I forgot to mention how Boring Joe (Scarborough) was incensed that teachers wouldn’t take a cut in benefits and go back to work. Duh - that’s what striking is about - services are withdrawn until demands are met-
Joe falls in with the typical conservative finessing of issues by ignoring critical factors - like the right to collective bargaining. But all he focues on is the money. Not surprising.

Thank God there are still some Americans who staunchly resist the de-liberalization of the country. Once unions are broken in the public sector the corporate oligarchy can start to hammer the last nail in the coffin of labor rights. I foresee a whole cascade of similar tightenings of the oligarchic fist, loosening of the democratic moorings, such as maternity leave etc…
We should not give an inch to this kind of authoritarian bullying especially from right wing hypocrites who harangue about small government.

As I’ve been reminded by other commentators recently , Walker’s and RP attack on
unions is not focused only on the social well being of working class Americans but
a strategic attack on a political stronghold of the left. Without unions we are a for
weaker election force and body politic.

Well placed comments on Unions and teenagers, I was a union rep in my youth and yes unions can be corrupt, but usually the typical self serving corruption just like we see coming from the GOP and politics of opportunism.  It seems so very hard to find people who do not fall into the power opportunism ego trap and some unions may be in cahoots with management, which seemed to be the case in one Union I was involved with.

It has been my experience in most organizations there are always those who want control, and cannot allow or receive differing ideas objectively. I found this experience to be in churches, political moments and even unions and some local politics, even a non profit organization and lastly the VFW. Differing views on these very pages may be a sober indication of how hard it can be to gather momentum in any one direction.

Even so I would support the right of collective bargaining and Unions compared to the alternative of trickle down economics. There seems to be a class struggle happening right now, though I am not directly involved, being aware may be a step in the correct direction. (I hesitate to use the word right.)

Below is an excerpt from Michael Moore saluting the role of the youth in the Wisconsin protests. A good reading relevant to the theme of this thread!
================================================
“Young people elsewhere in the world, most notably in the Middle East, have taken to the streets and overthrown dictatorial governments without firing a shot. Their courage has inspired others to take a stand. There’s a huge momentum right now, a youth-backed mojo that can’t and won’t be stopped.”

“Although I’ve long since left your age group, I’ve been so inspired by recent events that I’d like to do my bit and lend a hand. I’ve decided to turn over a part of my website to high school students so they—you—can have the opportunity to get the word out to millions more people. For a long time I’ve wondered, how come we don’t hear the true voices of teenagers in our mainstream media? Why is your voice any less valid than an adult’s?”

“In high schools all across America, students have great ideas to make things better or to question what is going on—and often these thoughts and opinions are ignored or silenced. How often in school is the will of the student body ignored? How many students today will try to speak out, to stand up for something important, to simply try to right a wrong—and will be swiftly shut down by those in authority, or by other students themselves?”

“I’ve seen students over the years attempt to participate in the democratic process only to be told that high schools aren’t democracies and that they have no rights (even though the Supreme Court has said that a student doesn’t give up his or her rights “when they enter the schoolhouse door”.”

“It’s always amazed me how adults preach to young people about what a great “democracy” we have, but when students seek to be part of it, they are reminded that they are not full citizens yet and must behave somehow as indentured servants. Is it any wonder then why some students, when they become adults, don’t feel like participating in our political system—because they’ve been taught by example for the past 12 years that they have no say in the decisions that affect them?”

“We like to say that we have this great “free press,” and yet how free are high school newspapers? How free are you to write or blog about what you want? I’ve been sent stories from teenagers that they couldn’t get published at school. Why not? Why must we silence or keep out of sight the voice of our teenagers?”

“It’s not that way in other countries. The voting age in places like Austria, Brazil or Nicaragua is 16. In France, students can shut down the country by simply walking out of school and taking to the streets.”

“But here in the U.S. you’re told to obey and to basically butt out and let the adults run the show.”

“Let’s change that! I’m starting something on my site called, “HIGH SCHOOL NEWSPAPER.” Here you will be able to write what you want and I will publish it. I will also post those articles that you’ve tried to get published at your school but were turned down. On my site you will have freedom and an open forum and a chance to have your voice heard by millions.”

“I’ve asked my 17-year-old niece, Molly, to kick things off by editing this page for the first six months. She will ask you to send her your stories and ideas and the best ones will be posted on MichaelMoore.com. I’ll give you the platform you deserve. It will be my honor to have you on my site and I encourage you to take advantage of it.”

“You are often called “our future.” That future is today, right here, right now. You’ve already proven you can change the world. Keep doing it. And I’d be honored to help you.”

Yours,
Michael Moore
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
MichaelMoore.com

Anyone working or retired in the USA right now that still makes a good living, still has good benefits, and is not working themselves to death, can thank union labor. Let me explain.

