With all the lip-service being paid to the Constitution these days, you'd think unions would get a bit more respect. Without the sacrifices of union activists, the Constitution's promise of free speech might never have become a reality.
In rallies much like those currently being held in Wisconsin, and across the nation in state capitals this Saturday, workers during America's first Gilded Age fought back against the forces of corporate greed that ground them to the bone.
In those days, the Supreme Court believed that the First Amendment to the Constitution, which protects freedom of speech, only applied to the federal government, not the states and the local governments. So any governor, or mayor, or town boss was free to put you in jail or kick you out of town for saying something they didn't like -- union organizing usually being at the top of the list. But union supporters didn't take that lying down -- they flooded towns with speakers who violated local laws that limited free speech.
One of those early union leaders in the fight for free speech was Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the "Rebel Girl" of martyr Joe Hill's famous song. Flynn worked for the Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World, who organized miners and migrant workers in the western states in the early 1900s. These workers had little political clout because they moved from job to job and weren't registered to vote. Presaging the civil rights movement, their principal recourse was a mass protest.
Flynn helped lead one of those "free speech fights" in Missoula, Montana, in 1908. Here's how she described it:
We sent out a call to all 'footloose rebels to come at once -- to defend the Bill of Rights.' A steady stream of I.W.W. members began to flock in by freight cars... As soon as one speaker was arrested, another took his place. The jail was soon filled.
Flynn also related some humorous aspects to the mass tactics:
Not all the I.W.W. workers were speakers. Some suffered from stage fright. We gave them copies of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. They would read along slowly, with one eye hopefully on the cop, fearful that they would finish before he would arrest. One such was being escorted to jail, about two blocks away, when a couple of drunks got into a pitched battle. The cop dropped him to arrest them. When they arrived at the jail, the big strapping I.W.W. was tagging along behind. The cop said in surprise: "What are you doing here?" The prisoner retorted, "What do you want me to do -- go back there and make another speech?"
These mass protests in favor of free speech definitely had an effect. In 1925, the Supreme Court finally ruled that the First Amendment did apply to state and local governments, nationalizing the protection of free speech. Without the concerted action of union supporters, that victory would not have been possible.
Unions have contributed remarkable things to the American way of life: the growth of the middle class; expansion of health care and social security; paid vacations and paid sick leave; a work week that leaves time for families to enjoy each other. None of these things were possible in Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's day. As she said in 1962: "We never heard of vacations, let alone vacations with pay."
Make no mistake: What is at risk in Wisconsin, and every state in America, is the quality of life that American workers have fought -- and died -- for during the past century. When plutocrats like the Koch brothers tell the governor of an American state to roll back the clock on public employees, they are seeking to end protections for all workers. The Kochs are part of an ideological movement that hopes to end all legislation controlling wages, hours, and workplace safety -- returning America to a "Social Darwinism" that ensures survival of the fittest (read: richest). This is the constitutional theory that prevailed before the New Deal. To these extremists, Ayn Rand is on par with James Madison.
We must never forget that the most important achievement of the union movement was the protection of the right that makes all other rights possible -- freedom of speech. The First Amendment comes with a union label.
This article is adapted from one that originally appeared in the Journal of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association.
Follow Linda R. Monk, J.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LindaRMonkJD
Bernard Weisberger: Onward Wisconsin
What they don't know is that the people they've been trained to attack are the ones who are trying to help them, and the people whose interests they've been trained to serve are the ones who stabbed them.
Genuine heroes.
Fast forward to 2011, and many revile the public sector as greedy parasites who prey on the taxpaying public. Something very weird seems to be erasing our ability to remember. Many seem also to have entirely forgotten just how it came to be that the economy crashed and why the treasuries of states and cities have become so depleted in the first place.
I hope all has been well with you.
OTOH, let me take issue with some of your points.
“The libertariaÂns have money, but not wisdom."
Not all libertarians have money; just like not all libertarians lack wisdom.
Libertarians come in all classes and all levels of consciousness; just like socialists.
"The extremism of their positions is coming out full force in Wisconsin,..."
Please give three positions by libertarians that you consider extreme when it comes to supporting the just elected governor's budget repair proposal.
"...just like Bull Connor's firehoses during the civil rights movement."
Not even close. If anyone is displaying overly aggressive behavior and is threatening others, it's the unions and their friends. Secondly, there is no comparison between asking moderate concessions from workers funded by taxpayers, and resisting desegregation.
"And they will meet a similar fate in the ashbin of history.”
Have a crystal ball, or just hopeful?
Let me make my own prediction.
Not only will Gov. Walker sign the bill, and Wisconsin will be better for it; but other states will pass similar measures out of necessity, or will lay off large numbers of employees (like Rhode Island, a very Blue state).
