W(h)ither Labor and Friday Open Thread

 

"Calamity Song" - Decemberists

(From their new recording "The King is Dead" which features REM guitarist Peter Buck on several cuts.  See if the opening riff of the song not reminded you of early REM.)

I really want to have time to read and digest Kevin Drum's longer piece in Mother Jones on the fate of the labor movement and its relationship to the fate of the political left generally.  Several questions of course leap to mind -- 1) can labor have a renaissance under the existing legal, economic, and cultural structure; 2) are there legal changes that can be plausibly achieved within the next few years that might help union density improve; and 3) if the answers to questions 1 and 2 are negative, can we nonetheless achieve a more left wing politics in this country, and, if so, how does the absence of a central role for organized labor affect the nature of those politics.  Those it seems to me are the salient questions that are raised by Drum's article, the conditions on the ground as we speak, and the broader reactionary moment in which we find ourselves.   

I don't have the time right now to deal with these in any depth.  Briefly for discussion purposes, although I have always believed in fighting the good fight and not giving into despair or defeatism, I remain skeptical that in the present circumstances that the labor movement can enjoy a socially meaningful renaissance.  I hope I am wrong about this, but everything about historical trends, the state of the American economy as we find it, the increasingly consumerist and atomized culture in which we find ourselves, and the dominance of ideas of market efficiency in our discourse argues against the resumption of labor density at meaningful levels, by which I mean where something on the order of 20 - 25% of workers are represented by unions -- to me this is the level that would be necessary to make unions culturally and economically relevant in a way that couldn't be ignored.  Alas, the existing legal framework for organizing and the lawless response that it permits employers almost across the spectrum remains an enormous and seemingly immovable obstacle -- certainly immovable if the filibuster remains a fact of life.

On the other hand, I do believe that a more leftward politics is going to prove possible and may do so within the relatively near future.  The question then arises what does such a politics look like and what forces, if any, within it will play the role that the labor movement has played for the last eighty years.  Can the labor movement survive at something like its current level of strength and continue to play a meaningful, if not overwhelming, role in shaping this politics.  These are the questions that I want to get back to -- I'm curious to see if I have any answers. 

What's going on out there?        

Comments

[oddjob]

Providence, RI school board votes to fire (not lay off) all of its teachers.

[big bad wolf]

but prosecutors still have funding for important cases,

[oddjob]

When it comes to invoking "state secrets" in attempts to quash lawsuits Obama's no different than Shrub.

[Sir Charles]

oddjob,

That R.I. thing is quite disturbing.

And bbw,

That's possibly even more disturbing. How is that not exercising one's first amendment rights?

[low-tech cyclist]

I continue to think the best route forward for progressives would be to form a clear, identifiable progressive sub-party within the Democratic Party.

It would seek to strengthen its hand through the three P's: primaries, party discipline, and procedure: primaries, in order to establish a clear progressive majority within the Democratic Party; party discipline through determining committee chairs and assignments by some combination of majority vote and leadership determinations, in order to ensure party loyalty on at least a handful of key issues; with a top priority in that regard being changing Senate procedure to either abolish the filibuster, or place the burden of sustaining it on the minority so that it becomes a tool that by its nature can't be used routinely. Plus getting rid of other impedimenta like the 30-hour post-cloture debate requirement.

Trying to form a progressive party outside the Democratic Party is a license to hand control of the government over to the GOP for many years. But as long as the Democratic Party is a reasonably big tent - which I believe it ought to be, so that sane Republicans can have somewhere to go - it will not, as a party, be a particularly good spokesparty (if that's a word) for even the simplest of progressive aims - as evidenced by the party's exceedingly weak messaging on jobs over the past several months.

So that seems to leave something within the Democratic Party that would be what the Democratic Party theoretically should be - an uncompromising advocate of basic progressive aims, while accepting diverse opinions on peripheral concerns.

