Republicans stormed to power in state elections across the country in November on a promise to take on the establishment and return government to the average citizen.
But in state capitals where they gained control, they moved quickly to do something else entirely: They’ve consolidated their newfound power — and rewarded their corporate donors — by delivering death blows to a longtime enemy: organized labor.
In Kentucky, Missouri, and New Hampshire, three states that flipped to unified Republican control, legislators have prioritized passing Right to Work, a law that quickly diminishes union power by allowing workers in unionized workplaces to withhold fees used to organize and advocate on their behalf.
That might seem odd to voters who heard promises to “drain the swamp,” but its what Republican partisans and business lobbyists have been demanding for years.
Business interests helped win new Republican victories, now legislators are paying them back.
In Kentucky, Republicans won the legislature for the first time in 95 years with strong campaign support from Americans for Prosperity, the group founded and funded by the billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch that is deeply focused on undermining union influence. Americans for Prosperity maintained a major presence in the state, funding campaign expenditures attacking state and local Democrats in swing districts, fielding a large voter canvassing effort, and providing specialized technology for campaign workers. No one knows how much Americans for Prosperity spent on local Kentucky races because the group is not required to disclose state-based campaign expenditures or its donors.
Along with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and other business interests, the Koch-funded group demanded that the new GOP majority in Kentucky pass Right to Work. On Thursday, Kentucky state House legislators passed the union-busting measure, and the state Senate is expected the follow suit on Saturday, with Republican Gov. Matt Bevin prepared to sign it.
Democrats in Kentucky are notably reliant on labor unions for political support. The largest group spending on behalf of local races for Democrats in Kentucky, a Super PAC called Kentucky Family Values, was nearly entirely funded by labor unions. In New Hampshire and Missouri, records show, unions similarly provide a bulk of campaign funds for local Democratic races in competitive districts.
Though advocates for Right to Work claim the measure is designed to boost job growth, studies suggest that the law may correlate with less pay for workers. Business groups dispute this finding, but no one disagrees that the law generally leads to a steep decline in union membership and union political power.
“We’re not anxious to be in a state where they have that much political muscle, the unions do, organized labor does,” said Woody Cozad, a lobbyist in Missouri, previewing the Right to Work bill scheduled for next week, which is also expected to pass now that Republicans control both the governor’s office and the state legislature.
The same thing happened after Republicans won the legislature and the governor’s office in Wisconsin in 2011, as well. They ran on dissatisfaction over the economic recovery, and with the help of groups like Americans for Prosperity — they then consolidated power by passing laws to weaken public sector unions in the state, a measure openly designed to undercut the largest donors to Democratic politicians. They followed up the changes to public sector unions with a Right to Work law.
Wisconsin union membership, once one of the highest, plummeted to below the national average after labor laws were changed by Republicans. In 2015, only 8.3 percent pf Wisconsin workers were union members. The changes have been bleak for Democrats, as the party failed to win any of the major contests last year, and Trump trounced the Hillary Clinton campaign in the state, one of the main drivers of his victory.
As Republicans gained electoral ground across the Rust Belt, Right to Work and similar measures designed to weaken unions were passed in Indiana, West Virginia, and Michigan as well.
Nationally, the incoming Trump administration may continue this trend. Analysts expect Trump to attempt to roll back Obama administration rules that make labor organizing easier for franchise restaurants such as McDonalds. Trump is also expected to appoint a Supreme Court judge who will strike down mandatory fees paid by nonunion members in organized workplaces. Congressional Republicans have also agitated for a national Right to Work law that could turn the tide in Democratic-trending states like California.
Top photo: National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka speaks to protestors in the Capital Rotunda in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2011.
So people can only earn a living if they belong to a union?
FU. And the union horse you rode in on.
In the interest of honesty, you may want to point out union dues were MANDATORY before, and all Republicans have done is make joining OPTIONAL. You might also want to point out that unions became a target because they spend money campaigning for Democrats and Democrat causes members do not necessarily agree with.
Unions will kill themselves….
Hey Fang, pop quiz:
How did the GOPs win those state houses? Was it maybe because a bunch of people voted to elect them? Hmmm…. Well… this is the beauty of the ‘party’ system: “representatives” don’t necessarily represent the people who voted for them but work instead for… I don’t know… Israel(?) (i.e. AIPAC) or ‘Wall Street’?
You don’t need a union, if you can suck, you can win.
Gov. Matt Bevin is a Kochpocalypse.
To the extent that today’s unions function essentially as management’s controller of the workforce, I have mixed feelings about this. The unions have repeatedly sold out their members in strike after strike. They no longer represent the workers but, on the contrary, fatten themselves as the pets of the corporate elites.
Of course, all you have to do is compare any CEO pay compared to the head of any union. Are you really that stupid?
Thanks for the insult. The record of the union tops speaks for itself. I never said they make as much as CEOs. You said that.
Great points! Unions are bloated criminal harassing enterprises that are antiquated. If American workers would only realize how many rights and individual power they already have the unions would be in the history books good!
The company bragged about their grate relationship with the union.
I asked the Union official ( in front of the workers) how come the workers were not getting their penalty rates?
He didn’t want to talk about it…within 2 weeks I did not have a job.
Dear Lee,
I am from a union family: I was in a union, my father, in-laws, wife, youngest son, and my grandfather led the first autoworkers union to get a contract in 1935 (Fisher Body plant, Norwood, OH).
