CEO Wages are hurting today’s economy

Editorial
Gerald Haskell
UAGE Staff Representative

I was recently on a chat board talking union and one comment said “Unions have had their time and place”. Oddly enough I agree with that comment to a point.  They did have their time and place, however, their time is now and their place is here.  Workers in Utah, both private and public need to step up and start looking into their future and the future of their families.  We are all too focused on the now in economic times.  We don’t have time to look to next year, ten years, and on to our retirement.  We are too busy working over time, two jobs, and what else we can do to stretch that dollar out this month.

Moving  toward the future means we all begin working together to examine where we work. Are we being treated fairly?  Are the wages fair for the market- and the company we work for.  If your CEO or other Officers and owners are making 100 times that of the average employee then the likelihood is low that our wages are fair.

For public employees we must do the same.  In general most public employees were working for lower wages and better benefits than their counterparts in the private sector.  That is quickly changing, co-payments for insurance are rising, new hires have lost the retirement we have, we lost our ability to convert sick time when we retire.  Some of us already lost merit status and that bill will rear its ugly head again.

All employees, both private and public have not seen real wage increases for 25 Year according to the Doug Wright show on KSL.   On KSL’s Doug Wright show, Thursday July 8, 2010, they said over the last 25 years the average for middle class workers wages have increased 7% while some CEO pay has increased up to 800%. Click here to listen to audio While Union membership has declined, wages and benefits have followed. (Source: U.S. Department of Labor ) The profits have shifted over to the CEO’s pocketbooks.

We must work together to turn this around.    One of the largest hurdles we must overcome is misinformation being spread by those who are anti-union – generally, programs funded by corporations trying to silence us.  They say things like, union dues are being sent right to the union bosses, look how much you could save by not paying union dues, and that unions control your lives.

This is all un-true – the union bosses being referred to are your co-workers, union leaders in UAGE-CWA are elected by you and the other members.  It’s the members that run our union, not some faceless mobster in Nevada.  When you compare what we have lost as workers compared to the union dues we pay, it cost us more not to pay union dues.  And the union control over you….  You are the union along with your co-workers; you control the union, not the other way around.

This is just a small sampling of what is being said but the facts speak for themselves.  By bargaining collectively, union members are able to negotiate higher wages. Union members earn 28 percent more than nonunion members. The union wage benefit is greatest for people of color and women. Latino union workers earn 50 percent more than their nonunion counterparts. Union women earn 34 percent more than nonunion women. For African Americans, the union advantage is 29 percent. The union advantage for white male workers is 21 percent. For Asian American workers the union advantage is 4 percent. (Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Now is the time that we can restore the middle class, working together on common goals will put America back in perspective and strengthen the future of America workers, therefore strengthen the future of America.

To get involved or get more information please contact UAGE-CWA at uageadmin@uagecwa.net or call us at 801-483-1200

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