Thursday, March 31, 2022

Wall Street bonuses soar by 20%, nearly 5 times the increase in US average weekly earnings

Due to Washington inaction, millions of essential workers continue to earn poverty wages, while the reckless bonus culture is alive and well on Wall Street.

Sarah Anderson

March 28, 2022

SOURCEInequality.org

While inflation has wiped away wage gains for most U.S. workers, just-released data reveal that Wall Street employees are enjoying their biggest bonus bonanza since the 2008 crash.

Institute for Policy Studies analysis of new New York State Comptroller bonus data:

The Inflation Divide

The average annual bonus for New York City-based securities industry employees rose 20 percent to $257,500 in 2021, far above the 7 percent annual inflation rate. By contrast, typical American workers lost earnings power in 2021. Average weekly earnings for all U.S. private sector employees rose by only 2 percent between January 2021 and January 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Unlike hourly wage data, average weekly earnings reflect the fact that many Americans had to cut back on work hours last year, largely due to Covid-related illness, lack of child care, and other family care pressures. The average weekly hours worked by U.S. private sector employees dropped from 35.0 to 34.5 between 2020 and 2021.

Return to Pre-Financial Crash Bonus Levels

The average Wall Street bonus of $257,500 in 2021 was far higher than any year since the 2008 financial crash. The second-highest was the 2017 average bonus of $209,046, adjusted for inflation. These bonuses come on top of base salaries, which averaged $254,000 in 2020.

Wall Street pay v. the minimum wage

Since 1985, the average Wall Street bonus has increased 1,743 percent, from $13,970 to $257,500 in 2021 (not adjusted for inflation). If the minimum wage had increased at that rate, it would be worth $61.75 today, instead of $7.25.
The total bonus pool for 180,000 New York City-based Wall Street employees in 2021 was $45 billion — enough to pay for more than 1 million jobs paying $15 per hour for a year.

Wall Street bonuses and gender and racial inequality

The rapid increase in Wall Street bonuses over the past several decades has contributed to gender and racial inequality, since workers at the low end of the wage scale are disproportionately people of color and women, while the lucrative financial industry is overwhelmingly white and male, particularly at the upper echelons.

The share of the five largest U.S. investment banks’ senior executives and top managers who are male: JPMorgan Chase: 74%, Goldman Sachs: 75%, Bank of America: 64%, Morgan Stanley: 74%, and Citigroup: 64%.
In 2021, the leadership of the largest Wall Street banks became slightly more diverse when Jane Fraser, a white woman, became the first female leader of a top-tier U.S. investment bank. The CEOs of the other four banks in that tier are all white males.

Nationwide, men make up 62 percent of all securities industry employees but just a tiny fraction of workers who provide care services that are in high demand but continue to be very low paid. Men make up just 5.4 percent of childcare workers, an occupation that pays $26,790 per year, on average. Men make up just 13 percent of home health aides, who average $27,080 per year.

At the five largest U.S. investment banks, the share of executives and top managers who are Black: JPMorgan Chase: 5%, Goldman Sachs: 3%, Bank of America: 5%, Morgan Stanley: 3%, and Citigroup: 4%.
Nationally, Black workers hold just 7.2 percent of lucrative securities industry jobs but 27.4 percent of home care and 16.3 percent of child care jobs.

These jaw-dropping numbers are just the latest evidence of unequal sacrifice under the pandemic. While ordinary workers are struggling with rising costs for basic essentials, Wall Street bankers have seen their bonuses rise further into the stratosphere.

Actions to crack down on runaway Wall Street pay are long overdue. Since 2010, the year the Dodd-Frank financial reform became law, regulators have failed to implement that law’s Wall Street pay restrictions. Meanwhile, Congress has failed to raise the minimum wage.

“These two failures speak volumes about who has influence in Washington — and who does not,” Anderson said.

Powerful Wall Street lobbyists have succeeded in blocking Section 956 of the Dodd-Frank legislation, which prohibits large financial institutions from awarding pay packages that encourage “inappropriate risks.” Regulators were supposed to implement this new rule within nine months of the law’s passage but have dragged their feet — despite widespread recognition that these bonuses encouraged the high-risk behaviors that led to the 2008 financial crisis, costing millions of Americans their homes and livelihoods.

