By Joshua Koritz, member of AFSCME Local 3650 (personal capacity)
This article is appearing in issue #19 of the Boston Organizer, Socialist Alternative’s local newsletter for Boston workers and youth. See Boston Organizer archives at boston.socialistalternative.org.
In 2010, there are three corporate candidates: Deval Patrick, Charlie Baker, and Tim Cahill. All differ on some issues but agree on a basic program: cut, slash and layoff. Jill Stein, of the Green/Rainbow Party, stands out as being against the big business agenda, for living wage jobs and guaranteed quality health care rather than the Massachusetts mandated insurance scam.
The Issues and the Governor
Official unemployment was 10.4% according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the unofficial rate is considerably higher. African-American and immigrant communities are hit even worse, experiencing unemployment closer to 20%. Construction unemployment has hit an astonishing 30%.
The Boston Globe has already reported that Deval is losing support from unions based mainly on his cuts to public services (March 7, 2010). In a December 18 press release, Deval even bragged about winning concessions in wages, job security and benefits from unions: “It is the first time since collective bargaining was established in the Commonwealth that a Governor has successfully negotiated statewide concessions across multiple agencies.”
While Patrick claims to be pro-union and enjoys some support from union leaders, he is a loyal servant of big business, and his wife is a top union-busting lawyer with Ropes and Gray LLC.
As the foreclosures and budget crisis hit Massachusetts, Deval immediately set out attacking public services. The Cambridge Health Alliances budget was cut, and public education, already under-funded by billions, was cut. Patrick, Baker, and Cahill all promise that this will continue, while offering tax breaks to corporations, ostensibly to encourage job creation.
Examples of California and Oregon
Californias budget deficit is bigger, but the mass movement to defend public education has forced Governor Schwarzenegger to cut the prison budget instead of schools and public health care. No matter who is elected, only the strategies of building community campaigns can stop the attacks on our public services.
In Oregon, voters recently passed a referendum entitled “Tax the Rich!” It raised tax rates on corporations and the richest Oregonians, those most able to pay more, to prevent public service cuts. It was passed due to campaigning, demonstrating and door-to-door organizing by unions and community groups despite millions of dollars spent by big business on advertising using major PR firms.
The Other Candidates
Republican Charlie Baker is explicitly anti-union and pro-corporate. Baker is the former CEO of Harvard Pilgrim where he paid himself $1 million plus a year to turnaround a health care company by laying off hundreds. Current State Treasurer Tim Cahill is courting the independent and right-wing Tea Party vote despite having only left the Democratic Party in June, 2009, falsely claiming to be an “outsider.”
Jill Stein supports single-payer health care, criticizing the current system for its expense and inefficiency. She also calls on the rich to shoulder more of the tax burden in order to prevent cuts in public services.
Deval is challenged by progressive democrat Grace Ross, who despite some of her admirable activism in social movements, is unlikely to defeat or change the powerful Democratic Party machine.
Jill Stein for Governor
Politicians from the Democratic and Republican parties, both in Massachusetts and nationwide are united in their appraisal that “common sacrifice is necessary” in this recession. By that they mean bailouts and tax breaks for corporations and sacrifice on the part of working people’s wages, benefits, public education, health care and community funding.
To defend our public services, we need to build a movement of unions and communities that holds politicians accountable. This movement would support union struggles, fight against budget cuts and oppose foreclosures by big banks. We also need candidates to challenge the corporate politicians from both parties who continue to advance the big business agenda.
Jill Stein is such a candidate. She is on the side of working people when she says that the rich need to take their share of the tax burden to help us through this crisis. She advocates for a single-payer health care system that would take the profit out of health care providing quality guaranteed care for all without the unnecessary extensive bureaucracy of the current system.
To directly challenge the corporate domination of politics, we need a program that will create jobs and provide services. Big universities like Harvard and BU, which have massive endowments (which they use as investment capital to make profits) should be taxed in order to fully fund and improve public education, both k-12 and at the college level.
We need to build a movement to tax corporations and the rich. This could help to create a massive public works program of building public schools, health clinics, and affordable housing, with all created jobs being union. Electing independent candidates like Jill Stein would be an important step in bringing together the forces necessary to build a party based on working people, unions, and community groups.