How Unions Gave Us Labor Day

In praise of a movement battered and bruised but not down

JFK at Detroit Labor Day Parade, 1960 — Photo: Walter Reuther Library

I come from a union family and I married into one. My father-in-law sat in the 44-day sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan, when General Motors refused to recognize union rights for workers.

When I was a little girl I remember standing in a long line with my dad so he could vote for a union contract after a strike. I remember the Labor Day parades along Woodward Avenue in Detroit — union members marching, thousands strong, the parades lasting for hours and hours. (Like the one above with JFK.)

Strikes were hard on our families. They knew, going in, there would be hardships — no end in sight, no money coming in — but the goal was for better wages, better conditions,and for a sense of dignity that every working person deserved.

I remember being scared because I saw my parents were scared. I remember feeling relief when the ordeal was over and even small concessions were considered wins.

America was strong when unions were strong. Over the years their clout has diminished and there is no doubt workers are the worse for it. Wages are down and so are protections. Dignity and a sense of purpose is long gone. We were building a country and we were proud of our efforts. Now we aren’t.

I’m a member of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO (NWU). I pay my union dues gladly, knowing as a freelancer they’ll have my back if I ever have a dispute I can’t handle. (Because that’s what unions do. They advocate for workers.)

The NWU works with publications on contracts for freelance writers, negotiating for reasonable rates and conditions. (This is their agreement with The Nation.) They issue press passes and provide legitimacy to writers who find themselves trying to navigate a system set up to take, and only rarely give.

In 2018 my union took on Ebony Magazine and won an $80,000 settlement for 45 freelancers who hadn’t been paid for their work. There’s little chance those writers would ever have seen money due them without the clout of a strong union behind them.

But just yesterday, news came that The Arizona Republic is getting tough on staffers who are looking into union representation. They’ve gone from assuring them they don’t need a union to threatening lawsuits over what they call “surveilling” other staff members in an effort to coerce them into joining. The workers say it isn’t true.

Gannett, their parent company, is notorious for working against unions, which nobody but me seems to consider odd: Newspapers, those bastions of free speech, keep working to muffle voices pushing for representation. But there it is. That’s where we are now.

Every year around Labor Day I grow nostalgic for those days when labor was strong and management had respect for them — if even reluctantly. I think about those early labor advocates and marvel at their efforts, when the prospect of good wages or protections or even dignity seemed foolish and misguided, considering the good will of the businesses who were kind enough to hire them. (I’m kidding.)

So in case you missed them, I give you some quotes I’ve shared over the years on Labor Day:

Labor is the great producer of wealth: it moves all other causes.
Congressman Daniel Webster, 4/2/1824

“The first thing is to raise hell,” says I. “That’s always the first thing to do when you’re faced with an injustice and you feel powerless. That’s what I do in my fight for the working class.”
 Mother Jones

With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than the other association of men.
 Clarence Darrow, The Railroad Trainman, 1909

The history of America has been largely created by the deeds of its working people and their organizations. Nor has this contribution been confined to raising wages and bettering work conditions; it has been fundamental to almost every effort to extend and strengthen our democracy.
William Cahn, labor authority and historian

We insist that labor is entitled to as much respect as property. But our workers with hand and brain deserve more than respect for their labor. They deserve practical protection in the opportunity to use their labor at a return adequate to support them at a decent and constantly rising standard of living, and to accumulate a margin of security against the inevitable vicissitudes of life.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, fireside chat, 1936

If I were a worker in a factory, the first thing I would do would be to join a union.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt

The first thing a dictator does is abolish the free press. Next he abolishes the right of labor to go on strike. Strikes have been labor’s weapon of progress in the century of our industrial civilization. Where the strike has been abolished … labor is reduced to a state of medieval peonage, the standard of living lowered, the nation falls to subsistence level.
George Seldes, Freedom of the Press, 1935

The right to join a union of one’s choice is unquestioned today and is sanctioned and protected by law.
President Harry S. Truman

Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.
President Dwight Eisenhower

There’s s a direct relationship between the ballot box and the bread box, and what the union fights for and wins at the bargaining table can be taken away in the legislative halls.
Walter Reuther

In light of this fundamental structure of all work… in light of the fact that, labor and capital are indispensable in any social system … it is clear that even if it is because of production in any social system … it is clear that even if it is because of their work needs that people unite to secure their rights, their union remains a constructive factor of social order and solidarity, and it is impossible to ignore it.
Pope John Paul II

The history of the labor movements needs to be taught in every school in this land. America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. … We ought to be proud of it!
Vice President Hubert Humphrey

Our labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups. They have raised wages, shortened hours, and provided supplemental benefits. Through collective bargaining and grievance procedures, they have brought justice and democracy to the shop floor.
President John F. Kennedy, 1962

The AFL-CIO has done more good for more people than any (other) group in America in its legislative efforts. It doesn’t just try to do something about wages and hours for its own people. No group in the country works harder in the interests of everyone.
President Lyndon Johnson, 1965

Without a union, the people are always cheated, and they are so innocent. Cesar Chavez, United Farm Workers Union

Labor Day is an American holiday created by labor unions.  It became a national holiday in 1894, and since then it has been celebrated on the first Monday in September, without fail.   We celebrate the labor movement on Labor Day each year because working hard and playing by the rules (whose rules?) was not and never has been a ticket to success in America.  It took the labor movement to gather enough strength to make sure hard working, rules-playing workers got a fair shake in the workplace.

Click here for the history of Labor Day.

And I leave you with the song that says it all:

Happy Labor Day weekend.  Remember who we were when we were at our best.

