Alternative Visions - Republican Congress’s First Salvo: Corporations 5, Workers -1 - 12.27.14

Jack Rasmus dissects key provisions in the Republican Congress’s recently passed  ‘Omnibus’ Appropriations bill earlier this month, that provides numerous big benefits to US Corporations while cutting deferred wages and pensions for US workers. Jack focuses on five key provisions of the Omnibus bill: return to banking deregulation and bank derivatives trading, continued business tax cuts, the gutting of the EPA and deals for the Coal and Agribusiness industries, US Defense Corps and new spending in middle east and Ukraine, and even more corporate money for politicians as the big freebies for business. In contrast, the Omnibus cuts workers’ defined benefit pensions in multiemployer plans, marking the beginning of a new general offensive by business and politicians to phase out employer negotiated pensions in the USA altogether.  The USA Congress’s Omnibus bill represents, Jack argues, new forms of austerity for workers, focusing on deferred wage rollbacks (i.e. pensions), while more goodies continue to flow to corporate America.  Jack concludes with a look at two other recently formed governments’ initiatives to accelerate austerity in their economies as well: the Ukraine’s newly formed government this past December, which is about to accelerate its austerity programs’ implementation, and Japan’s new Liberal Democratic Party government also elected in December, which is about to move to impose restructuring and ‘labor market reforms’ in the coming year. 2015 will not be a good year, Jack suggests, for workers as similar ‘restructuring’ of labor markets are scheduled for Europe, India, and elsewhere—but a continuing great year for business and investor incomes.