Charleston, SC- Dr. George Hopkins of the Charleston Chapter of the SC Progressive Network made the following statement to the press this morning regarding the Anti Social Justice Organizing Seminar planned by the local chamber of commerce for the following day. The Chamber cancelled the seminar claiming a lack of interest, however local unions and network members had conducted an extensive campaign of online dialogue and had scheduled a public press conference. Labor union members had been barred from a previous, similar anti union seminar even though their Unions were members of the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber issued an apology for that later. It was clear the program would be controversial. Opponents didn't contest the chambers right to hold seminars or organize in opposition to labor, but it was felt the duplicity of acting as a union for management while fighting the rights of labor to be a union needed to be exposed.
Report in Charleston Regional Business Journal -Union Leaders Speak Against Planned Chamber Event
Updated Report Charleston City Paper charleston-metro-chamber-of-commerce-cancels-anti-union-seminar
Photo Gallery of Images from Today's event in Charleston.
The Cancellation was reported in the Charleston Post and Courier. http://www.postandcourier.com/...
The Charelston City Paper broke the story two weeks earlier. http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/...
Dr. Hopkin's statement follows.
The Flawed Seminar of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce
We are meeting here on September 11. We need to note that, as we remember that tragic day in 2001, New York City’s heroic firefighters, EMTs, and police responded so well to that emergency situation, risking their lives to save others. Those who try to demonize public sector unions, as has been done in Wisconsin, Ohio, and by some in South Carolina, should be reminded that all of those brave first responders in NYC were also proud public sector union members.
So many people use social media today for so many purposes that the big warning given by the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce-- that progressive and social justice groups use social media in support of their goals, which includes supporting workers protesting against low pay, arbitrary managers, and poor health and safety conditions at work—seems simplistic and unintentionally amusing. Or, like Fox News, perhaps the Chamber’s goal is to create a bogus panic among local business owners so they will attend the Chamber’s seminar that would dramatically expose “Social Network Organizing, A New Wave of Protests, and Union Organizing”—or allow highly-paid consultants to milk frightened business people.
If that was the Chamber’s intent, it failed. Last night, the Chamber cancelled tomorrow’s planned seminar, citing “lower than expected response” to their event. Perhaps that “official” reason for the cancellation is valid. But fears of a major demonstration at the event site, as well as an unwelcome spotlight on their activities, may also have played a role in the Chamber’s decision.
So why are we here if that seminar has been cancelled?
Because the Chamber’s views have not changed—and because the Chamber is going to post “documents from the [planned] presentation” on its website. We’re here today to protest the Chamber’s continued hostility toward workers and their allies who demand jobs that pay a living wage or better, with real benefits included. We also protest the Chamber’s continuing hostility to workers’ rights to organize and to bargain collectively—this in an area where local wages are far below the national average while the costs of living are above the national average
Over the past 20 years, since the closure of the Navy Base and Yard here, there has been a steady decrease in the economic standing of the area's middle class. This was hidden by a massive expansion in personal debt on credit cards and on real estate from about 1995 to 2008. Ever larger numbers of families aren't making it. As the huge number of foreclosures in the pipeline move towards sale, we're beginning to see more families on the street. The shelters are full and the police have been cleaning out homeless camps under bridges.
Our local economy doesn't work well for a lot of regular people now--and if it doesn't work well, all these businesses aren't going to be able to sell much either. We can't expect the low wage jobs of the tourism business, irregular and seasonal, to support a middle class economy. Making sure the lives of those people work well requires a lot of things the business class isn't interested in supporting locally: quality education, transit, affordable housing, higher wages and access to healthcare. You can't simply pay workers minimal wages and expect them to be content with such crumbs off the table.
At this point, even though our state has one of the lowest wage scales in the US and exceptionally limited regulatory activity, we're now reduced to buying jobs from companies like Boeing at huge, unknown expense through subsidies, government guaranteed loans, tax givebacks, government- supported training program and infrastructure projects. This shifts the tax burden of what still gets done increasingly on working families, who pay most of the sales tax and real estate taxes, both systems of which have now been rigged to shift the tax burden to the middle class here. The true costs of these deals remain unknown.
However, the people who actually do the work, who make the job happen, should be paid a living wage. Their jobs should be safe and afford them the prospect of a secure retirement. They should be able to see a doctor if anyone in their family gets sick. Their children should get an excellent education. Working people—blue collar, white collar, pink collar, and no collar—should be able to be proud citizens within a just and democratic society.
But that’s not what the Chamber’s approach is doing. Everyone recognizes the right of the Chamber of Commerce to hold a program of this type as a matter of First Amendment right. The real question here is what relationship does the Chamber have to the entire community and how is that changing? Can they do this type of anti-union training and honestly claim to have the best interests of working families at heart? If the Chamber’s seminar is training business folks in how to remain “union-free” while advising businesses in “downsizing, restructuring, and facility-shutdowns,” then a serious re-evaluation of the Chamber’s priorities are in order.
Beyond the wrong-headed, low-wage, “hire-at-will, fire-at-will” policies that the Chamber supports is the stunning hypocrisy of the Chamber’s anti-union position. If a union is a group that organizes to promote its own interests, then the Chamber and related trade associations are just unions for corporations! As economist Robert Reich has declared, “Businesses have always had unions, though they don’t call them that, to lobby the government for them and to mislead the average American citizen for them. No one must forget that the Chamber of Commerce and other trade organizations are nothing but unions of businesses by another name.” But while the Chamber has the right to organize to advance interests of its business members, the Chamber also tries to inhibit or to prevent the employees of businesses from organizing to advance their interests. This double-standard has to be understood, exposed, and ended.
The “bottom line,” to borrow a term the Chamber uses often, is the WORKERS’ RIGHTS ARE CIVIL RIGHTS! Workers have the right to organize and bargain collectively. That is the only way that workers can negotiate with employers on anything resembling a “level playing field.”
Everyone in this city, county, and state should ask themselves this question: Do I have a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect my life on the job and in the community? If you don’t, then you need to organize, to take constructive action to get that voice. Join us next Monday, Sept. 16, at 7 pm, at the ILA Hall on Morrison Drive, to find out how you can help yourself and others build a better, fairer, more socially and economically just South Carolina! Together, we can make it happen!
George W. Hopkins*
Coordinator,
Charleston chapter- South Carolina Progressive Network
*Several people, some who wish to remain anonymous due to job security concerns, contributed to the text of this statement.