Getting Real: Wisconsin, Washington and Fixing America

It’s very hard to sit here outside the closed circle of America’s political posturers – elected, appointed and self-appointed – and not go ballistic.

We need to stop being Republicans and Democrats and Tea Partiers and Liberals -- and start rethinking everything. We need to look at what works in other countries and in some of our states. And just as important – what DOESN’T work. We have to change. Fast.

And ideologues need not apply.

The total US debt is moving toward 15 and a half TRILLION dollars. PIMCO’s Bill Gross has dumped all the treasuries he held in his benchmark Total Return Fund

So yes – the GOP is right. We DO have to pull back. But cutting all the funding for public broadcasting won’t help.

On the state level, according to State Budget Solutions, unfunded pension obligations now exceed 1 trillion dollars. The Congressional Budget Office projects Social Security will run dry by 2037. Medicare costs for everyone – recipients and taxpayers - are out of control.

I pay taxes just like most everyone else. So here’s what I think.

On the state level, I agree there need to be changes to public union medical and pension plans. But we don’t have to let Republicans destroy public unions (and the few private ones that are left). We all know the real reason for the Wisconsin collective bargaining farce.

That said -- remember most federal government workers don’t have collective bargaining – but most of us would be thrilled with their benefits. The benefit packages for public employees were originally created to make up for lower than private sector salaries. Well that’s long gone

So it’s time for states and union leaders to sit down and reason together. Look at salaries in both private and public sectors. Look at benefits. Average it all out. Relatively few taxpayers who aren’t working for government still have traditional pensions. And we pay a huge part of our own health insurance and medical costs. It may not be particularly civilized. But it’s reality.

It would be very, very unfair to cut pensions and raise medical costs unduly for workers who have already retired or who are within 5 years of retiring. They can’t recoup.

So let’s start with a cutoff age. Say 50. Everyone younger – including state and federal workers – should have to wait until at least 68 before collecting pensions, Social Security and Medicare. Maybe even 70 since we’re all, supposedly, living so much longer. Unless you’re medically unable to work. Now this doesn’t mean you’d HAVE to work until you hit 68. It just means you couldn’t collect any public retirement money till then. If you’ve saved enough to tide you over --- well just as always, you can “retire” whenever you can afford to. We also, however, need to strengthen our age discrimination laws and enforcement if we want people to work longer. Age discrimination is very hard to prove now and in the name of saving money companies routinely lay off the highest paid people. Who are often the oldest people.

We need to change completely how we pay for medical procedures and drugs under Medicare. Right now the government pays per item. Which encourages doctors who don’t think Medicare pays them enough to do every unnecessary test and procedure they can think of. Even during routine physicals. And patients are often prescribed expensive drugs because it’s quicker and easier than counseling them to change the behavior or lifestyle that’s causing the problem. Moreover we must, must, MUST get all medical records into digital form. Online so any doctor can see any patient’s total history. Because Medicare allows patients to choose their doctors and see as many as they wish, costs are often ratcheted up when someone goes from doctor to doctor until she gets the drug or procedure she wants. Regardless of necessity.

I’m no economist but logic suggests that just raising the age to get pensions and Medicare coverage - as well as reforming the way Medicare is structured - would probably keep the system solvent through at least another generation’s retirement. If not beyond.

If we’re going to ask or require Americans to finance more of their own retirement -- we also need to change the way money flows through the stock, options, and bond markets. High frequency and general electronic trading in huge blocks has made it very difficult for the small, retail investor - no matter how smart -- to do well in the market. You have to be on it every minute and still the block traders will set up their servers right next to those of the NYSE (for example) where their computer-programmed flash trades will overwhelm any individual trade you might try to make. Which leaves average Americans with just one choice beyond low-paying CD’s: put all your money in the hands of big fund managers. Many of them the same people who bought into the derivatives bubble which caused the financial crisis. Thank you – but no.

So if this crop of legislators and leaders and government agency managers won’t drop the posturing -- let’s have a giant recall election (kind of like a country-wide tag sale) and replace them all with pragmatists. Who will look at what DOES work and what CAN work and forget about which party comes up with the idea.

In other words – they’ll get real.

Are Unions Still Relevant?

