US Worker Protection

PUA Position Statement

Note: Currently, Position Statements have been drafted by the PUA Staff as an initial starting point. However, in the future, PUA Position Statements will be created with the direct input of the majority of PUA Card Carrying Members (public voters) and it will reflect the majority opinion. Therefore, your input as a PUA Member can change, often dramatically, the PUA Position Statements in the near and distant future so if you do not see your ideal opinion reflected here, remember, you can work to change it--the PUA is ruled by majority vote.

There are two major areas of worker focus in the US: low income workers, and middleclass workers. The former typically wish to aspire to the latter and the latter are the true mechanism that support the robust American economy with its large, discretionary income consumerism power--but that power is dieing!

Wages in the US have fallen in terms of spending power since the early 1970s and are continuing to take hits as our labor markets swell with cheaper foreign labor, among other things. Low wage workers are finding themselves without jobs and community resources as illegal aliens have swamped in and usurp them at unlivable lower-wage levels in many industries--some in once high paying job markets, such as construction, oil rigging, film making production, and more. Meanwhile, many illegal aliens and legal foreign workers have migrated into traditional high paying job markets, such as prevailing wage jobs with the federal government or its contractors and have gutted the American worker from many middleclass job markets, again, via the devaluing of wages through excess and illegal worker competition. 

As American workers eventually find jobs, they also find they are being paid much less in their new jobs and therefore less able to provide for their families, often having to take on two or even three jobs to sustain their previous standard of living.

The PUA believes this issue largely rest with the US government, that businesses will do whatever they can get away with---when government lessens its protections for American workers, then American workers suffer--it's been a 34 year run against the American worker and now it's time for the pendulum to swing back. 

Unfortunately, if the government does not begin to take emergency steps to resolve our current middleclass worker crisis, then our entire economy will soon be at risk from total collapse, but few of our leaders understand these critical economics and few industry experts are even willing to examine them, let alone expose these horrific realities. Meanwhile, special interests groups continue to spread propaganda in support of their own agendas, irrespective of the needs of the country or Americans or their collective future.

The solution is more than likely not in depending on Congress or the White House, but in replacing them with those who better understand these realities and are more likely to deal with them.

The PUA stands perennially on the side of the middleclass and its need to be and remain robust not only for the benefit of the middleclass, but for the benefit of America itself and its business enterprises, which depend on the middleclass's collective purchasing power to not only survive, but thrive.  We must soon remedy our current laws and policies that are set against the American middleclass with major sweeping changes or within the span of less than a decade we should expect to journey down an irreversible economic slide into a major economic depression that ends with total collapse of not only the US market, but many international markets - such an economic melt-down would take over a decade to rebound from, if ever. This entire prediction seems farfetched until one examines, in great detail, the facts - and chief among the facts is that the entire US economy is built to function on a large middleclass with a growing, not shrinking consumer dollar - we've been in reverse for 34 years, killing the golden goose but few have noticed that the goose is nearing the oven!

Background

America's middleclass in 1973 (those who earned between $30,000 and $80,000 per year in 2005 dollars) made up about 67% of the country's working population. In 2005, the middleclass had shrank to merely 50%. Under current pressures, the middleclass is expected, by some, to be eliminated before 2025, or in about 17 years. The PUA believes this process could actually take only a few years, however, given the current trends in illegal labor practices and out-of-control immigration.

By the year 2,000, the average US homeownership was a 66.2%, according the US Census Bureau, however, housing affordability (those who now qualify to buy the average home) ha fallen to all-time low hovering near 20% nationally, according to CNN.

Should the middleclass drop to about 35% total of our population, the entire US economy will begin to collapse due the lack of consumer discretionary income that our markets are dependant on. As one after the other large corporations begin to falter and collapse, the US market will domino toward a Depression market as interest rates sore due to banks trying to recover their losses from both corporate and consumer bankruptcies occurring at phenomenal rates. Job losses will escalate with corporate shut-downs and profit losses and the remaining percentage of the middleclass will fall within just two or three years thereafter--the US government will be unable to stop the domino collapse, having acted far too late to resolve its root problems and keep the first domino from falling.

Therefore, by looking at the current trends and seeing the future in this light, we can take steps to avoid such a market melt-down---which is not in anyone's best interest---especially big business. However, only the federal government has the power to stop this oncoming collapse and that's like depending on your drunk uncle to give you a ride home safely over the switchback mountain roads. But just in case they're listening...

