guards, gardeners, etc
• Are there strategies and actions that groups of
  people can use to improve their lives?

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Among other things...People can form unions to
redistribute the pie
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Anyone see a relationshipInequality over
Time Union Density over Time
Year Pct.Wealth Held by Top 1 of Households
1922 31.6
1929 36.3
1939 30.6
1949 20.8
1958 23.8
1969 20.1
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• What has happened to percentage of workers who
  are in unions over the last 40 years?

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Percent of Workers Who Belong to Unions Has
Decreased

2006
2006
1935
1945
1955
1965
1975
1985
1995
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Source Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Handbook of Labor Statistics,
1980. Also, Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, January various years.
63
Union Density by State - 1983
10 to 20
21 over
0 to 9
Source Union Members in 1983, Bureau of Labor
Statistics
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Union Density by State - 2006
0 to 9
10 to 20
21 over
Source Union Members In 2006, Bureau of Labor
Statistics
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On Our Challenges

• How do we get from the top bar to the bottom bar?
  What are the main challenges that you see?

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At Present, Almost Nobody in America is in a
union
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And the absence of unions means working families
have lessless power, less income, less wealth,
less retirement security
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Anyone see a relationshipInequality over
Time Union Density over Time
Year Pct.Wealth Held by Top 1 of Households
1922 31.6
1929 36.3
1939 30.6
1949 20.8
1958 23.8
1969 20.1
1989 38.3
1995 38.5
69
Unions Modern Society

• Currently 17.8 million unionized workers in US
• 13.7 of all workers, down from 35 in 1950s
• US labor movement is smaller weaker than in
  most other advanced industrial capitalist
  societies

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Lunch

• I hope this has sparked your interest in unions
  and society
• Well explore the rise and fall of unions more in
  the coming weeks
• Right nowone hour for lunch
• Then a video and a walking tour of some NYC labor
  history.

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A Historical Context for the here and now

• Take a look around this workplaceexit signs,
  sprinkler systems, stairways
• Do you think building owners and employers
  voluntarily put them in place?
• Why do workplaces have these things?

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Workers in New York City Change America

• Video Clip sets stage for our walk

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A Historical Context for the here and now

• How many of you knew about the Triangle
  Shirtwaist Factory prior to today?
• How many of your friends and family members do
  you think know about this event?
• Why?

74
A Historical Context for the here and now

• Ordinary people organized unions and used their
  collective power to shape the society we live in
• Marches, strikes, lobbying, voting
• But interestingly, as a society we dont make
  much of an effort to remember this part of our
  history
• Lets walk