Labor and the Democrats

By DAVID MACARAY

“I worry that no matter how cynical I become, it’s never going to be enough.”

—Lily Tomlin

The
way the Republican Party, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and American
Enterprise Institute (not to mention the mainstream media) tell it,
organized labor is able to get the Democrats to do pretty much anything
it wants them to do because, as everybody knows, the Democrats are in
labor’s pocket.  That’s how powerful America’s unions are. 

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A
devastating 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti Tuesday January 12th. Thousands
have been killed, and much Port au Prince leveled. This follows a
series of deadly hurricanes in late 2008, and decades of
foreign-influenced economic terrorism, culminating in a US-led coup in
2004, and continuing UN occupation. Haiti, the poorest nation in the
Western Hemisphere, is the only country to successfully liberate itself
from slavery and the former colonial masters have not let them forget.
Most people live on less than $2 a day, and many on less than $1. In
April 2008 representatives of the ISC participated in an IWW delegation
to Haiti where they met with workers and peasants struggling against
neo-liberal slavery. We pledged our continued support to their
struggle, and FW's donated generously to support their organizing, and
again for aid following the hurricanes. Currently communications with
Haiti are nearly impossible, but no doubt they will need our help again.

By DAVID MACARAY

One of life’s gross inequities is that the people who actually do the work receive relatively little in the way of credit or compensation, while the people in charge of the work—the ones who plan it, assign it, oversee and critique it—receive regular promotions and large paychecks. 

This
discrepancy wouldn’t be so objectionable if it could be shown that the
planning and supervisory aspects of the job were what made all the
difference—that it was the boss’s contributions, the efforts of the
guys in the front office, and not those of the workers on the floor,
that determined the success or failure of a venture, but,
unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

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from  http://foxnewsboycott.com/fox-news-sponsors/

The Democrats Have Much to Answer For

By DAVID MACARAY

In
1935, as part of the National Labor Relations Act (popularly known as
the Wagner Act), the federal government gave labor unions the “right to
organize,” which meant, among other things, that it was now a federal
crime for companies to attempt to dissuade employees from joining a
union by issuing threats of reprisal or discharging union activists.

In
principle, if management did something blatantly illegal, such as
firing the employees who were promoting (or, in management’s view,
“instigating”) the union membership drive, the company could be charged
with a violation of federal labor law.  If found guilty, the company
would be fined, the employees would be reinstated, and the company
would be forced to pay back wages to the reinstated employees (minus
any wages they earned at other jobs during the interim).  That’s how it
was intended to work.

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