There are six key things that affect US worker jobs and pay, hence a strong middleclass:

1. Job market supply and demand / economy / interest rates
2. US trade policies
3. Cheaper offshore foreign workers in direct competition with US workers
4. Cheaper foreign workers allowed on US soil to compete directly with US workers
5. Corporate responsibility and stewardship in farming US citizen workers
6. Government incentives to create high paying jobs markets and fill them.

Our economy is running fairly strong currently, however, far too many US jobs are minimum wage or low paying, which has created a shortage of workers in the "slave-wage" categories---hence big business's push for illegal immigration. As illegal labor and abuses in visa programs have brought in cheap foreign labor that quickly migrated to high paying jobs and still left cheap labor jobs in shortage, the middleclass has been eroded even during recent economic boon cycles.

US trade polices are allowing the largest trade deficits in the US history, which is having the net effect of shipping 10-20% of middleclass jobs overseas where products or services are being provided to Americans in direct competition with American workers (who are not being adequately protected by tariffs). 

The manufacturing base and US infrastructure and the managers who once managed it have also evaporated from the US landscape in record numbers to off shoring policies---many by larger American companies seeking to save money by transferring the work outputs offshore where labor and environmental standards are much lower. Again, American workers (and consumers) are not being protected--American companies are thusly rewarded for committing environmental pollution while eroding the manufacturing base and job base of America.

HI-B and other temporary visa workers as well as illegal workers from countries like Mexico are consuming an estimated 7% to 17% of high paying middleclass jobs across the US doing jobs that Americans will do (i.e. film making, construction, oil rigging, hotel management, political party management, etc.)--but often not at the wages or under the working conditions that American employers offer. Again, American companies are being rewarded for their exploitation of labor while US workers take a back seat. 

In the coming years, the NAFTA Superhighway and new Mexican port and rail systems through the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) are estimated to eliminate over 2 million high paying American sea and rail port jobs and several million American trucking jobs as cheaper Mexican labor is given open access to the US market and soil. This aspect alone, when fully blossomed, could signal the tipping point loss of the entire middleclass as American spending power is gutted across the nation like never before. The SPP trade policy is meant to directly pit the American workers against the Mexican worker across all job markets and industries by 2010 and could eliminate about 85% to 98% of current US middleclass, regardless of other factors. 

Beyond the need to exploit labor, one of the battle cries made by US business is that they lack American talent and workers for many of their positions that require advanced educations. Due to the spiraling cost of student loan interests, college tuition, and the lower expectation of wages (and loan payback ability) after graduating, millions of American students have opted out of college while corporate employers, who once fostered great working relationships and large scholarship programs with many of America's universities, have all but evaporated in comparison to yesteryear. Dwindling student participation is not because there is a lack of desire on the part of American middleclass students and families, but because affordability, wage devaluation, and vanishing corporate responsibility and stewardship have made it much more difficult for families to keep up with the program.

Equally alarming is the escalating high school drop out rates that have soared nationally to as high as 50% and more brought on from parental issues--parents are often working so much they are unable to minister to their children's needs and upbringing and have become excessively dependant upon the public school system to do all the heavy lifting in child upbringing. Again, all forced from the pressures of job market against the middleclass and low income worker who find themselves working harder and getting paid less while their standard of living declines at their children's expense.

Lastly, the largest culprit among these issue is by far the US government, which has failed to provide businesses with the incentives they need to help students or to create high paying job markets and fill them with American workers or to protect American workers. Such incentives can either be rewards or penalties but since 1973 most have evaporated in favor of big business and special interests.

When US leaders realize that as many as 70 million workers in the US are estimated to be working for lower wages than they were just ten years ago, we may start to see a change in government policies. However, when US leaders see the beginning of the collapse of the entire US economy because they have gutted the middleclass from it, it will be far too late to make any remedies.

In the meantime, middleclass workers will have to continue taking on  two or even three jobs in order to maintain their family's needs. Thanks big uncle! And the last line of defense, once again, is the American citizen who must stand up and be counted and demand change!

Too busy to stand up like most of us, then join the PUA and let us do most of the heavy lifting for you! It's only $12 and its goes for a great cause---you and your family---and millions just like you!