Six little words to fix America's wage crisis
7/25/2008 - 5:12am
Two weeks ago, I met with my friend Tom Geoghegan, the single best writer and thinker on labor issues in America, and a guy who should be a leading choice for Secretary of Labor in a Democratic administration. I turned our conversation into my newspaper column this week, which you can read here.
Tom, a longtime labor lawyer and author, has come up with a six-word way to re-balance the American economy - a stroke of genius that asserts the major problem for workers is New Deal policies lashing their union rights to a labyrinthine federal bureaucracy in Washington. His proposal subtly challenges the theory behind the Employee Free Choice Act by suggesting that no matter how much we reform the National Labor Relations Board and union elections - admirable goals, no doubt - we have to go much farther by giving workers the legal tools to defend themselves, regardless of who is at the NLRB or in the White House.
The concept cribs the best from both the Left and Right - and if Democrats championed it, they would avoid an esoteric argument over NLRB rules and force the Republicans to claim that the right to join a union shouldn't be a civil right.
I'll let you read the column to find out about the ins and outs of his proposal, and why Tom should be on the short list for Secretary of Labor. To conclude this post, let me focus a bit on progressive "meta" - and what Tom really symbolizes in that meta.
Despite his terrific books and work in the trenches, Tom is basically ignored by a national progressive movement too often trumpeting television and radio celebrities as ideological heroes. His lack of fame is a sad reflection on a progressive infrastructure that is based in obsession with celebrity. So totally obsessed with what the media tells us is important, we neglect the people who we should be building into our nationally famous icons. It's really depressing to see truly talented people like Tom go largely unsupported/unnoticed by our movement, especially when you consider how the conservative movement has been so successful turning completely untalented ideological warriors like Bill Kristol, David Brooks, et al. into luminaries.
If progressives are going to fuel a real movement - and not simply be an amplifier for Establishment-ordained famous people - then we need to do a much better job of promoting the ideological warriors within our ranks. Tom is just one of many of such geniuses who we need to build up if we are going to have a progressive pressure system on the next Democratic administration.
You can read the full column here.
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Unions as the answer? You must be kidding.
There are so many things wrong with David Sirota's analysis, it's hard to know where to start.
First of all, if you're going to claim there's a crisis, show us where it is and what it is. Just saying there is one may work with liberals, such as with the "crisis" of global warming, but anecdotes are not data.
Second, the article misses the impact on consumers, as liberals always do. Unions are basically a tax on society, forcing up the cost of everything they're involved with.
Third, why should there be more of a right to join a union than for a private business to decide its employment rules? After all, the workers (and their prospective union) aren't risking their own capital to try to provide their jobs.
The sort of thinking that David Sirota represents with admirable consistency is just the approach that got GM and Ford to where they are today. As for more of that approach, I say no thanks.
Another Kaminsky laugher.
The Ruse would have us believe the unions are responsible for the financial meltdown of GM and Ford. How convenient. This is as absurd as his recent rant that Rachel Carson is responsible for the deaths of millions.
GM and Ford made financial decisions to continue manufacturing gas guzzlers with the help of their Republican enablers in Congress who resisted fuel efficiency standards at every turn. GM and Ford are now paying the price for their miscalculation. Ford is now scrambling to retool their plants to build smaller more fuel efficient autos. I hope they make it.
Ruse is obviously anti-union and his argument that unions "force up the cost of everthing they're involved in" is a joke. But I'm not surprised. Whats next from the Ruse. Illegal immigrants are responsible for the demise of Enron and Worldcom? Nothing would surprise me coming from the RUSE.