Your use of the pejorative, “union busting”, to describe the Right to Work laws now being passed in several states does a disservice to your article. I now live in Wisconsin and was very pleased with Right To Work legislation that passed several years ago. Had you dug deeper you would better understand the corrupt relationship between unions and their Democrat lackeys in legislatures across America.
In Wisconsin the Teacher’s union had a sweetheart deal where School Boards were required to purchase healthcare insurance from the “union owned” insurance company and the millions in over-priced policies that resulted in significant profits, just happened to find their way into Democrat campaign funding. And you badmouth the Koch Bros.?? I have no problem with that, but you undercut your argument by ignoring the same practice by union leadership who wheel and deal with membership dollars.
Finally, the huge migration away from unions in Wisconsin (and elsewhere with Right to Work laws) is an indictment on the quality of the state of current union leadership and practices, not an evil, corporate manipulator pulling strings. That is called paranoia.
Corruption in Wisconsin’s state government has never been so blatant and thorough as it is now. This current WisGOP is a crime syndicate that would make the mob blush. I ask that our researching journalist dig into this also and they won’t have to dig very deep either (that is if it’s still legal to research Walker/WisGOP activities).
“…is an indictment on the quality of the state of current union leadership and practices, not an evil, corporate manipulator pulling strings.”
Why can’t both be true?
Unions need the same come-to-jesus reckoning that some are trying to do with the failures of the democratic party. Many unions could have supported a real pro-union candidate in Sanders and instead backed Hillary who as Wikileaks revealed, gave two-shits about unions. Union leadership forgets that the movement for $15 was started by a socialist, not democrats. Instead unions leadership hitched their proverbial wagon to back stabbing democrats–just ask the teamsters about Mexican trucks coming into the United States.
Erelis, well put all around.
Labor’s corporatization and the Dem party’s corporatization have gone hand in hand. We need a true Labor party in this country.
Jacobin has a great issue out now about forming a new party, and provides valuable info about the oppressive, quasi-totalitarian restrictions in the USA against expanding political representation beyond the two parties. The issue also discusses how the Labor party here could be revived.
The Sanders success story should not be abandoned. Many thousands of young people peeled themselves off their couches to do something for that campaign, driven by a vague and kind of scatterbrained sense of the wrongness of the GOP and more importantly, the raw economic deal they are actually getting in our country. If a true Labor party could get off the ground—representing the rank and file of the NEA and AFL-CIO, not their leaders—then we could see a real transformation. Coupled with an inclusive and pluralist outlook, such a party would be powerful.
The Dems right now are basically on life support. In word they are “progressive” but in reality they are simply Rockefeller Republicans, socially “liberal” but actually as classist and poor-shaming as the GOP. They lost the last election, and that is our silver lining. All evidence so far shows that they are not learning from their mistakes, however.
Of course, the Dems could start finding a way back to the New Deal pro-worker platform of economic justice with the appointment of Keith Ellison as chair. But I’m skeptical. A new Labor party is what we need, and many of the reasons are hinted in Fang’s article.
Creating a new party is hard work. But it can be done.
There’s loaded language here: stormed, death blows.
Are the Republicans consolidating power or responding to the “demands” of their donors? If the former, no need to “demand” since it’s already in line with their interests.
In Wisconsin, you mention 8.5% after-rtw-law figure but no before-law figure. The article you site does better by comparing to the national average. A better way to put it might be, “Union membership was 27% smaller in 2015 after rtw passed than 2014, compared to 6.5% average drop each year from 2005 – 2015″. Your claim is supported, so there’s no need to smarm around with single-ended comparisons. Minimim you could just mention 11.7% from the cited article. At least you cited the article.
People coming here because journalists have lost credibility are wishing for someone to write with good faith. I realize that’s largely not to be found on The Intercept and look for the value you do provide anyway, but you could at least give a nod to your audience by putting up an appearance and avoiding some of this loaded language, logical contradiction, and incomplete statistics.
This effort was begun during the slavery period in US history. A corporate Judge in New York heard a labor case in 1856 and ruled Right to hire and fire at will without recourse. In 1857 in a slavery case Dred Scott applied for citizenship and was rejected a majority of the US supreme Court run by enslaver and Chief Justice Roger B Taney who ruled: A negro has no rights that a white man has to respect. Today, five generations later, a common consumer or employee has no rights that a corporation has to respect. The more times change the more they remain the same.
Shameful conflation, but interesting propganda….
You can call it propaganda but, the socialist movement in America and many other human right advocates worldwide have been calling wage labor modern day slavery, for well over a 100 years . . .
I call it propaganda because that’s what it is.
And what’s your point? The people you mention aren’t seeking to abolish wage-slavery….What they’re fighting for is to turn the perceived ‘field slaves’ into ‘house slaves’.
It’s disgustingly absurd….especially those ‘champions of the cause’ clamoring for their own chains.
I think this article makes a good point.
Republicans should have higher priorities, like breaking public servant unions.
Of course then everyone could make minimum wage like you.
…and no weekends, no consistent work schedule, no benefits,no vacation time, no sick leave, no raises. Without labor strength, Wall St Republicans & corporate Dems can make public services all volunteer. They can then send all of our taxes straight to themselves, CEOs & banksters.
