August 28, 2024                                                         Home   Subscribe  Open in Browser

Hard to believe that this summer is already nearing an end! We hope that all of our readers will be able to get some rest this coming holiday weekend — and take a moment to celebrate the progress that the American labor movement has been making over the last few years in everything from reenergizing major union to organizing entire new economic sectors.

In this week’s issue, we’re highlighting a new study on working conditions in semiconductor manufacturing. With the Biden-Harris administration about to disburse billions of public dollars into semiconductors, those of us who worked on this new report are calling for strong guardrails to help ensure that all the new CHIPS Act jobs turn out to be good jobs.

My favorite part of the time I spent working on this new report: speaking with semiconductor workers. In every discussion we had, I felt their excitement about organizing in what has been an overwhelmingly unorganized industry. When we organize together, they reminded me, we can transform our workplaces and, in time, our entire country. Happy Labor Day!

Chris Mills Rodrigo
for the Institute for Policy Studies’ Inequality.org team

At New York’s Con Ed, Demanding A Fair Share of Huge Profits

This week’s frontline faces: Contract cleaners at the New York City facilities of the Con Edison electrical utility.

What they're doing to help create a more equal world: Cleaners and their fellow union members protested outside of Con Ed’s downtown Manhattan headquarters last week demanding family-sustaining wages.

Con Ed clearly has the resources to provide just that. The utility last year pocketed $2.5 billion servicing New York City and Westchester County — and spent $1 billion in stock buybacks. Con Ed cleaners contracted through Nelson Service Systems earned as little as $16 an hour.

With home energy bills rising, Con Ed should at the least be making sure all its workers can afford to pay for the electrical service it provides.

What makes this fight so important: “My last Con Ed electricity bill was $194,” notes Sergio Centeno, who works for Nelson cleaning Con Ed’s headquarters. “They make billions of dollars off customers, but essential workers like me have to work two jobs just to support our families. Our utility bill — all our bills — go up every year, but our wages don’t.”

Making Sure All Those CHIPS Act Billions Support Good Jobs

Billions of public dollars are about to start flowing to domestic manufacturers of semiconductors, the minuscule computer components that make almost all modern electronics tick. The Biden-Harris administration has promised that this new effort will be creating thousands of good new jobs. But a look under the hood raises some questions about that promise.

A just-released report from the Institute for Policy Studies has found that serious workplace issues are plaguing the semiconductor industry, from low pay and grueling schedules to exposure to dangerous chemicals. Interviews with workers at semiconductor factories revealed that much more has to be done to make jobs in the industry truly good jobs.

The new IPS report is proposing several guardrails that the Commerce Department ought to be putting in place to ensure better semiconductor job quality. Holding semiconductor firms to much higher standards on working conditions, transparency, and labor law compliance could transform the industry.

Read this new IPS report at the link below — and take a look just below that link at a graph that details another big problem in the semiconductor industry: the lack of diversity.

To maximize the benefits of federal CHIPS Act subsidies, the industry will need to raise pay for manufacturing workers and create opportunities for a more diverse workforce. Currently, Latino, Black, and women workers remain significantly underrepresented and concentrated in lower-paying and more dangerous jobs. 

Can We Envision a World Without Art That Auctions Off for $80 Million?

For our world’s ultra-wealthy, the ongoing run-up in fine-art prices amounts to no big deal. These rich can, after all, easily afford most anything that tickles their souls. Anything, they would have us believe, with one exception: taxes on their fortunes. But the case against taxing grand fortune may finally be wearing a little bit thin. One encouraging sign of the times: The current Spanish government now actually has in place a new tax on concentrated wealth. Inequality.org co-editor Sam Pizzigati has more.

A Wall Street Schemer Still Stewing After Getting Off Easy

This week’s dour deep pocket: the 88-year-old billionaire Carl Icahn, the iconic corporate raider who has just agreed to pay $2 million in civil penalties to the federal Securities and Exchange Commission.

What has Icahn sour: the Hindenburg Research report, released last year, that put the SEC on Icahn’s trail. Hindenburg’s researchers charged that Icahn had engaged in “Ponzi-like” scheming that used “money taken in from new investors to pay out dividends to old investors.”

“Hindenburg’s modus operandi,” Icahn fumed Monday, “is to publish scurrilous and unsupported allegations.”

Icahn’s company, Hindenburg responded, “rightly got charged” and “is still operating a Ponzi-like structure, as we originally alleged.”

The last word: The SEC fine levied against Icahn, notes Fortune analyst Greg McKenna, amounts to a mere 0.01 percent of his personal net worth. For an average American making about $75,000, adds McKenna, “the equivalent fine would be roughly $7.50.” New York State’s minimum fine for driving 10 miles over the speed limit runs $90.

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