Prior to the union movement in the US, our nation still lagged behind smaller, less gifted, european nations at the start of the industrial revolution. Our people literally worked themselves to death in company towns that dotted the landscape. They worked 60-70 hour work weeks, no benefits, no retirement. Men died everyday in mine or the mill. We lagged behind because this awful condition led to a populace that had no disposable income. There was no need to try and sell goods in this nation, for nobody could afford it anyway.

Flash forward to the 1950’s, union movements during the implementation of the new deal,mixed with WWII and the post war economic boom, saw incomes triple in one generation. Workers no longer had to worry about getting sick or injured. They could retire in their 60’s instead of working until they became so enfeebled that they would end up burdeneing their children, or dying in the county home. They could afford to send their children to college (no body had to quit school in ninth grade to help out their family. In short, we saw the greatest economic boom the world has every witnessed, or ever will. Union movements led the US government to adopt and apply their policies throught the dept of labor, to every working american.

And now, anti-union movements, financed and led by the same big businesses that flourished during the heyday of unions, are convincing that same government that unions are evil, and should be demolished. And what has government (the people) benefitted from this anti-union movement. Disappearing tax bases, lower tax rates, have led to huge defecits BECAUSE OF LOWER OR STAGNANT WAGES. We,the government, are going to pay for a national single payer healthcare plan anyway, for our public hospitals are crowded with people who no longer have benefits and are waiting in line for hours for rudamentary sick care. Your roads and bridges are falling apart, your population is growing,so you will need even more roads and bridges and utilites. And we are going to solve all these problems and more by eliminating unions, cutting wages, and handing everything over to the corporations, because the better their profits, the better off we will all be. After all, that’s how supply side economics works.

Wake up folks, we are way past entrepenurialism. What, ya gonna have 300 million different widget salesman? Capitalism doesn’t work that way. It works the way it’s working now, to the benefit of the few and the detriment of the many.

By Inherit The Wind, February 19 at 2:09 pm Link to this comment

“Funny thing about making war on unions…when you “win”, you’ve laid the groundwork for new unions to grow.  For 30 years the Republicans have waged an all-out war on unions.  It cost America 3.5 million manufacturing jobs that never came back, half of our auto industry, virtually 100% of our steel industry and our garment industry and Americans took it lying down, lulled by cheap (imported) TVS, cell phones and computers, and fueled by rhetoric about the “evil empire”,  which no longer exists, “greedy, inefficient unions strangling industry”, “Tax-and-spend-Democrats” and “The Global War on Terrorism”.”
====================================================
ITW,I really liked your informed post! I am with you about the need for a nation-wide movement to unionize in order to counterbalance the abuses of greedy capitalists and politicians with narrow agendas.

Well done pal!

Funny thing about making war on unions…when you “win”, you’ve laid the groundwork for new unions to grow.  For 30 years the Republicans have waged an all-out war on unions.  It cost America 3.5 million manufacturing jobs that never came back, half of our auto industry, virtually 100% of our steel industry and our garment industry and Americans took it lying down, lulled by cheap (imported) TVS, cell phones and computers, and fueled by rhetoric about the “evil empire”,  which no longer exists, “greedy, inefficient unions strangling industry”, “Tax-and-spend-Democrats” and “The Global War on Terrorism”.

It all worked.  And the unions kept diminishing. Republicans had their way with the economy! YAY!!!!!
Except, while they kept pretending deficits didn’t matter, unemployment was creeping up.  Job creation fell, so badly that during the 8 years of Bush, the BEST quarter of job growth was worse than the WORST quarter of job growth during the 8 Clinton years.

And, in 2007, the unraveling began…at first in the obscure sub-prime market (“When banks say ‘No’, Champion says ‘Yes!’”)...and the economy foundered.  Unemployment rose rapidly as major corporations contracted, and then their suppliers did, too. By the time Bush left office, unemployment had soared past 8%, and took 2 years to FINALLY stop rising, and had sort of stabilized in the 9.4-9.8% range, but hasn’t come down.

Unemployment is a trailing index, but it is probably the most indicative of an economy’s health.  But it’s also very, VERY real, if you’re the guy or the gal who’s sacked.  You sure don’t give a SHIT about extending the top 5%‘s tax cuts when your unemployment bennies are going to be allowed to run out to pay for it.

Sooner or later, no matter how stupid you are, no matter how gullible, no matter how you’ve been conned into to thinking it’s the fault of lib’ral democrats, lazy welfare mothers, Hollywood and the mainstream media, reality will hit you.  You will see your republican governors cutting teachers for your kids’ school, police and firemen, and now, the RIGHT of workers to try to protect themselves.

