Republicans represent the wealthy, corporate executives and investors
Democrats represent all classes of citizens
The Fair Labor Standards Act, the Taft-Hartley Act and NAFTA are three of most important federal legislations that affected individual incomes and wealth. All of them substantially changed most Americans’ standard of living. A look at their effects clearly demonstrates the radical difference between the values and goals of Democrat and Republican politicians.
In the middle of the Great Depression, a Democratic president and congress passed the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. It dictated that employees would be paid time-and-a-half for overtime if they worked over 40 hours a week. Children under 16 could no longer work full-time non-farm jobs, and workers would make at least 25 cents an hour.
Overnight, the 5-day 40-hour workweek replaced the 6-day 60-hour workweek across the country. Since it was federal legislation, corporations couldn’t pit states against each other by offering wages and working conditions below the new national standard. Alabama had the same minimum wage, child labor and overtime pay standards as New York
Republicans charged that “socialism never works.” Unemployment would skyrocket and the increased costs to businesses would be an economic disaster. But the unemployment rate actually went down the next year, and has never been as high since. This and other New Deal pro-labor legislations began the creation of the greatest middle class in history.
In 1947 congressional Republicans passed the Taft-Hartley Act. They were joined by a small minority of conservative Democrats, which allowed them to overcome Democrat President Harry Truman’s veto. This law reduced the ability of unions to organize workers, and gave corporations much more power to pit workers in lower wage right-to-work states against those in unionized states.
An exodus of industry from unionized states to right-to-work states immediately followed. Fortunately, the U.S. economy was growing and the effects on unionized states weren’t drastic. Also, employers in the right-to-work states had to have wages and working conditions close to the unionized states, or — despite the law’s restrictive conditions — their workers would still vote for a union.
Note: In 1947 wealthy Americans were still getting richer. They just weren’t becoming a new class of incredibly luxurious aristocracy as they are today.
NAFTA was a much more powerful version of Taft-Hartley. It allowed corporations to pit Mexican workers against American workers who had better working conditions and made ten times as much in wages. The exodus of industry to Mexico was immediate and substantial.
Taft-Hartley was just nationwide. NAFTA was international, and the U.S. government couldn’t force Mexico to respect workers’ rights after the agreement was made. Later trade agreements with other nations followed the NAFTA model and also greatly favored corporations and their investors over workers’ interests.
The damage to workers has been far more extensive than the actual loss of jobs. Those who lose their jobs enter the labor market and lower the wages for all workers. The threat of outsourcing has almost totally eliminated the power of most unions to maintain their members’ incomes, let alone their ability to increase incomes. Corporations are now in almost total control of the labor market.
Most voters today incorrectly blame Democrats for NAFTA. But it was Republican legislation. It was, after all, President George H. W. Bush who signed the NAFTA agreement in 1992 with President Salinas of Mexico and Prime Minister Mulroney of Canada. Against the wishes of most Democrats, in 1993 President Clinton submitted its ratification to Congress because it would increase corporate profits, and he could reduce the deficit by raising taxes on the wealthy.
To get a minority of reluctant Democrats to vote with the majority of Republicans, he promised that side agreements would protect America’s workers. Agreements were made, but were cosmetic and ineffective. Mexico, especially, had no intention to honor them.
A major reason Trump became president is that he, as did Bernie Sanders, blamed NAFTA for workers losing their standard of living. However, Trump blamed Clinton and Democrats for it, and Hillary Clinton wasn’t about to say her husband made a terrible mistake when he submitted it to Congress for ratification. Sanders merely said that this terrible agreement had to be renegotiated.
Although Trump accurately defined the problem, his solutions were thoughtless and disastrous. He saw tariffs as a way to punish other governments or to force them to do what he wanted. Any new trade agreement had to benefit the U.S. more than them — “America First.” Other countries retaliated and a trade war, not new beneficial negotiations, ensued.
On the other hand, Sanders saw trade agreements with appropriate tariffs as a way to capitalize on the strengths of each country and which should benefit both, including each country’s workers. Workers have human rights and are not machines or raw materials to be sacrificed in a trade deal that primarily benefits corporate executives, investors and the wealthy.
A core goal of the Republican Party was, and still is, to increase profits by improving corporations’ ability to pit workers against each other in competing for jobs.
Democrats just want to correct the uneven power differential between capital and labor. They are not against the kind of capitalism that benefits all classes of citizens.
The difference between our two major parties couldn’t be clearer.
