"Empire of the Senseless" - The Mekons
"And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families." - Margaret Thatcher 1987
They took away our films and tapes and notebooks
But it's ok 'cos we've self-censored this song.
But these lines are all individuals
and there's no such thing as a song. - Mekons 1989
I've been having that feeling that we've just seen in two days -- in Wisconsin and on Capitol Hill with the Planned Parenthood defunding vote -- the opening shots in a war in which the right is going to try and finish us off while they still can. But, of course, as the reprehensible quote above from that repulsive lady (and the wonderful musical rejoinder to it) reminds us, this war is not new by any means and we can and must keep fighting.
I've had a couple of inquiries over the last couple of days, including from my sister who is a unionized teacher, about whether there is some constitutional basis -- via the guarantees of the freedom of association and speech in the First Amendment -- to protect the right to bargain collectively. Alas, the answer to that is no. Collective bargaining rights are purely statutory and with respect to state and municipal employees such rights are purely a matter of state law. (I don't know if there are colorable claims under the various state constitutions, but there is definitely not under the U.S. Constitution.)
In fact, unions and the right of collective bargaining have been protected by law for a relatively short period of our history. In the early days of the Republic, unions were deemed criminal conspiracies. The judiciary, the police, the national guard, and private armies were used routinely to prevent workers from organizing and to prevent successful strikes when they did. Our history is replete with bloody story upon bloody story of working people fighting to be heard collectively -- the Homestead Steel Strike, the Haymarket riot, the Pullman Strike, the Matewan Massacre, Bloody Harlan, and the Battle of the Overpass, among many others -- a cause in which many died.
Only after these battles were fought and the legislative gains of the New Deal were institutionalized, did unions thrive. For a roughly 40 year period -- from the mid to late 1930s to the late 1970s -- workers in the United States enjoyed tremendous growth in wages and benefits in a society in which the benefits of growth were shared far more equally than is the case today. (It is perhaps this 40-year period that will ultimately seem anomalous, with the accelerated reversion of the last couple of decades towards a radically unequal society being more in keeping with historic American norms.)
Despite this proud history of hard fought gains, private sector unions are now perilously close to extinction in the United States, representing as they do a mere 7% of workers. Public sector unions, on the other hand, which have not faced the plague of deindustrialization, outsourcing, intimidation and general lawlessness that characterize much of the American business class vis a vis unions, have thrived. Now though it seems clear that they too will face their time of trial, as Republican governors throughout the country seek the opportunity to knock off possibly the single most powerful Democratic constituency.
