By Mark Ayers
President, AFL-CIO Building Trades Department

I can’t think of anything more heart-wrenching than the idea of trying to celebrate the holiday season when confronted daily with the knowledge that millions of unemployed Americans will not enjoy any semblance of holiday joy; instead, they will be engaged in a day-to-day struggle just to hold on to their homes and put food on the table.

And it is a pain that becomes all the more searing when I think of the children – those innocent boys and girls who should be enjoying the wonders and thrills of a childhood that contains few demands and responsibilities.

At times like this, I think about my own grandchildren… and what their lives would be like if their homes were shattered by the devastating effects of one or both of their parents losing their job(s). Would they have to bear witness to the crumbling self-worth of one or both parents – a condition that can often evolve into ungodly moments of solitude, despair, and even shattering instances of domestic violence? Would my grandchildren, like so many other children in America today, be harvesting a collection of emotional scars that will live with them forever?

But, what truly causes pain and anger is the inequality of it all. For the millions of American workers and their children who are suffering the effects of this brutal recession, this is not fair. What’s happening to them is not fair, because it was not their fault. It’s wasn’t like our current recession is the result of an American workforce that is overpaid and non-productive. American workers are now more productive than any workforce on the planet. In the third quarter of 2009, labor productivity increased by 9.5% annually; the highest increase in productivity since 2003.

Unfortunately, and this is a story that has been told for two decades now, American workers are not being compensated for their increased productivity. Wages, which had held up fairly well at the start of the recession, have started to implode. In the second quarter of 2009, nominal hourly wages of production workers grew at a 0.7% annualized rate, which is only one-sixth of the 3.9% growth rate from December 2007 to December 2008. The collapse in wage growth indicates that even those who have held onto their jobs have been hurt by the

 recession, and threatens to dampen consumption and limit the pace of an economic recovery.

This is partly the fault of an out-of-control American culture that has de-valued the clock-punching working American in exchange for an elevated fascination with wealth, prestige and status; where one is seemingly never judged on how he/she actually achieves such dubious distinctions…no matter how grotesque the means.

This de-valuation of the American worker is also the by-product of an unhealthy mindset of over-the-top risk and greed that pervaded Wall Street (and still does!), and was (and still is!) coupled with a slovenly governmental devotion to the protection and advancement of “unencumbered free markets,” which, according to the theory, would create a rising tide that lifts all boats. This latter mentality has been perpetuated, for all practical purposes, by a political infrastructure that has long ceased having even any pretense of assigning priority status to the interests of blue-collar, clock-punching, working American families.

Author and provocateur Thomas Frank sums it all up in his new book, The Wrecking Crew, which is an excellent chronicle of modern conservative governance that began with the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan in 1980. As Frank tells it,

“…the great goal of the conservative movement, as it rose to triumph in the 1980s, was to remove that threat – to keep OSHA, the EPA, and the FTC from choking off entrepreneurship with their infernal meddling in the marketplace. De-funding those agencies was the only way to stop the killer bureaucrats; another was to stuff them full of business-friendly personnel who would go easy on the regulated. This is the philosophy by which conservatives gutted the EPA and the Labor Department, turned over the Interior Department and the FDA to the industries they were supposed to regulate, and let the CEO of Enron advise the Vice President on energy policy… and to generally regard business, not the public, as government’s “customer.”

But it is only now, as we watch the financial system crumble around us, that we can really see the devastating consequences of this folly. It turns out the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which was responsible for regulating investment banks, did a significant part of its job through a voluntary program which firms could participate in or not as they saw fit.

At business’s urging, business was left to its own devices; its own devices turned out to be precisely the things our grandparents set up regulatory agencies to guard against: euphoria that leads to panic; perverse incentives that lead to fraud; and a boom that leads to bust.

As you watch the world crumble, try taking your Armageddon with this sprinkling of irony: Over the last three decades, business has got virtually everything it wanted, and its doomsday scenario from the 1970s has come true because of it. The regulators have indeed killed the regulated – not by intrusive meddling but by doing nothing, by taking a nap while the financial sector puffed up the bubble and blew itself to pieces.”

I believe that is a “fair and balanced” assessment of the last thirty years, don’t you? But here’s the truly scary part: In spite of the economic devastation that this governing philosophy has wrought, nothing is seemingly on track to change!

As American workers suffer in unspeakable ways, both financially and emotionally, the Wall Street cowboys are once again collecting obscene profits. And, once again, American businesses are seeking to take advantage of an economic crisis to not only thwart new regulations, but to wash away what’s left of existing regulations.