In contrast to the Wall Street lobbyists, advocates for the working poor have seen their efforts to raise the federal minimum wage and secure other important worker benefits stalled in Congress. Due to Washington inaction, millions of essential workers continue to earn poverty wages, while the reckless bonus culture is alive and well on Wall Street

‘Jaw-dropping’: Wall Street bonuses have soared 1,743% since 1985

A new analysis finds that if the federal minimum wage had increased at the same rate, it would currently be $61.75 an hour.

Jake Johnson

March 24, 2022

SOURCECommon Dreams

Wall Street bonuses

A new analysis out Wednesday estimates that if the federal minimum wage had grown at the same rate as Wall Street bonuses over the past three and a half decades, it would currently be $61.75 an hour instead of $7.25.

According to fresh data from the New York State Comptroller, the average bonus dished out to Wall Street employees jumped 20% to a record $257,500 in 2021 as big banks reported huge profits despite widespread havoc caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Last year’s average Wall Street bonus was the highest since 2006, prior to the Great Recession.

The comptroller’s office points out that while the securities industry comprises just 5% of private-sector employment in New York City, it makes up one-fifth of total private-sector wages.

Taking the new figures into account, Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies notes in a report that the average Wall Street bonus has soared by 1,743% since 1985.

“By contrast, typical American workers lost earnings power in 2021,” Anderson writes, noting that high inflation has eroded the modest wage gains seen by ordinary people. “Average weekly earnings for all U.S. private-sector employees rose by only 2% between January 2021 and January 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

“These jaw-dropping numbers are just the latest evidence of unequal sacrifice under the pandemic,” Anderson adds. “While ordinary workers are struggling with rising costs for basic essentials, Wall Street bankers have seen their bonuses rise further into the stratosphere.”

Anderson argues that Wall Street bonuses have been soaring in recent years partly because Section 956 of the Dodd-Frank Act—a financial reform measure enacted in the wake of the 2008 crash—has never been implemented.

“Powerful Wall Street lobbyists have succeeded in blocking Section 956… which prohibits large financial institutions from awarding pay packages that encourage ‘inappropriate risks,'” Anderson writes. “Regulators were supposed to implement this new rule within nine months of the law’s passage but have dragged their feet—despite widespread recognition that these bonuses encouraged the high-risk behaviors that led to the 2008 financial crisis, costing millions of Americans their homes and livelihoods.”

“In contrast to the Wall Street lobbyists, advocates for the working poor have seen their efforts to raise the federal minimum wage and secure other important worker benefits stalled in Congress,” she continues. “Due to Washington inaction, millions of essential workers continue to earn poverty wages, while the reckless bonus culture is alive and well on Wall Street.”

GIGAZILLIONAIRES

Mega-Billionaires and the Gushing Upward Redistribution of Wealth

So how much is a $100 billion anyway?

"If you’re a regular billionaire, you can afford a private jet," notes Reich. "If you’re a centibillionaire, you can afford a brand-new Gulfstream jet every single day for more than ten years."

(Image: Inequality )

ROBERT REICH

March 30, 2022

by RobertReich.org

The word “billionaire” didn’t even exist until 1844. Fifty years later, we got “multibillionaire.” And for the next 127 years, that was enough.

But in 2020, while the working class faced near-record unemployment during the pandemic, the wealthiest Americans faced a different problem. Some of them had gotten so rich, there was no longer a word to describe just how rich they were.

That’s why I want to bring you one of the newest additions to the English language: “centibillionaires,” people with $100 billion or more.

What’s it like being one of history’s first centibillionaires? It’s hard to even imagine, but let’s try it by comparing them to the less fortunate. By which I mean just … regular … billionaires.

If you’re a regular billionaire, you can afford a private jet. If you’re a centibillionaire, you can afford a brand-new Gulfstream jet every single day for more than ten years. (Not sure what you’d do with a new Gulfstream every day — maybe give one to each of your closest 4,000 friends?)

A regular billionaire would struggle to buy their own professional baseball team. Sad, I know. But a centibillionaire could easily buy every team in the entire major league.

