Toward a More Perfect Union: A Prescriptive Approach - Unions, Social Safety Net
Unions
Today, we take for granted many improvements in the workplace, improvements such as access to a living wage, five-day work weeks, eight-hour work days, no child labor, health benefits from one’s employer, paid holidays, retirement plans, no requirement to buy at inflated prices in the “company store,” and so on. All these are the direct results of union efforts. Unions and union members have had to battle entrenched opposition from vested interests in all the industries to gain these benefits. They had to overcome not only legal ploys and delays – including some extremely ill-advised supreme court decisions – but beatings and bullets. Thousands died in the process, and thousands more from the owners’ greed, indifference, and cruelty. These benefits were hard-fought and hard-won.
In the process, some unions stepped on toes. Some, like the Teamsters, have engaged in corruption and sometimes brutal tactics. Union organizing is not a pretty or demure activity. Nevertheless, unions are essential to the health and wealth of working-class people. To combat the excesses and greed of the moneyed classes, it is often necessary to resist and fight back with strikes and boycotts and walkouts in addition to making the moral arguments, for only in this way can the owners be made to “behave.”
In 1903, Roosevelt wrote to a journalist in which he referred to unions in words that are still relevant: “I believe in corporations. I believe in trade unions. Both have come to stay and are necessities in our present industrial system. But where, in either one or the other, there develops corruption or mere brutal indifference to the rights of others… then the offender, whether union or corporation, must be fought.” Today, the power of the corporations is the one that must be fought.
Our national culture today has a tremendous amount of anti-union sentiment and bias that has grown over the years. Although missteps and overstepping the bounds on the part of unions has played a role in this, the main impetus behind the sentiment comes from conservative propaganda that preys on working-class people. This propaganda takes the form of focusing on union dues and the legitimacy of requiring them both inside and outside of unions. No one enjoys paying mandatory dues, but such dues are the only way that unions have of financing their struggles against oppression. Union dues are, in effect, a form of tax or a form of insurance. Like income taxes and insurance, they are essential to the well-being of the group making those payments in that the financial burden is spread around for the benefit of all.
In pursuit of dismantling unions, owners and their conservative minions in various state legislatures and in congress have relentlessly pushed for so-called “right to work” laws, where non-union people and union people alike are not required to pay dues or to contribute to the well-being of their coworkers. “Right to work” really means “right to work for less” because – by effectively defunding unions – the only effective voice for the workers is muted. It also means “every man for himself and may the devil take the hindmost.”
Most conservatives will also argue that unionism is socialism, as if that were a bad thing. These same conservatives, however, will accept massive tax benefits – such as lower taxes on capital gains, ability to hide money in offshore accounts, unconscionably low maximum tax rates on income, and a raft of other advantages for their class – and will ignore the socialistic nature of those practices. In short, they preach raw capitalism for the hoi polloi while enjoying their own socialistic benefits.
Conservatives also tend to ignore just how ingrained into society are numerous socialistic practices. If we did not share the wealth via taxes, we would have no fire or police protection, no health care for any but the well-to-do, no standing military to protect us, no public schools or colleges, no oversight of banks to limit predatory practices, no national or state parks, no reliable roads or bridges or other infrastructure, no building codes, no quality control on food or drugs. Other popular socialistic practices are enumerated in the third paragraph of the prologue. Unions too are one of those “necessary evils” that happen to have a socialistic bent.
Given that the working class needs at least an equal voice at the negotiating table, support for unions is essential. Yes, oversight of the unions is necessary to keep them from drifting into bullying or financial malfeasance, but they represent the only effective way to insure fair treatment for workers.
A government that seeks to treat all its people fairly would have laws and practices that would reinforce the right of workers to bargain collectively. It would do this by earmarking a substantial portion of the income tax it collects to support of unions, and this would be in correlation to the amount of tax relief offered to the wealthy. A government that effectively does this would remove the need for union dues and thus remove the attraction of “right to work” laws. The unions supported in this way would of course be subject to periodic review, oversight, and auditing to insure that they are properly representing their constituents.
