Yes, America Still Needs Unions
Right-wing billionaires shouldn't control Gov. Scott Walker
They ought to think again—unless they want their children and grandchildren to become the peons of a corporate oligarchy.
Behind the vague notion that unions are somehow obsolete is the suggestion that workers—and their families—are amply protected by the law's provisions prohibiting child labor and mandating minimum wages, safe working conditions, overtime pay and all the other standards that we now take for granted.
But if you listen carefully to "conservatives" of the ilk of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and billionaire financier David Koch, you'll learn that they want to do away with most if not all of those advances, hard won by the labor movement and its allies over the past century. Their core belief is that the state should never interfere with capital—and therefore every law defending workers or consumers is a constitutional abomination. Their ultimate project is to return this country to the absolute dominion of the wealthy that existed before the rise of the Progressive Movement and the New Deal.
Walker Governs
for the Rich, Not Workers
Politicians like Walker know better
than to articulate their goals so unappealingly. Invariably, they prefer to
talk about fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, hoping that nobody will
notice (in Wisconsin or Washington) how they squander vast sums on tax breaks
for the wealthy while demanding "sacrifice" from the middle class and
the poor. Breaking unions is the only way, they tell us, to restore jobs and
ensure prosperity.
But if you thumb back through the
pages of our economic history over the past hundred years or so, a number of
obvious facts stand out. First, the United States enjoyed a far better
distribution of income and a steady improvement of our productivity and power
when the labor movement was strong. Second, labor always struggled to expand
human and civil rights for everyone, whether or not they happened to belong to
unions. And third, the success of labor's effort toward a more equitable
society ensured broad prosperity for decades. As labor's power diminished,
income and wealth skewed upward—and helped drive the economy into stagnation
and recession.
So Americans not only display
ingratitude when they denigrate unions, which have done so much to improve the
lives of ordinary people, but ignorance as well. Even in its terribly weakened
condition, the labor movement remains a bulwark against the kind of corporate
tyranny that would swiftly make serfs of the rest of us.
Last week, a prankster pretending to
be David Koch phoned Gov. Walker and recorded their chummy, obnoxious, highly
revealing conversation. Hearing the governor eagerly agree as his top
contributor rambled on about union "bastards" was like listening to a
conversation between a robber baron and a servile politician of the Gilded Age.
Here was the new version of the unvarnished "conservatism" that ruled
us before our forebears learned to stand upright, join together and fight for
democracy.
It is more than a funny coincidence
that the Wisconsin uprising echoes the revolutionary democratic fervor
currently sweeping across North Africa and the Mideast.
Common to every dictatorship, from
the fascist and communist despots of the 20th century to their counterparts in
today's authoritarian societies, is the impulse to forbid workers from
organizing. The legacy of those who established those rights with their blood
and toil, both here and abroad, is not ours to surrender to bullies such as
Walker and Koch. Like all of our liberties, it is a trust to be guarded—by
every means available.
© 2011 Creators.com
It would seem that according to this article, the rise of a global economy has had no effect on the American economy. Weird. It is also implied that current laws do not regulate child labor, minimum wage, working conditions and overtime pay. Please do tell......
I partly agree with Joe and others on many union support issues, not specifically to support unions in every way, but to support the working class at large.
Yes, unions have brought in laws "prohibiting child labor and mandating minimum wages, safe working conditions, overtime pay and all the other standards that we now take for granted", brought these laws in for non-union members as well. Note that "seniority" is not in this list!
Workplace raises and credit needs to go to the ones who merit, the ones who are getting effective results, not the ones who merely did their time. I'm sorry teachers, this means you. Principals should be allowed to take out the ones who lost that drive, lost that "for the students" spirit.
The Scott Walker / Ron Johnson / TEA party push for "less government", "lower taxes (on business)", and "less regulation (on business)" will soon try to remove those regulations that protect workers from their employer's profit-seeking shortcuts.
Why? Because the election of 2010 brought in a Republican governor, both houses of the legislature with Republican majority, and we still have an effectively conservative majority state Supreme Court. - the message is "you Democrats and liberals lost, now deal with it!" as this majority will endeavor to undo as many liberal and democratc gains as they can in the next 2 years, particularly the ability to bounce back.