If you’re a regular billionaire, you can donate to your alma mater and get your name on a building. If you’re a centibillionaire, you could single-handedly give every teacher in America an $8,000 raise for 5 straight years.

Of course, that’s not all you could do. $100 billion is enough to wipe out all the medical debt in the United States. Or provide permanent shelter for every homeless person in America. Or buy Covid-19 vaccines for the entire world.

Basically what I’m saying is, $100 billion is a lot of money.

More than two and a half million times what the average American worker makes in a year.

So here’s the big question. Are these centibillionaires so rich because they work two and half million times harder than the average American? Are they really 100 times smarter than the typical billionaire?

I don’t think so. The reason for the rise of centibillionaires is that for decades, wealth hasn’t trickled down, it’s gushed up, all the way to the very top.

That’s not an accident. As it turns out, the system that the super-rich themselves carefully crafted and lobbied for, benefits… the rich!

And while you may not own more private jets than your average centibillionaire, you probably do pay a higher tax rate. And thanks to legal loopholes and the Trump tax cuts, when the wealthiest Americans die, they get to pass on most of their centibillions to their kids tax-free.

We’ve got two choices as a country. We can tax the richest Americans fairly, and invest that money in ways that benefit all of us.

Or we can keep doing what we’re doing, and watch as centibillionaires get even richer while the rest of us get left behind.

If you think wealth and power are too concentrated in the hands of a privileged few now, just imagine what a few more years of trickle-down nonsense will bring.

Of course, it won’t be all bad. At least “trillionaire” is easy to say.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Robert Reich, is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. His book include: "Aftershock" (2011), "The Work of Nations" (1992), "Beyond Outrage" (2012) and, "Saving Capitalism" (2016). He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, former chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." Reich's newest book is "The Common Good" (2019). He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.

The hidden link between corporate greed and inflation

Don’t fall for the fear mongering about inflation. The real culprit here is corporate power.

Robert Reich

March 22, 2022

SOURCENationofChange

Inflation! Inflation! Everyone’s talking about it, but ignoring one of its biggest causes: corporate concentration.

Now, prices are undeniably rising. In response, the Fed is about to slow the economy — even though we’re still 2 million jobs short of where we were before the pandemic, and millions of American workers won’t get the raises they deserve.

Meanwhile, Republicans haven’t wasted any time hammering Biden and Democratic lawmakers about inflation.

Don’t fall for their fear mongering.

Everybody’s ignoring the deeper structural reason for price increases: the concentration of the American economy into the hands of a few corporate giants with the power to raise prices.

If the market were actually competitive, corporations would keep their prices as low as possible as they competed for customers.

Even if some of their costs increased, they would do everything they could to avoid passing them on to consumers in the form of higher prices, for fear of losing business to competitors.

But that’s the opposite of what we’re seeing. Corporations are raising prices even as they rake in record profits. Corporate profit margins hit record highs last year. You see, these corporations have so much market power they can raise prices with impunity.

So the underlying problem isn’t inflation per se. It’s a lack of competition. Corporations are using the excuse of inflation to raise prices and make fatter profits.

Take the energy sector.

Only a few entities have access to the land and pipelines that control the oil and gas powering most of the world. They took a hit during the pandemic as most people stayed home. But they are more than making up for it now, limiting supply and ratcheting up prices.

Or look at consumer goods.

In April 2021, Procter & Gamble raised prices on staples like diapers and toilet paper, citing increased costs in raw materials and transportation. But P&G has been making huge profits. After some of its price increases went into effect, it reported an almost 25% profit margin.

Looking to buy your diapers elsewhere? Good luck. The market is dominated by P&G and Kimberly-Clark, which—NOT entirely coincidentally—raised its prices at the same time.

Another example: in April 2021, PepsiCo raised prices, blaming higher costs for ingredients, freight, and labor. It then recorded $3 billion in operating profits through September. How did it get away with this without losing customers?

Pepsi has only one major competitor, Coca-Cola, which promptly raised its own prices. Coca-Cola recorded $10 billion in revenues in the third quarter of 2021, up 16% from the previous year.

Food prices are soaring, but half of that is from meat, which costs 15% more than last year. There are only four major meat processing companies in America, which are all raising their prices and enjoying record profits.