[Paula B]

Loss of unions is the least of it. Here are the first few grafs of an AP story from this morning's local newspaper. It makes my hair stand on end. Cyclist's idea for a progressive sub-party within the Democratic party might energize those who should have nipped this at the bud, but it must get off the ground quickly to head off whatever comes next.

Tea party vision for Montana raising concerns
By MATT GOURAS
Associated Press

HELENA, Mont. — With each bill, newly elected tea party lawmakers are offering Montanans a vision of the future.
Their state would be a place where officials can ignore U.S. laws, force FBI agents to get a sheriff’s OK before arresting anyone, ban abortions, limit sex education in schools and create armed citizen militias.
It’s the tea party world. But not everyone is buying their vision.
Some residents, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer and even some Republican lawmakers say the bills are making Montana into a laughingstock. And, they say, the push to nullify federal laws could be dangerous. “We are the United States of America,” said Schweitzer. “This talk of nullifying is pretty toxic talk. That led to the Civil War.”
A tea party lawmaker said raising the specter of a civil war is plain old malarkey.
“Nullification is not about splitting this union apart,” freshman Rep. Derek Skees said. “Nullification is just one more way for us to tell the federal government: ‘That is not right.’
Some of their bills are moving through the legislature. Others appear doomed: an armed citizen militia, FBI agents under the thumb of the sheriff and a declaration that global warming is good for business. Whatever their merits, the ideas are increasingly popping up in legislatures across the nation, as a wave of tea party-backed conservatives push their anti-spending, anti-federal government agenda.
Arizona, Missouri and Tennessee are discussing the creation of a joint compact, like a treaty, opposing the Some of their bills are moving through the legislature. Others appear doomed: an armed citizen militia, FBI agents under the thumb of the sheriff and a declaration that global warming is good for business.

I'll find a link for the remainder of the story, for anyone with the stomach to read on.

[Paula B]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-24/tea-party-vision-for-mont-raising-concerns.html

[Sir Charles]

l-t c,

I think the problem is that we alone do not constitute an electoral majority or anything close to it. At least in terms of self-identification. So we have to do the delicate job of putting together a coalition with enough ideological overlap to make for meaningful policy positions and electoral victories. At the same time we need to do a lot of ideological work in order to both educate a woefully ill-informed and uninterested electorate and try and move the terms of debate. We face a frequently hostile media environment in this undertaking.

I think we have to be careful about self-defeating calls to purity -- which will lead us into an electoral cul de sac -- while also trying to improve messaging on core progressive issues, particularly on the economic front. This is not an easy thing -- it's a big goddamned country and it requires a good ear to do this well.

The crippling of unions is a big concern for a host of reasons, not least of which is that, despite the label "special interest" and the protrayals in the media, unions actually represent just about the only entity in our civil society that pushes in a progressive direction on a broad policy front, eschewing a selfiish or single issue focus. Unions advocate for all kinds of things -- higher minimum wage, better job safety, a greater social safety net -- that often only indirectly benefit their members, who are usually pretty well taken care of on these fronts. They are also really the last good link between the Democratic Party and the white working class.

Paula,

There is all kinds of nutty on the Republican side. Some of these people are really deeply delusional and possibly dangerous. We shall see.

One thing that I think people need to be clearer about --we see a lot of writing about corporate masters and the manipulation of people by plutocrats, but I think that in many respects this is a simple and reductive tale that we tell ourselves -- in part because it's a nice linear story line and there is a recognizable, indeed an archetypal, villain.

But I think what you are seeing has much more to do with genuine ideological conviction among severely misguided and often times frighteningly ignorant people. The Tenth Amendment crap and the death to public schools and the attempted abortion restrictions and the anti-gay fervor and the gun nuttery and the militia fantasies and secession talk are not the product of corporate masters. I am pretty confident that the vast majority of big time CEOs and Wall Street people find this stuff just as inexplicable and undesirable as you and I do. None of it is what you would describe as good for business.

We need to construct a more complex narrative if we are to understand and combat this stuff. Just screaming about the Koch brothers becomes, in its way, a comforting distraction. The enemy -- and sadly he probably is our enemy (and probably a he) -- is more than likely no higher up the economic ladder than most.

