Pay = Productivity (Right?)

Dear Madame L,

Why do you think the Republican Party is trying so hard to destroy workers' collective bargaining rights? I gather this is happening in every state that elected Republicans to governorships and legislatures in 2010.

Sincerely,

A Middle-Class Worker

Dear Worker,

Madame L thinks the Republican Party is trying to keep rich people rich, and working people in their places.

Those newly elected Republicans got into office with the help of rich individuals and corporations whose agenda includes just that, staying rich at whatever cost. The Supreme Court (as Jeff has pointed out) has helped by ruling that corporations are just like individuals and can contribute without restriction to those candidates they support, which of course means those candidates who will support them.

University of California professor Robert Reich calls this "the GOP's war on workers" and points out that it is going to destroy our economy. 

In the U.S. today, the  top 1 percent of households gets about 20 percent of our total income; in the 1970s these rich people got "only" 9 percent of total income. (In contrast, in Germany, the top 1 percent still gets 11 percent, the same as 40 years ago.) The German economy is stronger, and unemployment there is only about 6.1 percent.

So, in the U.S, the rich are getting richer. 

The rest of us? Losing our jobs, losing our homes, losing our power at the ballot box.

Reich concludes, "The only way back toward sustained growth and prosperity in the United States is to remake the basic bargain linking pay to productivity. This would give the American middle class the purchasing power they need to keep the economy going."

Madame L agrees and hopes you not only agree but write your state and federal representatives to inform them that you reject their attempts to disenfranchise and impoverish you.

Sincerely,

Madame L