(Cross-posted at Indelible Ink)

Labor Day, Brought to You By Unions Everywhere

This year I joined the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO (NWU).  I advocate for unions all the time, and this just puts the icing on the cake for me, but more than that, more than how it makes me feel, union membership joins us, arms linked, as we struggle to give our labor force the respect it deserves.  (Yes, even those workers who rail against unions.  We fight for them, too.  Because who else will?)

As I do every Labor Day, I went looking for Labor Day mentions, and the first thing I found was a list of Labor Day quotes to use on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.  Hey!  Great!  But after reading a few of them I noticed a pattern:  They were all about the rewards of hard work, the joys of labor, the shame of idleness.  Nothing about unions AT ALL.  On Labor Day.

It came from the International Business Times, and their lead paragraph is a study in how to say so little about organized labor you would think it never existed:

Labor Day is more than just a pseudo end to summer.  Most Americans throughout the nation are off work on Monday, and that's because more than 100 years ago laborers were forced to work 12-hour days, seven days a week.  While you kick back and relax with some delicious food and cold drinks, here are some interesting quotes social media users can share with family and friends, (etc., etc., etc.)

Enough said, apparently.  What follows are 25 quotes from people  like Maya Angelou, MLK, and Ginger Rogers.  Work is good!  Everybody should work!

And a little shame can't hurt, says Henry Ford in Quote #24:  "Nobody can think straight who does not work.  Idleness warps the mind." 

But the last thought is the kicker--I think:

Bonus for the fashionistas:  "Rules like 'don't wear white after Labor Day' or 'shoes matching the handbag' are antiquated.  Modern women should feel free to experiment."

(Look, I just report these things, I shouldn't be expected to explain them, too.)

But Labor Day is traditionally a celebration of organized labor and a reminder of the sacrifices that came before.  It's a union-invented holiday, celebrated by all workers everywhere, union or not.

As I write this, Joe Biden is giving his annual Labor Day speech in Pittsburgh, talking about how productivity went up about 73% while wages went up only 9%, and. . .

(What the hell? MSNBC just broke into his speech, saying they'll come back to it if he says something important.  They're waiting for him to talk about a run for the presidency.  Nothing else is important on this LABOR DAY.)

So guess what C-Span 2 put into their programming this morning--on LABOR DAY?  "Gretchen Carlson on 'Getting Real.  Fox New anchor Gretchen Carlson shares her life and career in 'broadcasting'."   (Oh, honey, I wish I was kidding.)

News flash:  MSNBC just cut off the president's LABOR DAY speech, too.  CNN didn't cover it at all.  As far as I know, the LABOR DAY speeches by POTUS and the Veep were not broadcast in their totality anywhere on television.  If I'm wrong, please tell me.  Unbelievable.  (If it's not Trump, it's not news.)

But on to the better stuff.  A round-up of Labor Day observances on this, our day:

The Nation:  Top Ten Labor Day Songs

Bernie Sanders:  Stand Together and Fight Back.

L.A Times:  Uncertain Times for American Labor.

Dylan Petrohilos (ThinkProgress):  Seven Union Heroes to Remember.

The Atlantic:  A Labor Day 2015 Reading List.  (A list within a list.  It's all good.)

Ben Railton (TPM):  The Forgotten Radical History of Labor Day.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:  This labor Day.

Ramona (That's me):  Friday Follies Labor Day Edition, 2011


This is our day to enjoy.  To celebrate our successes.  We've earned it.

And--I don't like to brag--but isn't it just like us to want to share it?  (Insert Smiley Face here.)

Ye Auld New America: Didn't We Go Down This Road Before?

 
Working for someone else, fingers to the bone with no expectation of decent wages or a foothold on the ladder, is back in vogue here in America.   Even your big deal congresspersons will tell you that.  There are no greater patriots than the country's laborers, and the very, very finest--the finest patriots of all--are those who have no use for unions. The best patriot/workers understand that in America it's All for One and None for All.

And this, too:  If God wanted you to be healthy, wealthy and wise, he would have given you better parents.  It's a practice near to sin to get the taxpayers to take care of you and yours.  The taxpayers have a hard enough time taking care of the rich.

The rich have earned our blind, gushing loyalty (How, you ask? By being rich, you ninny).

You? You haven't.

Yes.  Well.  You'll pardon me for bringing this up, O ye sensitive ones who hate having to hear about the bad old days vs. the good old days, but didn't we goddamn settle this already?

Child coal mine workers, 1900s

I bring this up because Nate Silver says there's a 60% chance the Republicans will take the senate.  Nate seems to know what he's talking about but he doesn't say why the Republicans deserve to take the Senate.  That's for the rest of us to chew over.  So I'm chewing:

How many workers see something in the Republicans that tells them life will be better when the GOP/Tea Party takes over Congress?  What is it they see?

How many women see something in the GOP that the rest of us don't?  Enough to take them over the top?  What is it they see?

When the Republicans win will they finally get busy and deliver on sustainable jobs? Affordable, ethical health care?  Bridges?  Roads? Pollution? Kids?  Or will a comfortable win tell them all they need to know about the sterling virtues of capitalism and the ready acceptance of an oligarchy?

Paul Krugman:

America’s nascent oligarchy may not yet be fully formed — but one of our two main political parties already seems committed to defending the oligarchy’s interests.

Despite the frantic efforts of some Republicans to pretend otherwise, most people realize that today’s G.O.P. favors the interests of the rich over those of ordinary families. I suspect, however, that fewer people realize the extent to which the party favors returns on wealth over wages and salaries. And the dominance of income from capital, which can be inherited, over wages — the dominance of wealth over work — is what patrimonial capitalism is all about.

