The Boss Who Fought 

for the Working Class

by Walter Brasch

         He was born into poverty in New Hampshire in 1811.

      His father was a struggling farmer. His mother did most of the other chores.

      He was a brilliant student, but the family often moved, looking for a better life—a couple of times so the father could avoid being put into debtor’s prison.

      At the age of 15, he dropped out of school and became a printer’s apprentice, sending much of his wages to help his family.

      For several years, he worked as an apprentice and then as a printer, his hands covered by ink, his body ingesting the chemicals of that ink.

      He worked hard, saved money, helped others achieve their political dreams, became the editor of newspapers, and soon became an owner.

      In the two decades leading to the Civil War, Horace Greeley had become one of the most powerful and influential men in America. His newspaper, the New York Tribune, was the nation’s largest circulation newspaper.

      But instead of becoming even richer, he used his newspaper as a call for social action. For social justice.

      In 1848, as a congressman fulfilling the last three months of the term of an incumbent who was removed from office, Greeley introduced legislation to end flogging in the Navy, argued for a transcontinental railroad, and introduced legislation to allow citizens to purchase at a reduced price land in unsettled territories as long as they weren’t speculators and promised to develop the land. The Homestead Act, which Congress finally passed 13 years later, helped the indigent, unemployed, and others to help settle the American west and Midwest. But in his three months in office he also became universally hated by almost everyone elected to Congress. The social reformer in his soul had pointed out numerous ethical and criminal abuses by members of Congress; his party didn’t ask him to run for a full term.

      He called for all American citizens—Blacks and women included—to be given the rights of the vote.

      In 1854, Greeley became one of the founders of the Republican party. For more than two decades, he had been a strong abolitionist and now the new political party would make the end of slavery one of its founding principles. He was one of the main reasons why his friend, Abraham Lincoln, whom he helped become president, finally relented and two years after the civil war began, finally issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

      More than 225,000 Americans (of a nation of about 35 million) bought his relatively objective and powerful history of the civil war, making the book one of the best-sellers in the nation’s nine decade history. In today’s sales, that would be about two million copies.

      Unlike some editors who pandered to the readers and advertisers, he maintained a separation of editorial and advertising departments, and demanded the best writers and reporters, no matter what their personal opinions were. Among those he hired were Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Karl Marx. And at a time when newsrooms were restricted to men, he hired Margaret Fuller to be his literary editor.

      He believed in a utopian socialism, where all people helped each other, and where even the most unskilled were given the opportunity to earn a living wage.

      He demanded that all workers be treated fairly and with respect. In 1851, he founded a union for printers.

      When his employees said they didn’t need a union because their boss paid them well and treated them fairly, he told them that only in a union could the workers continue to be treated decently, that they had no assurances that some day he might not be as decent and generous as he was that day. The union was for their benefit, the benefit of their families, and their profession, he told them.

      In 1872, Horace Greeley ran for the presidency, nominated on both the Democrat and Liberal Republican tickets. But, his opposition was U.S. Grant, the war hero running for re-election on an establishment Republican ticket.

      Weeks before the electoral college met, Horace Greeley, who lost the popular vote, died, not long after his wife.

      The printers, the working class, erected monuments in his honor.

      And everyone knew that the man with a slight limp, who usually dressed not as a rich man but as a farmer coming into town to buy goods, who greeted everyone as a friend, who could have interesting conversations with everyone from the illiterate to the elite, was a man worthy of respect, even if they disagreed with his views. For most, Horace Greeley was just a bit too eccentric, his ideas just too many decades ahead of their time.

      On this Labor Day weekend, when not one Republican candidate for president believes in unions, when CEOs often make more than 100 times what their workers earn, when millionaires and billionaires running for office pretend they are populists, when even many in the working class seem more comfortable supporting the policies and political beliefs of the elite, the nation needs to reflect upon the man who knew that without the workers, there would be no capitalism.

      [Dr. Brasch has been a member of several crafts, arts, and trade labor unions. He proudly sees himself not as among the elite but as a part of the working class.]

Sick and Tired Workers: An Epidemic of Corporate Greed

by Walter Brasch

      Snaking its way through the Pennsylvania legislature is a bill that will block local governments from requiring companies to provide sick leave, even if unpaid, that is more than required by state or federal regulations.