I only got more doom and gloom in response to my comment below, so let me go on a bit further to illustrate the sort of thing that a group of people, as a creative entity, might do, as opposed to a union as a purely regulatory concept. I’ll go a little further right-wing than usual, but I have a plan. :)
Wikileaks is currently the subject of great abhorrence and disgust because of a plan it announced to track Twitter users: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/01/06/wikileaks-proposes-tracking-verified-twitter-users-homes-families-and-finances/ After all, they are only supposed to be tracked by the company, and its business partners, and other entitled corporations. A credit reporting agency can tell lies about people, shake them down for payment to see a copy of what lies they’re telling, lie and say those payments are low or free, then not actually show the victim the real report of what lies they’re telling, and that’s their God-given right that sets them apart from the human animals, but people have been conditioned to think that any forum user who looks up an address and a phone number in a thirty second search is a Stalker Terrorist. The very notion of thinking and comparing is reserved for a special entitled class. But there’s good news, and that is that this isn’t actually a law, the rich don’t (yet) actually have razor whips and the right to swing them at anyone who doesn’t say M’lud, so Wikileaks and other bold folk still actually do such things. Of course, like all the people’s powers, we mostly use them stupidly and counterproductively, but we can fix that.
So —- imagine for a moment that a group of people oriented on jobs and wages were to set their sights on illegal aliens. They’d probably recruit a bunch of staunch Trump fans. They could gather a database of local residents, look up names and cross reference by deportation records, get tips from the public and do grid searches and identify the local companies that hire the illegals. They might even hire some illegals themselves (they’re cheap) on the down-low to go in to those companies, to see on hidden camera they can get hired after they say they’re illegal. Then they could make a huge social media stink against the “independent contractors” that do this and against the parent companies.
Now, you can say this would devastate the local economy by sending away workers and shutting down companies, but hey, those companies are probably getting a per-job giveaway from local government because of the wonders they are doing for the economy, but really they have two jobs being worked by each illegal. Cut those companies’ public funding, maybe public funds go somewhere else. Maybe rents get cheaper or plugging the drain of remittances has a noticeable effect, I dunno. I don’t really care; the real point here is that I expect that if even one group in the country did this, Trump supporters nationwide would get a nasty surprise. Because I think they would see that Trump, far from coming down to cheerlead their efforts and leaving an INS liason to help them out, would instead be horrified by the notion of shutting down cheap labor and would use every legal tool to try to shut down the group’s operations. This would be some 220 volt cognitive dissonance!
Has Trump ever said what decade he thought America was the greatest? To what time period does he want to return and can his supporting serfs see the implications through the feel good rhetoric?
Mr. Trump was born in 1946, presumably in the United States, which would make that the greatest year in American history and by implication, the 1940s the greatest decade.
In the year 1946:
– Trump was born and Mensa was founded (not simultaneously);
– The United Nations held its first meeting and the League of Nations held its last meeting;
– US conducted nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll and the bikini is first modeled in Paris;
– Santa Claus Land, the world’s first theme park opened;
– The Nuremberg trials were held and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ opened in New York;
– Eva Perón conducted the ‘Rainbow Tour’ of Spain, France and Italy.
So while the title of greatest year is somewhat subjective, you must admit that 1946 is hard to beat.
Yes, perspective’s subjective. While I sort of agree the ’40s were great I’m fairly certain some in America’s empire would instead suggest 1947, when Truman unilaterally created the CIA, or 1949 when Congress gave the CIA unchecked authority for world conquest – the greater (if less heralded) years.
It’s strange to think that Trump is older than the CIA.
I see all Trump voters are surfs. Wrong many of us see Trump as a wrench into the wheels of a failed two party system. Very much an active not passive measure. We do not support Trump or the sedition of both parties. We demand Constitutional law for ALL and an honest assessment of where we are, where we might want to go and how best to get there.
Your question is rhetorical. No one has a time machine we will be traveling into the future not the past. A better balanced of the power between WE the people, business and governance that can conceives a better future has been present in our past history from time to time.
Trump is the result of the failure of the elites in both parties to present a balanced plan to achieve a viable future for America, for all citizens. Both parties are not rhetorical but abject failures in this respect. Whether a new deal/new future springs for a Trump presidency, off chance, or arises from its ashes, some chance, we must adapt to new frontiers, ideas and challenges. Also we must face issues without PC left or right whitewash. Hard left and right ideologies cannot achieve a good future for We the people, thoughtful and balanced planning might. First off we must admit to our failure as stewards of the future.
