BILLIONS FOR EXECS, ZERO FOR NEEDY

Why have labor unions not sought to help the "self-employed?"

By Martin Zabell

"I don’t think it’s fair because I pay taxes."
Dale Prost
Ex-manufacturing worker
General Motors

Prost, 58, is referring to the fact that he cannot collect unemployment benefits although he worked as a manufacturer for 10 years. Prost, you see, is considered self-employed. According to an April 9, 2009, article in USA Today, Prost is one of 7.4 million people who are unemployed, but are receiving ZERO benefits.

I am, I think, another of the 7.4 million. I say, I think, because I have no idea how I could be counted. After 13 months of being unemployed, I finally decided – for the first time in my life – to ask for financial assistance. I was told that there are no records of my existence. I walked home.

It’s now been 15 months since I was terminated as a newspaper reporter. My articles were printed four or five times per week for about 15 years. I’m luckier than most. Most of the editors I worked for generally let me work when I wanted to on the subjects that I wanted to and usually paid me decently.

Consequently, I built up a savings nest that many would envy. I was even able to take a leave of absence from reporting to explore a second career, taking 19 courses in pursuit of a master’s degree in Education. I also preferred to be self-employed for most of my career as I willingly sacrificed a secure salary, health insurance, and paid vacations in exchange for a lifestyle I enjoyed – choosing which 40 hours per week I wanted to work.

But my sacrifices weren’t enough for Corporate America. Several years ago, the healthy capitalist system I supported as an entrepreneur became the victim of corporate greed. The journalism industry was transformed into a monopoly with huge conglomerates buying competitors, homogenizing all the newspapers, slashing the wages of people who used to negotiate with several clients but no longer could, and stealing, yes stealing, writers’ works (this was essentially the conclusion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Tasini vs. New York Times; Tasini was the president of the National Writers Union.)

My most recent client, the Northwest Indiana Times, asked me to sign a contract verifying I was self-employed – and then spent three years breaking that pact by ordering me to write stories under threat of termination, ordering me to do free work under threat of termination, slashing wages without notification long after my stories were complete and then paying me at the lower rate although I accepted the assignments at the higher rate.

I complained numerous times to the corporate office, which assured me on several occasions that I would be protected from retaliation. Instead, I was terminated. Corporate malfeasance pure and simple. The same company, Lee Newspapers, recently used its power to prevent the formation of a union at one of its Illinois newspapers, the Bloomington Pantagraph.

EXECS HAVE CONTEMPT FOR WORKERS

There are millions of victims of corporate greed.

In the USA Today article, Andrew Scherer of Legal Services NYC, a nonprofit group that provides free legal assistance to the poor, said there has been "explosive growth" in contested unemployment insurance cases recently. According to the article, "because a company’s future tax liability for the unemployment program is based on how many former employees have collected, it is in a firm’s best interest to limit the number of those drawing benefits."

The truth is that Big Business has been exploiting workers for years. Without unions, many of the high-tech industries have been classifying people who work 30 to 40 hours per week in their offices as independent contractors. As union strength has atrophied, other industries have also shown contempt for workers.

In the USA Today article, everyone interviewed worked in blue-collar professions. Clarence Athy lays concrete. David Bowman is in the plumbing business. Prost most recently worked at a General Motors powertrain plant. All are "barely holding on," in Prost’s words.

Now, the economy has collapsed. And who gets the assistance of the federal government? The very banks and financial institutions that were responsible for the collapse. They get billions while Athy, Bowman, Prost, and I get nothing. They were supposed to use their billions to rework their loans to people having trouble paying their mortgages.

Instead, the executives from these companies paid themselves billions, are seeking to repay loans subsidized by us taxpayers by jacking up the fees and interest rates they charge the people bailing them out, and are doing nothing as far as I can tell while mortgage and credit card delinquencies hit record highs.

I’m currently reading an article on the Fox Valley Labor News Web site that details how laid-off workers can get their benefits. Here is what I want to know – why isn’t there someone in the federal government providing the same help for the 7.4 million unemployed people who can’t collect benefits?

People are stunned when I tell them that I am receiving nothing. I am stunned that labor unions, society, and government has so little knowledge and/or concern for the welfare of 7.4 million people.

Martin Zabell is a longtime newspaper reporter who is currently trying to help free-lancers via his work for the National Writers Union’s Chicago office.