WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: Gene Grabiner, who teaches Sociology at Erie County Community College’s (ECC) City of Buffalo Campus, has been a New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) Union Member for 36 years.  Grabiner, who holds a PhD, is a State University of New York Distinguished Service Professor, who also serves as a Delegate to the Buffalo AFL-CIO Central Labor Council.  Grabiner - who is currently represented by the Faculty Federation of ECC, which has 466 full-time and 400 part-time Union Members - recently submitted the following Labor Perspective Commentary to WNYLaborToday.com: 

In May of 2012, GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney made his now-famous 47% Speech to a secret group of very Wealthy Donors.  In this presentation, we see the Romney Doctrine in full relief.  In fact, we rarely, (perhaps never), have seen a more open Class Analysis of our Country made by a Presidential Candidate.  In it, Romney laid bare the Fundamental Contradictions in American Economic Life for the past 35 years.  His view of the Broad Masses of the American Middle Class, Working Class and Poor People can only be seen as one of disdain and condescension.  His analysis offers rare insight into the world of the so-called Job Creators and begs an answer to the issue: “How is Wealth actually produced?”

Take my Father, for example.  

He was a Small Businessman, a jobber or factor in the New York City Garment Industry.  In the 1950s, he employed a number of Women to create innumerable Sample Cards of Buttons and Ornamental Pocketbook Snaps which would then be offered to various Coat Houses and Pocketbook Manufacturers for their Fall and Spring Lines.  Deals were struck, contracts signed and my Dad would put these deals together with other large Manufacturers for thousands of pieces at a time - which they would deliver to the Coat and Pocketbook Firms.

He paid the Women in his Shop the Year 1955/75¢ Per-Hour Minimum Wage.  He paid them for control of their life’s activity for eight hours per day, but he didn’t pay them for eight hour’s work.  He paid them for working eight hours.  And that’s a big difference.

What my Dad paid his Workers, for example, helped them to just barely reproduce their daily needs in terms of Food, Clothing and Rent - so they would be roughly in the same shape to come to work on Tuesday, as on Monday.  What those Women created in my Dad’s Shop was sold for far more than their Wages, but not for more than it cost to produce.  They were actually paid less than the full value of the product they produced for my Dad.  So, like all workers, they were Wealth Creators.  Without them in the shop, my Dad would never have been a Job Creator.

This same relationship exists throughout the World Economy and anywhere someone works for another for a Wage, whether in a Small Business like my Dad’s, or my Uncle’s Oil Heating Business or in Large-Scale Industry, like Long-Wall Bituminous Coal Mining.

In a Unionized West Virginia Underground Long-Wall Coal-Mining Situation, a typical Miner works for Pay ranging from $24.75-to-$26.41 per hour.  Using the higher rate, our Miner receives $211.28 pay per eight-hour shift.  Pretty good pay.

Working with some Highly-Sophisticated Machinery in a Crew of 12 at the Coal Face, this Miner can extract 67.63 tons of Bituminous Coal per hour or 541 tons per day, (a somewhat conservative estimate).  The Coal is sold in the market at $59.17 per ton, (2010 prices), for a total day’s value of $32,010.97.

Clearly, the miner is not paid for eight hour’s work or $211.28.

No, he is paid for working eight hours, during which time he creates new wealth far exceeding his Wages.  He creates an additional value of $31,799.69.  Sure, some of this Pay goes for the Unionized Miners’ Pensions and Benefits, Financing and paying for the Long-Wall Machine and other Equipment, or for shipping Coal, or for the Computers and Paper in the Office, or for Foremen’s, Managers’ and Executives Salaries, or for Stockholder Dividends, etc., etc., etc.

But the point is this: Apart from nature, it’s the Workers who’ve created all the wealth.

This stretches from the Miners to those who build the Long-Wall Machines themselves or who make the Steel for the Machine, who Mine the Iron for the Steel, or those who Cut Trees for Paper Pulp, who make the Pulp into Paper, or those who Stitch Buttons to Sample Cards or Paste Rhinestones into Sample Pocketbook Snaps, etc., etc., etc.

So, the Wealth Creators come before the Job Creators, those who could do nothing without Labor and all the Wealth created by Labor.

Speaking of Wealth Creators, most of Mitt Romney’s despised 47% are: Active Service Military; Veterans, who would like to be Wealth Creators when they return home; Former Wealth Creators now Collecting Social Security; Current Wealth Creators paying Payroll Taxes and State Income Taxes; Underemployed or Unemployed Wealth Creators; and Students, just yearning to become Wealth Creators.

There are also plenty of Wealth Creators among the other 63% of Americans.

And, contrary to Paul Ryan, Wealth Creators do not live off the Fruits of the Labor of others.

They are Makers, not Takers.

In fact, before they ever became Small Business People, even most Small Business People were once Wealth Creators themselves - something they should never forget.

Now, in an act of the crassest opportunism and deceit, Mitt Romney is reversing his position on everything, most significantly his 47% dictum.

Regardless of his sweet talk, however, the Corporate Raider of Bain Fame really has only one commitment – and that’s to the Job Creators, not to the Wealth Creators.

Yet, that very first Republican President - who today’s Republicans have abandoned - was well aware of the role of the Wealth Creators.

Abraham Lincoln said: Labor is prior to, and independent of, Capital.  Capital is only the Fruit of Labor and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed.  Labor is the Superior of Capital and deserves much the higher consideration.