Is GOP Risking the Economy to Win the PR War Against Unions?
http://www.truthout.org/121608LA
Even as the auto industry teeters on collapse, union-bashing
continues as the mainstay of a GOP propaganda war against organized
labor. With three million jobs at stake, potentially costing
taxpayers
$150 billion in unemployment insurance, Medicaid, other aid and lost
tax revenues, unions remain the primary targets of the GOP blame game
for the troubled auto industry and the failed bailout deal. The Bush
Administration, while dithering over the scope of any bailout with
federal funds, has faced mounting pressure from Republicans to impose
the same sort of union-wrecking conditions that scuttled a deal in
the
Senate last week.
The hostile response to a bailout, even though some form of
rescue
package is still likely this week, is doubtless fueled by recent
polls
confirming that a majority of the public is opposed to an auto
industry bailout and doesn't believe that its collapse would
significantly hurt the economy.
So far, it's right-wing demagoguery 1, progressives zero in the
battle over the bailout. Public support was further harmed, of
course,
by the plutocratic PR blunders of the auto industry executives'
initial jet-setting appeal to Congress. In fact, the latest
Washington
Post-ABC News poll reveals, the conservative propaganda campaign
against an auto bailout has even hoodwinked some union members:
"Union
households are no more apt than those without a union member to favor
the plan, 44 percent compared with 42 percent. However, the union
householders who support the plan are more likely to be strongly
behind the bailout, " the Washington Post reports.
All this should serve as a wake-up call for all unions, the
broader progressive movement and allied media outlets: Will they be
able to launch a truly effective counterattack against the propaganda
blitz, ads and misinformation spread by conservatives, corporate-
funded front groups and the mainstream media? Meanwhile, right-
wingers
are using the bailout mess to lay the groundwork to defeat the
Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) needed to secure organizing rights
and
allow the American middle class to grow.
As Harley Shaiken and David Madland of the Center for American
Progress observe, "Labor's decline squeezes the middle class, raises
inequality, and undermines democratic values."
And that's apparently just fine with most Republicans and
business
leaders, who are gearing up for a large-scale, $120 million lobbying
and PR war against union organizing. The centerpiece of their attack
is the false claim that the bill would take away the secret ballot
for
workers, when it just offers them another option as well: majority
sign-up through a "card check" procedure.
Indeed, the attacks against the UAW are not only a "dress
rehearsal" for the fight against EFCA's organizing rights, as
economist Mark Brenner of Labor Notes calls it, but part of a
broader,
longstanding pattern of weakened unions, three decades of stagnant
real wages and corporate "wage theft" of owed money to workers that
costs Americans billions each year.
As Kim Bobo, the executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice
and author of Wage Theft in America, denounced the Republican attacks
on the Web radio show I co-host: "It's despicable that they would use
what's indeed a crisis in the industry to bash unions. Unions are
both
one of the best ways to get a middle-class job and one of the best
vehicles for stopping and deterring wage theft," which robs millions
of workers of owed salaries and overtime. "We need more unions in the
society, not fewer," she declared.
She also pointed out at a recent event unveiling a new Center for
American Progress report about failed Labor Department enforcement
that there's an overlooked value to cracking down on corporations
that
allegedly break the law (including Federal Express): beefed-up
enforcement and stiff corporate penalties could also help jump-start
the economy by putting between $40 and $50 billion in stolen wages
back in workers' pockets.
But the right-wing ideologues in the GOP who helped bring us the
deregulation-fueled financial meltdown also worked to create a union-
busting low-wage society where real wages have remained flat for
decades, so too many low-wage workers were lured by predatory
subprime
loans. In December of last year, the AFL-CIO's Associate General
Counel Damon Silvers presciently warned Congress:
The lack of effective regulation of mortgage markets has allowed
these
markets to be flooded with products that are misleading and
exploitative, products marketed to tens of millions of Americans who
work at low wage jobs or who have inadequate retirement income, so
they are desperate for a financial short cut to either home ownership
or adequate income.
That, in turn, led to phony investment vehicles built on these
risky loans and a $7 trillion credit meltdown that helped bring low
the auto industry. In other words, these anti-union, free-market
zealots get us coming and going, and are still seeking to demonize
unions, no matter how much such attacks pave the way for a weaker
economy.
