comments_image -

Rolling Back May Day

Even the eight-hour workday is in danger from a White House bent on destroying the hard-won gains of American workers.
 
 
LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
Join our mailing list:

Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email.

 
 
 
 

May Day has come and gone without much enthusiasm in the United States. But for much of the world, May 1st or International Workers' Day, is a time to celebrate the hard-won victories of working people the world over. Millions march militantly demonstrating the power of ordinary working people.

But here in America, we apathetically go to the factory, the retail counter, and the cubicle, ignorant to the fact that May Day is the product of an American, radical workers' movement that successfully agitated for the 8-hour day during the 1880's.

In these uncertain, tenuous times we have much to learn from these heroic men that braved the Billy-club and bullet to overcome economic exploitation.

Distracted by war, working families are unaware the latest Bush budget slashes funding for healthcare, public education, and proven job creation techniques while the Administration showers lucrative contracts on the military-industrial complex and bankrupts the Treasury on an ill-advised, cynical tax cut for upper class constituents and campaign financiers.

The Administration's hostility toward working people has never been more obvious.

On April 25, the New York Times reported that the Internal Revenue Service is planning to make America's working poor provide exhaustive proof of their eligibility for the earned income tax credit (EITC) to cut down on fraud. The EITC was enacted to ensure that poor Americans that work make enough to survive. Fraud is never justifiable, but as critics point out, "corporations, business owners, investors, and partnerships deprive the government of many times what the working poor ever could . . . yet these taxpayers face no demands to prove the validity of their claims in advance with certified records and sworn affidavits."

The assumption is implicit; the poor steal while the rich merely find creative ways to file their taxes.

Tongue firmly implanted in cheek, we are told by Administration hacks to swallow the epitaph of "compassionate conservatism" while these double standards endure.

To ensure working Americans have access to this information, the AFL-CIO's website continually compiles Bush's record on working families' issues. The compendium is startling.

Most noteworthy is President Bush's stimulus plan. The plan is essentially one big tax cut for the rich, mainly coming through the dividend tax cut. The president essentially argues it is unfair to tax corporate dividends twice -- once as corporate profits and again as taxable income of shareholders. A reasonable rationale, yet the Administration fails to explain that the income workers actually labor for is taxed at least three times through income and payroll taxes when we earn our wages and through sales tax when we spend it.

Moreover, the Administration argues that its stimulus/tax cut package will pump the economy full of cash by giving it to the investor class. But this taxes logic. Why would any logical business owner or investor throw his money into an economy marked by low consumer confidence and minimal demand? No confidence translates into low demand that causes low sales, declining profits and hence little return on investment.

This is why 450 prominent economists, plus 10 Nobel laureates, dismiss the tax cut as ineffective. These economists argue that the tax cut will not produce jobs or growth and will strain the government's ability to fund necessary social services like Medicare and increased education spending.

The latest assault on working people, and most historically relevant to May Day is the Administration's attempt to substitute "comp" time for overtime pay compensation.

On March 27th, the Bush Administration proposed new rules that could undermine overtime pay guarantees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Under the benign euphemism of the "Family Time Flexibility Act," this legislation proposes that workers can decide whether they prefer to be paid in standard time-and-a-half or "comp" time after working more than 40 hours. "Comp" time being unpaid time off at a later date.

submit to reddit

-
Email
Print
Share
LIKED THIS ARTICLE? JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST
Stay up to date with the latest AlterNet headlines via email
Advertisement
Most Read
Most Emailed
Most Discussed
On REDDIT
On DIGG
 
loading most read content ..
Advertisement
AlterNet Radio: What's At Stake in Wisconsin; Real "Defense" Budget Is $1 Trillion; the Right's Phony Race War

By Staff | AlterNet

 
 
Fox, Breitbart, and Ricketts Try to Bring Back D'Souza's Pseudo-Birtherism

By Steve M | No More Mister Nice Blog

 
 
Activists Speak Out Against Lack of Access to Bradley Manning

By Agence France Presse

 
 
NYPD Catches Sexual Assailant, Then Lets Him Go Free Because He Didn't Feel Like Being Questioned

By Jill F | Feministe

 
 
Gov. Scott Orders Purging of Florida’s Voter Rolls - Just in Time For Prez Election

By Adele Stan | AlterNet

 
 
Abortion Clinics Across Country Put On Alert In Wake of Georgia Clinic Arson Cases

By Robin Marty | RH Reality Check

 
 
Former GOP Congresswoman Blasts New GOP Women’s Caucus: ‘They’re Not Voting In Best Interest Of All Women’

By Josh Israel | ThinkProgress

 
 
Debbie Wasserman Schulz is Wrong on Wisconsin

By LaFeminista | DailyKos

 
 
Pro-Coal Group Pays People to Wear Its Shirts at EPA Hearing

By Heather Moyer | Sierra Club

 
 
Kids Inundate NY Governor With Concerns About Fracking

By Seth Gladstone | Food and Water Watch

 
 
 
 
 
loading ...
POWERED BY DIGG'S USERS
 
[ page served from web 1 ]