Getting America Back to Work by Stewart Acuff, Dr. Richard Levins
Getting America Back to Work is a quick and informative read stressing that the way back to a healthy economy is through enhancing the wages and organizing ability of the American worker. Steve Sack's excellent cartoons punctuate the message that people matter more than corporations.
In Germany, their strong economy is a result of strong unions and an investment in manufacturing. By contrast in America, as Levins and Acuff remind us, we have seen our big corporations chase the lowest paid workers in other countries and shutting down American plants. The result is not only are out of work American workers unable to help our economy grow by being able to afford to buy the things we make, but workers in other countries can't either.
If we are going to change things around we need to wake up our government leaders to start working for the people who elected them. We need liberals and conservatives to work together for the common good of our nation. We need strong unions and laws that protect union organizing like the Employee Free Choice Act to get our feet on the ground. Politicians talk about how they believe in the American worker well they need to show the mean it by giving back some muscle to those who helped create our middle class and give us an economy that works for everyone.
This little book presents powerful arguments about how the US economy was put into its present predicament and prescribes straightforward solutions on how the country can regain a proper balance in the distribution of wealth among its citizens. Packed with plenty of convincing evidence elegantly simplified and summarized to prove its most important points about what must be done to reverse the downward trend in the plight of working American families, it is an easy read which ought to be a "must-read" for anyone who cares to fairly debate how to ensure a better economic future for everyone in America. No one will be surprised to know that GETTING AMERICA BACK TO WORK represents the thinking of a professional union organizer and a Minnesota college professor, leaving us all to wonder how reception of its ideas might have gone if it somehow had been published anonymously, requiring readers to agree or disagree with its conclusions based upon its authoritativeness, not its authors. It is powerful with facts to indict those who it has dubbed the "Financial Elite," creating a tough case for its critics to dismiss with hard data versus knee-jerk reactions.