[JMG]

Dear Sir Charles: Since resentment and spite are now the governing emotions of American politics, I suspect any successful "left" political movement will center on limiting the privileges of corporations and the wealthy. Unions are not popular. Corporations and the wealthy are even less so. Of course, that presupposes Americans have the courage and energy needed for sustained political activity, which I very much doubt.

[kathy a.]

bbw, much as i disfavor somebody messing with a particular jury's deliberations in a particular case [passages from the bible, anyone? juries doing their own investigation outside of court? that sort of thing], that sure sounds like freedom of speech to me.

paula, these people are phenomenally stupid.

[low-tech cyclist]

A tea party lawmaker said raising the specter of a civil war is plain old malarkey.

"Nullification is not about splitting this union apart," freshman Rep. Derek Skees said. "Nullification is just one more way for us to tell the federal government: 'That is not right."

Nullification is the statement that the Federal government's authority isn't recognized by the state in question. Civil war or no, it's unquestionably a secession from those aspects of the Union that that state doesn't care for.

Sorry, bozos, but it doesn't work like that. You're either on the bus or off the bus. If the rest of us have to be hamstrung whenever 41 Senators, mostly from relatively low-population states, decide they don't like the things that most of the nation supports, then you bozos have to, by God, put up with the results whenever we get that sixtieth vote.

If we have to put up with you, then you have to put up with us. That's just how it works.

[kathy a.]

CNN commentary on labor.

[low-tech cyclist]

SC - I'm not thinking of purity, just what used to be standard Democratic stances on basic pocketbook issues. If zero out of two major political parties are prioritizing getting people back to work when one-sixth of the population is either unemployed or underemployed, there's what you'd call an underserved market.

But your point about educating the electorate, moving the terms of the debate, and having a hostile media is right on, and that's why we need such an entity. The media will ignore or misrepresent any group they can. A group large enough to contest for the control of the Democratic Party would have to at least occasionally be let through the media filter, especially if it succeeds.

And mostly, I think, the electorate needs to be educated about who's fighting for their interests. But until *somebody* is unambiguously doing so, it's easy to bamboozle them.

[Sir Charles]

kathy,

Great link -- I'm pretty amazed that that piece was being run at CNN.

l-t c,

The only upside to the current Republican onslaught on so many fronts is that it is offering a moment of unalloyed clarity to the electorate about which side the parties are on. The walk outs by the Dems in Wisconsin and Indiana were the unusually resolute acts of a party that seemed to realize that making a stand was essential. It is unfortunate that this is all being done on the defensive, but I still think that it should prove to be illuminating.

I think the war on public employees, on top of the war against Hispanics, and the war on gays, and the war on reproductive rights, is a classic example of a hubris laden, ideologically blinkered party sowing the seeds of future electoral defeats.

[oddjob]

As I said a week or two ago on another blog: from various recent actions in various legislatures it would appear today's GOP agenda is homophobia, misogyny, and union busting.

Same old, same old.

Who would have guessed???

[kathy a.]

sorry, busy day -- but i thought that cnn piece was unusually straightforward. no sugar-coating there. but the underlying message, and yours as well, SC, is that unions have built the worker protections that even non-union employees have relied upon.

one of the things that is really burning my behind is a set of contradictory messages from the stupid side: [a] if your retirement, health care, savings, etc. is in jeopardy, you didn't plan well and that's your problem, and [b] you people with benefits are living off the trough, and you should be screwed because, ummm, things are expensive now, and ummm, everybody has to be cut cut cut, except [c] people who are already rich.

nevermind that retirement and savings got decimated by poor control of financial institutions. nevermind that people, especially public employees, accept lower pay because benefits are part of the package under the contract. nevermind that we all start out young and end up old, and some of us get sick along the way.

i need to go send a pizza to those cheeseheads standing vigil in their capitol. too bad i don't know where the democratic senators are, 'cause they could use some pizza, too.

