labor ruling could cripple Democrats

[welshTerrier2]

some of the very best campaign support for Democratic candidates comes from the unions ... not only do unions provide financial support to the Democratic Party but they also provide tons of people to lick envelopes, make phone calls and help get out the vote on election day ... unions have been good and loyal friends to the Democratic Party ... but now, all that may be at risk ...

no, union workers are not going to abandon the party and start voting for republicans ... that's not the problem ... the problem is that a recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) could put an end to unions altogether ... you probably have NOT heard the Democratic Party raising this issue and making "the deciders" understand that the American people are watching them ... political pressure, especially during an election year, might have altered the final decision ... instead, the Dems were silent and the recent NLRB decision could be the final nail in the coffin for unions in the US ...

the battle has always been about class warfare ... Democrats only seem willing to fight the little battles but never seem willing to frame the larger issue ... Dems fight for lots of pro-worker issues like minimum wage or Family Leave Act or worker safety but they never seem willing to put these laundry list items in context ... THE ISSUE is class warfare ... the battle is between the wealthiest shareholders and the workers ... we've seen the death of manufacturing in the US ... we've seen whole towns disappear as their one manufacturing plant moved out of the country in pursuit of cheaper labor ... we've seen communities destroyed and families forced out of their homes because they could not pay the mortgage ... we've seen globalization and NAFTA and the WTO and CAFTA ... Democrats have NOT been a friend to big labor or to small labor either ... many so called white collar professionals thought they were immune to the suffering of their blue collar co-workers ... they didn't believe they needed to unionize ... they were free agents ... they were their own men raking in the bucks ... fools!! ... to quote John Lennon: "you're all f*king peasants as far as i can see" ... a working class hero is something to be ...

the Democratic Party proudly hails the accomplishments of its key fundraisers ... they point to the great inroads they're making raising corporate cash ... well, given the corrupt system where money buys power, that still may be necessary ... but that corporate cash translates directly to policy ... does anyone believe that corporate cash comes without strings attached??? quid pro quo ... a bargain with the devil ... and the devil wants nothing more than to see labor's power diminished ... the devil does not like environmental regulations ... the devil does not want restrictions on mergers and acquisitions ...

the Democratic Party needs to commit itself to labor, i.e. to all workers, on a scale much grander than just fighting for the minimum wage to be increased ... because failing to so is going to destroy an important constituency ... and it's going to destroy an important component of virtually every Democratic candidate's campaign ... labor has been a friend to Democrats; and we have failed them ...

here's an article on the NLRB ruling that could spell real trouble for the Democratic Party as early as 2008 and certainly beyond ... and still, the Party's voices are silent ...

source: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=21485

Busting the Party
NLRB Kentucky River ruling could cripple Dems in 2008

Lost amidst the wall-to-wall coverage of Predatorgate last week, yet another bunch of political appointees from the Bush administration quietly destroyed a hard-won right for millions of Americans: the right to unionize. The political implications are greater still. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling should have been front-page news for days; it wasn't. Organized labor in the U.S. has become so marginalized, and mainstream media so routinely ignores labor issues, that practically nobody noticed.

The NLRB ruling came as a long-awaited response to a series of cases, which I wrote about in July, collectively known as Kentucky River. In the cases, employers were bidding to break nursing unions by having the nurses reclassified as supervisors, which, under the notoriously anti-union 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, are legally prohibited from unionizing. The attempt came despite the fact that the nurses in question didn't hire, fire, set policy, mete out discipline, or set schedules. The logic was that more senior workers "oversaw" the work of less senior ones and employees with less training, such as nurses' aides.

Such a ruling, it was feared at the time, could be applied widely as precedent to almost any employee who worked with apprentices (i.e., most of the trade unions), less experienced workers, or colleagues with less training in a particular skill. AFL-CIO organizing director Stewart Acuff estimated in July that the worst possible scenario, in which the NLRB would issue the broadest possible ruling, could disenfranchise eight million American workers from the ability to organize. Organized labor in the U.S., decimated by free trade, loss of manufacturing jobs, and decades of membership erosion, these days only has 12 million members. So how did the ruling turn out? "It's the worst decision they could have made," Acuff says now. "It's the worst single labor board decision since there's been a labor board, the single worst union decision since the Taft-Hartley Act. It confirmed all of our fears. It took eight million people who could form a union out from any possibility of forming a union." <skip>

Ah, yes. Labor, elections, and the Democrats. For decades, organized labor in the U.S. has relied on the Democratic Party to do its legislative bidding, and the results (as with, say, free trade) have been mixed at best. Amazingly, however, Democrats on Capitol Hill were almost completely MIA in either publicizing the pending ruling, pressuring the NLRB, or reacting last week to the ruling itself. Why is it amazing? Not because Democrats are stiff-arming organized labor; that's old news. But this ruling both affects and is aimed at not just unions, but the Democrats themselves. "There's no justification for this decision; it's just a way to weaken the labor movement," says Acuff. "These guys (the politically appointed NLRB) are actively trying to weaken worker power and worker strength and lower the standard of living for workers." <skip>

Let's hope the Democrats can take advantage of it this year, and then have the cajones to dare George Bush to veto a bill overriding the Kentucky River ruling. Because if they don't, at least one or another dim bulb in the Democratic leadership must realize, Democrats will soon either have to completely reinvent themselves structurally -– something the activist base very much wants anyway –- or face such a structural and financial disadvantage that they won't be very competitive in 2008.

[CrispyQ]

1. k&r

I guess outsourcing our jobs to India & China wasn't enough. They want to bust down the few remaining jobs here. Or maybe some of the call center companies are encountering consumer resistance so they want to bring the jobs back to the US but at global rates.