Everywhere we look in the construction industry today, we see this happening. The open-shop and its advocates, such as the Associated Builders and Contractors, are mounting aggressive lobbying and public relations campaigns designed to further their destructive business model – which is predicated on rewarding contracts to companies that can best assemble a low-skill, low-wage, and exploitable workforce. Witness their unending and escalating attacks on prevailing wage laws; project labor agreements; and policies that would infringe upon an unscrupulous employer’s ability to abuse various federal visa programs in order to import low-wage (and many times indentured!) skilled workers in order to displace better-paid American skilled craft workers.

The question that we, as a society, must begin asking today is this: At what point did we get so far off the track? When, and why, did we transition away from the American ideal that it was the American worker who made this country the economic envy of the world? When did the ideal of the clock-punching, American blue-collar worker become something to pity; where, more often than not, the idea of pursuing a career as a skilled craft person was actually something to be ridiculed? And at what point did America’s skilled craft professionals find themselves undeserving and bereft of any measure of concern by our nation’s governing and business elite?

Every time I turn on the TV today, I see it in all its glory. The self-appointed, intellectual policy experts and political strategists who are force-fed down our throats in a never-ending parade of “news analysis” and opinion, and who are purported to know so much about how to make our country better, routinely dismiss the concerns and interests of blue collar workers as not deserving of consideration in our nation’s policy debates. It’s now all about the singular interests of individual industries and businesses. End of discussion.

What’s worse, and almost criminally ironic, is the fact that most of these talking head elites were raucous cheerleaders of the two-decade effort that led to the de-regulation of Wall Street. They were the ones who effectively advocated the policies that allowed the speculators and hedge fund cowboys to run loose and, in turn, pilfer and destroy the pension plans and retirement savings of millions and millions of American workers…while bringing us to the edge of the abyss we face today.

It saddens me, and angers me, that our nation has devolved to such a state. But, maybe that’s the solution. Maybe that’s where we, as a nation, need to begin anew.

Just as America’s building trades unions have undertaken a concerted effort to change the internal culture of our unions and the union construction industry, our nation needs a cultural shift from within.

America needs to become re-acquainted with itself, its history and its values. And that process should begin with our governmental leaders receiving a refresher course in “trickle-up” economics. It’s a fairly simple philosophy that worked so well for the better part of the 20th century and was simply centered upon the ideal that when policies are put in place that help average, everyday working Americans thrive, then we will have set in place the fundamentals for sustained economic growth in which all Americans will benefit.

Our nation’s history has shown it to be universally true that when a local workforce is thriving, then the surrounding community and its small businesses will thrive as well. And when those small businesses thrive, it fuels the economic engine that enables medium-sized and large corporations to thrive as well.

It’s time that America gets that equation sequenced in the proper order once again. It is the productivity and pride of the American worker that makes it possible for the privileged in our society to have the wherewithal to shop at their favorite organic food store; to buy a house in the most coveted gated community; to purchase that expensive imported luxury sedan; and to generally acquire the material wealth that provides them with the solace and comfort they somehow need to feel superior to others.

I realize that there are many Americans who are into that quest for money, status and privilege. They truly believe that “He who dies with the most toys…Wins!” And you know what? God bless ‘em! That’s what makes America great. Everyone has a dream, and everyone is afforded the tools and opportunity to pursue that dream. Provided, of course, that the game is not rigged in favor of one group over another.

Because it is not, and never has been, part of the DNA of the United States of America to allow the cancerous growth of a societal and governing culture that permits, and legitimizes, the ability of people and organizations to step all over and abuse others in pursuit of material and monetary objectives.

Now, more than ever, we have a national need to pursue the development of a new culture that does not criticize or stifle the creation of wealth, but rather seeks to persuade those in pursuit of wealth and profit that they will get there a lot quicker if they do right by the men and women who make things, construct things, move things, design things, protect things, and sell things.

Believe it or not, American workers do not ask for much. First and foremost, they desire an opportunity to prove their worth and demonstrate their skill. Secondly, they desire just compensation for their efforts – and at a level that will enable them to purchase a nice home with all the basic comforts for them and their families. And third, they seek a basic level of health care and pension benefits; and the wherewithal to put a little something aside for a vacation now and then…or maybe so they can save up for a vacation home or a boat.

So, as we gather with family and friends this holiday season, let us take a moment to reflect upon, and offer a prayer of support, for those all across this nation who are not as fortunate… who have been victimized by a culture gone awry. And let us also make it our firm resolve to do what we can to create a movement to alter the prevailing mindset of our nation’s leaders in order to lead a shift in our national culture towards one that is premised more on cooperation, tolerance and respect for the American worker.

Such a shift will undoubtedly set the stage for a sustained and remarkable economic comeback for this great nation of ours.