In Bernie Sanders' report, "Poverty is a Death Sentence", he warns:

“If people don’t have access to health care, if they don’t have access to education, if they don’t have access to jobs and affordable housing then we end up paying not only in terms of human suffering and the shortening of life expectancy but in actual dollars."

These are not revelations new to the 21st century.  Krugman and Sanders are both echoing what President Roosevelt said in his 1944 State of the Union speech, in the midst of the Second World War, when he proposed a second Bill of Rights:

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.

We've been here before.  Millions of Americans took FDR's words to heart and worked tirelessly for decades to insure that these most obvious, common-sense American rights should come to pass.  Many of them did come to pass, but now they're in jeopardy.  Now the Republicans (and, yes, some bloody Democrats) are working tirelessly to undo it all.

Millions of us see clearly what's happening again and are trying to stop it, but there are millions of distinctly separate Americans who think it's high time we give up on that old FDR course and head in another direction.  The direction they want to take us in is the same direction we were headed when all hell broke loose in 1929 and it all came crashing down.

It looks like the oligarchs might just get away with it.  So what is it they're seeing in this new, same-old plan--the plan that caused the stock market crash in 1929 and led us into a devastating long-term depression--that makes them think it's going to work this time?

The answer is, it doesn't have to.  America is the place to make money; any idiot knows you wouldn't want to keep it here.  Whatever happens to us won't happen to them.

Some setup, huh?  Makes you wonder if we shouldn't have stuck with that Democracy thing and at least given it a try.

(Cross-posted on Dagblog, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, and Political Carnival.  Featured on Crooks and Liars Blog Round Up)

Labor in America: Those were the Days - (A Repeat)

Note:  Labor Day weekend is here once again, and let's enjoy it while we can.  I have a feeling, if things keep going this way, anything that smacks of celebrating labor in this country will disappear. 

I guess you've heard that Michigan, my Michigan has become a Right-to-Work state?  Who would have dreamed it would ever happen to Michigan?  Are businesses flocking to our border now, wanting to take advantage of cheap, unprotected labor?  Do I even have to answer that?  (I'm throwing this in because I'm still so mad about the whole damned thing.  I may throw it in many more times in future posts. Because I'll never stop being mad about the whole damned thing.)

So, since I'm going to be busy all weekend helping our daughter move into her new digs, and since I feel the need every Labor Day to acknowledge, appreciate and celebrate our labor force, I hope you don't mind if I do a repeat here of a blog post I wrote in 2010.  Are things any better for labor three years down the road?  Not much.  Can we fix that?  I don't know, but there is a new awakening.  People are trying.  That's all we can ask. 

(By the way, just ignore that first sentence if you can.  It's a bit of hyperbole just to get your attention.  Of course I feel like celebrating Labor Day.  As long as there's a Labor Day I'll feel like celebrating it.)
_____________________________

Every year for the past two dozen or so, I've felt less and less like celebrating Labor Day and more and more like forgetting the whole damned thing.  It used to be that we actually set aside that day to acknowledge and pay tribute to our vast labor force.  We had parades and speeches and presentations all across the country, with union leaders sticking verbal pins in the Big Guys, and the Big Guys pretending not to notice as they got ready to hold their noses and gush over the workers who made their products and sold their products and fixed their products (and--it should be noted--bought their products).

Labor and management have always had a love-hate relationship but there was a window--a brief window in time--when nearly everybody was making money and spending money and for most Americans life was good.  Cheap goods were coming in from the slave-labor countries but we still  made enough to be self-sustaining and proud.

A chicken in every pot. 

"Made in America".

"Look for the Union Label".

Then came government-approved off-shoring and outsourcing, along with cheap labor and non-regulation, and suddenly the Big Guys saw gold in them thar hills and weren't even our pretend friends anymore. We stopped making things and became the poor step-satellite of industrialized nations like China, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Korea, Macau (I'm reading labels here in my house).

And now here we are, looking at another Labor Day and wondering how the hell we got ourselves into this fix, considering the rich history of the labor movement and what those people put themselves through in order to make life fair for all of us.  I'm glad they're not here to see this.  On the other hand, we could use their fierce commitment to us right about now:

Cesar Chavez - Si Se Puede

There has never been a law at the state or national levels that has ever been enforced for farm workers and against growers: child labor, minimum wage and hour, occupational health and safety, agricultural labor relations.
Now will agribusiness protect farm workers from pesticides?
The agrichemical industry won't do it.
It's out to maximize profits. Using smaller amounts of safer chemicals more wisely is not in the interest of chemical companies and agribusiness groups like the Farm Bureau that have heavy financial stakes in maintaining pesticide use.
There is nothing is wrong with pesticides, they claim; the blame rests with abuse and misuse of pesticides.
It's like the N.R.A. saying, 'guns don't kill people, people kill people.'
Universities won't do it.
America's colleges and universities are the best research facilities in the world. But farm workers are of the wrong color; they don't speak the right language; and they're poor.
The University of California, and other land grant colleges spend millions of dollars developing agricultural mechanization and farm chemicals. Although we're all affected in the end, researchers won't deal with the inherent toxicity or chronic effects of their creations.
Protecting farm workers and consumers is not their concern.
Doctors won't do it.
Most physicians farm workers see won't even admit their patients' problems are caused by pesticides. They usually blame symptoms on skin rashes and heat stroke.
Doctors don't know much about pesticides; the signs and symptoms of acute pesticide poisoning are similar to other illnesses.
Doctors who work for growers or physicians with close ties to rural communities won't take a stand.
Two years ago in Tulare County, California 120 orange grove workers at LaBue ranch suffered the largest skin poisoning every reported. The grower had changed the formulation of a pesticide, Omite CR, to make it stick to the leaves better. It did.
It also stuck better to the workers. Later they discovered the reentry delay had to be extended from seven to 42 days.
After the poisoning, the company doctor said workers should just change clothes and return to work. When we demanded the workers be removed from exposure, the doctor replied, "Do you know how much that would cost?"
Workers endure skin irritations and rashes that none of us would tolerate. They continue to work because they desperately need the money. They don't complain out of fear of losing their jobs.
Farm workers aren't told when pesticides are used. They have no health insurance. They are cheated out of workers compensation benefits by disappearing labor contractors or foremen who intimidate people into not filing claims.
In the old days, miners would carry birds with them to warn against poison gas. Hopefully, the birds would die before the miners.
Farm workers are society's canaries.
 
