I am here in Pittsburgh, PA with a group of union leaders representing federal employees. They are at a training seminar, with a component on helping them understand the attack on organized labor being led by ultraconservative and Free Market ideologues. The well-known slogan "They only call it “class war” when we fight back" is popular over a few beers at the end of the day. I spoke about the history of attempts to roll back the economic justice programs created and expanded by the Roosevelt administration in the 1930s. I characterized the current situation as a power struggle between "organized wealth" and "organized labor."
I thought that was a clever turn of phrase, but it turns out that it was used in 1915, by the American Federation of Labor, as recorded in the report of the AFL annual convention.
So almost a hundred year ago we faced the same forces of organized wealth and their claims that greed is good.
"They say cut back -- we say fight back!"
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