In My Opinion: How a Few Votes Impact Millions

On the eve of the biggest jump in the jobless rate in six years, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to give the president “fast track” trade authority, in effect assuring more NAFTA-style trade agreements without worker or environmental protections.

NAFTA, along with other trade initiatives set by the World Trade Organization, cost the United States 3 million jobs between 1994 and 2000, a major study by the Economic Policy Institute shows. The loss of those high-paying manufacturing jobs was partially masked by a booming economy and growth in high-tech and service sector jobs

Said the authors of the EPI report: “Now that we’re in a slowdown and the rest of the economy is no longer generating enough jobs to take up the slack, these trade-induced job losses will magnify the downward pressure.”

Indeed, since the current recession began last March, at least 1.2 million Americans have lost their jobs — a trend that has accelerated since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. For November, the unemployment rolls grew by another 331,000 to a rate of 5.7 percent, and analysts are predicting the rate will surge well above 6 percent in coming months.

When it came to voting on fast track, House members were well aware of polls showing that an overwhelming majority of Americans believe fast track trade authority will lead to the destruction of more good jobs. Passage of fast track looked doubtful at first, but GOP leaders Dick Armey and Tom DeLay and corporate lobbyists pressed the White House to twist more arms and hand out more favors to recalcitrant Republicans and a few Democrats.

The resulting vote was 215-214. That suggests how close is the margin between pro-worker and pro-business forces in the House when the chips are down.

It was also by a narrow 216-214 vote that the House earlier excluded working families from virtually any relief in its $212 billion economic “stimulus” package. That bill, using the recession and the aftermath of the Sept. 11 tragedy as an excuse, is basically a tax-cut giveaway to corporations and the richest 1 percent of individuals.

As I write this, senators are currently wrangling over a stimulus package after Republicans scuttled a bill that would have provided emergency relief to laid off workers in the form of extended eligibility and duration of unemployment benefits along with a 75 percent subsidy to allow laid-off workers to maintain health insurance coverage under a special federal program. Republican leaders with White House support used parliamentary procedures to require a “super-majority” of 60 votes to pass, in effect killing a bill that had 51-47 support.

At CWA News press time, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle was holding the line to make sure help for laid off workers would be part of any stimulus bill while Republicans were pressing for an even more bloated tax cut package for the rich than the House version.

Meanwhile, as layoffs continue, some 60 percent of unemployed workers are not even eligible for jobless benefits and many of those laid off right after Sept. 11 are going to run out of benefits before there is any economic rebound.

And it is a shocking fact that 6 million Americans are projected to lose their health coverage in 2001 and 2002 largely due to the recession, according to the independent National Coalition on Health Care. That would take the already too-high number of people without health coverage to 45 million next year.

The fallout from Sept. 11 in terms of human misery is climbing, and yet as we approach the end of the year, our elected leaders in Washington have done nothing to aid the millions of families indirectly affected — many of whom will face desperate hardship without a helping hand.

It is just the margin of a handful of votes in both houses that allows anti-worker lawmakers to stymie relief for workers, but they continue to have the edge to deliver for the powerful corporate lobbies at the expense of the rest of us.

Riding high, they even had the nerve to take a slap at the police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel who have emerged as national heroes. Recently Senator Daschle pressed an amendment that would have extended collective bargaining rights to emergency service workers nationwide, where presently 18 states prohibit their organizing. In a procedural move that required 60 votes for passage, Senate Republicans mustered 44 votes to block the bill. Even though the bill outlawed strikes, a GOP memo stated, insultingly, that it “could lead to firefighter and police strikes during a terrorist attack.”

This November, the entire House of Representatives and one third of the Senate will be up for reelection. We must make sure there is a reckoning.