In the latest round of their strategy to divide and conquer working people, the right-wing has launched an attack on workers in the public sector, aiming to pit them against workers in the private sector (at least after pitting them both against immigrant workers in all sectors).
The corporate attack on the public sector has four components: DEcrease Public Sector Jobs, DE-unionize Public Sector Jobs, DEregulate Public Contracts, DEfund Public Services.
The fight for the public sector will determine not only who controls our working conditions, but who controls our communities — working people or corporations.
In the latest round of their strategy to divide and conquer working people, the right-wing has launched an attack on workers in the public sector, aiming to pit them against workers in the private sector (at least after pitting them both against immigrant workers in all sectors). Unable to shake the worst economic crisis since the Depression, Republicans - and yes, some Democrats - are hell-bent on shifting the blame away from their allies on Wall Street who continue to bring in record profits, and instead focus their malice on public employees. Demonized as lazy, overpaid bureaucrats, teachers, firefighters, bus drivers, librarians, sanitation workers, and millions more are being put on trial for the crimes of investment bankers, hedge-fund managers and the handful of finance sector executives who have actually made money on the backs of the laid-off, foreclosed-on workers.
You do not have to be a lifetime activist to see through the muck on this one, this battle is over who controls the basic livelihoods of the overwhelming majority of the country: working people or corporations.
In order to unite and fight back, working people must fully understand the different battlefields of this attack. Corporate fat cats, led by the Party of "No", are waging their war on workers on four fronts, nationally and in the states. The corporate attack on the public sector has four components:
1. DEcrease Public Sector Jobs
2. DE-unionize Public Sector Jobs
3. DEregulate Public Contracts
4. DEfund Public Services
1) DECREASE PUBLIC SECTOR JOBS
Across the country, many newly elected state officials are posturing over who can lay off the most state workers. Republican governor Rick Scott in Florida is threatening to lay off up to 6,000 state workers. And you know things are bad when he is being outdone by the Democratic governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, who could barely let the ball drop on Times Square before letting go of 900 state workers and promising to lay off 12,000 more over the next year and half—all the while extending tax cuts for the wealthiest New Yorkers against the wishes of his own party. Even after the victory that cost Dr. Martin Luther King his life in 1968, the Memphis sanitation workers now face lay-offs and cuts to their overtime and pensions—leading us to clearly understand that in Wall Street’s battle to win control over the quantity and quality of work—no sector is sacred.
This trend of the gutting public sector in the name of a balanced budget is widespread. Our leaders are placing the blame for our economic woes not on the bankers who caused the economic crisis or the government policies which awarded millions in tax cuts and loopholes to the wealthy and to corporations, but instead on workers’ pensions. To hear them tell it, you’d think that every government worker is a millionaire, but public workers' pensions actually average only $19,000 per year. Meanwhile, the REAL millionaires on Wall Street got record bonuses over the holidays, corporations made record profits last year, and companies are sitting on $8 trillion dollars in reserves.
2) DE-UNIONIZE PUBLIC SECTOR JOBS
For those who survived to work another day, the right-wing is coming after your right to organize and collectively bargain. Blaming unions, not corporate tax breaks, for the state’s looming budget shortfalls, Ohio Governor John Kasich intends to abolish bargaining rights for police officers, firefighters and the right of all of the state’s public employees to form unions if they want to. Home care providers, clerical workers, school teachers and all other state employees will fall victim if he is successful.
The aggression in Ohio is only one small part of a larger strategy by the National Right to Work Committee to blanket the Midwest with the same Jim Crow-style legislation that has kept southern workers on the bottom of every national "standard of living" list. Indiana, Missouri, Michigan, Maine, Pennsylvania and others are all under siege with right-to-work-for-less legislation. Again, the Right falsely blames public workers and their unions for state budget deficits when in fact many states with strong public sector unions like Montana, Massachusetts, and New Mexico have lower budget deficits (around 10%) than states that do not allow public workers to organize or collectively bargain like Nevada or North Carolina with state deficits lurking around 30%.
Still, attacking unions in the workplace is only part of the battle. While the Citizens United Supreme Court case gave corporations the rights of individual citizens in electoral politics, the rights of unions to engage in political struggle is slowly eroding through paycheck deception initiatives. These attacks attempt to take away the right of union members to use payroll deductions for political purposes. Corporate donors are free to secretly pool their money into groups that run election ads but don’t disclose where the funding is coming from, but workers’ ability to pool what little money we have is at risk.
3) DEREGULATE PUBLIC CONTRACTS
Even after getting rid of good public sector jobs and slashing the wages and benefits of the ones that remain, the Right is far from done in their battle of "no public-entity left behind". They have long maneuvered to dismantle those pesky regulations that often go along with public contracts that protect and promote the needs and well-being of workers and the communities we live in.
Public transit, public schools and other public services are all under threat of privatization—thus limiting services, laying off workers and minimizing safety and health regulations.
Anti-prevailing wage bills are expected in 19 states, including Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas to name a few. These efforts attempt to lower the ceiling for building and construction workers taking on public (and in some instances even private) contracts.
Likewise, anti-project labor agreements are expected in 18 states—including many that we have already mentioned. If passed, workers would be limited in requiring public contracts to be fulfilled with union labor.
4) DEFUND PUBLIC SERVICES
To wrap up their merciless attack on working people, the Right has not let up on its attacks on public services. After sacrificing our wages, healthcare, pensions and in many instances our jobs altogether, workers face cuts in public services.
By cutting public services from libraries to bus routes, from unemployment income to food stamps, working families are left hanging out to dry on a daily basis.
The reality is that no amount of cuts will solve our budget problems. We’ve already seen the conservative ideology of cutting taxes and cutting services play out in states like Texas, and it just doesn’t work. Corporations have to pay their fair share.
WINNING THE FIGHT
The fight for the public sector is a fight not only for the organizing and collective bargaining rights that ensure we can continue to have some control over what happens in our workplaces, but it's also a fight over who controls our communities — working people or corporations. Let’s not forget: the wealthy make their money from our labor. They owe us. Any other articulation of this struggle obscures the reality what is at stake.
A victory for the public sector against corporate greed will not be won simply by lobbying our nearest legislators, but by mobilizing our neighbors and co-workers against the tyranny of Wall Street. Public and private sector workers will have to unite in cities, states, and nationally against all of these attacks.
The Right has not been diplomatic in their offensive, and neither should we. They’ve spent decades breaking and rewriting the rules of the game. It is time to stand up and fight for our lives.