IMHO, the only reason Unions were ever tolerated in the USA was a fear of a viable alternative; that being Communism. Well, the commies are now, capitalist oligarchs; greed triumphed over solidarity as it always has. However, remember the old saying; first they came for the Trade Unionist but I was not a Trade Unionist so, who cares. Then they came for the defenseless working class but I was above that so, who cares, I get my iPhone and clothes cheap; let them work at walevil. Now; the artificial intelligence machines are coming for me and there is not much they can’t do 24/7. Yes, Dr.; they could ship your surgery to India now but your Union is too strong for now but big computer can out diagnose you now and write music almost as good as Mozart now; it won’t be long before your phone can do it and a robot will do your surgery much better and cheaper than you and your Dental procedures; doubt it……it will be here soon. Of course, in just over a decade most Truckers and Uber drivers will be gone and people won’t be working shorter weeks with more family time, they will be scrambling for the few McJobs left and competing with the climate refugees for them. Dystopia is coming fast for all but the few and there are so many existential threats out there I doubt there is a century left and we will likely see a return of fascism before then; thanks elites, a pox on all of you.
i’m starting to read “sociopathic society” , fukushima courtesy of a nuclear industry of short-sighted profit driven fools, that, and climate change i now believe are both unstoppable. the greedy businessman is the only one in charge, and its now too damn late to throw him out of the drivers seat. enjoy what time you have left……
Bob, I could not have said it so well and in such short order. We must plan for this future or it will damage or destroy many or most of us. This future is a revelation that will spawn a revolution for good or ill. There is a way forward but we all must become good stewards and plan and work to achieve a conservation of resource, controlled population and the best for all humanity economy to replace consumer based capitalism winners and losers. Capitalism can still work if it supports these goals, if not the Four Horseman are our future.
“a viable alternative being Communism”
Hahahaha….oh boy.
Gee, Capitalism or Communism. I love your reasoning, small but small handed.
Gee, you’re the only schmo who suggested that ultimatum. I love your straw man, transparent and innocuous.
Capitalism allows too much for the “greed” in human nature and communism professes to fix this but allows to little for it. Both systems in “pure form” fail and the greedy rule, the needy suffer and some in the middle struggle.
Social democracy or republic with a strong human rights populace and protection of law such as the US Constitution can at times balance these ideologies into positive progress with a strong mindful middle class. There is no utopia but at times America and other nations had this goal as a guiding star.
We and much of the rest of the World have now come-about hard and are moving toward dystopia and disaster. I remember a time when business did not do so much “creative destruction,” CEO where will off but not so detached from their workers and those that desired could build a “Walden Two” commune and easily get off the beaten path/grid.
I have been a union member, and then not. I have helped decertify one union in orde to start another.
Unions are their own worst enemy. They will NOT look ahead and embrace technology. They take a myopic view of saving jobs, no matter how useless they become.
Union bosses are only about the fees and their status, workers be damned.
Politics, eviscerates Unions, just like it does Congress.
Union leadership often, just like other in charge of large entities with lots of money, do not always serve the best interests of those whom they represent. (See, e.g, the DNC.)
But the service workers sector desperately need unions. Labor in the United States would be infinitely worse off but for the many gains unions have historically made: Never Forget the Triangle Factory Fire—It’s Why We Have Unions.
“service workers sector desperately need unions.”
Why?
To hold labor as a commodity that employers would need to deal with as any raw material they source to complete their ends. Same reason most any labor force would benefit from unionizing. Only question is, how ugly it will get for the union members in our current environment of knee-jerk disdain for non-elites organizing and mis-characterization of unions as being socialist/communist. A mis-characterization since unions are acting to capitalize their collective workforce (a capitalist notion) and not trying to institute a system of government.
Is this satire? Isn’t the issue that they’re already treated as bargained-down commodities by their corporate employers? Do you see no contradiction in making grouped commodities out of people for the purpose of escaping their having been treated as a commodity??
Surely it’s better for an individual employee to bargain his/her own wage and decide his/her own fate.
“Unions are their own worst enemy.”
I was also union member, as well as a union representative, and have also been in a union that was voted out in favor of another, so I definitely understand how those things can happen. That said, while the ancillary effects (myopia, etc.) you experienced with unions certainly can occur, in my experience they aren’t “union specific” problems. All humans do miserable things – no matter what group label you decide applies.
There is a divide and it is between Republican Establishment,Corporation/business and those who are believing that DT is on their side and not the former. The reign is just beginning and expect this to last for the next 30- 40 years. The tide has definitely changed the course we are now on and the democrats of today have no power to change this.
Nothing like driving down wages to boost prosperity . . . for the rich.
We have known many workers who had a good living and now are having a good retirement because of unions and union wages and union jobs. That said, union workers are already so few that the coffin-nails placed by this legislation are only of importance to a lucky few percent of the workforce. It is a step backward, but is it the critical step backward?
Unions were driven by tactics, not philosophy. No genius sat down and said hey, we’ll organize our society by putting a couple of suits in charge of a company, ostensibly on behalf of their shareholders but as often as not just to line their own pockets at the next quarterly statement, and then to balance things out the workers will have a right to sit down and strike and not be fired for some period of time unless all of them are fired or the company can pull the right strings, or whatever. Unions came to be because the workers were able to stand outside the plant and disrupt operations with a little bare-knuckled violence.
Now what does this tell us? I think it tells us that if workers want to make a change, either they need a real philosophy this time — i.e. a genuine way of organizing worker cooperatives in stewardship of the earth that is just and fair and sustainable even when factors like immigration are figured in — or else they need a tactic relevant to today’s conditions. And there are plenty of tactics that ARE relevant; it’s just that the public uses them seemingly at random. They went after Brendan Eich, they went after Amy Pascal, for *what*? For bullshit, but it was bullshit enough to get them fired. Imagine the public could gather the will to go after sleazy CEOs that outsource jobs, cut wages, lay off workers, put customers on permanent hold, and fire employees based on personal political prejudice without regard for the good of the company! Imagine the public could actually keep its eye on the ball, evaluate company leaders fairly, and promote the hell out of the ones who actually do right by their people. What would happen then?
