Wall Street Journal
January 11, 2011
William McGurn ("Labor's Coming Class War," Jan. 4) cavalierly notes the erosion of private-sector retirement and health-care security as if these were inevitable realities. That's even more galling than his false assertions about divisions within the labor movement.
The glaring connection Mr. McGurn overlooks is between working families in the private sector struggling to get by and the fortunes reaped by a small elite which has shipped hundreds of thousands of jobs overseas. Working families didn't create class warfare. The facts speak for themselves: While median incomes in the U.S. have stagnated since the mid-70s, incomes for those in the top 5% have more than doubled. In the past 10 years, with record-breaking tax breaks for the wealthy, income for the top 1% has tripled.
State budget problems were caused by the reckless behavior of Wall Street bankers who drove our economy into a ditch. This created massive unemployment and a real-estate crisis that directly led to a decline in state revenues. State general fund expenditures are smaller now than they were three years ago, proving that our budget problems are not at all related to employee compensation.
Union members in the public and private sectors are working together to counter the lies and distortions of those who continue to attack working people, their unions and their chance to share in the American dream.
Gerald W. McEntee, President
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
Washington, DC
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