Why a resurgent labor movement is closer than you think whether liberals will realize their best fri

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0804.kahlenberg.html

By Richard D. Kahlenberg
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


or four decades, American liberalism has had an ambivalent relationship with organized labor. On the one hand, liberals and Democrats rely on unions to help fund campaigns, man phone banks, and deliver their members' votes each election cycle. Moreover, most liberals are in broad agreement with labor's core agenda: better health care, a more generous minimum wage, more funding for public schools, and the like. On the other hand, as liberalism and the Democratic Party have gone increasingly upscale, they have evidenced a palpable disdain for unions and union leaders, who are often seen as narrow, selfish, grubby, and, sometimes, corrupt. Many liberals work in professions where they don't personally see the need to unionize. And as consumers, they are beneficiaries of globalization and worry that unions will slow the positive and inevitable trend toward trade liberalization.

No liberal institution better encapsulates this tension than the New York Times. With its highly educated, upper-middle-class readership, the Times editorial page generally endorses labor's public policy goals but evinces no real understanding of the labor movement, especially as compared to, say, the civil rights movement. The most recent Labor Day editorial, for instance, described the holiday as marking no more than the changing of the seasons: "If you get choked up on Labor Day, you've probably just been eating too fast," its writer advised.

I've recently written a biography of Albert Shanker, the legendary teachers union leader. When I speak to union audiences, individuals of all races and backgrounds ask me to sign their copy of my book "in solidarity"; for these people, Labor Day has enormous emotional resonance, something the Times editorial page doesn't seem to comprehend. (It's hard to imagine the Times writing so flippantly about Martin Luther King Day.) Labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan summarizes the diverging sensibilities of unions and the wider liberal movement by observing that when he meets other liberal activists, they "understand each other's causes, but have no sense of yours."

Perhaps this should come as no surprise. After all, American labor is in shambles. Union density has declined to 7.4 percent of the private sector, the lowest level since 1901. As Geoghegan notes, radio networks once broadcast the speeches of union leaders live, and bookstores devoted entire sections to the subject of labor. Today, the preferred topics are self-help and sex.

But the era of the weak union may be passing. Inequality has reached startling dimensions, and there is grumbling from the general public about CEO pay, which is now 369 times that of the average worker, up from thirty-six times as much in 1976. Corporate profits have been surging, but employees have not been sharing in the spoils: since 2001, productivity has increased nearly 20 percent, while average wages are up less than 2 percent. Such pervasive inequities have made workers more receptive to unions than they've been in decades. A 2007 poll found that 53 percent of nonmanagerial, nonunion workers said they would probably or definitely vote for a union if they could—up from 30 percent in 1984. If just a quarter of those people unionized, the labor movement would double in size. And the change is not just among middle- and working-class Americans; when Hollywood writers went on strike to preserve their piece of the pie, even upper-middle-class intellectuals realized the effect that corporate greed has on workers.

Steven Greenhouse, the labor reporter for the Times since 1995, has written an excellent book about this swing of the pendulum. In The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, he argues that if the 1970s saw excesses in regulation and bureaucracy, we are now in an era of unprecedented inequality, where unions may have an important role to play once again.

FULL story at link.

a firmer root in a Progressive/ Labor/ Green party... The dems have been infiltrated to their detriment.

I am sick of "Centrism", de-regulation, privatization, "Free Trade", Union Busting, Trickle Down Stimulus, "Entitlement Reforms", and Wall Street Bailouts.


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

The American Nationalist Party (Repubs)
The Democrats (Same)
The Progressive Party (New)

Eh, why not shift the country to the left.

"Inequality has reached startling dimensions, and there is grumbling from the general public about CEO pay, which is now 369 times that of the average worker..."

But don't those CEOs deserve it? After all, they work 369 times harder than everyone else, don't they? :shrug:

Dont you know the only good unions are business unions, like the Chamber of Commerce, or trade organizations, or business groups. Those are perfectly fine. Workers, on the other hand, well, workers unions are evil. See how easy it is to be a Capitalist. Did I cover all the points?:grr:

"No liberal institution better encapsulates this tension than the New York Times. With its highly educated, upper-middle-class readership,"

I've spent the last two days reading comments on the NY Times and find them no more upscale or better educated than your average rural Alabamian.

This Liberal institution? Judith Miller, a liberal, Micheal Gordon, a liberal? Frank Rich writes,
Bernie Madoff is no John Dillinger and the Science page is headlined with a story about those who believe the moon landings were faked, Liberal? I think not!