Union and non-union blue-collar workers alike walked into voting booths in 1932 and pulled the lever for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Twenty-eight years later, their sons and daughters -- union and non-union, organized and non-organized -- pulled the lever for JFK. Yet in the 2010 elections just held, while union workers generally pulled the levers of the Democratic candidates, non-union blue-collar workers voted for Republicans -- as they have done fairly regularly since 1980.
This political disconnect between union and non-union workers has now been vexing the Democratic Party and progressives for three decades. A close friend of mine in the Senate affirmed it to me the other day when he said that when he meets with workers who are not organized, they react with much more reserve than the union workers he meets -- even when the two groups have so much else about their lives in common. Democrats need to look at the workers in this country through this prism.
My response to the Senator regarding why this split may exist is fourfold:
Back in early 2008, David Bonior and I put together a "Labor Manifesto", which later became the foundation for Barack Obama's "I Believe in Unions" speech in Youngstown, Ohio, a speech which thereafter heavily defined the 'worker-part' of his campaign through to the general election.
While in hindsight, our initial Manifesto should have been more obviously inclusive of all workers, starting off with our calling it the "Workers' Manifesto", its motivation was simple: restore through politics in general and the presidential bully pulpit in particular the perspective that corporate America has equal and concurrent responsibility to shareholders, employees, customers, communities and the nation. This is a perspective that served the country extremely well and stood workers in good stead for most of the thirty years following World War II.
I revisit both versions of the Manifesto here in the interest of giving Democrats and progressives a base from which to recalibrate their commitment to workers, and in so doing bring about that much needed political alignment of union and non-union workers.
Stated in the first person, the Manifesto had one overriding proposition, which went as follows: "I believe in the American worker, and I believe in keeping manufacturing jobs here in this country. I believe that our workers and our businesses can compete with any worker and any company anywhere in the world, as long as we have a government that will stand up and demand a level playing field for all."
Later on, in Mr. Obama's Youngstown speech, he sensitively added the following: "I believe in unions because if you look at the history of this country, things we take for granted - the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, overtime, health care benefits, paid leave, child labor laws -- those were union fights. Unions put their shoulder behind the wheel and made life better for working people when they were being taken advantage of. And even if you're not in a union, you're still benefiting from the fact that there's a union out there putting pressure on employers to do the right thing."
What is important to remember is that all of this was written and said in 2008. Given that the U.S. economy today is actually more "jobless" in real unemployment terms than it was in 2008 and that the wages of the employed remain stagnant -- and given last week's passage of the $800 billion-plus tax cut package with its insidious favoritism of the extremely wealthy and the dearth of meaningful job creation over the last two years -- how about the following Workers' Manifesto, which combines the core principles of the 2008 with the realities of today?
Workers in America -- organized and non-organized -- should not have their wages and benefits attacked, their Social Security benefits and retirement savings put at risk, or their jobs taken away by unfair globalization and trade agreements. Beyond the White House merely saying, as it did on Friday, that Mr. Obama will "work closely with labor leaders in the coming months on important economic issues", let's hope that in the next two years of his term the President (re)embraces these policy-economic-moral commitments and follows through on them with much more concrete action than we saw during his first two years.
No more "listening tours around the Roosevelt Room", please, which is how last Friday's sit-down with labor leaders was described by the Wall Street Journal. Rather, a Workers' Manifesto to which we as Democrats and progressives can and will commit ourselves.
Leo Hindery, Jr. is Chairman of the US Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Currently an investor in media companies, he is the former CEO of Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), Liberty Media and their successor AT&T Broadband. He also serves on the Board of the Huffington Post Investigative Fund.
Follow Leo Hindery, Jr. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/leohindery
Martin Nolan: The Liberal Divide: Recovery vs. Revenge
Are you kidding? Broden your definition of "real leaders" and you'll find your answer. Who the hell do you think is listening to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin?
These are their leaders, leading them astray about every social and economic issue they can dream up. Whose taking their jobs, lowering their wages? The Obama feds and their lax immigration enforcement, of course.
Beck and Palin are dangerous liars, but they do lead their masses to the voting booth.
I think that most Americans, those being non-union, have done a cost-benefit of unionized labor and come to the rightful conclusion that the benefits do not outweigh the costs.
The fact that the inflexibility of unions has been a primary cause of the hollowing out of our manufacturing sector and that most new heavy manufacturing jobs are now shifting to non-union ‘right-to-work’ states gives credence that unions are now largely considered to be part of the problem not part of the solution. For them to be seen otherwise they need to work with management to make sure investors get paid first and get paid an appropriate risk-adjusted return. Anything less and they are rightfully entitled to take their game elsewhere.
