Welcome friends to Economic Update a weekly program devoted to the economic
dimensions of our lives jobs debts incomes our children's hours
I'm your host Richard Wolff I've been a professor of economics all my adult life
and I hope that has prepared me well to bring you these economic updates today's
program begins with a kind of shout out to the voters in the state of Missouri
they did something very important that changes the way the wind blows in this
country and that's why I'm bringing it to you
the GOP which controls a legislature they're passed a right-to-work law that
outlaws mandatory fees that's when union members no longer have a union you don't
have to be a member of the Union but if the Union wins something for you it has
to give you all the benefits and so unions develop the system where if
you're not a member you pay a fee again kind of your share of the cost of the
benefits that have to be given to you and so the question was would the
citizens of Missouri support this right-to-work law as it's called
basically freeing members of workplaces from having to pay for the benefits they
still get and the victory was two to one and here's who won the unions won the
unions went to the people of Missouri and said the right wing the business
community says if you get rid of unions because that's what this is about
you'll have more jobs because companies will come in you see because unions will
be gone and wages will go down and you'll have a job and the unions answer
roughly was you need unions and you need them to be strong because otherwise your
wages will go nowhere there's a stark choice for the voters you want jobs even
if it means low weight or do you want decent wages to the one
they went for the Union position they defeated the Republicans and the GOP Wow
you know what that means it means that the voters are beginning to be angry at
the betrayal you know before they were angry at the Democrats who had promised
to be the party of the working class but didn't really deliver which is why many
of them voted for Republicans and even for mr. Trump and what did if vote in
Missouri shows is that workers are beginning to become angry and bitter and
feel betrayed by mr. Trump and the Republicans and they're going back the
other way this is a very important election this
little election in Missouri and that's why it's important to talk about it the
next update has to do with this perennial crisis that is only getting
worse the crisis of student debt which is now totaling in this country over
one-and-a-half trillion dollars more than all credit card debt means
extraordinary but there's new research that comes from CNBC and from
MarketWatch and several other sources about the consequences of student debt
listen to these studies and what they show that the level of debt is causing
young people who carry that debt students t either postpone or forget
about marriage to either postpone or forget about having children to either
postpone or forget about buying a home and you know something all of those
things have enormous social but also economic costs in the United States home
foreclosures are now increasingly connected to student loans they can't
cover the young folks the cost of a house and the cost of their student
loans and so they are losing their homes here's what the economic conclusion is
it's irrational in our capitalist system the losses that
are being suffered as a consequence of student debt are greater than the
profits earned by the colleges which is why students have to borrow to go
because it's so expensive it would be more rational to lose the profit for the
private corporations because that's less than the social costs of having student
debt you know that reminds me of prisons turns out it costs more to put a human
being in jail for a year than it would to give him or her a decent job paying
35 grand a year because it's more expensive to put them in a place from
which they never recover and from which society does not recover either the
irrationalities of the system are mounting and they're all around us
and as these irrationalities mount you're beginning to see behavior that is
so starkly out of whack that I can talk about it and you can see where it goes
one example mr. Trump has imposed sanctions on Iran this is a bizarre
story in 2015 Iran signed an agreement with Russia America u.s. France China UK
and Germany promising to dismantle its nuclear weapons capability in exchange
for getting rid of the sanctions that were hurting the Iranian company country
every one of the other countries had signed again Russia France China UK
Germany has said that the Iranians are keeping their part of the bargain mr.
Trump decided otherwise to flex his muscles okay he's pandering to his base
he's mr. tough guy we all know about that story but then he took it a step
further he announced that the United States would punish any company in any
one of those other countries that does business with Iran
well the leaders of that other country then have an interesting problem
are you just gonna knuckle under to mr. Trump can you imagine the leader of
France announcing to us in the United States that any company that deals with
somebody France doesn't like will be punished excuse me
how do you work a world in which people behave like this so the Europeans
immediately said any company that is sanctioned by the United States better
continue to do business with Iran because if they don't we will sanction
them so the companies have to choose between violating their own country's
rules or violating the United States's rules what an interesting moment for
these corporations and guess what a number of them have already started
cutting their ties with Iran because they are companies that do enough
business in the United States that having the United States cut them off is
more costly than having their own countries cut them off but here's
something you shouldn't be sure of those are not happy campers
they are enraged these corporate leaders they're being squeezed and above all by
mr. Trump who is making them enemies both of him and of the United States
this is the bully in the neighborhood telling everybody that they have to
shape up the Europeans have declared again that in their view Iran has done
what it was asked to do they have no sanctions on Iran they don't agree with
the United States and they are very angry and one of the things those
companies are now doing is cutting back on trade and dealings with the United
States because it's too risky we don't know they're saying when the next
president or the next economic problem for mr. Trump will lead him to do what
else to us doing business with the United States is not safe is not
profitable the long-term effects of isolating the United States in this way
or to make every American not caught up in phony patriotism think long and hard
about where this country is going and what it means and again another story
about how capitalism works in ways that are producing as in the case of mr.