Get the picture?

The underlying problem is not inflation. It’s corporate power. Since the 1980s, when the U.S. government all but abandoned antitrust enforcement, two-thirds of all American industries have become more concentrated.

Most are now dominated by a handful of corporations that coordinate prices and production. This is true of: banks, broadband, pharmaceutical companies, airlines, meatpackers, and yes, soda.

Corporations in all these industries could easily absorb higher costs — including long overdue wage increases — without passing them on to consumers in the form of higher prices. But they aren’t.

Instead, they’re using their massive profits to line the pockets of major investors and executives — while both consumers and workers get shafted.

How can this structural problem be fixed? Fighting corporate concentration with more aggressive antitrust enforcement. And imposing a windfall profits tax on profitable corporations that are using this period of rising costs to gouge consumers.

So don’t fall for the fear mongering about inflation. The real culprit here is corporate

Inflation Won't Be Remedied by the Federal Reserve Imposing Higher Interest Rates

The result is ~~likely to be~~ a recession.

People shopping in the egg and dairy case on March 13, 2020 at Whole Foods Merket in Vauxhall, New Jersey. (Photo: Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

ROBERT REICH

March 28, 2022

by robertreich.substack.com

As Putin’s war shakes up the world economy, the Fed last week raised interest rates by a quarter point and penciled in six more increases by the end of the year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell says he’s ready to do whatever it takes to bring inflation down, including following the example of his predecessor Paul Volcker, who increased interest rates to 20 percent in 1981.

The current inflation is the consequence of a perfect storm of unique events that won't recur—and won’t be remedied by higher rates.

Volcker’s rate rise triggered a deep recession and double-digit unemployment. We can debate whether that harsh medicine in 1981 was necessary. What should be clear is that the current inflation is nothing like the inflation of the late 1970s — a time when nearly a quarter of all private-sector workers were unionized and American corporations couldn’t easily outsource production. Today, only 6 percent of private-sector workers are unionized — which means workers have almost no long-term bargaining leverage. And today American corporations can outsource almost anywhere (although China is becoming more complicated, and Russia is now off limits).

Inflation is running almost 8 percent annually, which is surely a problem. But it’s not due to permanent wage or price hikes. In fact, it has nothing to do with the business cycle. So expecting the Federal Reserve to remedy today’s inflation by raising interest rates to slow the economy is like trying to cool off on a hot day by aiming a battering ram at your head. Wrong diagnosis. Wrong remedy. The current inflation is the consequence of a perfect storm of unique events that won’t recur—and won’t be remedied by higher rates.

We’re emerging from a once-a-century pandemic during which much of the world economy closed down. In March through May 2020, demand evaporated as people retreated into their homes. Because the nation’s (and world’s) productive capacity couldn’t be closed down all at once (productive capacity includes factories, offices, warehouses, and so on, all of which take a while to wind down), the resulting excess of supply over demand caused a deep recession.

Now, at the other end, and without much opportunity to buy for the last two years, American consumers are flush with cash (the national savings rate is at its highest level in decades). So they want to buy lots of stuff (and they haven’t yet gone back to spending much on services such as restaurants, hotels, air travel, movies and other places where COVID reigned for two years). Yet the nation’s (and the world’s) productive capacity can’t be fully operational all at once. The resulting excess of demand over supply is causing major inflation.

That inflation is being driven by other unique events as well. In housing, the real engine of rising prices is demographics. The huge Millennial generation (the largest in American history), born in the 1980s, is now storming into the housing market after COVID closed their world for two years. Making matters worse, the Great Recession clobbered the construction industry, dramatically reducing the number of available houses to buy or rent.

Energy prices are soaring mostly because of Putin’s war (they were rising even in anticipation of it). So are food costs. (Russia and Ukraine together provide about one-quarter of all the planet’s wheat exports.)

Another culprit is the pricing power of big corporations. In a White House briefing last fall, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese noted that half of the overall increase in food prices is due to spikes in the cost of beef, pork, and poultry, which has fueled record profits among the four biggest producers that control most of the market. "It raises a concern about pandemic profiteering — about companies that are driving price increases in a way that hurts consumers who are going to the grocery store, and also isn't benefiting the actual producers — the farmers and the ranchers," Deese said.