Secondly, with the shift of union membership to public employees, non-union workers are further under the rightful opinion that the economy is bifurcated between those that give and pay taxes and those that take and are entitled. The public unions be classified as the latter of the two. As such, non-union workers are tired of paying for a bloated public union. This is evidenced with non-union workers and private capital opting to move from pro union low growth states to pro business high growth states.
Unions, rather than look inward and develop ways to be part of the economic solution opt instead to seek enhanced government protection and rely on rent-seeking legislation.
They are an epic fail.
Kai
Obama came back and said - nope, couldn't do that after all because there is no quality control...
then last week I pick up a drug that is often and commonly prescribed for children. I don't regonize the pharamacuetical company - I google it - looks like the manufacturer is in North Carolina - but then I dig a little deeper and read on - it is a pharmacuetical comapny owned by Israelis and get this - the actual compunding/manufacturing is being done in PAKISTAN!!!
So, Obama is a lying sack of dog poop in my book, and I don't want to take a drug manufactured where there are positively NO QUALITY standards being enforced. Furthermore, I read on to find that the FDA did send a letter to the Israeli parent company saying the very drug I had im my hand was subject to inconsistent dosages - and this is potentially lethal because an overdose can cause heart failure or a stroke.
And this is what Big Pharma and our govt is pulling over on us!! One of the biggest generic drug suppliers to major American drug chains are doing their manufacturing in the worst of conditions in substandard third world countries...
and who wins? The insurance companies have bigger bonuses for tehir top executives and their is more bribe money available to our polictians. And who is lookign out for Americans???? NO ONE.
There should be a law, the country of origin should be boldly displayed for consumers on every prescription drug and everything else for that matter.
My favorite recent experience that illustrates the problem was I needed some new bits for my power drill. I searched every store in the area for for US made ones to no avail. I found some "Vermont American" brand ones - wow that sounds american enough you might say - except when you do a little digging, Vermont American is owned by Bosch a German company - OK not so bad, except the package on the back in very small print said "hecho in chine" . So if there was real honesty in product labelling these bits should have been branded "Guangdong German"
- "fair wage laws." Who sets the wages? What standard is used? Right now minimum wage laws mostly hurt the working poor as they are priced out of the market as companies move towards automation rather than pay an arbitrary wage.
- "Enforce labor rules." Are you joking? Most people do not want to join a union. Unions force members to pay dues and use that money for increased access to political power instead of working to help the people under their guise. Moreover look at the damage both public and private unions have done when negotiating "fair contracts" with extraordinary benefits. Their generous pension packages are one of the reasons so many states are facing a financial crisis today.
- The trickle down wages have lead to a massive increase in purchasing power for the very same people the union is supposedly protecting. Worker productivity and wage power have skyrocketed since the 80's. That is a fact.
In short Unions were a very important part of defending workers in early 20th century America but have long lost their usefulness and often invoke policies that hurt the people they supposedly want to protect.
In fact they have shed a lot of their Unionized workforce. And what you said dovetails nicely with something that I noticed previously. German Unions seem to accept economic reality much better and do not seem to demand the egregious pay and benefit packages (although they do have serious unfunded pension obligations like we do) that our Unions do. I think that is further evidenced as you do not see Germans rioting in the streets over pay cuts as Greeks seem to do. I appreciate your comment.
Thank you!
Now it's time to destroy Wallstreet, by any and all means necessary.
yes, yes and yes.
Hopefully Americans are beginning to see that Wall St is manipulated by market makers who will at some point short your stocks and run them down and take their profit while you lose all of yours. It has never worked any other way - and is more controlled and manipulated today than ever before.
Bernanke's Q2 was aimed at luring Americans into the amrket - with all other savings and retirement funds sitting totally stagnant - earning pennies in FDIC accounts - he planned this scheme - fortunately, few Americans have the stomach for the risk and hopefully more will be convinced when this currrent run up of the market (also manipulated) will eventually be run off the cliff later this year...
Everything our Govt gets involved seems to be about slight of hand, manipulation and schemes.
Obama's happy talk about the wonderful world of "emerging markets", is just more egg on the face of a depressed, unemployed, disappearing middle class. Our taxes are taken from us and given to support these emerging markets for the multinational corporations to exploit for big profits.
Here we are - the American taxpayer forced to pay up to yet another looting of public funds for the benefit of globalization which has only served to weaken and destroy the fabric of our once vibrant economy.
We need protectionism before all is lost, we need manufacturing here and now. It is the only way to save this country...
FxF
Labor is the democrats best friend when they need votes and campaign workers, but all too quickly kick them aside when the first free trade deal or yet another supply side economic policy comes along - ala Clinton and Nafta, or Obama and his broken pledge to fix or get out of our broken trade models and failure to act on tax incentives for outsourcing and most recently the big tax break for the wealthiest
Plus both admins have snidely disparaged labor
f & f
agreed and fanned #70.