ADDRESS BY CESAR CHAVEZ, PRESIDENT
UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO
Pacific Lutheran University
March 1989-Tacoma, Washington

 _________________________________ 

As a nation, we need to work out a list of national priorities.  We need to sharpen our vision and we need to rededicate ourselves to the basic human and democratic values that we believe in, and we need to put first things first.  We need to overcome the serious deficit in education, which is denying millions of our children their rightful opportunity to maximum growth.  The American labor movement can be proud that it was among those who pioneered for free public education.  American labor shares the belief that every child made in the image of God is entitled to an educational opportunity that will facilitate the maximum intellectual, cultural and spiritual growth.  We need to wipe out our slums and build decent, wholesome neighborhoods.  We need to provide more adequate medical care available to all groups.  We need to improve social security so that our aged citizens can live out their lives with a fuller measure of security and dignity.  We need to provide all of our citizens, without regard to race, creed, or color, equal opportunity in every phase of our national life.  We need to develop more fully our natural resources so that continued neglect will not put in jeopardy the welfare of future generations.

Walter Reuther, Labor Day speech, September 1, 1958

______________________________

No tin-hat brigade of goose-stepping vigilantes or bibble-babbling mob of blackguarding and corporation paid scoundrels will prevent the onward march of labor, or divert its purpose to play its natural and rational part in the development of the economic, political and social life of our nation.

Unionization, as opposed to communism, presupposes the relation of employment; it is based upon the wage system and it recognizes fully and unreservedly the institution of private property and the right to investment profit. It is upon the fuller development of collective bargaining, the wider expansion of the labor movement, the increased influence of labor in our national councils, that the perpetuity of our democratic institutions must largely depend.

The organized workers of America, free in their industrial life, conscious partners in production, secure in their homes and enjoying a decent standard of living, will prove the finest bulwark against the intrusion of alien doctrines of government

John L. Lewis
, United Mine Workers of America, Labor Day speech, 1937

____________________________________

Now, my boys, you are mine; we have fought together, we have hungered together, we have marched together, but I can see victory in the Heavens for you. I can see the hand above you guiding and inspiring you to move onward and upward. No white flag — we can not raise it; we must not raise it. We must redeem the world!
Go into our factories, see how the conditions are there, see how women are ground up for the merciless money pirates, see how many of the poor wretches go to work with crippled bodies.
I talked with a mother who had her small children working. She said to me, "Mother, they are not of age, but I had to say they were; I had to tell them they were of age so they could get a chance to help me to get something to eat." She said after they were there for a little while, "I have saved $40, the first I ever saw. I put that into a cow and we had some milk for the little ones." In all the years her husband had put in the earth digging out wealth, he never got a glimpse of $40 until he had to take his infant boys, that ought to go to school, and sacrifice them.
If there was no other reason that should stimulate every man and woman to fight this damnable system of commercial pirates. That alone should do it, my friends.

Mother Jones to striking W. Virginia coal miners, 8/15/1912

______________________

We want eight hours and nothing less. We have been accused of being selfish, and it has been said that we will want more; that last year we got an advance of ten cents and now we want more. We do want more. You will find that a man generally wants more. Go and ask a tramp what he wants, and if he doesn’t want a drink he will want a good, square meal. You ask a workingman, who is getting two dollars a day, and he will say that he wants ten cents more. Ask a man who gets five dollars a day and he will want fifty cents more. The man who receives five thousand dollars a year wants six thousand a year, and the man who owns eight or nine hundred thousand dollars will want a hundred thousand dollars more to make it a million, while the man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day. We live in the latter part of the nineteenth century. In the age of electricity and steam that has produced wealth a hundred fold, we insist that it has been brought about by the intelligence and energy of the workingmen, and while we find that it is now easier to produce it is harder to live. We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.

Samuel Gompers, Address to workers, Louisville, KY 1890

President Obama talked about the needs of workers and the declining middle class in his Weekly Address.  If he lets us down this time, I'm going to go out and find me my own bibble-babbling mob and take action.

And maybe I missed it, but whatever happened to the Employee Free Choice Act?

(Oh, and did you catch "Sunday Morning" on CBS yesterday?  Did you see their tribute to Labor?  It was about German workers in a BMW factory.  Management came up with the idea to put older, more experienced workers in one section on one shift and let them come up with ways to improve productivity.  At their suggestion the company put in wooden floors, gave them more comfortable shoes, gave them hairdressers chairs to sit in, increased the size of the computer fonts, and fixed up places for them to stretch.  Over time productivity went up 7%, absenteeism went down, and the assembly line defect rate was non-existent.  Damned Socialists. . .)

Enjoy our day. Keep the light shining.  Solidarity.

