(Laura Clawson)
The Verizon strike is, of course, the work story of the week. Catch up with our coverage:
Show your solidarity with Verizon workers: Sign the petition. And if there's a picket line going on anywhere near you, think about bringing snacks or cold drinks.
But the Verizon strike isn't just something happening in isolation. It's an exemplar of the larger trend of corporations doing better as—and because—workers do worse. In 2010, corporate profits broke the previous record for proportion of the national income, while small businesses recovered only slightly after hitting a 17-year low in 2009. And workers?
Employees have always received more than half the total national income, until now. In 2010, the percentage of national income devoted to wages and salaries fell to 49.9 percent, and it slipped a little more to 49.6 percent in the first quarter of this year. That continued decline may help explain the economic worries of many Americans who have jobs but still fear they are falling behind.
The figure for wages and salaries reflects only what employees are directly paid, and does not include the cost paid by employers for benefits, which has been steadily rising over the years. It is thus not an accurate gauge from the point of view of employers, for whom a dollar spent on health insurance premiums is no less real than one spent on wages.
Adding the two categories together may provide a better view of the share of national income going to workers or being spent for their benefit.
The 2010 total, of 62.1 percent, is not close to the record low share of 54.5 percent, set in 1929, the first year for which numbers are available. But it is the lowest for any full year since 1965. In the first quarter of 2011, it slipped further, to 61.7 percent.
When Republicans want to make a deal ...
This is hilarious. Back when Ohio Republicans thought no one could stop them from taking collective bargaining rights from state workers, there was no talk of compromise on SB 5. Back then, it was all, "If you’re not on the bus, we’ll run over you with the bus." Now? The Columbus Dispatch, a supporter of Gov. John Kasich and SB 5, is very disappointed that the bill's opponents, with victory in sight, won't make a deal.
But it doesn't stop there. ModernEsquire at Plunderbund explains the Dispatch's real role in rumors of compromise talks:
A major Dispatch honcho who has a history of using his status within the Dispatch to make news that favors his politics and then have his paper report it and editorial pages applaud it, sets up a meeting with some labor leaders to work out a deal on SB 5. The meeting doesn’t go well, likely because neither Steiner or Curtin can really promise the labor unions anything because they have no clear authority to negotiate a deal that requires the involvement of the GOP legislature and Kasich, and frankly, they have little leverage given the current polling on the issue.
Then the Dispatch follows up the editorial advocating for someone to try to attempt a deal with a news story that such an attempt as advocated by the Dispatch was tried, but the labor leaders walked away – never mentioning that one of the most influential figures at the Dispatch just happens to be behind the attempt to broker a deal and then the editorial lecturing labor to make such a deal.