I’ll tell you what’s not going to work forever: letting the dead fight our battles, believing in tactical plans made more than a century ago without even thinking about them, ignoring when an institution is failing and then crying the sky is falling when the last ruined fragments cave in.
sadly, i had to quit having the american dream, it became tooo unbelieveable. those in government and on wall street who set out to destroy a vibrant democracy (the powell memorandum- destroy the courts,media, unions so the rich could have more) have WON. i have lost hope in humanity’s very survival….
small correction: a sentence in the middle reads, “and the senate Senate is expected the follow suit on Saturday” with the redundant senate.
They always have a positive phrase for the bill that screws the people the most, and the National Right to Work Law is just another example. It means the right to work under the conditions the slave driving greedy employers want you to work under.
We the people are so screwed.
When the people organize, it will always be a threat to the powers that be.
UNIONS are a BALANCE OF POWER FOR LIFE SUPPORT between OWNERS and DO’ERS. Without unions, as an individual in a now competitive groupified economy, you are toast.
It is simply foolish for anyone making less than $250,000 a year to vote for a Republican.
It’s probably foolish for people making that much, also, unless they have long-term, iron-clad contracts, or millions of bucks already in the bank.
If you’re making a quarter-mil, living in Manhattan or San Francisco, paying the insane housing costs, buying the clothes, cars, etc. that make you fit the corporate culture, paying for the kids to go to the “right” schools, attending the effectively-required social functions with their associated expenses. . . and you’re an at-will employee. . . getting the sack can put you in deep shit really fast.
Doug Damn It All To All Salzmann, there’s such a thing as living within one’s means. That includes the fiduciary risk one assumes when accepting jobs in high COL regions of the country.
Public Sector Unions are bankrupting state after state. Here in Connecticut the greed of state workers has left us BILLIONS in the red. The overly generous contractual promises negotiated by union bosses and a general assembly that was fearful that the unions would not support them in elections defied mathematical reality and has now left the state in financial ruin. They need to be driven back and their greed needs to be defeated or you can kiss what’s left of this nation goodbye.
Yes, the greed to live a simple life is overwhelming isn’t it. They should just get tiny houses to go with tiny wages and live in Texas.
Nevada and Virginia are both Right to Work states. Both voted for Mrs. Clinton in the recent election.
Perhaps the most powerful union in Nevada is the Culinary Union (which was a strong supporter of Mrs. Clinton and helped her win in Nevada) manages to collect dues in a Right to Work state. Granted, the Culinary Union has been found guilty of illegally taking dues from workers paychecks on more than one occasion. Nonetheless, that union manages to collect dues from the vast majority of the workers it represents.
What is confusing about your article is why you believe giving “the average citizen” freedom of choice when it comes to paying or not paying for representation based on individual choice is a bad thing for “the average citizen.”
Unions are structured differently based on several factors, type of industry be one of them. Often, in cases of an individual worker discipline, the local shop steward has to take time off to attend the workers hearing and the union pays the shop steward ‘s wage for the time missed. It’s these types of cost the law forbids the unions to recoup. Ramp up your discipline and you can easily bankrupt a union.
As long as the CrookdClontOs ate associate with the words “democracy”– for whatever reason, the Republicans will win.
Clintonemail.com to talk to criminals.
Like as with everything else it wants to authoritarianly dictate to the individual, willing or not, the progressive left wants to dictate contractual terms of the employment of the individual.
Again, no thank you.
And you’re just the guy to advise us who and what is “authoritarian” and what is “wrong” with the “progressive left.” Cuz by gum, you have the insight and judgment to endorse and promote this guy and his books: The Satanic Bloodlines, by Fritz Springmeier. Yup, enthusiasm for Fritz is what all should look for in one capable of accurate and sensible political assessments.
In economics, absolute freedom (the logical conclusion of neoliberal ideology) simply doesn’t work as a way of organizing society. Taken to its logical conclusion, it would mean the minimum wage is eliminated, all subsidies are eliminated, there’s no taxation and no social investment, no regulations whatsoever, with corporations being able to do anything they way. No society would last very long that way.
“Americans for prosperity” Well at least 2 Americans, the Koch brothers.
@Roger
Most people outgrow immature responses like that, but not the progressive left. If Kim Kardashian makes more than you do, do you need to be monetarily equal with her?
Wrong. A people allowed the means of effective self-defense guarantees access to resources necessary for life. Moreover even the wealthy must make compacts with skilled/knowledge labor irrespective of whether the latter is guild organized.
Along with “folks,” the progressive left is in love with the word “democracy.” If only it knew what it meant. The U.S. wasn’t founded on, and doesn’t operate on, the tenets of democracy; rather it is a representational republic of individualized states. By contrast a democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding on what’s for dinner.
In your response, you state that 1.) wealth inequality is of no consequence and 2.) democracy doesn’t matter. An overwhelming vast majority of the world’s leading economists and political scientists would fundamentally disagree with you, and that has little to do with the “immature political left.” Your views are extreme and unsupported by credible research as has been demonstrated by other commenters.