Ramona

Puppy Training for Politicians. Or, How we got RTW in Michigan

So it has happened.  Remember the other day when I wrote that Michigan had become a Right-to-Work state? It's not that I'm prescient or anything, announcing a done deal on Saturday when it didn't actually become law until yesterday (Tuesday), when Govnerd Ricky signed the two "Hasta la Vista, Union" bills hustled through the Republican-led legislature in a dazzling demonstration of warp speed.  No, it's just that I've come to know those guys.  No amount of talking, cajoling, coercing or begging was going to change the course of that bloody action, no matter what. Not from us, anyway.

Know why?  Because it wasn't them, it was them:

The ubiquitous Koch brothers, heirs-apparent to the throne once America says "Okay, OKAY! I give up!"

  Nobody wants to believe the obvious--that these two rather dorky brothers are up to their eyeballs in evil wherever it lurks these days--but there it is.  If money really talks, when it belongs to the Brothers Koch it says, "Stick'em up and don't turn around.  I've got a friggin' humungous bunch of greenbacks and I know how to use them!"

Evidence abounds that those cunning Kochs look on American unions as icky Red maggots and have finally figured out a way to bust the guts out of them.  They do it by joining up with other gajillionaires (like Dick deVos, notorious member of the Michigan hoi polloi, given to hating the masses), by funding Tea Party think tanks such as Michigan's own Mackinac Center for (cough, cough, privatizing) Public Policy, and by buying legislators, congresspeople, and even governors for the Republicans.

It's a marvel to watch. If I weren't always on edge, scouting out good locations to run to, I might be standing in awe, pondering how, in a matter of mere months, two seemingly puny persons came out of nowhere to become our first and only potentates. (Eat your hearts out, Grover and Newt.  It is what it is. And it is money.)

But enough about them.  Or not.  How about that ALEC? (The American Legislative Exchange (cough, cough, exchange for what?) Council)  From the Center for Media and Democracy's special report on ALEC's funding and spending:

Almost 98% of ALEC's funding comes from corporations like Exxon Mobil, corporate "foundations" like the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, or trade associations like the pharmaceutical industry's PhRMA and sources other than "legislative dues." Those funds help subsidize legislators' trips to ALEC meetings, where they are wined, dined, and handed "model" legislation to make law in their state. Through ALEC, corporations vote on "model" legislation with politicians behind closed doors.

 Sometimes what goes on behind closed doors gets out here in what we still laughingly call the "public."  It turns out the wording of those hallowed right-to-work bills bringing so much entertainment to Michigan Republican lawmakers were word-for-word the creations of the Koch-fueled ALEC bunch.

Honestly.

Both HB 4003, which affects public sector unions, and HB 4054 / SB 116 affecting private sector unions, undermine collective bargaining by allowing workers to opt-out of paying the costs of union representation. As the Center for Media and Democracy's Executive Director Lisa Graves reported today, the move is calculated political payback attacking unions for supporting Democrats. Wages are lower for both union and non-union workers in Right to Work states, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The legislation is straight out of the Koch-funded ALEC playbook. Compare the language in HB 4003 and HB 4054 with the ALEC "model" Right to Work Act:

Stunning, isn't it?  But--are you still with me?--here comes the fun part.  A 2010 article from The Mackinac Center's news service, CAPCON, called "Politician Puppy Training, What the Tea Parties can Learn from the Dogs" has surfaced.  I'm not kidding.  And neither are they.  I thought they were. I thought they were making a funny, Onion-style.  But, no.

Look:

Almost everyone loves puppies, at least until they start making messes on the carpet.  With every puppy comes the responsibility of training it to become “man's best friend.” The same can be said about legislators.  While they are, of course, not dogs, they do need to be trained in order to be turned in to a voter's best friend. While most go to Lansing or Washington to do the right thing, many will end up making messes that result in less liberty.

Training legislators, as with training puppies, must be done with care and common sense. An external system of rewards and punishments is used to guide the puppy toward doing the right thing.
There’s a lesson in this for tea party groups who seek to communicate their concerns to politicians. You don’t need to explain the principles or speak their language to get your point across. Indeed, this is often the last thing that will work. 

But, wait. . .

Like the trained puppy, your lawmakers will follow the training that has been driven into them beforehand. Trying to teach these at the last minute is ineffective.  Representative democracy, like puppy training, means you teach the big idea well in advance and then trust the politician or the puppy to do the right thing with the specific details when the big moment arrives.

Counter-intuitively, this means that you can often make the biggest difference well after the vote is over. Afterward, you can find out what your lawmaker knew at the time, and judge whether they made the right decision or not. If they barked smartly and did their business outside where it belongs, a tea party group can send a big important message by effusively praising them for it. But if they chewed your slippers, they should face swift consequences.
 
With this past experience in mind, a politician will learn what is expected of them the NEXT time an important vote comes up. Whether the issue is taxes, spending, regulations or what not, a message has been sent to the politician regarding the type of conduct is acceptable – and what is not. Either way, they learn that praise or punishment from a tea party is a real consequence of their future actions.

...We try and give you the information that the politician had at the time of the vote, so you can make a fair decision about whether that vote reflected the metaphorical distinction between your puppy going on the rug or barking at the door.

And that’s when it is most effective for you to decide whether to scratch behind their ears or smack them on the nose. Either way, they’ll remember the next time.

There's more, and, as hilarious as this is, remember, this wild primer on housebreaking is a legitimate plan. There are lessons to be learned here, and if we don't pay attention, we'll go on losing until all is lost 

In a chilling article in New York Magazine called "In Michigan, the Republican Will to Power", Jonathan Chait writes: 

Last year, the Michigan director of Americans for Prosperity, the right-wing activist group, explained, “We fight these battles on taxes and regulation but really what we would like to see is to take the unions out at the knees so they don’t have the resources to fight these battles.” Republicans understand full well that Michigan leans Democratic, and the GOP has total power at the moment, so its best use of that power is to crush one of the largest bastions of support for the opposing party.