Profiteering is occurring over much of American industry, as I’ve chronicled on these pages, here and here.

Corporations have been raising prices even as they rake in record profits by coordinating price hikes with the handful of other big companies in their industry.

If you don't believe that corporations are taking advantage of their pricing power and inflation to raise prices, just listen to corporate executives themselves. The Chief Financial Officer of Constellation Brands, the parent company of Modelo and Corona beers, told investors in January that the company wants to “take as much as [we] can” from customers. (Publicly, however, the company has blamed rising material costs for their increased prices.) Here’s another: The grocery food brand Hormel saw a 19 percent increase in their operating income in the first quarter of 2022. Their CFO’s response to these soaring profits? “We’ve done a great job with our pricing.”

Of course corporate financial officers want to brag about profits. But if their corporations were actually competing against other corporations in the same industry, they’d absorb cost increases in order to keep their prices as low as possible so consumers didn't abandon them. Today, however, corporations have been raising prices even as they rake in record profits by coordinating price hikes with the handful of other big companies in their industry. That way, all of them come out ahead — while consumers and workers lose.

Raising interest rates won’t remedy any of this.

Which gets me back to trying to cool yourself down on a hot day by aiming a battering ram at your head. You won’t get cooler. You’ll only get a very bad headache. That’s exactly what the Fed will do to the economy if it sticks to its plan. The Fed’s rate hikes won’t remedy inflation. They will do the opposite. Since World War II, most Fed rate hikes have resulted in recession.

Over the longer term, it’s necessary to attack the pricing power of big corporations in America who are profiteering off the pandemic. For now, it’s best to ride out the perfect storm.

SHOULD BE CONTIENT WIDE

It's Farmworker Awareness Week. Here’s What Those Who Feed Us Deserve.

The workers who put food on our tables face poverty, deportation, and extreme heat. These are policy choices—and they can be changed.

Farmworkers tend to strawberries growing in a field on February 10, 2021 in Ventura County, California. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

From Cesar Chavez’s day to our own, “the struggle continues”—la lucha sigue!

ENNEDITH LOPEZ

COMMON DREAMS

March 30, 2022

Few workers play a more intimate role in our lives than the farmworkers who plant, pick, package, and ship the food we put on our tables. But unfortunately, few are more vulnerable.

As the climate crisis accelerates, their already hard jobs are getting deadlier.

Ever since the mid-20th century, when migrant braceros from Mexico kept food on U.S. tables while Americans were off fighting in World War II, farmworkers in this country have faced systemic injustices and abuse.

They’re no less vital now—in 2020, they were declared essential to ensure families continued to be fed during a pandemic that forced others to stay home. But many continue to face systemic exploitation on account of their poverty or immigration status.

There are between 2.5 and 3 million agricultural workers in the United States. Migrant farmworkers account for an estimated 75 percent of these, and 50 percent of migrant farmworkers are undocumented. Many live in this country at risk of deportation, in substandard housing conditions, and in extreme poverty.

And unfortunately, as the climate crisis accelerates, their already hard jobs are getting deadlier.

Because most farmworkers lack basic working protections and are paid “per piece”—that is, for how much they harvest—they’re often forced to choose between going without pay and working long hours through dangerous conditions. In recent years, they’ve had to work through heat waves, extreme drought, and even wildfires.

In 2021, the United States experienced the hottest summer on record, and some farmworkers died because of these unpredictable circumstances. Heat is now their leading cause of death on the job—in fact, farmworkers are 20 times more likely than other workers to die from heat-related illnesses.

Even one death on the job is too many. We need real labor standards to mitigate these gruesome conditions.

Farmworker deaths can be prevented by implementing federal heat safety standards and actually enforcing them—a call many advocacy groups have made. Employers should be required to prevent heat-related illnesses by providing clean drinking water, shade, and rest periods. And they should be held accountable for deaths caused by dangerous working conditions.

But protecting farmworkers on the job also means addressing the issues that make them so vulnerable in the first place.

Protecting farmworkers on the job also means addressing the issues that make them so vulnerable in the first place.