Are you suggesting that Dwight Eisenhower would feel the need to be monetarily equal with Kim Kardashian? After all, his policies were just as progressive as those of any Democrat on the left. Tax rates that increase with income are foundational to developed nation standards of living. It’s good for jobs and business by sustaining the lower and middle income consumerism that generates 75% of economic activity. Also, when democracy was founded in the US, only white landowners were allowed to vote. Voting parameters have evolved since then, and maintaining them requires policies that lead to equity between the social classes. Free market regressive fiscal policies do not achieve that end.
Unions provided a very necessary worker protection and benefit consortium in the early days. They created many great advantages.
But the US Government has assumed every roll and benefit that unions previously provided. Everything from healthcare insurance to wages, to vacation time and maternity leave, unemployment and worker safety, … it is all protected and benefitted by the Federal and local government structure. There is no need for unionization in the modern structure oft he Federal government.
Everyone should (emphasis should) be able to work freely without enhancing the pocket of another structured beuaracracy that takes your money, and tells you when you should and should not sell your labor ‘voluntarily’. Either the union should go away, or the state and federal government should stop butting into the labor issues.
You live in a very different world than most workers.
If it were true that “the US Government has assumed every roll and benefit that unions previously provided. Everything from healthcare insurance to wages” then why would the following be true?
1) Income inequality in the US has been growing consistently since the 1970’s and has now reached gilded age levels (1930s).
2) During this same time period, worker productivity has risen to historic levels and yet hourly wages have barely moved (see the productivity-pay gap).
3) Thus and not surprisingly, high levels of income inequality are closely associated with low social mobility (see the Great Gatsby curve).
… and do I really have to list all the systemic problems with the US health care system?
Nothing is truly “protected.” Without political representation for the working class, all of the laws that protect lower and middle income Americans would be unwritten just as quickly as it happened in this article. Labor unions –both public and private– are why we saw increases in the minimum wage just recently. There is no such thing as a developed nation without labor unions, and nations with the world’s highest standards of living are the most unionized.
Always thought unions had a place back in the day before OSHA and other worker protections. However, now the corrupt Union power centers are in some ways just as repressive to workers as the company store was in the 30s. Thing is I’m betting most of you folks here on The Intercept have never been forced to join the union or experience intimidation of the union man. Sadly, I have and it was with the federal government which is even a crazier thought! Yes, some government jobs still are unionized! I was harassed and intimidated to join the union I of course did not and was asked to transfer within the federal government because of the fact that I did not want to join. At the time it wasn’t a political decision but a financial one in nature. My common sense told me I didn’t need the union to protect me from anything working for the federal government. However, these idiots harassed me because of my informed decision. Between the unions, globalism and NAFTA it’s know wonder we are in the mess we are! Down with the unions!
If you do just a little bit of research, you’ll find that unions are foundational to developed nation standards of living. Per the OECD, nations with the highest standards of living are heavily unionized. OSHA and other worker protections that are in place now would quickly disappear without unions. As Nobel laureate Paul Krugman once stated, “Unions are a necessary counterweight to the influence of big money in politics.” It sounds like you have your own issues to work out with the matter, but the fact is that the standards of living for all Americans would quickly erode in the absence of working class political representation in the form of unionization.
OSHA?? Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!! The existence of OSHA means unions are outdated? what planet do you inhabit?
Federal sector unionism is a bit of a weird animal because you can’t bargain for wages. But in the private sector, non-union workers in large swaths of the economy are completely hosed economically. Real wages have been flat or declining for three decades, not coincidentally as the percentage of private sector union workers has declined.
But OSHA? Was that snark? If a company negligently kills you on the job, you know how much OSHA fines them? $20,000. In a globalized, hedge fund-hustled, private equity-owned economy with ultimate owners worth bilions, are you trying to say that twenty thousand measly bucks is going to keep you alive?
And that’s if OSHA or the relevant state agency even investigates. Because so many workers are forced to endure the glorious “freedom” of being misclassified as independent contractors, OSHA, wage and hour and all the other piss-poor swiss cheese regulatory laws don’t even apply. Short haul truck drivers in LA-Long Beach ports work 70 hours a week with no benefits for $35,000 a year. Two or three drivers a year die on the job,in crashes on the terminals or crushed in the stacks while attaching a chassis to their rigs. But you won’t even find any records of it, because neither federal nor state OSHA even bothers to investigate because their employers claim they are independent contractors so Target can knock 8 cents off the price of your flat screen TV.
For most workers, organizing a union is the most effective way to improve wages and benefits and stay safe in an economy in which your boss couldn’t give a flying fuck whether you live or die, or if your boss does give a crap, it doesn’t matter because your immediate boss is some small shitbox contractor or franchisee and the people making the real money – McDonalds, WalMart, Blackstone or Deutsche Bank — are insulated from responsibility for their “investments.”
Don’t mourn, organize!
i worked for the postal service which meant under some unfriendly management types, i belonged to the union, i was disappointed in both. but i am so glad that there was the union to help stand by me….
I work in a business that is unionized. They take a fee and have some silly policies but are over whemingly beneficial in supporting the staff. I’ve worked the same job in non union environments and there are is no protection of the employee. The union checks the consolidation of power in management. It also checks the consolidation of wealth.
Unions are flawed and should be open to changes to addresd some backwars logic but the elimination of unions is absurd.
Unions lost out to the human devaluation by over population and automation. They did help win and sustain the American dream for a time. Sadly, if not born in the right springtime and place, such as post WWII America, for most generations and geographies “wishing on a star to make you dreams come true” was and perhaps always will be a fairytale.
