Ro Khanna’s new economic patriotism lifts up those of us in trades

The recent increase in unionization, especially within tech companies, should be embraced and welcomed, rather than resisted, because the partnership between labor, management and government can add jobs and stabilize communities in the 21st century.

In his new book, "Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us," Congressman Ro Khanna, who represents California's Silicon Valley and has been a force for labor, proposes that the sharing of technology enterprises more equitably nationwide can level the labor playing field and provide 21st-century work for even laborers who are not coders or digital technicians.

Khanna's concept is that the workforce can remain where it is in place in its communities - involved and participating in local schools, churches, Little League, youth soccer, and other community activities - if technology is brought to the workforce.

Keeping the workforce in place strengthens the local community because tech workers need the usual support service industries - education, transportation, food service, banking, etc., and does not require that all employers and workers who benefit from the growth of technology companies actually work in the technology industries.

Khanna shares many stories of workers transitioning to new careers thanks to accessibility to education training and other resources which allow these workers to stay where they have been established rather than relocate into a new community simply to chase a job. As someone with family, a home, and generations of deep roots in my community, I appreciate that Khanna understands the important of place - it's not that easy for workers to just pick up and move when a job or a plant goes away.

In the mid-20th century there was the great workforce migration from rural areas throughout the United States to the cities, which became centers of manufacturing. The change from a rural-based agriculture economy to an economy based on the manufacturing of hard goods drove workers to the cities where the jobs were.

But then the abandonment of manufacturing in the United States, which created the "rust belt" in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, left millions of American workers without the kind of work that had allowed them to buy houses, put their children through college, and live a middle-class life.

The explosion of technology in the digital age created new work/employment centers, in particular the Silicon Valley. This caused another great workforce migration to the tech centers. This migration also left American workers behind, especially those who did not have skills in technology who worked in manufacturing, service industries, and other non-digital age enterprises.

We see the fallout of these migrations in places like Western Iowa every day - empty plants, abandoned homes, struggling small-town main streets. Khanna has been here and seen it, too.

Khanna proposes a new system for uniting labor with job opportunities - a system where technology goes to the workforce rather than the other way around. It's something of a new economic patriotism.

Khanna focuses on empowering workers. He proposes that higher wages, especially paying folks living wages, are better for the national economy than shareholder dividends and increased share value. Why? Because workers reinvest directly into the economy by purchasing consumer goods from dozens of companies including the big tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, etc.

Khanna's vision depends on substantial financial investment by federal, state, and local governments and on a partnership between the public and private sectors.

However, Khanna does not place the burden on government alone.

He proposes that private industry participate by increasing wages to a family-supporting wage. Khanna's six-point plan includes: a family-supporting wage - national $15 minimum wage; expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit; respecting employee bargaining rights; protecting and increasing retirement income; giving workers a voice; providing high-quality childcare; and insuring the availability of affordable housing.

Khanna supports his proposal with a case study about Amazon and the changes it made to its workforce in response to the pandemic - changes to increase wages and support the workforce. However, Amazon's efforts did not address the huge inequity between wages and the income growth of America's billionaires.

Khanna notes that during the pandemic from March to April 2021 America's 719 billionaires saw their collective wealth increase by $1.62 trillion. Khanna sites inequality.org for the report that Jeff Bezos' wealth increased almost 75% to nearly $200 billion; Elon Musk's wealth went up 600% to $150 billion; and Mark Zuckerberg's wealth doubled.

To further grow the workforce and improve working conditions Khanna proposes universal health care and universal education. Healthcare is an economic issue and Khanna asserts that "Medicare for all is pro-business." It allows job mobility and entrepreneurial risk-taking by freeing workers to pursue ideas and businesses without fear of losing everything should they have a significant health episode. It also relieves business, in particular startups, from the financial burden of providing health insurance to employees. This frees up capital for investment, expansion, and even corporate risk-taking.

In "Dignity in a Digital Age," Khanna provides a road map for a journey into a new American economy that raises up those of us in the trades, labor movement. And as evidenced by his work to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States, he has the legislative skill to make a lot of what he proposes happen. Here's hoping it does.

(Jeff Shudak, a Council Bluffs plumber, is president of the Western Iowa Labor Federation.)

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