The piece-rate wage forces workers to put in 10- or 12-hour workdays and still leaves many food-insecure and impoverished. And due to their immigration status, farmworkers are often unable to protest dangerous working conditions or poor wages, incentivizing employers to exploit them further.

The complete marginalization of farmworkers is due to decisions made by our policymakers, as well as an exploitative food system that profits from their misfortunes. But these decisions can be changed.

Providing a legal and just pathway to citizenship would ensure that immigrant farmworkers have the opportunity to improve their living and working conditions. Labor laws that ensure workers are fairly paid regardless of their immigration status could greatly mitigate the risks many are forced to take.

And real action to address our climate crisis and protect our environment would have the added benefit of protecting our most essential workers.

The farmworkers who feed us are on the frontlines of climate change, poverty, and our broken immigration system. They shouldn’t be treated as sacrificial or replaceable—especially when they’re nothing short of essential. We must support their causes and demand justice.

This Farmworker Awareness Week, it’s critical that we continue to recognize the vital role farmworkers play to sustain our country’s entire food system, their proud history of union mobilizing and organizing, and the need to respect their humanity.

From Cesar Chavez’s day to our own, “the struggle continues”—la lucha sigue!

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

ENNEDITH LOPEZ is a New Mexico Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

'Prestige Doesn't Pay the Bills': Condé Nast Workers Announce New Union

"Condé Nast has a legacy as a storied media brand, but it now also has a legacy as one of the last media giants to unionize."

Condé Nast's West Coast regional office is in Los Angeles, California. (Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

BRETT WILKINS

COMMON DREAMS

March 29, 2022

Employees across Condé Nast publications on Tuesday announced they are following in the footsteps of their colleagues at The New Yorker and other company outlets and forming a union to "create a better, more equitable workplace."

"If Condé wants to attract the best talent in the business, they have to stop relying on prestige and provide equitable pay and benefits."

The Washington Post reports the newly formed Condé Union sent a letter signed by more than 350 workers to company management requesting voluntary recognition of the labor group, which includes employees of nearly a dozen publications including Allure, Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, Glamour, GQ, Teen Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Vogue.

"We work for one of the largest and most influential media companies in the country, but Condé Nast also has a long, well-documented history of exploitation, leveraging its prestige to overwork and underpay its employees," Condé Union said in a statement.

Vanity Fair web producer Jaime Archer told the Post that "it comes down to prestige doesn't pay the bills."

"We love working here, and we want to keep working here," she added. "If Condé wants to attract the best talent in the business, they have to stop relying on prestige and provide equitable pay and benefits."

The unionization of Condé Nast began in 2018 with members of The New Yorker's editorial staff, who were followed by workers at Ars Technica, Pitchfork, and Wired. Company management voluntarily recognized all four efforts—but not without a fight.

Bon Appétit senior food editor Christina Chaey said in a statement Tuesday that "Condé Nast has a legacy as a storied media brand, but it now also has a legacy as one of the last media giants to unionize. We deserve to work at a brand that values our work and prioritizes helping us shape our futures here. Show us you actually want us to be here, Condé!”

Allegra Kirkland, Teen Vogue's politics director, said that "great people leave Condé all the time because they're frustrated by systemic issues at the company, or by a lack of career growth or raises. That harms both our quality of work and the quality of life of those left behind, who end up picking up the slack."

"The union will enshrine protections," she added. "It will give people an outlet to voice their concerns and a reason to stay."

Bon Appétit assistant editor Chala Tyson Tshitundu asserted that "our union will fight to improve Condé's frankly abysmal pay scale, which has not only led to stagnant wages across the board, but glaring ongoing pay inequities, especially amongst non-white staff."

Some workers called on Condé Nast to reflect the values its publications promote.

"We publish pieces every day about how women can advocate for themselves, and how mothers need to be treated well, and pay discrepancies in the workplace," Glamour staff writer Jenny Singer told the Post. "There's nothing more important than Condé practicing what it preaches in its pages."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Airport Workers Protest Across US Demanding 'Living Wage' and Right to Union

"We're fed up after years of working jobs where we're called essential, but treated as disposable."

