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
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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
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