| Photo by Stephen Harlan on Unsplash
Part XXII of the “Back-to-Basics Governance” Series
Yesterday, school bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and other non-teaching employees began a 3-day labor strike in the second-biggest school district in the United States. Many of the teachers joined the strike. The school employees demand a 30% wage raise, as they say, that their average pay is only $25-K per year. It is below the poverty level in Los Angeles County.
The labor strike reminds this journalist of what Max V. Soliven wrote as the dean and doyen of Filipino columnists before he died. Mr. Soliven said, “it is better to be poor in a poor country than a poor in a rich country.”
The labor strike in the Los Angeles School District highlights what is wrong with governance in the United States. The federal and state governments fail to do back-to-basics practices. The cost of living is so high because the United States now produces fewer consumer products and food items. Rent increases yearly because of the fewer apartment units available to the working class, many of whom cannot afford to buy their own houses in installments. It is mainly because of the law of supply and demand. And to compound the economic problem, the big oil and pharmaceutical industries are cartels accused of price gouging by the public. And yet the cartel leaders are not criminally prosecuted for their illegal-profiteering practices.
The United States is the biggest economy in the world, but it imports nearly 95% of the seafood products Americans consume yearly. Yet the country has the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.
“The cost of living is so high because the United States now produces fewer consumer products and food items. Rent increases yearly because of the fewer apartment units available to the working class, many of whom cannot afford to buy their own houses in installments.”
Because labor rates are continually rising in the United States, labor demands for higher wages result from a vicious cycle of less production since jobs are exported abroad due to lower wages of foreign workers. Many American manufacturers also enter into joint ventures with foreign countries to produce many consumer items designed in the United States.
Yes, the U.S. Congress refuses — mainly when one or both chambers are controlled by Republican politicians — to address immigration reform and introduce laws for pathways to citizenship. It is said that there are many vacancies in the agricultural sector, car washes, meat-packing plants, and even in healthcare facilities. Why? Because many American-born citizens refuse to work in jobs requiring manual work.
It is also hard to comprehend why American governmental and private leaders still practice cultural, religious, sexual orientation, and racial biases. These biases and discrimination contribute to lower socioeconomic gains in the country.
This column has been saying it is time to replace “Crony Capitalism” with “Cooperative Capitalism.” The United States and other developed countries must have more “cooperative economics.” It is now necessary to turn labor unions into labor co-ops, banks into credit unions, and make willing employees, consumers, and medical patients stakeholders. Yes, stakeholders must be given the right to elect the directors and decision-makers of Corporate America. And also the right to curtail top corporate executives’ excessive compensation and bonuses.