Protesters in Phoenix joined a national day of action for airport workers demanding better employment conditions. (Photo: Airport Workers United/Twitter)

JESSICA CORBETT

COMMON DREAMS

March 30, 2022

Contracted airport workers—including baggage handlers, cabin cleaners, security officers, and wheelchair agents—in more than 20 U.S. cities staged coordinated demonstrations Wednesday to call for higher wages, better benefits, and the right to unionize.

"As an immigrant who spent 10 years in refugee camps, I've faced plenty of hardship in my life, but none as great as the last two years."

"Airports keep our economy and our world connected. I assist disabled, elderly, and other passengers, who need help getting through the airport to their plane," said Omer Hussein, a wheelchair attendant servicing American Airlines at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, in a statement.

"I'm only paid $12 an hour. I work a lot of hours and some days I work so late that I just sleep over at the airport," he explained. "I can't afford a car, rent, and to send money home to my family in Sudan. I like working with passengers, but I'm so tired all the time. That won't fly any longer."

Hussein added that "now, airport workers like me are fed up and taking action to demand that all airport jobs must be good, union jobs that pay enough to support our families."

Along with his workplace in Texas, workers planned protests at airports in or near Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Newark, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, D.C.

"If I got hit by a car or a stray bullet, I'll tell the ambulance to take me to Dulles to work because otherwise I won't have a job when I come back," said 71-year-old Paul Blair, a terminal cleaner at Washington Dulles International Airport, in a statement.

Blair, who suffers from arthritis and heart problems, highlighted that "we sacrificed our lives working through Covid, but we still don't get benefits and must come to work sick because we can't afford to lose pay."

As part of the day of action, the workers—who are organizing with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—ran a full-page advertisement in USA Today with a letter addressed to the CEOs of three major airlines: American, Delta, and United.

"Airports connect people worldwide and power the global economy. And it's workers like us who make it all possible," the ad says. "But we're fed up after years of working jobs where we're called essential, but treated as disposable."

The letter calls on the chief executives to sign the "Good Airports Pledge," which would mean promising to:
Acknowledge that airlines have the ability and responsibility to end poverty-wage jobs and inequality through the system;
Ensure the billions of public dollars airlines receive annually serve the public good, not just shareholders and executives;
Set a minimum wage and benefit standard guaranteeing all workers are paid living wages and provided affordable, quality healthcare and paid time off;
Respect workers' right to join together in a union; and
Ensure contracts with airport service providers are able to meet living wage and fair benefits standards and encourage contracts to be neutral when workers organize a union.

"Amid a national reckoning and wave of workers exercising their power, airport workers are building on years of organizing and asserting themselves as the newest force in the surging labor movement," declared SEIU international president Mary Kay Henry ahead of the protests. "They're standing up to airline CEOs, raising their voices to demand respect, protections, and pay that they can raise a family on."

"They're fed up with a system where Black and Brown workers make tens of thousands of dollars less than their white peers, and they're taking action," the labor leader added. "Airlines have long proven they can't be trusted to use the billions of public dollars they receive to serve the public good."

In statements about the demonstrations, some workers shared how the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has affected them.

"As an immigrant who spent 10 years in refugee camps, I've faced plenty of hardship in my life, but none as great as the last two years," said Ababuti Olok, a skycap worker and wheelchair attendant at Boston Logan International Airport who lives in Chelsea with his wife and two sons.

"I was grateful to go back to work after being in lay off for many months, but I still fell over three months behind on rent and feared my family would end up homeless. Even now, I'm still behind on my bills," he added. "I need relief so my children can stay in our home."

Skycap Almaz Abera, who has worked at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport for 18 years, said that "almost all of my coworkers got Covid, I'm very sad over the loss of my coworkers Ana and Brook, sometimes we cry when we talk about them."

"Those who lack health insurance can't afford to go to hospital, often dying as a result," Abera noted. "Those with healthcare make it because they can afford to go to the hospital. We have to fight the airlines for healthcare and sick leave because you can die and they won't care."

Some federal lawmakers, including Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), expressed support for the protesting workers.

"Airport workers can be paid as little as $8/hour, while CEOs are paid on average $5,000/hour," tweeted Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "It's time to raise the wage for workers across this country."

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Thursday, March 31, 2022

The hidden link between corporate greed and inflation

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