[Sir Charles]

kathy,

To quote Bob Dylan, "you can't win with a losing hand."

Retirement: It's not for ordinary joes anymore.

[Mandos]

one of the things that is really burning my behind is a set of contradictory messages from the stupid side: [a] if your retirement, health care, savings, etc. is in jeopardy, you didn't plan well and that's your problem, and [b] you people with benefits are living off the trough, and you should be screwed because, ummm, things are expensive now, and ummm, everybody has to be cut cut cut, except [c] people who are already rich.

It's not a contradiction. It's Ice Floe Nation.

Speaking of which, oil is up-up-up. Are we finally reaching the Oilpocalypse?

[oddjob]

Not that this will come as a surprise to anyone, but that GOP congressman from upstate NY who just recently resigned instantly once it was revealed he'd gone looking for some side action?

Apparently he liked the occasional walk on the wild side............

(Doo, doo-doo,
Doo, doo, doo-doo, doo,
Doo-doo, doo, doo, doo-doo, doo.........)

Hat tip, Wicked Gay Blog.

[kathy a.]

mandos, it's a contradiction when people taking these government jobs with benefits did so because they figured it was smart to have retirement and health care, and because that's how the package was sold to them -- less pay, but more protection. then things go bust, and suddenly the *workers* are called the irresponsible ones, rather than the people who brought us this delightful recession, housing crash, credit crash, etc.

[oddjob]

Maryland Senate has voted for marriage equality! MD House to vote on the bill very soon.

My understanding is that in the past it's always been the Senate that's been the real problem. Fingers crossed!

[Sir Charles]

oddjob,

The old congressman was just looking for a girl with something extra.

The Maryland news is great. I assume that the House is locked in.

Mandos,

Ice Floe nation. It's got a nice ring to it.

I think it remains to be seen if peak oil is a blip or not. Right now it strikes me as panic and uncertainty. But obviously if you have sustained turmoil that threatens production, all bets are off.

Continued high oil prices coupled with ill-advised austerity measures are going to be a disaster.

Can you say double dip?

[oddjob]

The old congressman

Dude. You do realize he's younger than we are? :)

[oddjob]

Continued high oil prices coupled with ill-advised austerity measures are going to be a disaster.

Can you say double dip?

This is a given.

And yes, regardless of whether we've passed "peak oil" or not, the unrest in the Middle East & North Africa, as good as it hopefully is for the citizens of those countries, is not good for oil prices.

Speaking of that unrest, I think Sully's put up an interesting post regarding Tunisia (where all this began, and not an oil-rich country).

[Sir Charles]

oddjob,

I was using "old" in that kind of fake friendly sense -- the fact that the congressman takes his shirt off for photos clearly marks him as younger than me.

I think if the unrest is not overly lengthy or overly violent than oil prices will ease. But really who knows what this is all going to look like -- obviously Libya is not peaceful right now, but maybe Qaddafi's resistance will prove short lived. One can only hope.

[oddjob]

One can only hope.

So true!

- the fact that the congressman takes his shirt off for photos clearly marks him

Yes, it does.

I'm by no means the world's expert on what appeals to a woman, but my general impression is that it's often true (I can't say "usually true" because I truly don't really know) that while a nice body is certainly not unappealing it's nowhere near as important as a compatible personality and a sense of humor that causes her to sincerely laugh at your jokes.

If so (& I'm so not in my league here, so feel free to shoot me down), then I suspect former congressman Lee is actually bisexual and knows that (whether he's willing to admit it or not). To my eye he looks appealing shirtless. I don't do drag, but I think it's obvious he was looking for a man who does, does it well, and enjoys the perks that go with tthat.

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

SC - addressing your op, as the labor movement stands now, I don't think they can expect to survive. The one hopeful note that resounds is that republican overreach has awakened a certain backlash. The more confrontational it becomes the better, because you cannot appease dictators.

The way I look at this situation is that the the dictators have significantly escalated the contest. They should be opposed in every way possible.

