Can Labor Revive the American Dream? By Esther Kaplan
January 7, 2009
The financial markets are in tatters, consumer spending is anemic and the recession continues to deepen, but corporate America is keeping its eyes on the prize: crushing organized labor. The Center for Union Facts, a business front group, has taken out full-page ads in newspapers linking SEIU president Andy Stern to the Rod Blagojevich scandal. The Chamber of Commerce is capitalizing on the debate over the Big Three bailout to claim that "unions drove the auto companies off the cliff," while minority leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican senators insist on steep wage cuts. A December 10 Republican strategy memo revealed their central obsession: "Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor," the memo read. "This is a precursor to card check"--a clear reference to the Employee Free Choice Act.
This simple amendment to federal labor law, which would, among other things, allow workers to unionize when a majority sign cards rather than requiring a bruising election, has galvanized the business community in a way even the $700 billion bailout couldn't. "I get the sense that this is more important to them than even taxes or regulation," says the AFL-CIO's director of government affairs, Bill Samuels. "This is about power. And the business community is not going to give up power willingly." Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott said as much to a meeting with analysts in October. "We like driving the car," he told them, "and we're not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us."
In the lead-up to the election, the co-founder of Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, called Employee Free Choice "the demise of civilization." Wal-Mart summoned store managers into mandatory meetings to warn them against it. Industrial launderer Cintas launched a website to oppose it. The retail industry associations paid blue-chip lobbying firms to block it. The Chamber of Commerce hired Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao's chief of staff to run its opposition campaign, which trashed the bill as antidemocratic because it allows workers to bypass a formal election. Business groups spent tens of millions on ads attacking Democrats in tight Senate races, including $5 million targeting challenger Jeff Merkley of Oregon, a supporter of the bill who was smeared with a mailer accusing him of doing the bidding of corrupt labor leaders and trailed at every campaign appearance by a grim reaper claiming "Merkley kills democracy." "I've never seen anything like it," says Merkley's campaign manager, John Isaac, "where a group spent so much money to insert their issue into a campaign." .......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090126/kaplan
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