State News Release

On Labor Day, McReynolds Calls for $10 Minimum Wage; Cap on CEO Salaries; Universal Health and Child Care; and Repeal of Taft-Hartley.

McReynolds for the U.S. Senate Media Release
http://mcreynoldsforsenate.org

September 06, 2004.

David McReynolds (212) 674-7268; (646) 942-7118
Labor Day 2004 Gloria Mattera (718) 369-2998 or (917) 886-4538
Howie Hawkins (315) 425-1019

On Labor Day, McReynolds Calls for $10 Minimum Wage; Cap on CEO Salaries; Universal Health and Child Care; and Repeal of Taft-Hartley

David McReynolds, the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, called today for: an increase in the minimum wage to $10 an hour; a constitutional amendment to guarantee a living wage job; strengthening of workers' rights,, including the right to unionize, starting with a repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act; a reduction in the work week to 32 hours; increase government support for employee ownership; enactment of a single-payer universal health care system; extending federal labor laws to protect farm workers; and, mandatory six week vacations for all workers.

"It is time to reverse the Democratic and Republican Party tradition of taxing the poor and middle class to pay for tax cuts and giveaways for the wealthy and large corporations. The United States leads the world's industrial democracies in income inequality, and the gap is greatest here in New York. We need to end corporate welfare; we need to make the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes; and we need to invest in sustainable, community- based, environmentally-friendly jobs that will put New Yorkers back to work in our inner city neighborhoods and upstate communities," stated McReynolds.

"In recent decades, Corporate America has systematically destroyed millions of decent paying jobs for working people. Politicians from both major parties have given hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare to their corporate campaign contributors while CEO's have awarded themselves with obscene compensation packages as they slash jobs for Americans workers through mergers, runaway investments, subcontracting and outsourcing to third world countries. We just witnessed the first so- called economic recovery that did not result in an increase of jobs - and many of the jobs that do exist pay poverty level wages or are part-time, without benefits such as health care.," stated Gloria Mattera, Co-Chair of the Green Party of New York.

"We can create millions of living-wage jobs through public investment in infrastructure restoration, public works and services, and conversion from nuclear and fossil fuels to solar-based renewable energy. It's time to stop pretending that another tax cut for the corporate rich is a jobs program, whether it's Bush's cuts in personal income taxes or Kerry's cuts in corporate income taxes. This decades-old trickle-down approach to job creation is a proven failure. Private jobs are good, but public jobs are necessary to create decent jobs for everyone willing and able to work," stated Howie Hawkins, a Green Party member in Syracuse running for Congress in the 25th district on the Peace and Justice line with the independent presidential ticket of Ralph Nader and Peter Miguel Camejo.

In calling for the Taft Hartley Act to be repealed, McReynolds noted that it makes it extremely difficult for employees to organize unions. The right to organize unions, bargain freely and strike when necessary is being destroyed by employers and their representatives in government. Today, nearly 1 out of 10 workers involved in union organizing drives is illegally fired by employers. That is why union membership is declining. And as union membership falls so do the wages of all working people, union and non-union alike. (The buying power of the average worker's wage has declined by 15 percent over the last 25 years.)

"Individuals who work should make enough to support their families, starting with providing them with decent housing, food and clothing. Instead, our politicians refuse to give the poorest workers a pay-raise while CEOs raid their companies to pad their own pockets. We need a minimum wage of at least $10 an hour while enacting a reasonable maximum wage as FDR proposed back in the '40s," added McReynolds. McReynolds supports federal legislation to cap excessive CEO salaries. He would also the true owners of American companies - mainly workers through their pension stock plans - to vote their shares, rather than the financial managers of such funds.

The average worker takes home takes home $517 per week, while the average CEO of the largest companies takes home $155,769 per week. The gap between workers and large companies is now greater than 300 to 1. In 1982 the gap was 42 to 1. Over 45 million workers - one in three - make under $10 an hour. The minimum wage traditionally allowed a full-time worker with two dependents to be at the federal poverty level. Today, the minimum wage falls more than three thousand dollars short of that goal - even though the poverty level itself is now way too low, failing to reflect the true costs of basic necessities such as housing.

The Greens also support federal legislation to make the workplace supportive of workers and their families. This includes measures such as paid family leave, flexible work schedule, and universal child and elder care. The Greens support Fair Trade rather than the free trade corporate globalization policies of the Democrats and Republicans and call for the repeal of NAFTA and the World Trade Organization.

McReynolds is an advocate of public ownership of key industries and services, such as energy and health care. "I definitely support the social ownership of the energy sector, especially oil. When profit matters above all else, then we end up with more pollution, more congestion and more death on the roads. The environment must come before the super-profits of the oil tycoons." Noting the 45 million Americans without health insurance, McReynolds also pointed to the need to make the pharmaceutical companies publicly owned. "The research performed by the drug companies is heavily subsidized by the taxpayer, but we have no say in what drugs are developed or how they are marketed. Drug company profits are driving up health care costs for everyone."

The Green Party is committed to ecology, grassroots democracy, nonviolence and social and economic justice. Nationally the Green Party has nominated David Cobb for President.