Trump and Iran all kinds of consequences that are scary to contemplate this time
we're dealing again with the Monsanto chemical company but now Monsanto is no
longer an independent company because it was bought out by the german bayer
company some of you are aware of bayer because of the aspirin that is
associated with its name recently bayer purchased 462 and a half billion dollars
the Monsanto Chemical Company and one of the products of Monsanto that it's most
famous for is the chemical sprayed on crops that's called roundup very widely
used well roundup has been accused by countless
scientists across many countries of being a carcinogen causing cancer and
few weeks ago in California the trial brought by a cancer victim Dewayne
Johnson was settled by a jury that awarded him me still alive although
terminally ill with cancer 389 million dollars because the jury was persuaded
that roundup the chemical produced by Monsanto basically caused his cancer now
I am NOT a scientist and I don't claim to know the truth or not truth of what
is or isn't cat cancer-causing but I know this Monsanto and buyer who keep
pushing this do it because it's profitable and the people who are
opposed do it because they fear our health is at stake if I'm gonna make a
mistake I'd rather err on the side of the health than the ER on the side of
making profit for one company at the cost of who knows are
many people so unless and until we can figure out a neutral really scientific
way of doing it which I'm sure governments could do I want to err on
the side of preventing this capitalism works the other way it puts the
incentive and the profits in the hands of people like Monsanto who have been
producing roundup for years while people said it made for cancer my last update
for today that we'll have time from is one of those head shakers it has to do
with the state of Louisiana politicians in Louisiana a week or two ago made a
interesting decision that they are terribly proud of they decided to punish
two banks Bank of America and Citibank why they're not gonna do business of a
certain sort with them they're not going to let them be part of their pension
investment process and why they announced with great pride that these
two banks have been cutting back on the loans they make to companies that
produce assault rifles and other deadly weapons it's part of the bank's
accommodating to the upswing of opinion in America that they Artin to be the
easy access to these kinds of weapons so the legislature in Louisiana is
punishing those banks here's what I want all of us to think about those are the
same banks that over the last several years have been found to be legally and
ethically compromised I'm being very polite here they engaged in money
laundering in manipulating exchange rates of currencies in manipulating the
interest rates we all have to pay in abusing the fees that banks can charge
and abusing the mortgage lending process that led to the crash of 2008 through
all the crimes they committed through all the unethical acts they performed
the legislature of Louisiana had nothing to say
they didn't punish them that's not a problem
but when they wouldn't lend to assault rifle producers well then the
legislature of Louisiana rose up yeah it's unbelievable isn't it well when a
system spins out of control these are the kinds of stories that become the
norm in this society well we've come to the end of the first half of the show
but before we meet today's guests I want to remind you to follow us on Facebook
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thank you stay with us we'll be right back welcome back friends to the second
half of economic update I am very pleased very pleased to bring to the
audience and to all of you Troy Wolcott he is a young man as you can see in a
moment born and raised in Brooklyn New York he has worked for the spectrum
cable company for 20 years and at the time of the strike which were going to
be talking about he served as a survey technician and he's also local three
shop steward for the company welcome to the program Troy thank you for having me
Jeff glad to let's start by telling our
audience what cable what spectrum cable is what puts you on strike what the
issues are here that have brought this many people into this situation
well charter spectrum is the cable company I provide service for a
franchise area in New York City well throughout the state boat we've Dillman
new york city so but prior to that it was Time Warner Cable who controlled the
same service for that area now it came to a point when Time Warner Cable began
to present itself for sale as opposed to I believe more served in the covet
customer we started to see changes in the company around that time things
started to go away from customer service and a little bit more detrimental the
technicians and then it came to the point where spectrum came in and they
just turned to another level so a prospecting coming in we had like a
senior staff some of the older people that taught us how to work they looked
and removed them from their places and put them from Foreman to a lower level
and hired new people coming into the company and put them as supervisory
roles over them demoed them all at the same time they began to go away from the
customer complaints and not really pay attention to what they were complaining
about but start to just go after what numbers they get fixed to make the
numbers look good and none of us to understand why and then it came to the
point where we had to sit down to negotiate for a contract we came to what
we thought was a terms for a contract but it seems like
spectrum turned around and changed the terms as soon as we as soon as we left
the room and then they then looked to how would I say it do the same thing to
the city so the terms that they agreed with for the merger agreement that
allowed them to come in New York City they began to renege on dough so we
started to see what the company was all about and then it came to a point when
we are when we couldn't come to an agreement again they looked to take away
our benefits from us retirement benefits and our medical benefits which is part
of our main structure of our union our benefit plan now we spent 40 years
sacrifice and instead of getting wages sacrificing to that benefit plan and
