Return of the 80-hour week

By Leo W. Gerard

Fast-food and other low-pay workers across the country risked their wretched livelihoods again last Thursday by briefly striking and demanding fat-cat CEOs supersize their pittance wages.

Many strikers retained their jobs afterward only because they returned to work surrounded by respected supporters from their communities, including ministers, mayors and union leaders.

Over the past two years, the "fleeting strike" favored by fast-food and department store workers has flourished. Now some supporters want to take the movement to the next step.

That would be boycotting stores and restaurants paying wages so low that taxpayers actually subsidize corporate payrolls. That's right. Taxpayers bankroll corporations by providing their starvation-wage workers with life support like food stamps, Medicaid and public housing.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried the opposite approach during the Great Depression, a time like now when high unemployment helped suppress wages. FDR gave a Blue Eagle Badge of Honor to employers who pledged to pay living wages and restrict work weeks to 40 hours. FDR asked shoppers to display their patriotism by limiting purchases to Blue Eagle establishments. Today, designating employers as Blue Eagle would help drive up wages. But Badges of Dishonor are needed now as well.

In the early 1930s, employers big and small sought the badge of honor. FDR secured 2.3 million agreements covering 16.3 million workers. Next, FDR began pushing for a Fair Labor Standards Act to, as he said, "give all our able-bodied working men and women a fair day's pay for a fair day's work."

For him, the law would establish America's standing among nations. He explained, "A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers' wages or stretching workers' hours."

He said that products produced in "conditions that do not meet rudimentary standards of decency" should be banned from the American marketplace. That is the moral issue that compels ministers to support today's fleeting strikers. To them, it is depraved for a corporation to exact 40 hours of work from a person but refuse to pay a living wage in return.

This is particularly true when corporations are doing quite well, thank you. The stock market has fully recovered since the crash and corporate earnings have risen at an annualized rate of 20.1 percent since the end of 2008. CEO pay increases returned to ridiculous pre-recession levels beginning in 2010 when the median jumped 27 percent and continuing last year when the median rose 16 percent to $15.1 million.

Meanwhile, even though worker productivity has increased, median household income decreased. It is $2,400 less than it was in June 2009.

McDonald's, the focus of many fleeting strikes, found the cash last year to triple compensation for its new CEO and the man he replaced. The burger joint gave its low-wage workers a gift, too. It's a budget showing how they can live on the chickenfeed McDonald's pays. Well, not exactly. It recommends MickyD workers get a second job, work 80 hours a week. Even then, the McBudget doesn't account for food or clothing.

The 80-hour work week is part of what FDR tried to eliminate 75 years ago when he finally got the Fair Labor Standards Act passed in Congress. The Depression-era law required employers to pay overtime after 40 hours, thus encouraging them to hire more people. It was, FDR said, good for the worker and good for the unemployed, because it discouraged "unnecessarily long hours which wear out part of the working population while they keep the rest from having work to do."

It's unconscionable that employers like McDonald's want to restore the 80-hour week. Those corporations deserve Badges of Dishonor. Their greed degrades America's standing in the community of nations.

A special Badge of Dishonor should be created for employers who won't spend money on living wages but will spend money to block workers' efforts to unionize and collectively bargain for better pay. Awardees would include UPMC and Duquesne University.

Tragically, of all employers in Pennsylvania, UPMC has the third-highest number of full-time workers on Medicaid. This health care provider doesn't give these employees health insurance or sufficient pay to buy it. When workers asked the Service Employees International Union to help them organize, UPMC engaged in unfair labor practices and, instead of increasing pay, started a food bank for its workers. Maybe a Badge of Dishonor displaying a dead blue eagle would be appropriate for UPMC.

Similarly, Duquesne University has aggressively fought efforts by its adjunct professors to collectively bargain with the help of the United Steelworkers. This resistance shocked the adjuncts, who virtually always hold doctorates in their fields, because Duquesne proudly proclaims itself to be a Catholic university and the Catholic faith has long supported unionization. Maybe a Badge of Dishonor displaying a dead dove would work for Duquesne.

Over the Blue Eagle on FDR's badge of honor was written "We do our part." Employers like Costco that pay decent wages should receive that recognition. Employers like McDonald's, Walmart, UPMC and Duquesne University should get seals of disapproval that say, "We shirk our duty."

Leo W. Gerard is international president of the United Steelworkers.