The Republican Attack On Organized Labor

And Everything Progressive... (-)

by: lightseeker
So, if your crazy uncle asks you about those greedy unions in Wisconsin, here some ammo to
talk back with.

The short story:

Republicans hate unions , always have . They are not acting out of concern for anybody's budget.
They believe that working men and women can protect their interest by going one on one with
their employers.
Progressives have failed to be competitive with the mighty Republican Noise Machine and its
lies.
We either start being competitive or this is just the latest outrage.

The longer story follows..

The Republican attack on organized labor has been ongoing for years. Reagan's breaking of the
Air Traffic Controllers Union is simply one of the more famous and public instance of this. Bush
era legislation making the certification of unions more difficult continued the pattern.

The larger pattern dates back several decades:

Reshaping the Institutional Landscape

The long-term investments that conservative foundations have made in building a
"counter-establishment" of research, advocacy, media, legal, philanthropic, and religious
sector organizations have paid off handsomely These donors have altered the mix of
organizations actively seeking to influence public policy in Washington, DC, and in state
capitals. In doing so, they have reshaped _ the institutional landscape of US politics and
policy-making profoundly. Their long-term support of policy institutions has occurred at
a time of significant change in American politics-change that has facilitated the
emergence of groups like the Heritage Foundation as particularly influential policy
actors.
Among the most important of these changes are the long-term decline in electoral
participation, the deepening class skew to US voting patterns, the transformation of
political parties into top-down fund raising vehicles, the growing role of money in
politics, the rising political importance of the media, and the decline of institutions (such
as unions and political parties) that once played a stronger balancing role in setting
national, state, and local priorities.

It was a man by the name of Richard Mellon Scaife who helped kick it all off:
 Conservative Movement

A key prophet of the new order was multimillionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. Having
spent most of his then-young life getting drunk and looking for some purpose for his
inheritance, Scaife found it in ferrying Barry Goldwater around the country in his private
plane for campaign events. The 1964 campaign convinced Scaife that no genuinely
conservative candidate could succeed in a nationwide election without first overcoming
the advantage that liberalism appeared to have both in the media and in the war of
political ideas that provided its ideological foundation. So Scaife began funding his own
media. Literally hundreds of right-wing think tanks, pressure groups, alternative media
outlets, and eventually, media empires owe their existence to this insight of Scaife's and
to the billions that would eventually pour into their coffers as a result.

At the root of Republican anti-unionism is not facts and reason but theology.

lightseeker :: The Republican Attack On Organized Labor And Everything Progressive...

Chapter 5 of Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision

The market is to fundamentalist economics what God is to fundamentalist religion. God rewards
the disciplined people who follow His commandments and punishes sinners who are
undisciplined or rebellious. As with fundamentalist religion, the conservative's market is
radically individualist. You and you alone are responsible for whether you goto heaven or hell
and whether you succeed or fail in the market. Like God, the market rewards or punishes,
depending on how disciplined you are.There are a number of entailments that come along with
this conservative view of the economy.The profit motive is taken as ensuring maximum
efficiency, so the market satisfies individual needs best. Government is seen as wasteful and
inefficient, interfering with the idealized "free" market. It interferes in four ways

Regulation, which limits what individuals or corporations can do to make profits• Taxes, which
are seen as taking profits away• Workers' rights and unions, which lessen corporate and investor
profits• Tort lawsuits, which can take away corporate and investor profits. That is why the right
wing is for deregulation, against taxation, against unions and workers' rights, and for "tort reform

So, in this alternative universe, you and I can go one-on-one with Exxon or Walmart and hope to
achieve something. Right, got it...

Of course, not all Republicans or their supporters believe this fable tale. Some of the
opportunists who run as Republicans, who spend their time fleecing the feckless faithful
(Evangelicals, Tea Partiers) are all about the money and power. Their success,never the less rests
squarely on this theological reading of the role of the market, conscious or unconscious, by
myopic millions. Recall the "Reagan Democrats"?

Now they think they can take it to the next level. Using the transparently lame cover of "tight
economic times" , newly elected Republican governors in several states are trying to cut back or
eliminate the right of public sectore employees to have unions at all.
Strained States Turning to Laws to Curb Labor Unions
Faced with growing budget deficits and restive taxpayers, elected officials from Maine to
Alabama, Ohio to Arizona, are pushing new legislation to limit the power of labor
unions, particularly those representing government workers, in collective bargaining and
politics.

[snip]

But in some cases - mostly in states with Republican governors and Republican
statehouse majorities - officials are seeking more far-reaching, structural changes that
would weaken the bargaining power and political influence of unions, including private
sector ones.

For example, Republican lawmakers in Indiana, Maine, Missouri and seven other states
plan to introduce legislation that would bar private sector unions from forcing workers
they represent to pay dues or fees, reducing the flow of funds into union treasuries. In
Ohio, the new Republican governor, following the precedent of many other states, wants
to ban strikes by public school teachers.

Some new governors, most notably Scott Walker of Wisconsin, are even threatening to
take away government workers' right to form unions and bargain contracts.

"We can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and
taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots," Mr. Walker, a Republican, said in a
speech. "The bottom line is that we are going to look at every legal means we have to try
to put that balance more on the side of taxpayers."

Many of the proposals may never become law. But those that do are likely to reduce
union influence in election campaigns, with reverberations for both parties.

[snip]

"In the long run, if these measures deprive unions of resources, it will cut them off at
their knees. They'll melt away," said Charles E. Wilson, a law professor at Ohio State
University.

[snip]

A group composed of Republican state lawmakers and corporate executives, the

American Legislative Exchange Council, is quietly spreading these proposals from state
to state, sending e-mails about the latest efforts as well as suggested legislative language.

Michael Hough, director of the council's commerce task force, said the aim of these
measures was not political, but to reduce labor's swollen power. "Government budgets
have grown and grown because of the cost of employees' pensions and salaries," he said.
"Now we have to deal with that."
The most famous case is the ongoing dust-up in Wisconsin. Here is also the most transparent
fraud :

LINK
The reality is radically different. Unlike true austerity measures -- service rollbacks,
furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money -- rolling back
worker's bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker's doing
it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits
immediately.
Mad In Madison: Wisconsin Workers Protest Against Governor's Budget Proposals

Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state's fiscal bureau -- the
Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office -- concluded that Wisconsin
isn't even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus.
In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies
Walker enacted in his first days in office.

"Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond he control,"
says Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future -- a public
interest think tank. "He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax
cuts... so he could rush through these other changes."

That the need and necessity of unions to fight for worker rights is even in question is a sad sure
sign of how badly Progressives, Organized Labor and the Democratic Party have failed to
effectively and consistently push back against right wing messages and slogans and frames over
the last many decades. Now that failure is coming home to roost. At the least there will be even
more painful times ahead for working Americans .

Check out my new messaging and framing blog. I talk about the idea of framing and messaging
and offer some advice on what even individuals like you and I can do....

Democracy For Houston Blog