Striking Kellogg workers in Battle Creek, Michigan, in December. Photograph: Seth Herald/AFP/Getty Images
Our new year’s resolution for 2022: to rise up and
fight back
Corporate greed and class warfare are crushing working people. No one is going to save us – we need to rise up together
As we begin the year 2022, in these unprecedented
times, I know it’s easy to give in to despair.
We are facing a raging pandemic with seemingly no
end in sight. We are rapidly moving toward oligarchy and while income and
wealth inequality grows, millions struggle to obtain the basic necessities of
life. We have a dysfunctional healthcare system with more than 84 million
uninsured or underinsured and nearly one out of four unable to afford
prescription drugs. Climate change is ravaging the planet and systemic racism
and other forms of bigotry continue to eat away at the fabric of our society.
We have a corrupt political system in which corporate money buys elections and
a mainstream media that largely ignores the pain that ordinary people experience.
And, in the midst of all this, Republicans across
the country are working overtime trying to undermine democracy by making it
harder for people of color, young people and those who oppose them to vote in
our next elections.
In other words, the challenges we face are enormous
and it is easy to understand why many may fall into depression and cynicism.
This is a state of mind, however, that we must resist – not only for ourselves
but for our kids and future generations. The stakes are just too high. Despair
is not an option. We must stand up and fight back.
Here is some good news: working people all over the country are taking
on corporate greed and they are winning
And here is some very good news. While the
corporate-owned media may not be actively reporting it, working people all over
the country, with extraordinary courage and determination, are taking on
corporate greed, and they are winning.
Workers at John Deere waged their first strike in
more than three decades, stayed on the picket lines and eventually won a
contract with strong wage increases, a ratification bonus and improved health
insurance.
Striking nurses in Buffalo won raises that moved
all workers to at least $15 an hour and a reduction in staff shortages. These
nurses fought not only for themselves, but their patients – and they won.
Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers won a major
victory after rejecting a contract that would have given new workers lower
wages and benefits.
Nabisco workers, struggling against forced
overtime, inadequate wages and pensions, a two-tier health system and the
outsourcing of jobs, went on strike and won. Once again we saw workers fighting
not just for themselves, but for the next generation of workers.
More than 1,400 Kellogg’s workers in Michigan, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Nebraska went on strike for months and won, fighting back against a plan to give new workers lower wages and benefits.
Starbucks employees in upstate New York, for the
very first time, organized a union shop in a fight against a giant corporation
that did just about everything it could to stop them.
Those are just some of the inspiring efforts that
took place last year. Let me tell you about what’s happening right now as
workers continue to stand up to some of the most powerful corporate interests
in the country.
In Huntington, West Virginia, 450 steelworkers at
the Special Metals company have been engaged in a major strike for almost 100
days. Special Metals is a profitable company owned by Warren Buffett’s
Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett, of course, is one of the richest people in the
world, with wealth of over $109bn.
While Special Metals made $1.5bn in profits last
year and Mr Buffett became over $40bn richer during the pandemic, executives at
this company offered workers an outrageous and insulting contract that includes
a zero pay increase for this year, and a totally unacceptable 1% pay raise next
year, while quadrupling healthcare premiums and reducing vacation time.
Sadly, the corporate greed that is going on in West Virginia is not an aberration. In Santa Fe Springs, California, about 100 bakery workers, who make cakes for Baskin Robbins, Safeway and Cold Stone Creamery, are on strike against the appropriately named Rich Products Corporation at the Jon Donaire Desserts production plant. About 75% of these employees are Latina women who are often forced into mandatory overtime with little to no notice and sometimes work up to 16 hours a day.
This is a company that made $4bn in revenue last
year. During the pandemic, Bob Rich, the majority owner of Rich Products,
increased his wealth by more than $2bn. While the workers he employs barely
make more than California’s minimum wage, Mr Rich currently has a net worth of
more than $7.5bn. Yet, despite his billions in wealth, the “best and final
offer” Mr Rich has put on the table for his workers is an insulting $1-an-hour
wage increase. That is pathetic.
But it’s also not unusual in the world of corporate
greed. In Brookwood, Alabama, about 1,100 workers at Warrior Met Coal have been
on strike since April. Just like the bakery workers in California and the
steelworkers in West Virginia, these are workers who also have worked as many
as seven days a week and up to 16 hours per day.
In 2016, under great pressure to keep the company afloat and keep jobs in their community, these coalminers agreed to a $6-an-hour pay cut – more than 20% of their average salary – and a substantial reduction in their healthcare and retirement benefits as part of a restructuring deal made by Wall Street vulture funds like Blackstone and Apollo.
Meanwhile, the executives at Warrior Met and their
Wall Street investors made out like bandits. Since 2017, Warrior Met has
rewarded $1.4bn in dividends to its wealthy shareholders while handing out
bonuses of up to $35,000 to its executives. Yet, while the company has returned
to profitability, Warrior Met has offered its workers a measly $1.50 raise over
5 years and has refused to restore the healthcare and pension benefits that
were taken away.
The struggles that these workers are experiencing
are not unique. There are millions of other Americans in exactly the same
position – people who have to fight tooth-and-nail against wealthy and powerful
corporate interests for decent wages, healthcare, pensions and safe working
conditions. And let’s be clear. Class warfare in this country is intensifying.
Greed is on the rise.
The greatest weapon our opponents have is their ability to create a
culture that makes us feel hopeless and diminishes the strength of solidarity
What history has always taught us is that real
change never takes place from the top on down. It is always occurs from the
bottom on up. That is the history of the labor movement, the civil rights
movement, the women’s movement, the environmental movement and the gay rights
movement. That is the history of every effort that has brought about
transformational change in our society.
And that is the struggle we must intensify today. At a time when the demagogues want to divide us up based on the color of our skin, where we were born, our religion or our sexual orientation, we must do exactly the opposite. We must bring people together around a progressive agenda. We must educate, organize and build an unstoppable grassroots movement that helps create the kind of nation we know we can become. One that is based on the principles of justice and compassion, not greed and oligarchy.
The greatest weapon our opponents have is not just
their unlimited wealth and power. It is their ability to create a culture that
makes us feel weak and hopeless and diminishes the strength of human
solidarity.
And here is our new year’s resolution. Like the
thousands of workers who stood up and fought courageously in 2021, we will do
the same. No one individual is going to save us. We must rise up together.
Happy new year.
- Bernie Sanders is a US senator and the chair
of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermon
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