| |
Sanders Plan: End Corporate Greed 10/14 06:18
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bernie Sanders has released a major proposal to "end
corporate greed and corruption" by requiring large companies to give ownership
stakes to their workers. The proposal also would ensure that many of the
nation's most profitable firms pay more in federal taxes and government
authorities do more to target monopolies and halt mergers that may harm
consumers.
The senator has been recuperating at his Vermont home for nearly two weeks
since having a heart attack while campaigning in Las Vegas but will travel to
Ohio for Tuesday night's Democratic presidential debate.
Sanders spoke to The Associated Press about his plan to overhaul an
"obviously broken" and "totally absurd" corporate tax system, appointing an
attorney general who would break up large monopolies and giving workers 20% of
shares in their companies and 45% of the seats on their corporate boards. He
called the ownership stake component "probably the more radical" piece of his
proposal.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Sen. Elizabeth Warren has obviously been quite outspoken on breaking up
large, powerful corporations, as well as making corporate governing boards more
accountable to workers. How does this plan set you apart from what she's been
talking about?
A: I'll let Sen. Warren speak for herself. But this is an issue that we have
been working on for my entire political life. In fact, I can remember like it
was yesterday having a meeting in city hall in Burlington, Vermont, where
hundreds of people came out to talk about worker control and worker empowerment
on the job. And, in fact, Vermont has been a leader --- one of the leaders in
the country --- in doing just that.
So you're seeing a number of companies in Vermont --- which are doing very
well, doing well economically and I think the morale of their employees is
very, very high --- where workers sit and help make the decisions for their
companies. So this is an issue that I have been involved in my whole life.
We've introduced several major pieces of legislation to help. You have a lot of
companies out there, medium-size companies started by somebody who is about to
retire, and, everything being equal, would like to give ownership to his or her
employees but doesn't have the tax incentives to be able to do that.
We've filed legislation which would do that. And, the other area is, we
brought money into the state of Vermont which educates employers and workers
about how they can start employer-employee owned companies. So it's something
that we've been working on for a long, long time. But the issue here is to
empower working people so they walk into a job, they don't feel like they're a
cog in a machine but that they have some stake in it as well. That their
decisions will count and, when you do that, I think that what the record will
show --- and what I think you see in companies all over this country that are
worker-owned --- is absenteeism goes down, worker productivity goes up, people
feel better about their jobs because they have some say in it.
And I think that's enormously important. So, you add all these things
together, what we're saying to a very small number of people in the 1% is that
you cannot continue to control this economy with the kind of greed and
corruption that you have for so many decades, and we're going to bring about
some fundamental change."
___
Q: Because you've been talking about these issues for years, is perhaps the
best way to describe this is that you're putting specificity behind how you
would accomplish them?
A: "We're getting into the nitty gritty and the details of what has to be
done with some specificity. The broad concept of how you create a democratic
society in which working people have more control over their lives is a theme
that I have obviously been working on and believed throughout my entire career.
But this provides some of the very specific details of how we can go forward,
and it will be a major transformation of the economy in the sense of empowering
working people to have control over their own lives, over their own jobs and
not just be cogs in a machine, which is sadly enough too often the case."
___
Q: Are there parts of this you can do without Congress since, even if you
were to win the presidency, it's hard to see this being fully approved?
A: Obviously, as is the case in many, many other issues, we will look at
what option we have through executive action to incorporate some of these. But
I should also tell you that, on some ideas with regard to worker control, there
has, interestingly enough, been historically --- I can't tell you exactly what
the case is today --- but there has been conservative support and that's a
fact. I should also tell you that, right now, if you look around this country,
what you're seeing is labor militancy.
You're seeing workers stand up, going out on strike with much more frequency
than used to be the case because I think people are sick and tired of the
economic and political status quo and tired of working longer hours for lower
wages and seeing all of the new wealth going to the top 1%. And I think ideas
like this that say to working people, "You know what, if you're working 40 to
50 hours a week, you should have a say in your job." If you're a consumer out
there, you should have more than two or three companies in a given sector
controlling what goes, and the idea that major corporations aren't paying a
nickel in federal income tax, I think all of these ideas will resonate with
Americans.
___
Q: So, you're saying you think there will be bipartisan support?
A: I think it is very hard, very hard for Donald Trump or anybody else, to
make the case to the American people that a company like Amazon --- owned by
the wealthiest person in America, made $10 billion in profit last year ---
didn't pay a nickel in federal income tax. Somebody wants to make that case,
you go ahead. I don't think anybody in America will accept it. It has
everything to do, simply, with the power of the billionaire class, the power of
the corporate elite and a very corrupt political system.
___
Q: Going into the debate after your health scare, do you have the stamina to
be on the stage for three hours on Tuesday?
A: (Laughs) Well, I certainly hope so. I'm feeling great. I'm doing a lot of
walking and very much look forward to the debate.
___
Q: Will we see you talking about the ideas in your corporate governance plan
during the debate?
A: Yes. To the degree that you can get them across in 45 seconds, you will.
(KR)
|
|
