The
New York�s Legislature�s proposal at the end of last year, to raise
the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 an hour, has brought
out the usual opposition, which dusted off old rhetoric
that such a move would �hurt the very people it is designed
to help.�
The
Business Council of New York State and the New York Farm
Bureau (NYFB) declared that an increased minimum wage
would �do nothing to decrease poverty or increase employment.�
Using classic right wing rhetoric, Dean Norton, president
of NYFB, declared an increase in the minimum wage to be
�a stealth tax for our state�s farmers masquerading as
a benefit for workers,� while the Business Council�s president,
Heather Briccetti, said a raise would �hurt the state�s
small businesses, farms, and not-for-profits that are
struggling to make their current payrolls.�
On
the face of it, of course, it seems ridiculous that a
pay increase would hurt low-income workers, rather than
help them. The $1.25 an hour increase that has been proposed
would give every minimum wage worker an extra $50 for
a 40-hour week. It�s hard to see Corporate America�s point�that
it would harm workers.
Crocodile
tears flow freely from the likes of the Business Council
and the Farm Bureau over the �harm� done to working men
and women by such meddling in the 
�free
market,� by raising the minimum wage. Rather, they would
reduce the wages of American workers to those of developing
countries. That�s what they mean when they say �we must
remain competitive,� and they have been effective in making
that happen.
The
two business groups recently declared their commitment
to the economy of New York State: �(We are) committed
to reducing taxes, eliminating needless red tape and creating
a more business-friendly economy for our state based on
sound free market principles.� Just these three items
on Corporate America�s agenda tell us much about their
aims and goals.
By
this, they mean that corporations and business should
pay less in taxes, that regulation of their operations
should be reduced or eliminated, and they want the state
to make its economy more business friendly by basing help
to business on �free market principles.� With ownership
concentration in banking, manufacturing, finance, energy,
and food production, it�s hard to see any free market
working in the U.S.
If
the Farm Bureau believes that the free market is working,
they should talk to a few small farmers and ranchers,
some of who may be their own members. They will get a
very different story than their own perceptions, on the
concentration of wealth and power in the farm and food
industry and how they have been squeezed out of the market.
With
all of the combinations, mergers, and concentration of
money power, the �free market working� is illusion and
myth. That is why some of the members of these business
groups that lobby state legislatures and the congress
to keep labor costs at a minimum should take a closer
look at what their dues buys them.
The
constant and relentless pressure to drive down wages and
living standards of working women and men in the U.S.
by these two groups and many others like them has the
effect of driving down the living standard of wage workers,
but they also drive down the standards (income) of their
own members.
Often,
small business owners do the same kind of work that line
workers at a Wal-Mart or Home Depot do, so the �value�
of that work is set by the big box store. It�s no wonder
that small business owners are expected to deliver the
goods at a low price, one that will meet the �competition�
of a Wal-Mart. It�s the same for those engaged in small
farm agriculture. The farmer does essentially the same
work as a migrant worker performs on an industrial-sized
food production facility (as distinct from a farm). In
an industrial food production setting, the value is set
by what the migrant worker is paid and it is not much.
When
corporate lobbyists work hard to depress wages and living
standards (like fighting a very modest increase in the
minimum wage) for workers, they are depressing the �value�
of the work of many of their own members, business owners
or farmers. It�s little wonder that small businesses have
such a short lifespan. And, family farmers have been falling
by the wayside by the thousands in recent years. In the
scheme of things, the organizations that purport to represent
them are complicit in their demise, because they constantly
drive down the value of their work.
You
don�t need to be an economist to figure this out. If you
are trying to concentrate political and economic power
in a relatively small number of corporations and wealthy
individuals, this is the way to do it. Politicians are
quick to declare their undying support for small farm
agriculture and small independent businesses, but their
allegiance is to the places where the biggest bucks lie,
for that�s how they keep getting reelected.
At
least in New York this year, corporate interests will be
hard at work keeping working women and men in their places,
including fighting any increase in the minimum wage. Even
with a $1.25 an hour increase in the minimum, to $8.50
an hour, this is far from a living wage. A worker would
have to have two such jobs to live a minimally decent
life.
There
is an old saying that �everybody does well, when everybody
does well,� and that is true, but the concentration of
wealth in the top 1 percent tells us that most Americans
are doing far from well. Wealth disparity is staggering
when you look at the numbers: about 80 percent of us in
the U.S. have control of only about 15 percent of
the wealth.
There
have been ample studies that show that Corporate America�s
alarm sounded over an increase in the minimum wage about
�fewer jobs,� �loss of jobs,� and �harm to the workers�
is false. They know it is false, but they will keep up
the drumbeat of opposition, because they have untold millions
of dollars for their propaganda and they own most of the
country�s think tanks, which supply newspapers, magazines,
news broadcasters, and colleges and universities with
that propaganda.
They
will keep pounding this issue home in every way and in
every place they can. It has nothing to do with reality.
It is ideological, and�it�s what they do.
BlackCommentator.com
Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former
union organizer. His union work started when he became
a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early
1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in
New York State. In
addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers
as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure
from factory food producers and land developers. Click
here
to contact Mr. Funiciello.