The Southern Republicans, such as Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.),
whose
states have spent over $3 billion in incentives to lure non-union
foreign firms, and their allies, are still peddling false claims
designed to undermine the American auto industry and advance their
anti-union agenda. These range from the mythical $70-an-hour
autoworker pay to blaming the UAW as the primary culprit during the
failed negotiations.
In fact, the UAW and Sen. Corker apparently worked out a
tentative
agreement that committed the UAW to achieving "competitive" labor
costs when the contract expires in 2011 (not counting billions the
union already gave up in concessions during the recent negotiations
and in 2007 ) - but the GOP Republican caucus torpedoed the deal.
So, as Ron Gettelfinger of the UAW pointed out in a news
conference last week:
"It's just easy to take the union and blame us for everything. And as
you can see, some of those in the Senate who were quick to scuttle
this plan want to say that it's the fault of the UAW. All they want
to
do is say, wait a minute, workers shouldn't have a voice in their
workplace.... It's very clear that there are those who would do away
with [unions] tonight."
The Republicans aimed, essentially, to set a union-busting
precedent by having the government rip up an existing union contract
and, apparently for the first time in American history, have the
government mandate the specifics of a labor contract between a
company
and a union.
All this scheming went forward even though non-union Japanese
automakers already pay their workers about the same as UAW members.
New autoworkers get paid as little as $14 an hour, and even with
pension and benefits calculated along with wages for today's workers,
the difference between UAW and non-union workers is as little as $10
an hour.
UAW President Ron Gettelefinger proclaimed after the negotiations
failed that he was concerned that he was being "set up" by
Republicans
because other stakeholders weren't asked to make sacrifices, and, he
noted, " They thought perhaps they could have a twofer here maybe:
Pierce the heart of organized labor while representing the foreign
brands."
Indeed, labor costs account for only 10 percent of car
manufacturers' expenses - compared to salaries that make up over 60
percent of costs for leading Wall Street firms. They were given a no-
strings-attached $700 billion giveaway of unmonitored bailout funds
and federal guarantees.
Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect calls it aptly "the
ultimate double standard" : for instance, look at the $45 billion
forked over to Citigroup, coupled with $306 billion in guarantees,
compared with the Congressional flaying of the UAW and the auto
industry asking for a short-term "bridge" loan.
It's small wonder that Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom
denounced Republican Senators in harsh, emotional terms:
Do you want to watch us drown? Is that it? Do want to see the last
gurgle of economic air spit from our lips? If so, senators, know
this:
You'll go down with us. America isn't America without an auto
industry. You can argue whether $14 billion would have saved it, but
you surely tried to kill it.
We have grease on our hands.
You have blood.
Kill the car, kill the country. History will show that when America
was on its knees, a handful of lawmakers tried to cut off its feet.
And blame the workers. How suddenly did the workers - a small
percentage of a car's cost - become justification for crushing an
industry?...
And when did Detroit become the symbol of economic dysfunction? Are
you kidding? Have you looked in the mirror lately, Washington?
In a world where banks hemorrhaged trillions in a high-priced gamble
called credit derivative swaps that YOU failed to regulate, how on
earth do WE need to be punished? In a bailout era where you shoveled
billions, with no demands, to banks and financial firms, why do WE
need to be schooled on how to run a business?...
At least in the auto industry, if folks don't like what you make,
they
don't have to buy it. In government, even your worst mistakes, we
have
to live with.
And now Detroit should die with this?...
There ought to be a law - against the hypocrisy our government has
demonstrated. The speed with which wheelbarrows of money were dumped
on Wall Street versus the slow noose hung on the auto companies'
necks
is reprehensible. Some of those same banks we bailed out are now
saying they won't extend credit to auto dealers. Wasn't that why we
gave them the money? To loosen credit?
Where's your tight grip on those funds, senators? Where's your
micromanaging of the wages in banking? Or do you just enjoy having
your hands around blue-collared throats?
No matter what the president does, history will not forget this: At
our nation's most uncertain hour, you senators stood ready to plunge
hundreds of thousands of American families into oblivion. Leave them
unemployed, with no health care, on public assistance. And you were
willing to put our nation's security at risk - by squashing the
manufacturing base we must have in times of war.
And why? So you could stand on some phony principle? Crush a union?
Play to your base? How is our nation better off today now that you
kept $14 billion in the treasury? Are you going to balance the budget
with that?
Don't make us laugh.
Kill the car, kill the country ...
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