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Spotlight: Labor and Economic News Across the Country
Responsibly Rich
They’re fighting for a living wage, pay freezes for corporate CEOs and a tax system that’s fair to lower-income Americans.
Nope, it’s not your union talking — though CWA won’t argue their points.
Those are the voices of hundreds of American millionaires who care about economic injustice and are trying to do something about it through an organization they call Responsible Wealth.
Their major campaign now is aimed at the Bush administration’s push to repeal the estate tax, which affects less than 2 percent of the country’s wealthiest families. “My wealth is not only a product of my own hard work. It also resulted from a strong economy and lots of public investment in me and others,” businessman Martin Rothenberg says. “I hope taxes on my estate will help fund the kind of programs that benefited me and others from humble backgrounds — a good education, money for research and targeted investment in poor communities.”
Investor Warren Buffet, media mogul Ted Turner and Bill Gates Sr. — who heads his son’s billion-dollar foundation — are among America’s most famous millionaires who support a continued estate tax.
Responsible Wealth members also want corporations to be more accountable by freezing executive pay in times of layoffs and linking their salaries to customer and employee satisfaction. And they’ve recently published what they call a “myth-busting” report on why a living wage for workers is good for business. It’s titled “Choosing the High Road.”
The report and the millionaires’ other surprising views are available at www.responsiblewealth.org.
Capt. Cheney: "Union" Leader
It’s a bit of family lore that would make any worker proud. But for an oil executive-turned-vice president — in an administration that’s making no secret of its enmity toward labor — it may be a skeleton in the closet.
As the story goes, as told in The Washington Post recently, one of Vice President Dick Cheney’s great-grandfathers was an Army captain court-martialed during the Civil War.
What was Samuel Fletcher Cheney’s crime? According to a hand-written transcript of his trial, unearthed from the National Archives, Capt. Cheney’s commander asked him why his men weren’t destroying a southern railroad as ordered.
“My men have not had their supper and I will be damned if they work until they get their supper,” Cheney said, the Union captain sounding every bit the union leader.
Cheney was found guilty of “conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline,” and sentenced to receive a public reprimand, the Post reported.
Let’s hope he took it as a badge of honor. He could teach his great-grandson a thing or two about standing up for those who do the work.
They’re fighting for a living wage, pay freezes for corporate CEOs and a tax system that’s fair to lower-income Americans.
Nope, it’s not your union talking — though CWA won’t argue their points.
Those are the voices of hundreds of American millionaires who care about economic injustice and are trying to do something about it through an organization they call Responsible Wealth.
Their major campaign now is aimed at the Bush administration’s push to repeal the estate tax, which affects less than 2 percent of the country’s wealthiest families. “My wealth is not only a product of my own hard work. It also resulted from a strong economy and lots of public investment in me and others,” businessman Martin Rothenberg says. “I hope taxes on my estate will help fund the kind of programs that benefited me and others from humble backgrounds — a good education, money for research and targeted investment in poor communities.”
Investor Warren Buffet, media mogul Ted Turner and Bill Gates Sr. — who heads his son’s billion-dollar foundation — are among America’s most famous millionaires who support a continued estate tax.
Responsible Wealth members also want corporations to be more accountable by freezing executive pay in times of layoffs and linking their salaries to customer and employee satisfaction. And they’ve recently published what they call a “myth-busting” report on why a living wage for workers is good for business. It’s titled “Choosing the High Road.”
The report and the millionaires’ other surprising views are available at www.responsiblewealth.org.
Capt. Cheney: "Union" Leader
It’s a bit of family lore that would make any worker proud. But for an oil executive-turned-vice president — in an administration that’s making no secret of its enmity toward labor — it may be a skeleton in the closet.
As the story goes, as told in The Washington Post recently, one of Vice President Dick Cheney’s great-grandfathers was an Army captain court-martialed during the Civil War.
What was Samuel Fletcher Cheney’s crime? According to a hand-written transcript of his trial, unearthed from the National Archives, Capt. Cheney’s commander asked him why his men weren’t destroying a southern railroad as ordered.
“My men have not had their supper and I will be damned if they work until they get their supper,” Cheney said, the Union captain sounding every bit the union leader.
Cheney was found guilty of “conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline,” and sentenced to receive a public reprimand, the Post reported.
Let’s hope he took it as a badge of honor. He could teach his great-grandson a thing or two about standing up for those who do the work.