IBE-W - International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

EDITORIAL
J. J. Barry
Internatiollal President
Ihe
Bi
L g S ometimes
Ihe only
way to gel away with
a lie is 10 lell a real whopper.
and slick to it lime after time.
and hope people evenlually won·,
be able to remember what was made
upand what was fac t. To this end. the
U .. Treasury Department's recent repon
on "upward mobility" in the United
Stal~ is a perfect CaM: Mud .
In 19 4 Presidenl Ronald Reagan ran
hili reelection campaign around the ques·
tlcn ... Are you be(lcr off than you were
four years agar And to bolster his claims
of "yes" he quo led one skewed sta tisti c
after another supposed ly ,l;howingjob creation.
economic growth and prosperity.
Il"s what a lot of people wanted LO hear;
it's what a lot ofpcoplc wanted to believe:
even though il ran a close thi rd behind the
TOO~l Fairy and Ihe Ea"er Bunny in Ihe
accuracy depanment.
TIlen. four year later. George Herben
\Valker Bush was e lected presidenl , and
he began 10 do his best 10 perpeLUale the
Reagan myth of widec;pread economic
pro~peri l y . In faci 11 \\a~n'l unlil four or
five monlhs into Ihe currenl full-nedged
r(.~ce:,~ion. that the president would acknowledge
Ih31lhccconomy wasn 'l working
10 the ad vantage of everyone. He
vetocd-nol once. bUltwice-the extension
of unemployment bcnefils to ouroulof-work
Brolhers and Sisters. because he
couldn't admit the seriou ness of our
country's econom ic conditio n. How cou Id
he have seen the country's condition. He
was thcn logging almosl as much
li me on Air Force One in foreign
airspace as he was in the Oval Office
or around the Uni ted Slates.
Now. in 1992,onlya handful of momhs
before this fall 's presidential elections.
comes a report from the Bush T rea ury
Depanment saying, guess what,lhal Presidents
Reagan and Bush were righl all
along: Ihings did gel beller during lhe
1980s: Ihal people·s income rose, and
Americans moved enmasse up the quaJily-of·life
ladder.
I say, lell illO the IBEW employees al
Zenith 's Springfield. Missouri. planlwho
arc losing their jobs as production
Ihere moves 10 Mexico. Te ll it toourunion
Brothers and Sisters who used 10 work at
Easlern Airl ines-which aft er years or
union busti ng fina lly weill out business.
Remember that il was President Bush
who vetoed a bill passed by Congress
which called for a panel 10 try 10 work OUI
3 setllemenl3t Eastern. Tell it to the " pcrmanentl
y replaced" union workers a l
Greyhound. I say , Iell it to them, President
Bush: ask them abom upward mobility.
Unions have been doing a 101 of talking
10 those people who were supposedly
upwardly mobile Ihese lasl 12 years, and
their response should come as no real
surpri se. The facl is wo rk ingpeople, as a
whole.didn·t mo ve up, they moved down.
11,e AFl·C10 Economic Research Department,
in a February 1992 report. confinns
this. The report says. "The: ri ch in
America continue 10 gel richer while the
majority of families struggle 10 make
ends meet. More of the wealth became
concentrated among the richest families
belween 19 3 and 1989, according lo a
recent Fedeml Reserve survey. Between
1977 and 1988. middle·income families'
real income dropped 5 percent. while the
income of Ihe lOp 1 percent of families
increased by 50 percent." The repon continued
on 10 ci le thai averagc weekly
earnings for workers. adjusted for in nati
on. sank 15 percent during the ' SOs. and
to say thai. "Over 2 million people have
slipped into poveny during Ihe lasl year.
increasing Ihe 10lal in poveny 10 34 million.
including one in five of lhc nation's
children:·
And where did the Bush Treasury De·
partment come up with numbers to suppon
its bogus claims. Accordi ng 10 a June
3. 1992. Washillgtoll Post article enlilled
"Treasury 's Look at lncome Mo bility,"
thc fig ures came from manipulating who
ex.actly the study saw as upwardly mo~
bile. The article :l-aid. " Consider the
advancemcnt of the student who. in 1979.
spent part of his last year of college working
for a newspaper for $5 an hour. By
1988.fimllyeSlablished a,ajoumalis\. he
could earn as much in a day as he d id in a
week nine year's earlier .... IAccording to
Ihe Treasury IUdy) lhat person counts as
someonc who has clawed his way oul o f
·poveny: even thoug h both his parents
were professionals and he entcred the job
marker wi th an clitecollcge degree and nO
debls:·
111at's not playing fair with the American
people. Mr. President . thai's just nOt
right.lt·s time we pUla stop tOlhis ki nd of
d istortion. The pro blems we in the Un ited
Slales face loday are difficult enough wilh·
o UI the added burden of having 10 sifl
through deceiving Horalio Alger mylhs
perpetrated by Ihe Whi le House. I.n November.
lei's show the president what
organized labor thinks of Ihose people
who sland behind a wall of Ijes and refuse
10 address the tough situation
working people are in: let" s demand lhe
tru th: ICI's demand action on our problems:
let's show them the door. .iJ