Back
in the 1980s, the term “Trickle Down
Economics” was coined to describe a theory that if we gave incentives to
business owners, they will in turn invest and expand their operations, thereby creating
new jobs and greater opportunity for all. Economists and politicians are still
debating if the policies of the ’80s helped or hurt the country.
Back in the 1980s, the term “Trickle Down Economics” was coined to describe a theory that if we
gave incentives to business owners, they will in turn invest and expand their
operations, thereby creating new jobs and greater opportunity for all. Economists
and politicians are still debating if the policies of the ’80s helped or hurt
the country. We did see the end of a recession and the beginnings of one of the
largest home building booms in our nation’s history. But at the same time, we
saw a deliberate reduction in the enforcement of immigration and labor laws,
both seen as impediments to business. This coupled with an immigration amnesty
plan ignited a fundamental change in the economics of home building.
Labor unions that once supplied manpower for the majority
of all construction, now faced with a cheaper supply of immigrant labor, saw
their market share in housing dwindle to a faint shadow of its previous
presence. Once the labor unions were removed from the equation, employers were
free to negotiation terms more profitable to their businesses. Among these
terms was the practice of classifying workers as “subcontractors” and avoiding
profit-eating annoyances, such as workers compensation insurance, liability
insurance and even their share of payroll taxes.
Life was good for the contractor. No more union
representatives to come around bothering them about safety violations or
employment grievances. Profits were up and there seemed to be an endless stream
of new tract housing, whose price tag was increasing with each successive
phase.
Now not all contractors who left the union skirted the
law with such practices. I know of one in particular, Ralph Mathews of
Riverside Plastering, that tried to compete against his non-union competition
using legal business practices. He lasted about five years until he could no
longer competitively bid against his “illegal” competition. I bumped into him a
few years ago at a coffee shop where he told me, “The union provided us a level
playing field to compete honestly, and the worst thing to ever happen to the
market was for industry enforcement to be driven out.”
So we had this huge housing boom, which recently popped
like a bubble. I wonder how many workers on these projects were actually able to
buy a home. I wonder how many of them paid taxes or how much of their earnings
were sent abroad, where it was put to use under third world living conditions. Wages
in the housing industry virtually remained flat from 1990 to 2005, while
profits for developers and contractors who skirted the rules soared.
Is this the type of trickle down policy we want to see
happen again? The weight of economic stability is squarely placed on the
shoulders of the middle class. I hope that any new economic policies will learn
from the mistakes of the past and ensure that workers, whose labor is so
necessary to this industry, benefit proportionally in the recovery.