I have seen too much of the sqalor in which the majority of the world lives. Those who would destroy the foundations of the american society by impoverishment to those levels, are criminals. They deliberately harm others, and not just a few but millions, for their own gain.

We need a new method of constraining their apparently iron grip on power. I won't suggest anything, I just raise the issue.

[Sir Charles]

KN,

I think this is the issue with which we are all grappling. To me it is really the central reason I write these days -- a kind of stumbling towards some way out of this madness in wich we find ourselves, a way forward to a collective life that is not simply defined by often false perceptions of efficiency, but rather one in which pleasure, peace, and possibility can flourish.

I have to believe that a new left will emerge and that it will both be different than that which has come before, but neverthless pay homage to the spirit of solidarity that, to me, is the essence of what it means to be on the left, a sensibility that is under unrelenting attack in these difficult days.

[Corvus]

Turning away from politics to something more openthreadish, the new Decemberists albums is totally awesome. I think I still like Hazards of Love just slightly more, because there is nothing as rocking on this album as the Queen's sections from that one, and nothing as devilishly fun as The Rake's Song, but it is much, much more accessible, and a lot of the melodies are just killer. Also, opening track Don't Carry it All can be read quite easily as a declaration of left-wing values ("Bear your neighbor's burden within reason"), so there's that.

Also, I finally broke down and picked of the Black Keys album. Very good, very long. There are some nice Soul songs buried in the second half.

[Corvus]

And to turn back to the topic of the thread at hand, I think one of the problems with the mindset here (not a big problem) is that there is too much of a focus on "Labor" and "Unions" and the trouble they are in. In a greater sense they are in trouble, because the right to organize is in trouble, pension plans (like 401Ks) are less solvent. But in another sense, in sense in which Labor and Unions refers to the actual unions out there right now, AFL-CIO, UAW, SEIU, Public Employee Unions, they are doing all right! After all, they are all in unions! And unions are good for employees.

The problem, as I see it, is that so many people are not in unions. And most of the problems people in unions are facing (i.e. losing their rights to collective bargaining) are under threat because so many others look at them and see lucky people—lucky people they don't want to defend. There needs to be more of an emphasis not so much on unions themselves, but on the values of collective bargaining and solidarity.

The left should continue to defending unions, who are under siege, after all, but in much the same way it argues for things like universal healthcare, a woman's right to choose, LBGT rights, the left needs to start promoting and endorsing and selling solidarity and the advantages of collective bargaining to the American people. If more people became convinced of the utility of unionizing and collective bargaining, of the benfits of such things to themselves, more people would support politicians who supported it, and more people would attempt to unionize. This would solve most of the problems existing unions already have, since if everyone else is unionizing no one will have much room to attack the few unions that presently exist. Also, unions tend to push for full employment, which means a robust economy and tax base to help keep pension plans afloat.

EFCA was/is, of course, a legitimate attempt to solve this problem, but it was mostly an effort supported by the unions themselves and their few allies, and not something by the American people as a whole, which basically made it's passage a greater-than-Herculean endeavor. To get anything like a strong labor movement again, there will have to be something cultural going on, an actual value placed on solidarity, the way there is a value placed on tolerance and nondiscrimination. And that means people on the left need to start selling solidarity to the American people.

Really, it shouldn't be to hard. Considering how far we have come on gay rights in the last 15 years or so, something that only directly effects something like 10% of the population, imagine how fast we could go on something that effects something like 90% of the population.

[Sir Charles]

Corvus,

I have to check out the entirety of The King is Dead. I've very much like what I've heard. I think it is a measure of Meloy's talent that he can modify the scope of his song writing at will.

The only way that organizing can occur and solidarity flourish is if unions as institutions remain healthy. Many of them are not at this point. Market shares fro unionized employers are often minimal, dues income is falling, and everything out there looks pretty bleak. I will address the issue of promoting solidarity generally, but there really is a need to preserve and defend actually existing unions.