Omaha World Herald Runs Op Ed from John Ackers of American Income Life

http://employeefreechoice.typepad.com/ne/2009/04/omaha-world-herald-runs-op-ed-from-john-ackers-of-american-income-life.html


Common-sense Measure can help ensure fair wages

by John Ackers

As a small business owner, I appreciate the value of hard work and a job well done. That’s what the American Dream is about and that’s why I love what I do.

But let’s be honest. That dream is slipping further out of reach for millions of working people in this country. And when our economy isn’t working – when workers can’t afford to consume the products that they’re producing – businesses like mine suffer too.

For far too long, we have had to live with an economic policy that rewarded wealth for its own sake, where cheaters made off with millions and the rest of us had to suffer the consequences. How else could it be that workers have become far more productive over the last twenty years while their wages stayed flat? That’s not fair, and it’s not right.

That’s also why I support the Employee Free Choice Act – a common sense piece of legislation that will let workers and employers come together around the bargaining table to negotiate a fair wage.

To be sure, I’m as worried as any small business owner about juggling all the requirements of a successful business – paying overhead, covering expenses, dealing with health care costs, securing credit and staying in the black.

But instead of treating our employees as a cost to be minimized, I see them as an asset to be valued. We wouldn’t be in business without their time and effort. It makes no difference to me whether our employees want to form a union – that should be their choice, not mine. And that’s exactly what the Employee Free Choice Act is designed to do.

It will create the incentives for managers and workers to sit down at the table and negotiate a fair wage. Collective bargaining is the best way to find a stable common ground – one that meets the workers’ needs and keeps the company running well. I know, because I’ve seen it work everyday.

Union workers are far more likely to earn a livable wage, have health care and a pension.
When working people make enough to sustain their family, stay healthy and send their kids to school, that helps all of us.

I’ve read about the corporate CEOs that are pouring millions of dollars into a campaign to attack this legislation, claiming that it will hurt the economy. Of course, a lot of those guys are the same ones who drove our economy to the breaking point with their own reckless behavior. Maybe I don’t share their perspective because I don’t make 350 times the wages of one of my employees.

No matter how these CEOs try to dice that sort of inequality, they can’t escape the greed that lies at the heart of the mess they have made. It’s the flawed idea that we should amass short-term gains by any means necessary, no matter who gets hurt. If we have learned anything from this crisis, it’s that greed doesn’t just hurt workers, it’s downright bad for business.

We know that the best way to keep our business profitable is to promote long-term growth. When our employees are happy and our customers are satisfied, I can be certain that we’ve got a sustainable formula for success.

As President Obama has said, we can’t rebuild the middle class if working people don’t have the freedom to organize and bargain collectively for better wages and benefits. And businesses won’t prosper if the middle class keeps shrinking.

We need to put a stop to the idea that we can prop up the middle class with credit cards and artificial housing bubbles. We need to return to a system that values hard work, because that’s the source of true prosperity. Let’s pass the Employee Free Choice Act, so we can get this economy working for all of us.