Sooner or later you will realize that the enemy of the Republican Party, the enemy they REALLY want to crush, isn’t Blacks, Latinos, Immigrants, Liberals, Socialist, or unions. It’s you.  They want to crush YOU!

They’ve finally figured this out in Wisconsin and Ohio. Time to build new unions, and build them strong! Unionize WalMart. Unionize computer geeks. Unionize the big pharmaceutical companies. Unionize government employees. Unionize every manufacturing industry. Unionize MacDonalds, Burger King, KFC and the rest.  Unionize sales clerks.  Most importantly, unionize the Defense industry.

America’s biggest and best period of growth came when unions were strong, taxes were highest on the rich, and we didn’t fight wars we weren’t forced into, and those we NEEDED to fight, we won.

Time to bring back unions!

Blacksphere comment;

“Now, in Wisconsin, the teacher’s union has agreed to finally negotiate,” ...what?.......to not negotiate? Sure the public employees should work to help balance the budget and maybe take some cuts, but so should the legislators and governor. Bloated wages? Blame the employees for their bloated wages, how does one define bloated? More bloated then I, you the Governor? Seems we need write Dear Abby to make the call.

Public employees should have a right to collective bargaining. We may not be hearing the real poop, what may be happening is in the memory of Ronald Raygun and his great success when he shafted the air traffic controllers,  the Republicans may be feeling their Wheaties and entitled like Goldman slacks. Talk about bloated and to big to fail, a nice combo!

I would like to look at the Wisconsin Protest as a brewing little revolution against heavy-handed and irrelevant politicians with agendas against the working class. Thus, it has some striking similarities to what’s happening in the Arab world.

I hope that this Wisconsin protest will remain peaceful in the face of the threat by this evil governor to send the national guard against the protesters. But I also hope that its fever will spread over to other states; for if the Wisconsin radical republican governor wins this battle, then he might emerge as the best choice nominee for the Republican presidential in 2012, ushering another era of destruction in America by the radical republicans that will make the evil Bush era look benign in comparison.

Good, I hope they march on the Capitol and burn it down. 

Create a few jobs rebuilding it.

Big B…

You’re mixing apples and oranges.  I certainly agree with your view on big business, but that’s a problem that can be easily corrected with a revised and enlightened tax code.  But never mix up the private sector with the public sector.  The public sector is totally supported by the tax payers and the past bloated agreements with the civil service unions are coming home to roost.  The blame falls squarely on the politicians in charge as well as the unions——the politicians at fault are long gone, but nonetheless the problem remains and the only solution is for the public workers to give back some of the excessive past gains——it’s as simple as that!  However, having some practical insight into the UFT——their mantra is “NO GIVE BACKS.”  Now, in Wisconsin, the teacher’s union has agreed to finally negotiate, but I will guarantee you they will never give back without a quid pro quo!

Blackspeare

Those folks in wisconsin that you say have everything have mearly a decent living, with good benefits and retirement plans. In short, they have, and want to keep, the jobs and benefits that many more of us used to have and have seen taken away by our corporate overlords in the last thirty years.

Instead of wanting to drag working americans that have good jobs and benefits down to the crappy level many of us live in now, why don’t we ask ourselves and our representatives why we let big businesses move good paying jobs overseas all the while they get tax breaks to do so.

What is happening in Wisconsin is just the begining of big business’s final battle to eliminate union labor and (re)create a downtrodden working class (serfs) that won’t mind living in company towns connected to other towns only by dirt roads and the occasional letter. In short, big business doesn’t want to just go back to the 1920’s, they lnog to return to the 1890’s.

Hey, they may be doing us a favor though. they are just getting us ready to live in the post-petroleum world that is coming sooner than we think.

In Egypt there are protests by people who have nothing.  In Wisconsin, there are protests by people who have everything.  Is this a crazy world or what???

I love the feds, they sure can screw the people with a straight face. I know this is a state issue, but supposedly the feds are looking into the matter with the same vision as the Governor of Wisconsin.  But what I find most interesting is the Egyptian protests may have been more over decent living than freedom, so the similarity to protests in Wisconsin may be stronger then we are misled to believe. Complements of the new world order!

What I see is the USA and states like this are doing all they can to make people feel guilty for working and receiving agreed upon benefits, no support for workers, they are not to big to fail, unlike the Goldman Slacks and others who where bailed out and now seem to be rolling in huge profits. Tough times for Goldman means not buying a private jet.

Collective bargaining is not the problem, it is the ass holes calling the shots.  Go Goldman slacks you earned it, but the state employees, let them eat cake! Not just a Republican attitude, seems the Dems are going down this road too! .....Well they all look alike to me anyway.

Again Egypt may be in the same boat as Wisconsin; check out this link, see if you see some similarities?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27504.htm

Do they even have collective bargaining in Texas, a right to work state?