Laura Flanders | The Nation
Tip Your Servers This Valentine's Day
Call it part two of last week’s report. No sooner had the blood cooled from the “he-covery” than in came more stark news from the world of women’s work. This time, it’s not just discriminatory employers at fault; it’s the federal government.
“In most industries, the gender wage gap is due to employer discrimination. In the restaurant industry, it’s also a matter of policy,” says Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of the workers’ group, the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC).
Virtually alone among employers, in the restaurant industry predominately male positions have a different minimum wage than predominately female positions. Since 2007, non-tipped workers (52 percent male) have a federal minimum wage of $7.25. Tipped workers (66 percent female) have a federal subminimum wage of $2.13.
How the 1 Percent Loves: The $100,000 Valentine
Lest any of us forget, some people have plenty of money to throw around. Take Valentines Day. Here’s what one four-star hotel in Chicago was offering a few weeks back, courtesy of a press release from their publicist. I’ve removed her name, otherwise, the e-mail is word-for-word. Note, the “valentine” is assumed to be female. Any takers?
"Do you want to make the ultimate gesture for Valentine’s Day? Fairmont Chicago, Millennium Park Hotel is offering a package that every starry-eyed couple will remember for a lifetime. Their $100,000 Romantic Getaway Package includes everything your heart could desire.
"Guests will be transported to and from the airport for a luxurious two-night stay in the Presidential Suite. Upon arrival at the hotel, guests will be welcomed with a 'Charming Rose Petal Red Carpet', a trail of roses from the foyer to the bed of roses as well as six dozen roses throughout the Presidential Suite.
Rocky Recovery for Women
Three years ago, when President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, he said:
“It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign…we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness. If we stay focused, as Lilly did, and keep standing for what’s right, as Lilly did, we will close that pay gap and ensure that our daughters have the same rights, the same chances, and the same freedom to pursue their dreams as our sons.”
Video: Activists Bathe the Supreme Court in Dollar Signs
I’m just checking that everybody saw this. I particularly like the music.
The Deal That Saved Detroit (and Banned Strikes)
President Obama is, as AP puts it, “wearing his decision to rescue General Motors and Chrysler three years ago as a badge of honor” on his re-election campaign. It saved jobs and working communities, brought the US auto industry back from the brink. In January, US auto sales were up 11 percent over a year ago, and a proud president was cooing to the college students of Ann Arbor, Michigan:
“The American auto industry was on the verge of collapse and some politicians were willing to let it just die. We said no.… We believe in the workers of this state.”
You’re going to be hearing a lot about the deal that saved Detroit in the next few months, not least because likely opponent Mitt Romney was against it. Then Governor Romney wrote in the fall of 2008 that if the big three auto companies received a bailout, “we can kiss the American auto industry goodbye.” Romney bad; Obama good; Big Three back. The Deal with Detroit is gold dust for Democrats. Reality is a bit more complicated.
Foreclosure Auctions Stopped—Again
There were four properties scheduled to be auctioned in Brooklyn last Thursday. Only one sale took place. Here’s why. According to Rob Robinson of Take Back the Land.org, the disruption caused total chaos. “The court officers don‘t know what to do when the singing starts.”
Not a Peep About the President's Praise for War
The grades for the president’s State of the Union are in and the critics have been kind. In fact, it's chilling to see just how few hits the president takes for couching his entire address in unqualified celebration of the US military.
Speaking of the troops, President Obama began: “At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations.”
Post-show pundits on cable news praised the president’s comfort with his commander-in-chief role, but none saw fit to mention recent news—of marines urinating on Afghan corpses, say, or Staff Sergeant Wuterich walking free after participating in the killing of twenty-four unarmed men, women and children in Haditha, Iraq. Accompanying Obama's next phrase, “Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example,” no one thus far has played vile viral video. The critics have been kind.
Food Stamp Fight Looms
Gingrich has always implied that programs for people in need are really just for lazy African-Americans. He’s done it again, all over the campaign trail, most spectacularly this week in South Carolina with his straw man du jour, the “best food-stamp president.”
The facts are clear—in 2010 less than one-quarter of food stamp recipients were African-American, and nearly 30 percent of recipients had earnings (just not enough earnings to put sufficient food on their families’ tables). But good luck with the fact fight. For four full years, from 1992 to 1996, the debate about welfare targeted poor black women, even though more of those receiving what was then called FDIC were white than black. So what! By the time the Senate passed its bill and Bill Clinton signed it into law, it was so acceptable to starve and impoverish women, especially black women, that even those editorial writers and columnists who opposed the “Personal Responsiblity Act” did it on other grounds (usually, that it might harm children).
Of course, the results were felt and continue to be felt by everyone. Timothy Casey, a senior staff attorney with Legal Momentum, a women’s rights group, told the Institute for Public Accuracy this week that the 96 Act reduced benefit receipt from 60 percent of poor families, pre-reform, to only about 20 percent of poor families today, and from more than 80 percent of eligible families, pre-reform, to less than 40 percent today. “Block granting cash aid also led to sharply reduced benefits that in every state are now less than half the poverty standard.”
For Democrats on Dr. King's Day, It's Fish-In-A Barrel Season - But it Shouldn't Be
This Dr. King Day the political focus was on the GOP contenders in South Carolina, luckily for President Obama. Watching Republicans in a red state wrestle for right-wing votes on a day dedicated to civil rights makes Dr. King’s birthday a real holiday for Democrats—but it shouldn't be. For the president too, it should be a day of accountability.
Sure, it’s fun to watch Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and the Ricks Santorum and Perry go at each other in a Fox News–hosted debate preceded by by a King Day spent making nice to corporations, Christians and the South Carolina Tea Party. The GOP’s schedule January 16, afforded the candidates plenty of time to skew Dr King’s message on independence, opportunity and equality—and the Democrats plenty of time to skewer them for it. Contrary to GOP myth, social programs are not necessarily anti-social, rejoin the Dems. Safety nets aren’t actually devised to trap people, and so forth.
For Democrats it’s fish-in-barrel season. So let the rest of us talk about something more pressing. Three years after the Obama White House presented and passed its American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (a k a “Stimulus”) of 2009, how are we doing? Specifically, on this Dr. King day, how are we doing when it comes to racial justice?
This Video Is as Absurd as Corporate Personhood—Updated
What will it take to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United? Perhaps a viral video! Here is “It’s Viral,” with The Nation’s own Katrina vanden Heuvel, Jim Hightower and more. Exec produced by the We the People Campaign. Think it’ll work? And while you’re thinking, repost!
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