      There are no Pennsylvania or federal regulations requiring companies to provide sick leave. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 39 percent of all employees, and 79 percent of all employees in food service and hotel industries, have no sick leave. Unlike the United States, about 130 countries require employers to provide at least one week of sick leave per employee.

      The Republican-controlled state Senate passed the bill, 37–12; the Republican-controlled House will now discuss it—and probably follow the Senate’s wishes.

      Gov. Tom Wolf opposes this legislation, will probably veto it, and then have to deal with a Senate that has enough votes to override that veto.

      The proposed legislation is in response to Philadelphia’s recent directive that requires companies with at least 10 employees to provide mandatory sick leave for its workers. Several metropolitan U.S. cities, as well as California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, already require companies to provide sick leave to employees.

      Republicans are hypocritically philosophically conflicted on the legislation. Their party believes in limited government regulation, and this bill would keep government out of private enterprise’s believed-right to treat workers as serfs. However, Republicans also believe that, if necessary, government should be at the lowest political level, and municipal government is about as low as it can get. Thus, cities should be able to impose rules and requirements in the absence of state and federal law.

      Most legislators don’t understand political philosophy. What they understand is political donations. In this case, the business community opposes sick leave policies, believing corporate executives know better than workers or governments what’s best for the workers. As is the case for their opposition to raising minimum wage, it is because sick leave, somehow in their warped minds, reduces profits, shareholder dividends, and executive bonuses, benefits, and compensations.

      The pretend-savings to preserve corporate greed, however, is a false economy. By not providing a decent sick leave policy, companies risk employees coming to work sick in order not to lose a day’s pay—or be fired.

      This can lead to increased accidents because workers may be too ill to perform their jobs adequately.

     The absence of a sick leave program can also lead a worker with a communicable disease to spread it to other workers and to the public. About 68 percent of all employees report they came to work with a stomach virus and other communicable diseases, according to a poll conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

     About 30 percent of all workers said they became ill because of communicable diseases spread by fellow workers, according to the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

      Not having adequate sick leave also can result in workers not staying home to care for sick children who, without anyone to care for them, go to school sick, and cause illnesses in other students, staff, and teachers.

      The absence of adequate sick leave can also contribute to low worker morale, less productivity, and higher turnover—all of which affect a corporation’s profit margin.

      There is, of course, sick leave abuse—a worker who calls in sick and then spends the day golfing, or shopping, or is just plain hung over from last night’s party. Just as companies don’t have sick leave, they also don’t have personal days, which can be used for those days when an employee has an important family issue or just doesn’t feel like coming to work. The lack of personal days can significantly decrease worker productivity on the days they would rather be somewhere else than the office or factory line.

      In contrast to the lack of sick leave and personal days, many corporations give upper management unlimited sick days and allow personal days for when a compelling social engagement, such as that golf outing with fellow business executives, seems to be “appropriate.”

      None of this matters to Pennsylvania’s Republicans. Their issue is to give bosses full control over workers; they want to give bosses the right to issue benefits, sick leave, and personal days if they want to do so, or to exclude those benefits if they also want to do so. That’s what they believe is right.

      And they are wrong.

     [Dr. Brasch is an award-winning journalist, and author of 20 books. His latest book is the critically-acclaimed Fracking Pennsylvania.]

Crocodile Tears on a Cash Register Patriotism

by Walter Brasch

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Walter Brasch has written dozens of columns, human interest stories, and investigative articles about 9/11 and its effects. He was one of the first to write about the PATRIOT Act violating civil liberties and parts of the Constitution. He was one of the first, using extensive investigation techniques and inside information, to question the statements from the Bush–Cheney Administration about the reasons for the impending invasion of Iraq. This column, written about a month after 9/11 shows the hypocrisy of some American business, and suggests if they wish to be patriotic they might wish to do more for their workers.]

            The news release spoke boldly: “In view of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, this is the time for Corporate America and all government agencies to enhance the safety and security of the nation’s high profile buildings.” Not exactly a revelation. It didn’t take another sentence to underline the company’s intent. “Windows and doors are normally the weakest static construction elements in a building,” continued the release, “and are therefore the first to fail during violent activities and brute forces of nature. . . .  Your property needs protection!”

