Why the $60,000 Per Year Housekeeper Is a Right-Wing Nightmare [View all]

[marmar]

from Dissent magazine:



Why the $60,000 Per Year Housekeeper Is a Right-Wing Nightmare
Mark Engler - February 21, 2012 10:00 am


Conservatives these days walk a tricky line when it comes to wages. On the one hand, they strive to defend the just earnings of capitalist lords of enterprise. On the other, they try hard to foster resentment of any working people who might actually enjoy living wages and decent benefits. In a nutshell: while Wall Street bankers deserve every penny they get, public school teachers—to take just one example—are overpaid mooches who are leeching off society.

The latest hubbub illustrating this strange double standard came after the New York Times reported on a new contract between the New York Hotel Trades Council (UNITE HERE Local 6), representing city hotel workers, and the Hotel Association of New York, representing hotel owners. Over the course of a seven-year contract, hotel housekeepers will have received (cumulatively) a 29 percent raise, with a typical worker going from making around $46,000 per year to earning almost $60,000 per year. The contract also includes good union health insurance and other benefits.

It is a great contract, and members of the union should be congratulated for their work in securing it. But for some conservatives, the idea that a lowly hotel maid could possibly be paid $60,000 is an abomination. Fox News analysts called it a “nightmare.”

There’s plenty to say about their disgust. The first thing to note is the sheer hypocrisy of the right-wing revulsion. Back when we were debating the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, conservatives repeatedly rallied to assert that those making $250,000 per year were not at all rich. Among other absurdities, their apologetics produced the audacious spectacle of a University of Chicago professor with a household income of more than $450,000 per year complaining about how he is just barely getting by, noting that he and his wife “occasionally eat out but with a baby sitter, these nights take a toll on our budget.” .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=689