Economic crises are as endemic to capitalism as is its resilience. Nonetheless, the system seldom survives in the terms predicted even by its most powerful players. The corporate CEOs that dominate contemporary capitalism know that the system cannot survive in its present incarnation. Most, however, demand that however much they rely on public dole, they should continue to dominate business and finance.
The life of American unions these days seems modeled after that of the
amoeba: Splitting and recombining are the order of the day.
The unions of the AFL-CIO and unions that split away from it in
2005 to form the rival Change To Win (CTW) federation are currently
engaged in talks to see if they can come together yet again. The three
million member National Education Association, which has never belonged
to a labor federation, is also involved in the discussions.
Unions are good for workers. Today, median
weekly pay for union members is $886, compared to $691 for nonunion
workers. Moving cargo on the Oakland waterfront pays three times what
stocking shelves does at Wal-Mart because longshore workers have had a
union contract since 1934.
"I Am a Man" was the slogan of 1,300 striking black sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968. Their grievances were many, but chief among them was that their wages were so meager they lived below the poverty line.
On April 4, 41 years ago last evening, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. He was in town to help the strikers gain recognition of their union, and his epic "I've been to the mountaintop" speech was a labor rally.
"Raise the threat level to
a code red," they cry out.
From Baghdad to D.C., a growing
chorus of a-tonal anti-union executives around the world (the only choir
that may be left after all the public school budget cuts) are asserting
that the teacher union menace must be neutralized.
Imagine an election in which one candidate could threaten your job if you voted for the other side. That candidate could campaign as much, and whenever, they wish, while the opponent was limited to speaking only during coffee breaks or after work. Suppose that candidate could even decide when the election would take place -- calling the vote only after being certain that it would go in their favor?
We are witnessing one of the fastest betrayals of the Democratic Party base in modern memory, as President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party leadership in the Senate slither away from a crucial constituency, the labor movement, and from support of labor's key legislative agenda item: passage of a bill, "The Employee Free Choice Act," which would restore a measure of fairness to labor relations.
Get ready for the boomerang effect. The economic crisis that originated in this country has spread to the farthest corners of the planet. Global poverty is expected to jump by 53 million people and another 51 million workers will join the ranks of the jobless this year.
On Monday, President Obama announced that the United States government is effectively taking over General Motors and Chrysler and considering bankruptcy. But while Japanese automaker Toyota is also taking a hit as global auto sales slump, analysts expect Toyota to ultimately prevail. It's not just the Prius. Another type of hybrid built into Japan's economic model blends corporate interest with the common good. Japan's cooperative capitalism is the key to Toyota's future -- and ideally America's, too.
The federal agency charged with enforcing minimum wage, overtime and many other labor laws is failing in that role, leaving millions of workers vulnerable, Congressional auditors have found.
In a report scheduled to be released Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office found that the agency, the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division, had mishandled 9 of the 10 cases brought by a team of undercover agents posing as aggrieved workers.
