Labor Day 2007: New Hope for the American Dream

Following is Change to Win Chair Anna Burger's statement for Labor Day, 2007.

Washington, D.C. - Over the past year, Change to Win has asked workers in surveys and focus groups to assess the American Dream for themselves and their families. Does the American Dream have any meaning in the 21st century global economy? What is the American Dream for today's workers? Will the American Dream be there for the next generation of workers?

Our findings are both dramatic and powerful. The American Dream is the most universal expression of the hopes and aspirations of America's workers-regardless of gender, generation, race, ethnicity, or immigration status. The term "American Dream" can roll of the tongues of workers in a dozen different languages, and still have the same meaning and impact. The American Dream is about recognition for hard work and personal responsibility, not about great wealth or material possessions. The American Dream is a set of values-almost an article of faith-that defines America.

For America's workers, the fulfillment of the dream is work that is respected, wages that can support a family, affordable health care, a secure retirement and the opportunity for a better life for their children.

We also found that workers today believe the American Dream is at risk. For the first time, working families - regardless of income or education level - believed that the next generation will NOT be better off. They believe the economy is headed in the wrong direction, and, no matter what you might hear in the media or from government, that working families are falling behind.

There is anxiety, anger and a demand for action rising in Working America. The loss of faith in the American Dream - the loss of faith in the future - is a bigger threat to our country than any foreign enemy.

Why this loss of faith? Because the myth we are told about the new American economy - that highly paid, high-tech jobs will offset the loss of the well-paid, union jobs in manufacturing; that all we have to do is re-train and re-tool; that the new economy is on the information superhighway - is pure fiction.

In reality, unless we do something about it, the new economy is a dead-end street of underpaid, high-turnover, no-benefit jobs that cannot sustain our families or support the American Dream for the working families of the new economy.

Look at the occupations that will be adding the largest number of jobs - retail sales, food service and preparation, nurses and health care workers, trucking, customer service representatives - are these the high-tech jobs we hear so much about?

We are told that education is the solution. But the number of jobs being created requiring a college education is stagnate - and, starting wages for college-educated workers are falling. And with current trade policies, the jobs requiring a college-education are now the next jobs likely to be outsourced.

Look at the wage structure of the new economy. Over 40 million workers make $10.20 an hour or less - leaving almost a third of American workers either unable or barely able to lift a family out of poverty.

The problem is not the jobs or the workers. The fact is that the workers in the jobs of the new economy provide valuable, essential services.  They bring skill and commitment to their jobs - and they are generating enormous wealth and profit.

The workers of the new economy are not low wage workers in low wage jobs-they are underpaid workers in underpaid occupations.

Yet, even as they see growing, powerful economic forces eroding its very foundation, workers believe that they can restore the American Dream with an agenda that would provide government action for basic economic security, corporate accountability, and partnerships among workers, community organizations and businesses to promote good jobs for the future.

In the face of all the challenges, workers remain optimistic, and they have hope. They believe that through consumer action, political action and unions, the American Dream can be there again for the next generation.

Change to Win unions are determined in our efforts to restore the American Dream for today's workers - just as our unions did for generations before.

On this Labor Day, we remember that the good jobs of the 20th century were the underpaid jobs at the turn of the previous century, until workers joined together. Through unions, workers bargained contracts that provided living wages and family benefits, won family friendly-government polices, and forged a social pact with corporate America that provided for economic growth and prosperity for working families.

Through our unions we created a vast American middle class, and generation after generation achieved the American Dream. I grew up in a union family believing in and living the American Dream.

We are going to turn the new jobs of the new economy into the good jobs of the 21st century for a new generation of workers.

A new poll to be released at the Change to Win 2nd Biennial Convention on September 25th, and an abridged version that will be posted on our website, will set forth an action agenda for change to restore the American Dream.