Solidarity Later: Molly Ivins on labor split
"You may think the AFL-CIO split is none of your beeswax, but if you work in this country, you owe labor, big time. And I'm talking to you, white-collar worker."The irrepressible Molly Ivins on the current internal debate in organized labor, and what it might mean for those who work for wages in this country, union members or not.
posted by xoff @ 12:27 PM
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1 Comments:
Molly Ivins is exactly correct. Stern is the man who has the best ideas for growing the labor movement and therefore a better employment market for all workers whether they are organized or not. It doesn’t mean that the AFL-CIO are the bad guys, it just means that if what you have been doing for decades doesn’t work, you have to try something different. It is better to die trying something that may save you than to die because you didn’t try at all.
There are actually quite a few parallels in the nation’s labor movement and the Democratic Party. Both organizations have been suffering from salutary neglect while the opposition has been engaged and perfecting their weapons to successfully adapt to a very different world. Labor assumed that they were going to grow their membership by relying people in particular professions viewing unions as assets and thus desiring to join. The Democratic Party has been operating in much the same fashion, under the false assumption that certain classes of people will automatically be drawn to the party. Both organizations quit educating people on the reasons for their existence, the need for organizational infrastructure and the importance of maintaining coalitions. More importantly, the silence has been deafening from both labor and the Democratic party on the concerns of the rank and file relating to basic economic insecurity issues such as lopsided free trade agreements, off-shoring, the lack of a firm national immigration policy to prevent declining wages, and the desperate need for universal healthcare to make the U.S. more of a competitive employment market and to eliminate the hindrance to our historic entrepreneurial spirit.
Labor’s contributions to the Democratic Party and candidates have grown substantially in spite of decades of declining membership under the assumption that there would be legislation or at the very least the promulgation of regulations to make organizing a fair fight. Sadly, most Democrats lack the understanding of the need for legislation to level the playing field between labor and business. The imbalance between labor and business will eventually create a serious imbalance in the economy. The consequence of labor’s good intentions in trying to advocate for better legislation for their members and all workers is that they have ignored the needs of their own organization. Similarly, Democratic candidates, campaign managers, senior party leaders, and big donors to the Democratic Party have been guilty of only concentrating on individual campaigns, failing to devote resources to grow the organization and build a solid infrastructure for the long term good of the party.
So I say build it and they will come. If both labor and the Democratic Party concentrate a bit more on their own organizational needs, while not abandoning each other, memberships in both organizations will grow and the votes and pro-worker legislation will follow.
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