In the coming days we need to keep talking about the impact right-to-work has on our nation's workers. We need to stress the need for the strong organized workplace oversight only labor unions can provide.

We need to explain and offset the thundering opposition to a prosperous working class.  We need to expose the lies.  Our voices will be drowned out by those who have a vested interest in keeping the RTW momentum going, but we're not puppies and they're not our trainers.  They'll have no real power over us unless we give it to them by lying down and rolling over.


(Addendum:  More from Harold Meyerson at WaPo and Chris Savage at Eclectablog)


(Addendum II:  Selected for Mike's Blog Round-up at Crooks and Liars.  Thank you!)

(And, of course, cross-posted at dagblog)

The Problem with Unions? They're not Corporations

WARNING: It's Labor Day and I'm feeling the love for labor, so what follows will be totally biased and in no way fair or balanced.  (If you've been wondering what fair and balanced really means, go ask your two-year-old.  It'll make as much sense as any other definition you've ever heard, but it'll sound so much better coming from the mouths of babes.)

Way back in 2010 when the Supreme Court said yes, indeedy, corporations are people, too, it started a whole new revolution in this country.  If corporations are people then a government of the people, by the people, and for the people takes on a whole new meaning.

It turns everything we thought about our government, our constitution, and our rights as citizens upside down.  It's as if that one edict from the highest court in the land didn't just water down the rights of actual human individuals, it gave permission to get really creative with applications of that wacky whopper.

If the most important court in the land could have the last word on the cockamamie notion that corporations could be seen as people, rumor has it that the Republicans, through their surrogates the Koch Brothers, the U.S Chamber of Commerce, FreedomWorks, the Tea Party, and--why not?--the Religious Right, are thinking, Okay! Let's turn that around and push the equally nutty notion that unions aren't people. See how that plays.

 And as we've seen, it plays the way it has always played.  There is a move out there to blame unions for everything Big Business did to the workers in this country. Depressions are notorious for throwing huge segments of a country's population out of work (so too, outsourcing) but somehow, in this depression, the unions--those organizations in business to represent workers--are blamed for everything from mass unemployment to higher health costs to gas rising over $4 a gallon.  They've painted union members as an uppity class with the nerve to think $8.50 an hour is demeaning.  They ought to be happy they even have jobs....

It's the 1800s to the 1980s all over again. (In 1835, mill kids from 8 to 18 in Paterson, NJ  went on strike for a shortening of their work day from 13 hours to 11, six days a week. They made anywhere from 45 cents to $2 a week, depending on their ages. (They ended up getting 11 1/2 hours, with a cut in pay.)  The papers of the day blamed everyone but the factory owners, from the greedy parents of the little workers, to outside agitators looking for trouble, to the kids themselves, who were "well taken care of and happy" and had nothing to complain about.  Sound familiar?)

Girl working in textile mill

For every successful strike (See Bread and Roses), there were hundreds that sucked the blood out of the workers, their families and their communities, with nothing gained in the end.  We've been there, we've done that; the struggle for recognition was necessary, it was painful, it was over.  And now it's back.

(See US labor history timeline here.  It's not complete (they missed the 1913 Upper Peninsula copper mine strike, for example) but if you can skim it and still manage to miss how unions have changed the lives of workers for the better, there's probably a re-run of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" somewhere on TV.  Go for it.)

The most effective way to vanquish an enemy is to render them less than human.  If the powermongers can convince the armies of the night that the people they're destroying are at the bottom of the humanity pit they're on their way to winning the battle.

1913 Copper Mine Strike, Calumet, Michigan.  The One Man Machine was a mine drill dubbed "The Widowmaker".

 It used to be the factory rats who got the brunt of it (they, the lazy drunken union-protected potheads), but since our factories have virtually disappeared, the union-busters had to go elsewhere.  No surprise, they went to the last bastion of organized labor, the public service sector.  (An effort already started in 1981, when Ronald Reagan fired nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers belonging to the union known as Patco for striking illegally.)
 
What's unprecedented today is the realization that an entire political party has joined the battle against unions.

What's baffling is the wrath against teachers and the neglect of the needs of cops and firefighters.

What's frightening is the near-death of collective bargaining, the only working class safety net.

What's needed again is the passion of our predecessors for enforcing the wants, needs and rights of the laborers in this country  Without that passion the power-mongers win.  We've fought too hard and given up too much to watch the gains we've made just dry up and blow away, disappearing into the air as if they never happened.

If corporations are people, the workers are not the parasites, but the heart, sinew and bones. If our government is the people, ditto: Heart, sinew, bones.  Never let them forget that.

_______________________________

Had to share this. I'll bet there's not a Republican today who'll own this.  Talk about shameful!

May Day! May Day! A little help here. . .

Today is May First, or May Day.  It's the day when workers around the world traditionally rally to show solidarity and support for one another.  It's the real Labor Day. While our own Labor Day has become a holiday, a day of picnics and celebration, May Day is and always will be an international day of protest--a reminder of worker rights and worker dignity in a world gone mad with greed.

Labor in America is under siege, like nothing we've seen in this country since the 1930s.  Whatever wage scales and rights and protections had been fought for and won over the years have slowly eroded away in this new, bizarre and reckless version of take-over capitalism. 

This year, here in America, planners have been at it for months, organizing what they're hoping will be a May Day to remember.  There is talk of a general strike, but whether the grass-roots activists are able to get it up and running is still to be seen.  Media for the 99 percent is planning to live-stream events across the country.  You can watch it here:  (No sign of James Dobson this year, by the way.  He will be missed.)



