Since Craig Dubow took over as Gannett’s CEO in 2005, Gannettblog reports that employment at the company has dropped from 52,600 to 32, 600. So 20,000 employees, or more than 1 in 3, have disappeared. Doesn’t this look like dismantling the company? And yet Dubow was paid $4.7M in 2009, including a cash bonus of $1.45M, for implementing cost cuts -- and that’s what’s quite wrong with CEO compensation in America.

The answer to many of the country’s domestic problems -- from the budget deficit to crumbling infrastructure, from mass joblessness to income inequality, from environmental degradation to educational shortfalls -- is obvious, even simple, but has been blocked by a dominating political/media dynamic that rules it out. The solution? Raise taxes on the rich, and use that money to get the United States back on track and advancing toward the future.

I successfully led many efforts to defeat attempts to organize workers in various part of the company. I was the lead manager in a decertification to get employees out of a union. I suspended and fired many union workers and never lost an arbitration hearing. I am sure I disliked unions as much or more than Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin -- but 35 years of experiences with unions as a worker, executive, and consultant led me to one inescapable conclusion: THE MIDDLE CLASS OF AMERICA NEEDS UNIONS NOW MORE THAN EVER BEFORE.