CEO Salaries Under Inspection; Dow Surges Leave Many Puzzled

From CNN in the Money, Aired 10/21/2006 1pm ETExcerpt from the transcript:

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WESTHOVEN: From Capitol Hill to the boardroom, the middle class is getting squeezed. Now a new organization is aiming to fight back. United Professionals is taking a stand for unemployed, underemployed and anxiously employed white-collar workers. Before Jack took off for the weekend, he sat down with author Barbara Ehrenreich one of the cofounders of United Professionals, and asked her why she started this organization and how it works.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA EHRENREICH, CO-FOUNDER UNITED PROFESSIONALS: Well we began to think there had to be some way where people were white- collar, meaning generally college educated. We hear every day on CNN that the middle class is getting beaten up, and that it’s eroding yet you don’t see a lot of fight back, there is no response. There’s a lot of passivity, so the idea is you join, go to UnitedProfessionals.org, you join, the dues are really low, a dime a day, you could afford that, Andy.

SERWER: I can barely.

EHRENREICH: And one of the things we’re going to be doing is just providing a way for people to come together and share their experiences, talk about what we’ve been going through and what they think is important to change. Then the other big, big thing is to begin to be an advocacy group for people in these situations. That means issues like health insurance, unemployment insurance, which is almost nonexistent right now. It only covers about a third of people who get laid off, and the whole problem of credit and debt. Those are some of the things we’re looking at. We want to be a voice on behalf of people who are suffering from those issues.

WESTHOVEN: Does that mean you’re replacing something like unions, service unions that have been out there for white-collar professionals have largely disappeared. Is that something more like the ARRP? I’m trying to get a better sense of what this organization looks like.

EHRENREICH: Well we can’t be a union, because for one thing, we’re reaching out to people in a variety of occupations, and people who don’t even have a job, you know. So this is very open, something you become a member, it doesn’t matter where you work, I mean you could be a marketing executive one day and you could be working at Wal-Mart the next day, you know, sorting stock, unfortunately that could happen, but you would still be a member of United Professionals, so it’s not a union model. We’re very supportive of unions that exist for white-collar people, and we in no way want to compete our undercut them. But look, the great majority of this country has no union, whether they’re white or blue collar.

WESTHOVEN: When you say they’re meeting and telling stories, are they meeting in person? Are they meeting on the Internet? How does it generally look?

EHRENREICH: A lot of it is Internet. We’ve only been in existence for one month; it’s amazing to me how many people want face- to-face chapters. We have people now in over 200 cities saying they want to build a chapter in their city, so they want to get together face-to-face. I think that’s great.

CAFFERTY: What about the fact that the forces that are driving the middle class out of business are all emanating from the most part from Washington, D.C., that the government inclusion with the big corporations are seeing to it that there’s no increase in minimum wage, that illegal immigrants are allowed to drive down wages overall in this country, corporations are allow allowed to do away with their health insurance plans. How are you in a position to deal with those forces that are so large and so powerful and have such a widespread effect on the people that you’re talking about here? EHRENREICH: Well, those things are not going to change Jack, the things you’re describing are so true, so real, the big government has not taken the side of the middle class or the working class or whatever you want to call it, it doesn’t. It takes the side again and again of the corporate employers. So, you know, that won’t change unless we make our voices heard. That’s the only way it will change. If they know there are people out there who are just not going to vote for these politicians anymore unless they absolutely guarantee that they’re standing up for us in Congress.

SERWER: And just quickly how many people have signed up already?

EHRENREICH: We’re getting them every day. They said about 200 want to build chapters. Actual members are coming in in the — it’s less than a thousand we want to get 10,000 by the end of the year.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WESTHOVEN: If you’re a fan of Ehrenreich’s writing, she said she is not giving up her day job and in the meantime you, which check, out her blog on the UP Website.

This exceprt is from CNN, 10/21/2006

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