Two years ago, I wrote a piece that included the origins of May Day. In case you missed it, here it is again.  Note there is no mention of the Occupy movements.  That's because they barely existed then. Now Occupy Wall Street and the spin-offs are forces to be reckoned with, just the tonic to wake up the sleeping giant known as labor. We'll see what happens today.  The OWS website is going to livestream events around the world today.  I hope you're out there, and I hope it's big.

May Day: Workers of the World, Hang in There

In a proclamation printed just before May 1, 1886, one publisher appealed to working people with this plea:

•Workingmen to Arms!

•War to the Palace, Peace to the Cottage, and Death to LUXURIOUS IDLENESS.

•The wage system is the only cause of the World's misery. It is supported by the rich classes, and to destroy it, they must be either made to work or DIE.

•One pound of DYNAMITE is better than a bushel of BALLOTS!

•MAKE YOUR DEMAND FOR EIGHT HOURS with weapons in your hands to meet the capitalistic bloodhounds, police, and militia in proper manner.        IWW, The Brief Origins of May Day         

Okay, so that's the kind of thing that gave Socialists a bad name.  In the name of civility and good manners we've moved on to less violent (but probably less effective) ways of getting our message across.  The larger point here, though, is that since the 19th century, workers of the world have embraced May Day as the day to honor the sacrifices of the laboring classes.

In 1958, despite Joe McCarthy's earlier best efforts,  the Cold War Commies and Socialists were still purportedly climbing out from under every rock in every little burg in the US.  The VFW saw trouble in those May Day celebrations and foiled those plotters by renaming it "Loyalty Day".  Congress made it official and Ike actually signed it into law, but now, apart from a few VFW chapters and a few small towns, Loyalty Day is pretty much forgotten. (Not that loyalty isn't important, mind you. It is.  My loyalty to labor knows no bounds.)

But despite their best efforts, May Day demonstrations in America are still going strong.  Much of it centers on the controversial Arizona  "Show your Papers" law today, as hundreds of thousands in cities and towns all across the country are scheduled to march in solidarity against immigration and worker abuses. 

But even as I write this James Dobson, formerly of Focus on the Family, is leading  May Day, a Cry to God for a Nation in Distress on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  Dobson and others, including Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association,  are calling it a "day of repentance and remembrance",  addressing "The greatest moral crisis since the Civil War", which seems to include abortion, Obamacare, Obama in general, and the scary notion that there are more "Socialists" than Republicans running Congress these days.

The Liberty Council will be there, as well.  They wouldn't want to pass up a chance to sell  their membership cards:

Oy. . .

So.  May our efforts this May Day and every day forward bring peace and equity to those who break their backs struggling to build this nation.  Solidarity until the sun ceases to shine or until worker equity is a reality.  Whichever comes first.

Ramona

Labor in America: Those were the Days

Every year for the past two dozen or so, I've felt less and less like celebrating Labor Day and more and more like forgetting the whole damned thing.  It used to be that we actually set aside that day to acknowledge and pay tribute to our vast labor force.  We had parades and speeches and presentations all across the country, with union leaders sticking verbal pins in the Big Guys, and the Big Guys pretending not to notice as they got ready to hold their noses and gush over the workers who made their products and sold their products and fixed their products (and--it should be noted--bought their products).

Labor and management have always had a love-hate relationship but there was a window--a brief window in time--when nearly everybody was making money and spending money and for most Americans life was good.  Cheap goods were coming in from the slave-labor countries but we still  made enough to be self-sustaining and proud.

A chicken in every pot. 

"Made in America".

"Look for the Union Label".

Then came government-approved off-shoring and outsourcing, along with cheap labor and non-regulation, and suddenly the Big Guys saw gold in them thar hills and weren't even our pretend friends anymore. We stopped making things and became the poor step-satellite of industrialized nations like China, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Korea, Macau (I'm reading labels here in my house).

And now here we are, looking at another Labor Day and wondering how the hell we got ourselves into this fix, considering the rich history of the labor movement and what those people put themselves through in order to make life fair for all of us.  I'm glad they're not here to see this.  On the other hand, we could use their fierce commitment to us right about now:

Cesar Chavez - Si Se Pueda

There has never been a law at the state or national levels that has ever been enforced for farm workers and against growers: child labor, minimum wage and hour, occupational health and safety, agricultural labor relations.
Now will agribusiness protect farm workers from pesticides?
The agrichemical industry won't do it.
It's out to maximize profits. Using smaller amounts of safer chemicals more wisely is not in the interest of chemical companies and agribusiness groups like the Farm Bureau that have heavy financial stakes in maintaining pesticide use.
There is nothing is wrong with pesticides, they claim; the blame rests with abuse and misuse of pesticides.
It's like the N.R.A. saying, 'guns don't kill people, people kill people.'
Universities won't do it.
America's colleges and universities are the best research facilities in the world. But farm workers are of the wrong color; they don't speak the right language; and they're poor.
The University of California, and other land grant colleges spend millions of dollars developing agricultural mechanization and farm chemicals. Although we're all affected in the end, researchers won't deal with the inherent toxicity or chronic effects of their creations.
Protecting farm workers and consumers is not their concern.
Doctors won't do it.
Most physicians farm workers see won't even admit their patients' problems are caused by pesticides. They usually blame symptoms on skin rashes and heat stroke.
Doctors don't know much about pesticides; the signs and symptoms of acute pesticide poisoning are similar to other illnesses.
Doctors who work for growers or physicians with close ties to rural communities won't take a stand.
Two years ago in Tulare County, California 120 orange grove workers at LaBue ranch suffered the largest skin poisoning every reported. The grower had changed the formulation of a pesticide, Omite CR, to make it stick to the leaves better. It did.
It also stuck better to the workers. Later they discovered the reentry delay had to be extended from seven to 42 days.
After the poisoning, the company doctor said workers should just change clothes and return to work. When we demanded the workers be removed from exposure, the doctor replied, "Do you know how much that would cost?"
Workers endure skin irritations and rashes that none of us would tolerate. They continue to work because they desperately need the money. They don't complain out of fear of losing their jobs.
Farm workers aren't told when pesticides are used. They have no health insurance. They are cheated out of workers compensation benefits by disappearing labor contractors or foremen who intimidate people into not filing claims.
In the old days, miners would carry birds with them to warn against poison gas. Hopefully, the birds would die before the miners.
Farm workers are society's canaries.
 