In 2016, American workers were faced with the choice of one party (the Democrats) who supported unions but favored shipping American jobs overseas, and another party (the Republicans) who opposed unions but favored keeping jobs in the US. Forced to choose between their unions and their jobs, American workers chose their jobs.
Over the long run, both unions and jobs will eventually disappear so, no matter how they voted, the end result would be the same. So don’t judge them too severely for making the wrong choice.
Forced to choose between both health care insurance policies and jobs, workers chose health care insurance polices.
Neoliberalism is at the root of the neocons and neolibs that control the Republican and Democrat parties. They are enemies of working people and unions and of public control of anything. They are for corporate control of everything.
When you hear or read the word union, you should automatically think “school teachers, health care workers, aircraft maintenance, firefighters, police” and other workers whose workplace conditions were unionized in order to ensure conditions suitable to the profession. These union-mandated conditions ensure safety. Without them we’d suffer.
Here is a link to a graph of top 10% U.S. income share and union membership 1917-2012 (scroll to the bottom of the page):
http://inequality.org/income-inequality/
It shows – if workers are to receive their fair share of prosperity, unions are necessary. Unions have the reputation for corruption, nepotism, and protecting poor performance. They need to fix that if they haven’t already.
management has those same faults/reputations
Unions tried to fight free trade. The Democrats and Republicans steamrolled them. Labor needs to boycott fire-at-will (a better and more accurate term than “right-to-work”) supporters and organize to elect people who will repeal these disastrous laws. (Including Truman’s Taft-Hartley.)
Part of the Democrat collapse is the sclerosis of the unions which have largely been confined to the public sector. The model of organized labor where the taxpayers are deemed to be the capitalists and the public employees who provide services to us are the workers cannot sustain.
As with the identity politics reservations, the organized labor reservation on the Democrat Party plantation system is decomposing, leaving the house slaves scrambling to blame everyone else.
Right to Work shouldn’t even be a question, shouldn’t even be at issue. Most people don’t need or want representation–paid or otherwise–by an obstructive, self-interested guild to obtain or keep jobs.
Says he who insists that Adolph Hitler was man of the left; that the world is in the throes of a Satanic, Illuminati plot to control people’s minds, and; who claims the overwhelming consensus of scientists on Climate change is wrong. A guy who links to unhinged conspiracy theorists, who are often gross antisemites.
Hitler founded the German Workers Party. (Who joins a “Workers Party”? Be honest, Mona.) He later founded the Socialist Workers Party. Who shows up to ring the doorbell of a Socialist Workers Party? National as in NPR.
Barack Obama was just as conveniently disowned by the progressive left–using the same playbook, chapter and verse, as his antecedents used after Nuremberg to claim Hitler wasn’t theirs either. Always after an embarrassed, chastened left discovers yet again that it no longer has the public’s support; always trying to brush cooties off onto its opposition.
Brother Nathanael–who you enjoy bringing up in these threads (and can be heard at https://www.youtube.com/brothernathanael )happens to be a semite.
Which of these clickbait links do I follow for access to the conservative truth serum that so many troll commenters such as yourself have access to? Or perhaps you’ve swallowed someone more powerful’s propaganda hook, line, and sinker? On your own time no less. Maybe you’ve even paid for the privilege. Hitler didn’t rise to power with the support of any socialists, they had their own parties in Weimar Germany. Hitler and Mussolini rose to power with the support of the wealthy, using violence to suppress socialists and unions. What’s in a name? Basically nothing. Even the thoroughly deceived must realize this. Or maybe you’re just being disingenuous?
Trump also said he’s all for workers, and that’s why many workers voted for him. Is Trump a leftist? Some might interpret it that way, but economic policy is not all that matters when evaluating someone’s political ideology.
Trump is a nationalist, and a populist. By definition those are not leftist.
(The confused progressive left called him a leftist on message boards throughout his campaign, said he’s best buds with the Clintons. Yet refused to vote for him. So there’s no shortage of disordered thinking among the progressive left.)
That’s dumb. Alright, Hugo Chavez was not a leftist then. Trump is most definitely not a leftist, but obviously not because he’s a nationalist populist. The “disordered thinking” is yours.
Hitler also loved diversity and wanted everyone to be treated fairly.
Under Hitler’s lead the Germans all had jobs making toys for Santa.. in fact that is what dictator means: Santa! And when Hitler invaded countries he would pass all those toys around – so misunderstood, that Hitler.
The only unions that anyone cares about weakening are the ones which engorge themselves carelessly off taxpayers: public employee unions.
If leftists put their money where their mouths are, they would agree. As government knows best how to care for its employees–no union necessary.
As government knows best how to care for its employees–no union necessary.
Says one while stumbling on the words on page one of Cognitive Dissonance for Dummies. Dear clueless.. it that were true… there wouldn’t BE a public employee union.
If you don’t trust Big Government to do what’s best for its own employees, then how can you trust Big Government to do anything else wisely?
Yet, you make the preposterous assertion that this same government “knows best how to care for its employees.” Hilarious.
Are you against Big Government, Mona?
I do not think in terms of “Big” vs. “Small” government. Bumper-sticker mentality is more your speed.