I am Union, my father is Union, my brother is Union. It is very, very hard.
I have worked in conditions that you would not send any one you know into. Lime kilns that blistered the skin off my face and my hair fell out; weeks in ditches boring under roads, less than five feet from semi trucks so your family could drive safely. I have put septic pumps into culverts 30 feet in the ground that would gag a buzzard. I have worked construction when other crews quit, with nothing between you and hell but a cyclone fence. I am not complaining; this is just the facts.
I have never asked for a hand out, never took a vacation in 25 years of work. I average 50 to 60 hours a week; my boys grew up without me for the most part WITH DADDY AT WORK to support a family on one income. I have no sick days, vacation, holidays. If I don't work I don't get paid. I make a wage for what I do. Nothing is given to me just because I am "UNION."
So I try to do what the Good Book says on the subject, "Do your work as unto the Lord." That is the best I can do. If anyone has a problem with that, I can do nothing to change their misconceptions. Short of sayin' "Walk in my shoes, brother."
Kings and Emperors have typically claimed that their right to rule has been authorized by God. Aristocrats appeal to alleged self-evident superiority by virtue of accumulated property. Then there is the claim of "survival of the fittest".
Yet human beings display a unique integrated blend of individual initiative and cooperation, foreshadowed but unmatched by any other creature in nature. That is actually our Darwinian advantage. No other species has written a book or walked on the moon, and neither could we without extensive cooperation. Especially in a modern, industrialized society, we exist in a vast and intricate cooperative web. For the most part, we take this for granted, and some among us see a personal advantage in helping us to forget how many and deep those connections actually are.
I believe in a free market that is also a fair market. I don’t think that is fantasy. Rules (most of which are already US law) can and have been crafted to encourage innovative and fair trade of goods, labor, and money, while protecting the larger interests of society and our environment. (Selling financially distressed families reverse-amortization loans, hiding the risks by securitizing legerdemain, and selling the resulting products short while promoting them to clients, is an example of business that does not adequately maintain the interests of society).
Manipulation of the market, by corporations, unions, or by anyone that aims to increase profit at the expense of fair exchange is toxic. It always harms someone and often harms many. Unions help all when they balance power and foster fair trade.
Only business gets the best deal. Workers pay retail.
Conservatism is Sam's club for rich people.
I believe public unions are essential to the job security of public employees that would otherwise be at the mercy of each different administration that may have very different ideas about the public sector. A union contract gives them security.
Remember two years ago the infamous quote "WE won, get over it".....
sometimes your words come back to bite you in the ass.....
He said he was going to have teachers pay on health care and pension--which union agreed to do.
He said nothing about attacking the right to have a union!
WE won, get over it---was said to a senator. The senator who took for granted he "devine right to rule" regardless of elections.........no one ever said he would not engage in the process of governing!
So much for the helping people angle.
You are saying that the value of their labor is equal? Nice to know.
I will check back with you whenever I need to know the value of a commodity.
We created the Infrastructure that business uses to conduct their business. From the Trans-Continental Railroad to the Federal Highway system to Broadband Internet. These things were all bought and paid for with Tax Dollars. Now that it has been built, business uses them at little or no cost.
Unions are our Last Hope for the Middle Class. Without it we will be reduced to a Third-World Plutocracy. With no hope and no future.
China can produce cheaper? Well, then we need tariffs. That was worked really well in the past and it is sure to make America better.
We need to keep unions alive because they are important. So what if they are detrimental to industry and the public sector by increasing costs? They help "us", and by "us" we mean those of us who pay into the union.
And all the while dumb Americans think that they will survive on such backward thinking. I cannot wait until China is the world's sole superpower and I do not have to hear about America anymore.
I do see a fundamental problem when the union is electing the other side of the table.
Both unionists and anti-unionists vote. So when anti-unionists win they get to shut down unions? And what about the unions who support the Republicans, as in Wisconsin. Are they equally affected? The political argument cuts both ways.
I believe the entire argument about unions needs to be re-framed in a discussion about checks and balances, much like our government functions. In the best of times, the power of corporations and rich individuals is held in check by the power of unions and the restraint of government regulations. If one leg of this triangle gains excess power, an imbalance occurs. It doesn't matter in which of the three this happens, abuse of power is to everyone's detriment. Jimmy Hoffa and Gadafi are excellent examples of abuses of power in the labor and government domains.
And if the corporate branch became too powerful? We'd see unions dismantled and destroyed, pensions robbed, jobs and benefits lost by the millions, and corrupt politicians being bought and paid for by the corporate class. Oh wait, that's happening right now!
Don't buy the divisiness being peddled right now by the powers-that-be. If the people rise up, TOGETHER, left and right, tea party and union supporters, we can take back our power and balance the triangle. We need unions in this fight now just as much as ever.