The Speech Some Democratic or Progressive Leader Could Make and Start the Change
What would be in such a speech? First, they should skip the long list of what’s wrong and the horrible things happening. Go directly to stating what they would do if they had enough voters. Things like:
- Implement automatic industry-wide collective bargaining, as it is in Germany and still in a few U.S. industries, giving employees the leverage to get what their work is really worth.
- Minimum hours guarantee. If the employer later finds they don’t need you for as many hours as they said, that’s on them. You still get paid for the hours you agreed to work.
- Fixed schedule. If you’re hired for the day shift, you can’t be switched to the evening shift, or not without compensation.
- A very aggressive prosecution program against wage theft.
- Automation compensation. To whatever extent a company gets richer because automation reduces work, the employees get to share in that increase. As far as possible, rather than laying off workers, keep the same workers but for fewer hours but for the same pay.
Note that the items above are not social programs. Government help is needed and will be needed on some issues, like child care, but the core push is to have the rules of the economic game refocused on giving people what they should be getting in the first place, but aren’t. Social-program help is good where appropriate, but enforcing that people get what their work is already worth is much more solid and much more powerful.
Note also that these items are not just goals, like, “Young people should not go broke or in debt because they want to go to college or a trade school.” (Senator Bernie Sanders at the recent Fight Oligarchy tour.) A noble goal, but just a wish, dependent on budgets and other factors. The items listed above are more in the realm of real steps that could be done in short order, and are about people getting their proper share of the wealth they are already creating.
Another item a leader can declare is about messaging. It’s something they could push from within a progressive White House, from the bully pulpit: A call on media outlets to give an alternative to the daily stock market report that comes with almost every newscast. Yes, people are somewhat affected by the stock market if they have a retirement account, but the subtext is, this economy is not about you. It’s about the big investors. But imagine a few seconds every day on some people-news as well. There are lots of people-centered numbers that could be reported too. Such as, has the level of employee confidence in being able to find better jobs changed? Has the employee share of national income changed, how the pie is sliced? How are we doing on the percentage of people with some preparation for retirement? What’s an initial estimate on the amount of wealth the work of all workers has added to the nation today?
Can a president influence media this way? Well, we’re learning a president can intimidate law firms and colleges and make wealthy donors kiss the ring. I’d bet an ethical, but bold, leader could get lots of media to add this little piece to their reporting.
All of these steps and a hundred similar ones need to be pushed with an emphasis on functioning within the constitution, and on being fiercely inclusive of all. Yes such steps fall short of some social goals, such as DEI. But you get these kind of leaders in power, and the people themselves in turn more empowered, and people feeling more economically secure, and you have a country in a condition much more open to dealing with the many other issues it needs to.
These steps are radical, because radical change is needed and wanted, but they’re also centerist. They apply to everyone. Democrats who feel the need is to be more progressive, and ones who want to be more centerist, should both be able to get behind these.
Finally that leader needs to say, “I don’t have the votes for this. We leaders don’t have the votes for this. But this is about doing things. Here’s your part, what you can do. Let your commitment to vote for these leaders and these changes be know. Get everyone you can to join you. The popular vote was lost by less than 2%. For now we’ll resist in every way we can until, in a year and a half at the Congressional elections, we start the big changes. Then complete that by your votes regaining the next White House and a new wave of daily news of big changes will start flowing. A very different kind of big changes. Ones that are for you.”