They used to say Clinton was the GOPs favorite president - all those free trade agreements and deregulation - now they must say Obama is their favorite president - Bush tax cuts, continued protection, incemtives and subsidies for the multinational corporations who have done nothing but gut this country of jobs -
Democrats have done nothing but come up short - looks as if DEMs/GOP are two sides of teh same corporate coin.
When does the American worker get some much deserved protection? Is the answer never? because our poltical system is designed to extract bribes from the rich (aka campaign contributions) where in return for millions in their pockets our elected politicians just write bills as they are instructed?? It's sad when Obama's two best friends appear to be Govt Sachs employees (Geithner & Bernanke) and GE's CEO Inmelt - with GE being possibly the worst offender of a multinational corporation taking a free ride on taxpayer dollars and offshoring the most jobs.
The Democrats should be ashamed.
The Labor unions of America have been under attack and in decline for the last 30 years, while income and wealth disparity increased dramatically - there is a direct relationship between the two. As America's workers became disorganized, they lost their power at the bartering table against the big capital interests. That is why America is in decline.
The workers of America need to stop believing the capitalist propaganda, and stop voting against their own interests.
The workers of America need to re-unite and re-take an equal position at the bartering tables with the capital interests.
That is how we can save America, and our working families!
And arbitrarily calling for tripling manufacturing employment is totally illogical as nations worldwide are shedding excess capacity – the Chinese lost 25 million manufacturing jobs in the past decade and have many millions to go.
The U.S. has the same number of manufacturing workers as in 1950 - but 600% the output and the U.S. still represents the gold standard in world manufacturing. The richest countries in the world have small manufacturing sectors and large service sectors as rising income is associated with much higher spending on services as opposed to manufactured goods. Eighty percent of the cost of an Ipod goes to design, engineering, financing, and retail, only 20 percent to the manufacturing itself.
The U.S. future lies in manufacturing high valued added products (and an upskilling of these workers) and exporting sophisticated products and services (finance, engineering,) not in mammoth factory sweatshops of unionized workers governed by rigid work rules. Flexibility is key.
F & F exactly!
By Steven Greenhouse
"...The National Labor Relations Board said on Tuesday that it would require companies to post notices on their bulletin boards — and perhaps send out e-mail— to inform employees of their right to unionize under federal law..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/business/22labor.html?src=busln
they are only in the position to tell workers to "go pound sand" because our govt has aided and abetted them with incentives and subsidies to offshore 14 million and counting jobs - leaving the worker with nothing to bargain with - as they had planned all along - corporate america wanted to see unemployment at least up to 7.5% so they could put downward pressure on wages & benefits - they have their wish now, about 3 fold. Also our govt from the WH on down has made it clear that the only thing that matters is that companies fill their campaign coffers - in exchange for that the corpoations get everything handed to them...and american workers get the shaft...
nothing like having your own govt colluding with big business to eliminate jobs and workers rights...
We have a horrible problem with our national attitude regarding our fellow citizens. The very rich have lost their identity as American first. Their income is generated on foreign shores and very little of their life, outside the New York Stock Exchange, takes place in the U.S. They have become globalized, themselves.
In the past, when Americans faced serious threat, the country unified. Under a military draft, all citizens were effected. Now, we have a mercenary force. We hire Blackwater to do our dirty work. Many of the ties that created unity between classes have been severed. And with recent campaign laws, even the federal government and our elections have been corrupted by corporate contributions.
Unions might fix some things, but unity will fix more. We used to call it patriotism, and we believed in lifting people up rather than keeping them down.
.
report in today news: 75% of people aged 17-24 do not meet minimum standards to apply to the US Armed Services (have a GED or HS graduate) - of those left only 24% can actually pass the minimum educational requirements tests - basic reading, writing and math skills.
meanwhile - America spends more pr student that any other country...
think about that!!! Evidently we have a whole generation of basically unemployable young adults...
better ramp up those trade schools and bring back low level manufacturing jobs and try to salvage some sort of work force from this dismal scenario...
As a member of the military, you stats are off as they don't include Body Weight or PT scores, along with (Relatively) Clean record and no drug use.
Appreciation as well as good salaries & good management are they keys, but consistently good schooling must be started & maintained & aided by consistent healthcare accessibility, wellness support, social supports must be present. Also, the school year must be longer, if not year-round to repeat & re-enforce learning techniques and basics so that they can proceed on to critical learning techniques. Teaching to the test destroys the need to develop reasoning & debate.
The problem is that this serious threat is home-made, affected markets worldwide & ruined markets that are still vulnerable due to the lack of real regulation & the ubiquity of high-frequency trading. The 4th Estate is just another Oligopoly/Trade Cartel controlled by Big Capital [Comcast, Murdoch, Disney.,,, It's time for Sherman Antitrust to kick in BIgtime.