The biggest thing for the Republicans to undo is the ability of the opposition to marshall a defense. Cut off the money needed to finance a campaign, cut off the money needed to buy ads on TV. In January 2010, the US Supreme Court already ruled that you cannot limit special interest money. If corporate special interests can wildly outspend working class special interests (or environmental special interests), imagine what can happen?
Imagine if this conservative wave swept the country, returned to days of old when only white men who owned real estate could vote. Tenants or renters in those days were not as common. If you did not own property, then you worked on an owners property as a servant, therefore were not allowed to vote against your property owner.
Suppose that if you worked for a corporation, you were forbidden to vote against your employer? That's what employers have been "wishing" for. Private employers are a dictatorship, not a democracy.
Fixing the "voting problem" is not merely about stopping the homeless, criminals, and hand-out class from having a political voice!
Now - since Unions are on the outs, where can the working class majority donate time and money to an organized political force that provides balance?
And if you think that workers can always use the internet and facebook to organize, remember how the internet was shut-down in Egypt by their government! There's a move going on to allow "Big Amazon" and such to squeeze out the small dollar players like twitter, facebook, the many .org websites. The remedy to that is called "net neutrality". Ask about it.
"But if you thumb back through the pages of our economic history over the past hundred years or so, a number of obvious facts stand out. First, the United States enjoyed a far better distribution of income and a steady improvement of our productivity and power when the labor movement was strong".
When I was a little kid my dad owned a successful business. He was in the 70% tax bracket. Look, this is what we want to avoid. Distribution of income? Noooooooo!!!!! Seriously, we used to have a 70% tax bracket. It was horrible. Reagan came along and saved us, allowing us to keep more of what we worked for. If our business ever got unionized. Adios, off to Mexico. EVERYONE has the option in this country to make a lot of money. The catch is you have to work for it. Once you have done this, generally you are not to open to be having your hard earned money redistributed among those who have chosen not to make money.
I had noticed that 70% bracket when I filed my first 1040A return my first teenage part-time job in the 70's. I read that whole instruction book, even the parts that did not pertain to me. Educational.
One thing that "those who chose to make money" forget is that it took lots of consumers who had money to spend, or they would not have made money. If the majority were still Pa Ingalls on his prairie farmland, the entrepeneurs would not have made that much. We saw what trading stock on margin did in 1929, the wealth was short-lived, not for all. It really took the mortgage guarantees to the working class to get things going and keep things going for the better part of the 20th century.
If wealth were truly able to be "created", then it would be possible to have the filthy rich peacefully coexist along with enough money for a comfortable middle-class, working class, and welfare class.
Econ 101 back in college taught how money was "created", but all I saw was a pyramid built off of debt. Some who called themselves "radical republicans" have told me that money is not created, only moved around.
In the end, for those who "chose to make money", it has to be at the expense of many more who were trying to make money, but somehow failed to "properly position themselves", or even ran into statistical bad luck.
That's why I do not believe in the widening ratios of CEO pay to working class pay as being a good thing for the country. Allow some greed as incentive to make things better for yourself than your neightbor, but don't get carried away.
Senator Ellis,
The Democrats are not traitors. On the contrary, this nation was built on stalemates and compromises. As quoted below, James Madison believed in formal and informal mechanisms to prevent a tyranny of the majority. The Democratic Senators exercised an informal mechanism to stop this tyranny. They won enough seats in the senate to control whether or not you have a quorum, and they exercised this influence. The voters of Wisconsin gave them this power. The Republicans won enough seats for a majority, but not enough seats for a unilateral quorum.
You didn't win enough seats to pass a bill with such radical measures. The voters of Wisconsin didn't give you enough seats for a quorum, so now you are now trying to coerce the Democrats into giving you one with fines. Therefore, perhaps the real traitors to American democracy are the Republicans in the State Senate who refuse to accept the fact that, through democratic elections, they did not win a quorum, and are trying to steal one with intimidation. (a.k.a. tyranny of the majority).
It is arguable that the Republicans are tyrants. Senator Ellis, perhaps when speaking on this issue publicly, you should limit comments to expressing that you are angry and frustrated, but to call the Democrats "traitors" to democracy betrays the fact that, for an elected representative in an American democracy, you don't know very much about American democracy.
Quoted from Rick Garlikov, http://www.garlikov.com/philosophy/majorityrule.htm:
The Need for Formal and Informal Mechanisms to Prevent
"Tyranny of the Majority" in Any Democratic Government
James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper 51: "It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure."