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The State of the Unions - Dateline: Wisconsin
Author: BobR    Date: 2011-02-23 11:16:53


First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.


Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

-- attributed to Martin Niemöller, Germany, 1946


The ongoing battle between the teachers and Governer Walker in Wisconsin has been dominating the news. There have been numerous discussions about whether teachers are paid too much or too little. There have been smear attempts against the teachers for being absent from school to participate in the protests. There have been metaphors and analogies drawn comparing Walker to recently-deposed Egyptian president Mubarek. What is rarely mentioned is the role of unions through history and the recently resurgent attempts to crush them once and for all.

There was once a time in our nation where people worked 6 days a week for long hours in dangerous conditions. People spent their paychecks at company stores and for company housing, never getting ahead, as their paycheck went right back to their employer. Children toiled in factories, their childhoods robbed by business owners. Employees were replaceable meat engines driving the machinery of commerce.

Unions changed all that. Because of unions, we have 40 hour work weeks, safety regulations, and children in schools instead of factories. A lot of the "perks" that middle class America takes for granted are the result of people organizing and demanding to be treated better.

Yet somehow, the propaganda created by the monied elite, disseminated through politics and sympathetic media outlets have turned popular opinion against unions. Phrases like "union thugs" are tossed like confetti at a parade, and benefits we all enjoy are now called "entitlements" when bestowed upon "other" people we deem unworthy of receiving them. People with comfortable desk jobs wonder why we even need unions anymore.

The bigger question is: Why are people so against unions?... and why should anyone care if a group of workers want to unionize?

The answer is that Big Business wants to destroy unions because they are the only remaining threat to their power. Without unions, we are all serfs, petitioning the King with hat in hand for a farthing. With unions, the threat of a severe productivity impact will cause the King to think twice about tightening the screws to squeeze out another million for his bonus.

The fight in Wisconsin is proof of the transparency of this desire to remove all power from the workers. Attempting to make adjustments to teacher pay or the number of teachers, or any other part of the equation would be at least understandable. But how does busting the teacher's union balance the budget? It doesn't. It simply is yet another attempt to remove any bargaining power and tip the scales even further in the direction of those at the top. There is no rational argument that can be made to suggest that busting the teacher's union is necessary to balance the budget (a much better argument could be made to remove the tax incentives that were given to business that resulted in the deficit in the first place).

But that's really the crux of it, isn't it? More tax breaks for the businesses, less power to the workers. Money flows uphill.

So to accomplish this, attempts are made to make the teachers look overcompensated, as if their time is worth less than the business owners that got a tax break for doing nothing (they certainly didn't improve the bottom line at the state treasury). There are also attempts by right-wing media outlets to smear the teachers to deflect from the issue at hand, and there have been reports of agents provocateur posing as union members staging fights with bused-in anti-union protestors.

It's all a microcosm of a larger attempt by business (and their proxies in government, the Republicans) to neuter the power of unions and roll back the gains made by them (including killing social security, health and workplace regulations, and even child labor laws). Besides Wisconsin, there are similar union-busting bills in Ohio and Indiana. The only recourse the worker has when being abused by their employer is unionizing and government regulation, which is why the Koch-brother-funded Tea Party groups are also against "Big Government". Goodbye unions and government oversight, and hello Gilded Age and "The Jungle".

It's sad to see how easily people can be manipulated to hate that which protects them, and lash out against their own best interests. Wisconsin was to be a test bed, a blueprint for the rest of the country. It's imperative that this does not succeed. One need not be a union member benefit to reap the rewards that they provide. Once the unions are gone, who will speak for us?


 

81 comments (Latest Comment: 02/23/2011 23:35:39 by livingonli)
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