they came and told us basically we couldn't have it anymore we have no
reason other than they don't want us to have that particular thing once they did
that Nuno was a direct attack on the Union and that's about the time we went
on strike how many people are involved in this strike yeah 1,800 of us 1,800
technicians mostly like yourself all right okay so let me be the economist
for a minute nothing is more common common than to have one big company buy
out another big company and do it because they think they can get away
with what the old company maybe couldn't or didn't they're hotshots they're gonna
come in there and do everything and make the profits go above and they often go
to banks to borrow money promising that they'll be able to pay it back because
they're gonna squeeze more profits and then you are the sacrificial lamb to
make this all work out so tell me a little bit about what it's like how long
have you been on strike it's been 15 months now 15 months it seemed less no
strike so everybody has to go find another job to survive any way they can
I'm picking up peace bits and pieces wherever I can to try to make sure I can
get burned a lot of people are doing the same thing who have families and homes
and the American dreams that they were trying to have or achieved and now they
fear losing so it's very hard on a lot of a lot of people and a lot of families
but in a way they would have lost the American dream anyway because of the the
company was taken away what they would have needed to get it so
trying to find it find it this way because the other one was closed
bad catch-22 they're trying to take it away from you so you have to lose it to
fight to make sure you keep it so either way you're kind of stuck but either
stick to your principles to try to fight make sure you can maintain it for the
long term or you just kind of give up now so also what kind of a human being
will you look what are you looking at in the mirror
in the morning if you just let roll over and play dead I mean let me get
everything at your expense that's the hard part that keeps a lot of us going
because we can't sacrifice you know you have to go home and look at your kids so
you're gonna do for your paycheck for your kids today are you trying to get
your kids to school in college and make sure you provide for their future so
it's hard to look in the mirror and not think about that especially when it's
one of the worst things I remember that grabbed me the most as we sitting at the
bargaining table I think I think this was after about close to a year on
strike and we sat back down to try to come to terms and chief negotiator looks
at me and tells me I promised on my mother's grave you'll never get back the
retirement and medical plan for you and your family so when he gets to that
point is not not about negotiating anymore it's a it's like war right
correct so here's the question what do you say to the the audience of people
across this country listening to you watching you their feelings about their
own job situation which is also in jeopardy for millions they're looking
either they've already had what you're having or they call it coming in the
future in a way they have a reason to support you because if not if you win
it'll make it better for them and if you lose it'll make it worse for them what I
would tell them is don't accept it what these corporations our companies seem to
do is try to pick away from us piece by piece they pit us against each
other so we think we're not the same we fight against each other why they keep
taking away more and more and more from us and then because they do it one by
one we don't stick together but if we do this and back up they're gonna put us at
a low level and then they're just gonna find somebody else to come in and put
that at a lower level and alone you can't run never stops let's go to a
different job is just gonna start there so if we can't collectively get together
what I would say to the people out there is you have to take a stance and know
that it gets to a point where it has to be a living wage where people working 40
is out 40 hours a week should be able to get buy-in for five
for their family and shouldn't have to work two or three hours giving away all
the time of their life and not be able to support their self when they just
want to put in an honest day's work yeah all right let me turn to a
different issue cuz when I first started paying attention to what you were doing
I got really excited by something you're doing that a lot of other people in your
situation haven't done or at least I haven't done it yet and that is to take
it further to say to themselves it's one thing to fight for the benefit program
and to hold on to our wages and so forth but there's a kind of a wonderful
further that you've taken it that I want people to know about you've come up your
Union your your group with an idea of changing the whole way that cable is
provided as a service to the city of New York and I think part of New Jersey also
current cover which is to do it as a different kind of company a company
that's not run by a tiny group of executives working for the shareholders
whoever they are but instead is a community if you like a democratically
run community of the majority of people who work here who make it well what lack
of a better term a workers coop tell us about what that's going what's going on
what is in your mind what are you proposing what are you hoping to see
well we came up with the coop first we cuz we as we go through this fight we're
struggling trying to come up with anything we do to try to survive and get
by so the first idea we had is if this company is that bad it might be the
point where they're not looking to help this city or anybody else they have to
leave hopefully another company will come in and buy it and we've had name
changes on the door before we're still here with the workers but you used to be
called Time Warner Cable I want a cable and before that but separate companies
before Time Warner so so this is like musical chairs here we always stay the
name on the door changes yeah so I said okay let's get the next company in here
maybe they'll do better for the city when staff didn't have a materialized I
started looking to it and I saw some cities like in Tennessee Chattanooga