You’re overlooking the fact that most of the “engorging” is done by the wealthy who would have total control over the nation’s assets without labor unions. In fact, there is no such thing as a developed nation without labor unions, and there are no developing nations that have unions which are allowed to function autonomously. Nations with the highest standards of living have high unionization levels including public sector unions. To make a distinction between the two is to do so without any basis in hard economic data.
Why do you care so much what they control? Is it not hard enough for you to step upto an employer and simply state “I’ll sell you my labor for this amount.” And accept a simple yes or no answer?
Everything a union can or dies provide, is already written in the laws of this country, and your state. Right to work is terrific, so long as your state has policies that provide for the workers. Unemployment, leave time, wages, etc. These can be union functions or state functions. I much rather a universal approach by the state, to which I already pay taxes, than by a union that takes even more of my wage and has the ability to tell me not to work.
As IMF Chief Christine Lagarde famously stated, wealth inequality is one of the greatest threats to the global economy. Lower and middle class consumerism are 75% of economic activity, meaning that the pooling of wealth in the upper echelons of society endangers job security for anyone who is not at the top. Also, when wealth is political influence, which it is, then again the concentration of wealth undermines the egalitarian principles of democracy. As far as “laws that have already been written,” those laws are easily unwritten without political opposition. We’re seeing that already with deregulatory legislation. Without labor unions, there wouldn’t be the increases in minimum wage that we saw recently. Public sector unions create wage and living standards floors that benefit the rest of the economy. That is per OECD data and also per a vast majority of the world’s leading economists.
Left is where your heat is. Try cutting it out.
Then:
Disregarding for the moment that you seem to have completely refuted your own argument here: as a former union representative in a public (aka, government) agency, I know first hand that unions, no matter if they cover public or private employees (they sometimes do both, actually) are no more trustworthy, effective, less-gorgeful, or better human beings than those that exist in any group of upright bipeds on planet Earth.
The ongoing lambasting and pigeonholing of groups of humans based solely on the ideology you hang your hat on is meaningless; it’s nothing more than an attempt to short-shrift describing an actual, or most often, a perceived problem (i.e., the gorging of public employee unions) in order to prop up your preferred worldview (in this case, an unexplained anti-leftist one (whatever that is).
It’s incredibly lazy thinking and it shows.
The dichotomy of which you speak would make more sense to you if you understood that the second passage is my sarcasm.
The left wants Big Government hyper-state only part because it steals from the taxpayer to feather its own upper-middle class nest.
In reading your replies to others here on the same comment, I’m tending to think that sarcasm isn’t what was happening at all; but in case I’m mistaken – mea culpa.
Please don’t try to politicize the poor ole failings of unions. Unions are antiquated power centers controlled by bottom feeding thugs that prey on the weak by disguising themselves as a political class. A working man earning a meager wage should never give his hard earned money to the corrupt Union. The union intimidates and sells out constantly. They are just another left wing political class of managers skimming off blue collar folks. I’ve had my dealings with the union! A worker only needs to know his rights and stand or coalesce to make his point heard. Don’t need unions for that anymore.
“A worker only needs to know his rights and stand or coalesce to make his point heard. ”
right. Meanwhile, a wave of corporate human resource managers gut splitting laughter erupts from coast to coast.
Give this a decade and workers will be back to working for 1932 wages. But I’m positive they’ll try your solution for a better wage. un huh. right.
BWAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! If idiocy were weather you’d be a 6.0 hurricane.
The progressive left already endorses public policy which promotes importing hundreds of thousands of H2-B foreign laborers every year over American citizens, lowering wages for working people:
“MOULTRIE, Georgia — “All you black American people, fuck you all…just go to the office and pick up your check,” the supervisor at Hamilton Growers told workers during a mass layoff in June 2009.
The following season, according to a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, about 80 workers, many of them black, were simply told: “All you Americans are fired.””
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicagarrison/all-you-americans-are-fired
Sadly it is a truism that power corrupts and Union leaders themselves have corrupted some of the unions to increase their own power. This corruption has given the opening for powerful plutocrats to use that corruption to destroy unions.
Now we just have the corruption of the plutocrats and less power for the millions of working men and women. I don’t know the solution to this weakness of human nature, but it would help if Unions controlled their own leaders better.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
Not human nature, as union power trips were generally not present in earlier union formations (such as in the 30s). The major handbook for union organizing in America back in the 50s was based on mob organizing, which led to corrupt unions in the following years (since they were using mob tactics). This is, in part, why many Americans today are anti-union.
Not human nature. Power corrupt unions is a mid-20th century American phenomenon. Wasn’t like that in the 30s, nor in most other countries. Probably related to the widespread dissemination of union handbooks in the mid century that were based on mobster organization tactics. Power corruption was built into the methodology. Those days are over. I’m in a wonderful union and I couldn’t be more grateful.
“Not human nature”???
You’re dangerously deluded.
…and that’s the rub.
There is plenty of corruption to go around, e.g. a congress which raises $2-14k per day per member for campaign funding (as of 2012 via MapLight).
What is interesting is that the only major public institution that is deemed worthy of the chopping block is the one that provides the rare opportunity for the working class to express its political opinion in a meaningful way.
That we would rather have powerful corporations with an authoritarian power structure rather than democratically run labor unions is telling I think.
You apparently can’t see the forest for the trees. Unions are not democratically run. You’re trading one oppressive leader for another.