The attempt by Republican Governor Walker of Wisconsin to eliminate collective bargaining rights for some public sector employees (those who happen to vote Democratic) is in keeping with a long history of GOP efforts to undermine unions and tilt the playing field even more towards corporations over workers.
Before proceeding, let me agree that unions can breed corruption and bad outcomes when they lose sight of the public good and resist reasonable change—e.g., teachers unions that oppose merit pay and make it almost impossible to fire bad teachers. Like all interest groups, unions can become ossified, myopic, and counter-productive.
But unions also provide a significant and often necessary check on the power of corporations to dictate terms of employment. Even though union membership in the private sector is at an historic low, the benefits won by unions continue to impact wages and benefits for workers throughout the economy. They provide the benchmark with which the private sector must compete.
The International Labor Organization deems the right to collective bargaining a core labor standard, and it’s embraced by all democracies. At a time when large multinational corporations can play one nation’s workers against another’s, and even one state’s against those next door, the power of the average worker to influence the terms of their employment is at a low point. Today, few private sector jobs offer defined benefit pensions, increasing healthcare costs are routinely passed on to employees, and the median wage for middle class workers has basically stagnated for decades, while corporate profits and pay for CEOs have hit stratospheric levels.
Governor Walker’s proposals are extreme. Wisconsin’s public sector workers have agreed to major concessions to help close the state’s budget gap, but he seems intent on destroying the unions. The state’s Senate Democrats—ever since they fled to deny the Republicans a quorum—have been trying to open lines of communication and strike a deal. The Governor has rebuffed their efforts and insists he will not compromise.
But when a man posing as the billionaire David Koch called the Governor’s office, he was able to get Walker on the phone in minutes to discuss union-busting strategy.
This is yet another clear illustration of the difference between Democrats and Republicans. The GOP is basically a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America—especially the giant banks, insurance companies, and the oil, gas and coal companies. Republicans couldn’t care less about the middle and lower classes, as shown most recently by repeated attempts to block unemployment benefits and hold middle class tax cuts hostage to tax cuts for the rich.
Democrats are by no means perfect. They’re too beholden to unions, and too many Democrats take large amounts of corporate contributions and side too quickly with corporate interests. But in the large, a commitment to the lower and middle classes is still a core element of the Democrat platform. Democrats have taken on powerful interests in fighting for the healthcare bill, for the Frank-Dodd financial reform bill, and for environmental legislation (though well short of the degree that it’s needed).
In America today one party stands for corporate power and nothing else; the other party at least in the main stands up for the public good.
It amazes me that tens of millions of Americans apparently don’t recognize this basic fact.
Jason Scorse