This will definitely remain on my radar & be forwarded to those I know.

Thanks for the post!

[calimary]

2. Good to know, although it'll probably take me awhile to absorb.

Good post, though!

K&R

[welshTerrier2]

4. here are the basics ...

under the Taft-Hartley Act, which is anti-union, workers classified as management are not allowed to unionize ... the ruling, which had to do with a union for nurses, said that, even though they are technically not management, they will be treated as management because they supervise less experienced workers such as nurses aides ... by that standard, many workers who are clearly not management would be barred from belonging to a union ... many non-management workers have seniority or some form of greater responsibility in a company's hierarchy ... the broad-sweeping interpretation by the NLRB that calls such a hierarchy "management" would quickly destroy ALL unions ...

here is the key paragraph from the article that explains the essence of the ruling:

Employers were bidding to break nursing unions by having the nurses reclassified as supervisors, which, under the notoriously anti-union 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, are legally prohibited from unionizing. The attempt came despite the fact that the nurses in question didn't hire, fire, set policy, mete out discipline, or set schedules. The logic was that more senior workers "oversaw" the work of less senior ones and employees with less training, such as nurses' aides.

Such a ruling, it was feared at the time, could be applied widely as precedent to almost any employee who worked with apprentices (i.e., most of the trade unions), less experienced workers, or colleagues with less training in a particular skill.

some of the tests that have historically been used to determine whether a worker was "management" included such tests as: hiring/firing, setting policy, punishing deficient workers, and setting schedules ... this ruling ignored those tests and looked only at distinctions between more experienced workers and less experienced workers ... it classified the more experienced workers as "management" and made them ineligible to be in a union ... using experience as a criteria effectively would destroy unions because that situation is present with almost all workers in all companies ...

this is a really, really big deal and has not received the attention Democrats need to give it ... the real test about whether Democrats are pro-labor will come the second Democrats retake control of Congress ... writing new legislation to overturn this attack on workers should be among the party's highest priorities ...

[truedelphi]

3. The rich Dems do just almost as much Shiite as

The Republicans

A few years ago I received word that the firm my father worked for
during his late fifties was going bankrupt.

Run by a very Dem family, that company was.

And when the bankruptcy took effect, the owning family got golden parachutes, and the pension fund went to pay off the corporate expenses.

If you are that kinda Dem, are you worthy of the party label? I mean, sure your eyes well up with tears at the mention of JFK's name, but I'd think the Dem label has to be something that means something.

[Zodiak]

5. This is a good reason Democrats lost the South

since the 1980's. When I was a boy in North Texas (1970's), there were an awful lot of Democrats. Democrats were in big state offices and won national seats in Congress. Many Texans were proud to declare themselves a blue collar Democrat and many were members of unions.

Then the Reagan revolution occurred and the bottom dropped out of the oil market.

Unions began to collapse because the local Democrats hitched up with Reaganesque policies. As soon as that happened, labor standards dropped through the floor in Texas. It became dog-eat-dog in a race to the bottom.

There was no "working man's message" being articulated. The only Populists allowed a voice were the fundie Republican ones (and no one DU would agree with Republican populism). The Democrats just picked up their tents and went after the corporate money, leaving the working man behind. The nineties were even worse.

It has been a full generation since Southern Democrats have embraced Democratic populism, and its effects have been devastating.

And now it is exported to the federal government.

It is seldom mentioned on DU, but I do not believe that the South is inherently conservative and forever lost because of civil rights. Civil rights is only a part of the equation. Underneath that "betrayal" is the primary betrayal of dimishing the power of the average American in the face of the corporations. Life sucks for a majority in the South, and they are mad as hell. Since the Democrats have run away, abandoning them to the lies of the Republicans, they feel twice betrayed. Restore the power of the average American and you will see a lot of Southerners vote Democratic again. I truly believe that.

I don't think the DLC (mod-conservative socially, conservative economically) has a chance against true Populists (mod-conservative socially, mod-liberal economically). I sure would like to see this sort of contest occur more often so I can see if my hypothesis is correct.

[Zodiak]

6. what, no flames?

I'm truly surprised

[welshTerrier2]

7. nope, i think it's an interesting analysis ...

i would NOT see an issue like being pro-labor or even being pro-union specifically as a regional issue ... and i do think there are a variety of factors that prohibit Democrats from running better in the South ... there's certainly no reason whatsoever to dismiss the party's more recent posture with regard to labor as one of those factors ...

consider the following from an FDR convention speech ... does this sound anything like today's Democratic Party??

source: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/welshTerrier2/94

It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor-these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small business man, the investments set aside for old age-other people's money-these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities. <skip>

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor-other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

[CrispyQ]

8. You hit the nail on the head --

Underneath that "betrayal" is the primary betrayal of dimishing the power of the average American in the face of the corporations.


This is how we reach them. Something like 65% of Americans feels corporations have too much power & influence. My right wing mother is reading "The People's Business" & is shocked to find out about corporate personhood & how it impacts our government. She is also reading "Take This Job & Ship It" & says she agrees with most of what Dorgan says. She still has huge conditioning to not vote for anyone with a (D) behind their name, so I don't know that she will vote dem, but she is starting to admit that having "the adults" back in charge has not been what she expected.

Since the Democrats have run away, abandoning them to the lies of the Republicans, they feel twice betrayed. Restore the power of the average American and you will see a lot of Southerners vote Democratic again. I truly believe that.

You got that right! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Omaha Steve]

9. K & R

Great post. Because my job has changed as of three weeks ago, I will be able to asst Democrats as a union member on election day for the first time in nine years!

[Zodiak]

10. bump-a-lumpa

This is a serious issue. Not as juicy as Foley, but it is meat and potatoes to the average American.

Everyone should be aware of this.