where the municipality took on the cable company now imagine all that money being
an influx and providing money for the city to
better itself we presented that idea to 11 rather than to some corporation
located far away correct so we presented that idea to the city
but again no traction no one seemed to take on wanted to take on and bring the
responsibility so I think it's a myself I don't know if you ever watch the show
survivor and sometimes you look at it and you see um there's a group of people
and then there's one person controlling everybody and for some reason they won't
kick this one guy off so I'm sitting there I'm like it's 1800 of us that have
40 years of experience there's this five guys in the room that control everything
that doing bad I was like why do we need these five guys right so I said okay you
know what why don't the workers that have put built the system and put it
together combined with the customers who are pissed off at this company for
coming in and telling them immediately that we're gonna raise your prices and
we're gonna amount we raise the prices of makeup for any customers we lose why
don't we get together and get rid of this bad apple we don't like and work
together and now we can create a system where the cable company works for the
customers it works for the workers and we can actually give back and now even
help this city more so once I came up with that idea I started doing research
we got together with some of the people that were armed
collectively had the same idea and started trying to work towards what we
found what I found out was a worker cooperative and that's when that that's
when that was born and we started work on it from there not so it's just it's
it's exciting for me because worker coops is something that I believe in I
think it's the wave of the future I think what you're experiencing in your
particular industry is being felt with different you know different details
across the board in factories offices and school stores all across the country
and that all very often it will be solved if and when the logical two
groups have to get together the customers who do rely on it and the
workers who produce it all right and that they're the ones who care about the
quality of the work process and the output and they don't have to have
profits to be made they have jobs to be protected services to be provided to
people and we don't need the profit system especially when it causes people
to be treated the way you have by a tiny group of people trying to make more
profit I love this story they're coming in and cutting your benefits while they
jack up prices they're making the customer and
the worker lose for them correct I believe the CEO of the company came in
cut looked to cut our benefits but here's a pension plan was still intact
gave himself a raise from 16 to a hundred million dollars a year and then
the company because of tax cuts would I think they bought at nine points three
billion extra dollars in profit so they make it money hand over fist but then
they let could take away from the workers and it's just just not just us I
speak to everybody every company they're losing their pensions they're having to
work more hours taking more workload and then what benefit is it to them besides
more time out of their lives and time is the only thing you really want to spend
with your family so now why do I have to put this middleman in there who's
continually trying to take from me when I could just cut you out and I'm the
customer I want to buy we're the main source the workers want to work and we
can actually balance out and live a life where you could put an honest day's work
and come home and actually take your family on vacation one CEO just do the
things that you want work that you're working for you know let me ask you a
question I go around the country talking like this and people are nodding but
you're your person was actually doing it you're actually out there explaining and
I think at least I have the experience when I explain it people have one of
those aha moments you know gone oh yeah are you having that tooth is this idea
catching on absolu members and the people you talk to
absolutely and cuz I came to think about like I'm not a business person I don't
know economics so it seemed very far-fetched for me to even think of this
plan but I was like if I can't do it I can always find somebody who can help me
do it and why not obtain it is is the heaven
as possible and then once the I dig it out there started seeing other things
came in I saw somebody put a post the other day about this is a great idea
what if all the trade workers were to get together and form one big
construction union where any time work had to get bid on because under bid
everybody we know to work better than anybody we're safer than anybody and
then we would knock anybody else out of the water we I said oh my goodness
amazing I'm thinking about basic is a basic idea I'm thinking about the farm
workers who are struggling right now because they have to fight this trade
war that if I enforce imagine if all the farm workers were to get together for me
operative who do you think is gonna be able to go in from the land better than
them if they decided you know what we're cutting out the middleman and we decide
I mean it's it's a it's a great idea and none of us all of us are just workers we
if we had a stable environment where we could work and make the income we make
we wouldn't be looking for this but because they're cutting on us so badly
maybe it's time to come together form a different option where we could set the
standard for ourselves beautifully said look I want to thank you very much for
joining us and I want to assure you that those of us that are professional
economists we want to work on this project if you build it from the workers
up all the specialists you'll ever need to help you we're just waiting we much
rather work for this then work for those big companies that are screwing not just
you but us too when they get a chance thank you thank you very much thank you
appreciate it and thank you all for joining us this discussion and
conversation will be continued on patreon.com slash economic update join
us there and join us again next week for another version another edition of
economic update
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