Some people really do want it all

 Lately I’ve concluded that some people really do want it all.

For evidence, we don’t have to look much farther than the legislature, where some bills under consideration would strip away some of the few remaining protections for working people, especially some of the working people that politicians pretend to care for: workers in mining, manufacturing, and construction. Those are the kind of jobs that promote stable families and communities.

Senate Bills 2 and 3 would harm workers and their families by reducing and radically restructuring the unemployment insurance (UI) system. SB 2 would cut eligibility for UI from 26 weeks to 12 in most cases. SB 3 would increase the amount of paperwork, bureaucracy and hoops unemployed people would have to jump through.

The overall effect would be to drive down wages for everyone by making it harder for people to find jobs that pay a living wage.

This is a classic case of a solution in search of a problem. The state unemployment rate is at a historic low of 3.7 percent.

 In a January press release, Governor Justice, with the apparent approval of Babydog, said “When you think about what we’ve accomplished over the past three months with our unemployment rate, it’s unbelievable…We shattered the all-time record. Then we came back and did it again the next month. And now we’ve shattered it all over again this month.”

The state’s unemployment fund is as good as it’s ever been. As a result, premiums paid by employers into the fund have been reduced.

If the bills are passed that main outcome would be a further weakening the position of workers in the labor market in the interest of those who want to pay the lowest possible wage at a time when inequality is at record levels…which goes back to the some-people-want-it-all thing.

But those bills aren’t the only games in town. House Bill 4394 would make it harder for workers and/or their families who are injured or killed on the job from seeking compensation. Specifically, the bill deals with the issue of deliberate intent, which makes employers liable if they know of unsafe working conditions but take no action to correct them.

Nationwide, workplace hazards kill, injure, and/or disable more than 100,000 workers each year. In 2019, for example, 5,333 workers died on the job from traumatic injuries. Many more die from occupational diseases.

It’s hard for even a cynic like me to fathom how this could pass in West Virginia, where we can measure out our lives with industrial accidents and disasters. 

Without even trying to exercise my memory, which isn’t what it used to be, I can recall the Freedom Industries water crisis that affected around 300,000 people, the Upper Big Branch mine explosion that killed 29 miners, the Sago mine disaster that killed 12, the Aracoma mine fire in Logan County where two miners died, the Willow Island tower collapse in Pleasants County that killed 51 construction workers, the Pittston Coal Buffalo Creek disaster that killed 125, and the Farmington mine disaster that killed 78.

That doesn’t even cover the untold thousands here whose lives were shortened or made miserable by Black Lung and other work-related diseases and injuries.

I mean, really.

This gruesome record reminds me of a line from a labor song about just this issue: “If blood be the price of your cursed wealth, good God, we have paid it in full.”

On a less dramatic note, another bill that could hurt workers and their families is House Bill 4007, which would reduce and ultimately phase out the state income tax, which is the only tax in the state that doesn’t fall hardest on those with lower incomes. The biggest beneficiaries are the wealthiest. 

Even Adam Smith, author of the 1776 Wealth of Nations, a celebration of emerging capitalism, would not approve. In his classic, he wrote that “The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

This would ultimately result in making our tax system even more regressive by increasing consumption taxes on poor and working people or else result in cuts to programs that invest in health, economic opportunities, education and training, public safety, etc. for communities, seniors, kids and families. Or some combination thereof.

So yes, some people really do want it all. 

The only question is, are they going to get it?

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

It's not all bad

There's a little more than a week to go in WV's legislative session and things are not great by any means but they aren't nearly as bad as they could have been. (Not counting snowstorms, freezing temperatures and floods.)

Some real howlers, like the bill that would ban local anti-discrimination ordinances, got smacked down pretty hard. A bill that would fine teachers for teaching inappropriate subjects didn't go anywhere.

Some other bad bills that died--or appear to have died at this point--are drug testing for TANF recipients, bringing back the death penalty, and right to work (for less).

Some really bad ones got a little better, like scaling back rather than repealing prevailing wage and a wide open campaign bill that threatened to open the floodgates to corporate money from anywhere.

The jury is still out on other issues, like water protection and access to courts for workers and survivors of those killed on the job.

There might even be a decent bill or two passed, like reforms to truancy laws and the juvenile justice system.

I have a pretty wise yoga teacher who once suggested that we use the following mantra as we observe what is happening outside and inside of ourselves: "It's like this now."

So, yeah, it's like this now.

The whole widow/orphan thing

While WV's deeply religious Republican legislature contemplates legislation that would make it harder for workers maimed on the job or their widows and orphans to have access to legal remedies, I decided to let my fingers go walking through the Bible. Here's what I found...and it's very incomplete.

* Exodus 22:22: “Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan.”

*Deuteronomy 10: 18 “For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe. He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing.”

* Deuteronomy  24:17 ”Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge.”

*Deuteronomy 27:19 "’Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow’." Then all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’"

* Isaiah 1:17 “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.”

* Isaiah 1:23 “Your rulers are rebels, partners with thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow's case does not come before them.”

* Jeremiah 5:27-29: “Like a cage full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have become great and rich. They are fat, they are sleek, they also excel in deeds of wickedness; they do not plead the cause, the cause of the orphan, that they may prosper; and they do not defend the rights of the poor. Shall I not punish these people?' declares the LORD, 'On a nation such as this shall I not avenge Myself?”

* Malachi 3:5: "’So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,’ says the LORD Almighty.”

* James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”


Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to be a pattern here, although some elected officials don’t seem to have gotten the memo.

In any case, the final vote on this bill will be one to watch. And to remember.