I’ve been a member of two “talent” unions since I was 14 – and working part time as a DJ in Boston, my home town. In those days Boston was run by a powerful Democratic political machine – and it was definitely a union town. Virtually every radio and TV station – and anything shot on film - was union. So even a kid like me had to ante up the initiation fees and dues. I came from a show biz family and was used to it. My father - a pianist – was a member of the musicians’s union during its “don’t mess with us or we’ll bust your head” period under the now legendary national leadership of James Petrillo. My mother – a singer – was a member of AGVA – which covered night club entertainers. And in college - all of us aspiring actors were desperate to get into an Equity summer stock show - because you had to be in Equity to go to an Equity casting call – but you couldn’t get into Equity unless you were hired for a union show. A Catch 22 before any of us had ever heard of it.

Early on I gave up my dreams of life upon the wicked stage for the more prosaic – and attainable dream of network news. As it turned out – I had just enough acting ability to read and talk the news before the mic and the camera. I also had a questioning mind that was a lot more useful to a reporter than to a bit part actor who was only pretending she could also sing and dance.

For a long time, I worked only under AFTRA (www.aftra.org) union contracts. I was covered for medical benefits – and my employers were required to pay into my union-centered pension – whether I worked as a staff employee or was free lance. It was a good – and in a chaotic industry – a relatively orderly life.

Then – along came cable.

And AFTRA chose not to bother with cable -- figuring the money in these then niche networks was so insignificant it wasn't worth the organizing time. I know; I was on the local union board during that incubation period. Instead of dealing with real issues, our board members seemed mostly interested in making long speeches. Which is why I quit; it was a total waste of time.

So --- many years later -- here we are – in an age where unions in general are increasingly powerless and the companies they negotiate with are increasingly all-powerful and demanding. So what are the talent unions doing? AFTRA (the “live” and tape/recorded union) is fighting with SAG (the film union) –although at this point the craft designations have almost no meaning as digital and internet technology roll over all of us faster than we can pick ourselves up. (Granted the foolish fights seem to be mostly picked by SAG www.sag.org).

There are huge cable networks like the one I work for - CNBC - and of course CNN --the most obvious example - which are non-union. That means nothing is paid into the AFTRA pension and health funds.

For freelancers like me this is a terrible loss. Having medical and pension benefits centered in a union so wherever you work you still get benefits was a master stroke by all the talent unions as they began to gain leverage decades ago. But if eventually there are no organized media companies left to pay into them -- what's the point?

All of this was just brought home to me very powerfully; I did a one line voice-over as a newsperson for an HBO program more than a year ago. And HBO continues to operate under a pre-existing AFTRA contract. Not only did I get paid what to me is a very large sum for just 5 minutes of work --- I have so far gotten 2 residual checks from AFTRA for only slightly less than I was paid for the initial session.

Now I am a business reporter -- which might make me argue that this type of payment scale may be unsustainable in our new, digitally splintered media world. Except that most of those "splintered" media entities -- internet, cable, digital cable, mobile etc. -- are still owned by the top 10 media companies. Companies which in turn may be owned by even bigger international corporations.

Bottom line to all this: none of us really knows where our industry is going as technology continues to drive change. But as a newsperson it is pretty clear to me that we - certainly - will soon have no separate designations. Print journalists are doing video for newspaper websites; broadcast journalists are writing for websites and taking still photos and of course also increasingly shooting and editing video. We have too many separate unions for this scenario -- where there ARE unions left. It seems to me we have to join forces and our first job should be to unionize as many types of media operations as possible -- even if only for small money. We have to be ready for whatever technology -- and these huge corporations - throw at us.

And second -- we have to be sure our members get something useful out of belonging to a union. Of course salaries matter. But at CNBC, for instance, people get paid pretty much what they would at union operations. And working conditions are reasonable. It's how they’ve kept the unions (no technical unions either) out. So money isn't really the issue. It's benefits. It's some kind of job security. It's provision for medical leave or the like. Etc. But most of all, I think, it's offering ways for members to upgrade their skills at all levels and in all jurisdictions so we can compete with the 22 year old college graduate -- who HAS learned it all and is so comfortable with technology that he or she sees no rough edges. These folks just do whatever is needed and that is what all of us have to learn to do also. Years ago the technical unions used to have something we knew as "one machine, one operator". You ran a tape machine or turned a dial in master control. There were penalties for asking you to do more. Late lunch penalties. "Golden time" penalties.

Non-media companies came in during the 80's and early 90's and smashed that model to smithereens. Now the same thing is happening in the written and spoken media. Actors may be insulated right now -- but they may not be in the future. We are ALL going to HAVE to do more for less money. At least for now. Until our separate and entrenched leaderships realize that only one, huge and united craft union can wield enough power and leverage to fight back for all of us.