ADDRESS BY CESAR CHAVEZ, PRESIDENT
UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO
Pacific Lutheran University
March 1989-Tacoma, Washington

 _________________________________ 

As a nation, we need to work out a list of national priorities.  We need to sharpen our vision and we need to rededicate ourselves to the basic human and democratic values that we believe in, and we need to put first things first.  We need to overcome the serious deficit in education, which is denying millions of our children their rightful opportunity to maximum growth.  The American labor movement can be proud that it was among those who pioneered for free public education.  American labor shares the belief that every child made in the image of God is entitled to an educational opportunity that will facilitate the maximum intellectual, cultural and spiritual growth.  We need to wipe out our slums and build decent, wholesome neighborhoods.  We need to provide more adequate medical care available to all groups.  We need to improve social security so that our aged citizens can live out their lives with a fuller measure of security and dignity.  We need to provide all of our citizens, without regard to race, creed, or color, equal opportunity in every phase of our national life.  We need to develop more fully our natural resources so that continued neglect will not put in jeopardy the welfare of future generations.

Walter Reuther, Labor Day speech, September 1, 1958

______________________________

No tin-hat brigade of goose-stepping vigilantes or bibble-babbling mob of blackguarding and corporation paid scoundrels will prevent the onward march of labor, or divert its purpose to play its natural and rational part in the development of the economic, political and social life of our nation.

Unionization, as opposed to communism, presupposes the relation of employment; it is based upon the wage system and it recognizes fully and unreservedly the institution of private property and the right to investment profit. It is upon the fuller development of collective bargaining, the wider expansion of the labor movement, the increased influence of labor in our national councils, that the perpetuity of our democratic institutions must largely depend.

The organized workers of America, free in their industrial life, conscious partners in production, secure in their homes and enjoying a decent standard of living, will prove the finest bulwark against the intrusion of alien doctrines of government

John L. Lewis
, United Mine Workers of America, Labor Day speech, 1937

____________________________________

Now, my boys, you are mine; we have fought together, we have hungered together, we have marched together, but I can see victory in the Heavens for you. I can see the hand above you guiding and inspiring you to move onward and upward. No white flag — we can not raise it; we must not raise it. We must redeem the world!
Go into our factories, see how the conditions are there, see how women are ground up for the merciless money pirates, see how many of the poor wretches go to work with crippled bodies.
I talked with a mother who had her small children working. She said to me, "Mother, they are not of age, but I had to say they were; I had to tell them they were of age so they could get a chance to help me to get something to eat." She said after they were there for a little while, "I have saved $40, the first I ever saw. I put that into a cow and we had some milk for the little ones." In all the years her husband had put in the earth digging out wealth, he never got a glimpse of $40 until he had to take his infant boys, that ought to go to school, and sacrifice them.
If there was no other reason that should stimulate every man and woman to fight this damnable system of commercial pirates. That alone should do it, my friends.

Mother Jones to striking W. Virginia coal miners, 8/15/1912

______________________

We want eight hours and nothing less. We have been accused of being selfish, and it has been said that we will want more; that last year we got an advance of ten cents and now we want more. We do want more. You will find that a man generally wants more. Go and ask a tramp what he wants, and if he doesn’t want a drink he will want a good, square meal. You ask a workingman, who is getting two dollars a day, and he will say that he wants ten cents more. Ask a man who gets five dollars a day and he will want fifty cents more. The man who receives five thousand dollars a year wants six thousand a year, and the man who owns eight or nine hundred thousand dollars will want a hundred thousand dollars more to make it a million, while the man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day. We live in the latter part of the nineteenth century. In the age of electricity and steam that has produced wealth a hundred fold, we insist that it has been brought about by the intelligence and energy of the workingmen, and while we find that it is now easier to produce it is harder to live. We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.

Samuel Gompers, Address to workers, Louisville, KY 1890

President Obama talked about the needs of workers and the declining middle class in his Weekly Address.  If he lets us down this time, I'm going to go out and find me my own bibble-babbling mob and take action.

And maybe I missed it, but whatever happened to the Employee Free Choice Act?

(Oh, and did you catch "Sunday Morning" on CBS yesterday?  Did you see their tribute to Labor?  It was about German workers in a BMW factory.  Management came up with the idea to put older, more experienced workers in one section on one shift and let them come up with ways to improve productivity.  At their suggestion the company put in wooden floors, gave them more comfortable shoes, gave them hairdressers chairs to sit in, increased the size of the computer fonts, and fixed up places for them to stretch.  Over time productivity went up 7%, absenteeism went down, and the assembly line defect rate was non-existent.  Damned Socialists. . .)

Enjoy our day. Keep the light shining.  Solidarity.

Ramona