Perhaps if we codified “good practices” into law or the constitution, unions themselves would not be needed.
Social Safety Net
Conservatives decry socialism whenever confronted with topics like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps, and similar programs. All the while, they are gladly accepting their own version of socialism through tax breaks and tax shelters, reliance on our military, using police and fire services, and others as listed earlier (see paragraph 3 in the prologue.) One of the best examples would be agricultural subsidies, where the state takes control of the means of production in ways that mostly benefit the largest agribusinesses.
The necessity of the social programs aimed at the non-wealthy has been abundantly proven over time. The Federal Housing Administration, for example, has been instrumental in growing and empowering the middle class in the post-World War II era. The GI Bill has provided housing and education to uncounted veterans, thus tremendously enhancing our economy. Medicaid – where it has been allowed to prosper – has provided health care for those without coverage. Medicare has been an absolutely essential aid to retirees during the past 50-plus years. Social Security is likewise essential, even as congress has robbed it of trillions of dollars that belong to its subscribers in order to pay for shortsighted government shortfalls elsewhere. Removing any of those programs would not only devastate the recipients, but also would send our society into an economic and moral decline from which we would likely not recover.
The first order of business in a “more perfect union” would be to retain and strengthen these programs and others that supplement them. The second order of business would be to repay the trillions of dollars that congress “borrowed” from Social Security. The third order of business would be to expand Medicare into a “Medicare for all” program to simplify our healthcare system and cover ALL our citizenry, while reducing costs and improving outcomes.
Accomplishing these things would require a major rewrite of the tax code to more closely resemble what we had under Eisenhower in the 1950’s, where the wealthy paid a much larger share so that everyone could prosper. (The ‘50s were also an era of Jim Crow and racial unrest, so we would not need to revive those experiences.) The economic successes of the Clinton presidency at the end of the 1990’s shows that government can – if so motivated – produce a surplus that could be used to aid our poorer citizens. To retain those surpluses, we simply need to avoid unnecessary wars like Bush’s ill-advised incursion into Iraq, and we also need to avoid funneling virtually all our new wealth into the hands of a very small population of billionaires, as the current tax scam does and as the Bush tax cuts did a few years earlier.
Continued in Part 18 — Homelessness
Other options:
Return to Part 1 — Prologue
Return to Part 2 — Voting & Election Issues
Return to Part 3 — Gerrymandering & Courts
Return to Part 4 — Congress
Return to Part 5 — President and DOJ
Return to Part 6 — Campaign Financing
Return to Part 7 — Lying and Ethics
Return to Part 8 — Sexism and LGBT
Return to Part 9 — Abortion & Church/State
Return to Part 10 — Guns
Return to Part 11 — Healthcare & VA
Return to Part 12 — Big Pharma
Return to Part 13 — Environment
Return to Part 14 — Energy
Return to Part 15 — Education
Return to Part 16 — Economics
Go to Part 19 — Trade, Tariffs
Go to Part 20 — Media
Go to Part 21 — War, National Security
----------------------------------------------------—
Above is the seventeenth of numerous submissions wherein I suggest ways our country, our government, and the world can be made better. I am an old fart in my 70’s and have seen much: the turmoil of the 1960’s; Vietnam (where I served as an infantry officer and was awarded a purple heart and other medals); the anti-Vietnam protests (in which I participated while still in uniform); Watergate, the rise of the right wing attack on the poor and powerless during and after the Reagan years; the continued wars in Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan and pretty much everywhere else; the Clinton years, the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and the never-ending war since; the brief glow of sunshine during the Obama years; and now Trump. While my dog in this fight is getting long in the tooth, I still deeply care about three things: my country, my country’s honor, and the future we leave to our descendants. My personal history, other than military service, includes college teaching, computer support, hospital IT supervision, consulting, and now — in my retirement — substitute teaching.
I make my recommendations in all seriousness, recognizing that most of them are not immediately attainable. Nevertheless, if we elect people who share our values as our representatives at all levels of government, we can accomplish much.