            The next few hundred words explained how my readers could choose a security level—and color—of windows to provide that security—”from burglarproof to hurricane resistant and ultimately bullet and blast resistant.”

            Thousands of businesses, like the window company, obtrusively used the tragedy to sell their product.

            One investment company told me that if I followed world events, “you probably know that the prices of commodities and stocks reflect international politics and tensions!” It explained that as the “U.S. prepares its response, tensions could escalate even further in the Middle East. This could have a DRAMATIC IMPACT on the supply of oil and gas therefore increasing worldwide prices. If this happens, oil and gas companies and THEIR SHAREHOLDERS could be poised to MAKE MONEY from any price increases.” To make money from the tragedy, I just had to contact this company to learn which “undervalued” stocks I should buy.

            A writer offered newspaper editors about 400 words detailing Osama bin Laden’s aura, hoping to lure them into buying her weekly column, “Ask Your Aura,” identified as “the personal pull of an advice column, the celebrity appeal of a gossip column, the mystery of astrology.” Not surprisingly, she determined that not only is “love, compassion, and spiritual joy [in bin Laden’s] heart chakra ... about as big as a donut hole,” but that this spirituality is “connected to a preference for evil.”

            Most corporate America had pulled all advertising from the TV networks and national news magazines for up to a week following the tragedy while they re-evaluated their campaigns. When they returned, they had draped themselves into red-white-and-blue bunting, and told us it’s patriotic to spend money in a lagging economy.

            A fairly large publicity firm, targeting book authors, ran a small American flag next to its logo, and told us the company “continues to offer our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to those touched by the events,” that it salutes “the heroism of those who continue to work tirelessly in rescue and relief efforts,” and will continue to work with the media “to provide our clients with the optimum level of exposure.” In case we didn’t understand the last sentence, it told us the time to pull back on advertising and promotion isn’t now because “our experience has shown us that events like this, although very saddening, create unique opportunities that might not have presented themselves before.” To take advantage of this “unique” opportunity, the company even developed a program that for only $750–$3,000 would target the media with our message.

            One-shot magazines, full of color pictures, began coming off rotary presses within hours after the towers collapsed. Books about the tragedy are being rushed to press; almost any book that has even the remotest tie-in is being hawked. Fueled by internet rumor that 16th century French physician-clairvoyant Nostradamus predicted such a tragedy, thousands of Americans have flocked to bookstores and on-line companies to buy copies of his books, edited by others. One book, with a Sept. 27 publication date, is well within the top 100 titles on Amazon.com.

            On thousands of fiberglass and plastic highway signs, words of hope trumpet words of advertising. Below “God Bless America,” we see “Chili Fries, $1.49.” Below “United We Stand,” we’re told “special prices on carpets.”

            During the 1960s, war protestors who wore clothes with the American flag design were beaten by “patriots”; now the fabric of America is patriots wearing just-manufactured high-priced T-shirts, pants, and bandannas, all with images of American flags and slogans.

A flyer I received at home combined the flag, a patriotic call, a message of sympathy—and my inviolate right to buy sofas on sale. General Motors, trying to sell cars, declared “in this time of terrible adversity, let’s stand together. And let’s keep America rolling.”

            A laser eye surgical conglomerate tried to convince us getting clearer vision was somehow patriotic. Its newspaper images were of an exhausted firefighter, and of someone it claimed to be an FBI agent who praised the company’s health plan for federal employees.

            A Cleveland mayoral candidate ran TV ads, declaring “If tragedy strikes, who could lead?” On the screen were still photos of the towers and a woman holding a flag.

            Perhaps these patriotic businesses all mean well. Perhaps they are saddened by the tragedy, and want to let us know they care about the victims and our country. Perhaps, we can hope they have been tortured by the magnitude of evil and the shards of the American fragment that will haunt us for a generation that they will realize the best way to celebrate the American spirit is to treat their own workers better, and to absorb a smaller profit this year rather than to lay off workers. But as long as businesses try to mix sentiment and hard sell, there’s no question our traditional red-and-green Christmas season will be lathered in a red-white-and-blue jingoism of fourth quarter crocodile tears pouring over a cash register patriotism.

[Walter Brasch’s current book is Before the First Snow: Stories from the Revolution. It is available at amazon.com and http://www.greeleyandstone.com/]