Inequality Teach In at UCBerkely

Earlier this month the UC Berkeley Labor Center assembled an all star cast of economists and labor leaders to address what may well be our most pressing political and economic issue, growing inequality. The speakers included former Labor Secratary Robert Reich, California Labor Federation President Art Pulaski UC Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Sylvia Allegretto, Stephanie Luce of CUNY (City University of New York), Paul Pierson of the UC Berkeley Political Science department, Cindy Chavez of the South Bay Labor Council and UC Bekeley student leader Charles Eaton.

All the speakers had interesting perspectives on the issue. Many thanked Emmanuel Saez for his detailed research on the growing concentration of wealth. Sylvia Allegretto commented on  how the growing gap has been such a glaring problem over that past few decades that its incredible that the issue wasn't a focus years ago.

Paul Pierson who co-authored a highly acclaimed book on inequality "Winner Take All Politics" emphasized how progressives need to bring the issue to the upcoming electoral battles.He also showed data on how the upper one tenth of one percent walked away with the lions share of the wealth suggesting that we maybe rename the Occupy movement as the 99.9 percent.

Robert Reich the keynote speaker had much to say on the subject and suggested that we focus more on the shenanigans of corporate board rooms instead of the conservatives' obsession with our private bedrooms. Reich also has a new e-book, "Beyond Outrage,"  available online for the modest price of $3.99.

Labor leader Art Pulaski spoke of how labor was shifting from a collective bargaining role to more of a public policy role. He also spelled out some of the harsh realities of current workplace conditions and how corporate America is using every dirty trick in the book to avoid workplace unionization.

Cindy Chavez echoed the problems facing workers. She also talked about the need to get progressive leaders in decision making positions , something which reminded me of the co-determination laws in several European countries.

Stephanie Luce is a Living Wage specialists who detailed how essential having Living Wage ordinances and the need to expand Living Wages to cover more workers. She noted that had the minimum wage kept up with inflation since the 80's the minimum would be over $17 an hour.

Charlie Eaton a grad student and teacher assistant and active in the TA union spoke about the new student group  www.RefundCalifornia.org and the campaign to reverse the poverty of our education system by taking the haves and have mores of our wealthy state.

I enjoyed the conference and considered it a learning experience. If anything I would have added to the conference it would be more information of how the one percent got their excessive wealth, which often times comes from manipulating corporate governance where board members approve humongous CEO salaries in exchange  for plum board positions often paying $200,000 to $300,000 and more for position that required less than 100 hours of  actual work a year.

I worked on a beer truck one summer while in college where they had an expression, "one hand washes the other" referring to people  needing to work together. On American corporate boards one hand washes the other and they dry their hands on the rest of us.

I also would have featured a speaker to talk about how the problems the poor face by the added cost of living increases and the predatory finance practices which like compound interest, compounds the misery of the least among us.

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