The war in Iraq is taking center stage during the presidential debates, but economic justice belongs in the spotlight as well.
We know what the death toll is for U.S. troops in Iraq: Nearly 3,500 have died in the four-year conflict. But corporate greed is an invisible killer. We'll never know how many of the thousands of workplace deaths and injuries could have been avoided or prevented. We'll never know how many suicides, heart attacks and strokes were brought on by massive job cuts. We won't know how many illnesses went untreated because employers refused to provide health care benefits. We can only guess how many kids never went to college, how many marriages broke up, how many retirees fell into poverty because unions weren’t there to protect a family's economic security.
While the U.S. government wastes lives and treasure on its misbegotten adventure in the Middle East, corporate America spends billions of dollars to deprive workers of their basic right to belong to a union – not only in the United States, but around the world.
The war on America's working class deserves at least as much attention as the war in Iraq. And the candidates themselves need to state clearly and genuinely how they would address the gaping holes in the nation's labor laws.
Issues of class and labor seem to pop up quite a bit on Daily Kos as sidebars or as impacting other topics in important ways, but they don't get their own diaries as often as they perhaps should. Yet work and class have enormous relevance in American life. Almost all of us must work for a living. Most of us who work owe a great debt to organized labor - even if we are not ourselves members of unions, we benefit from the advances unions have made over the years, in safety conditions, limited hours and overtime pay, benefits, child labor laws. And while a shrinking percentage of American workers are represented by unions, not only do union members earn more than their nonunion counterparts, but nonunion workers in highly unionized industries and areas benefit from employer competition for workers, leading to better pay and conditions. Class issues, too, apart from the question of organized labor, are central in many of the political struggles of the day. From bankruptcy legislation to the minimum wage to student loans, legislation affects people differently based on how much they make, what kind of access to power and support they have.
With this series we aim to develop an ongoing discussion around class and labor issues. Such ongoing discussions have emerged in the Feminisms and Kossacks Under 35 series, and, given the frequent requests for more (and more commented-in) diaries on these issues, we hope this series will accomplish the same. Entries will be posted every Tuesday night between 8 and 9pm eastern. If you are interested in a writing a diary for this series, please email Elise or MissLaura and we will arrange for you to be put on the schedule.
On Friday, Teamsters President Jim Hoffa and UNITE HERE President Bruce Raynor wrote a letter to Sen. Clinton about her chief strategist Mark Penn, chief executive of PR firm Burson-Marsteller. Here is the full text of that letter:
Dear Senator Clinton:
It is with distress that we write you today. The Nation recently posted a story about Mark Penn, your pollster and chief strategist, detailing some of his firm's direct support for anti-union/anti-worker campaigns. His firm's activities in the effort to undermine workers right to organize at Cintas, a campaign our unions are involved in, is particularly disheartening.
We wanted to bring this to your attention since we value your positions on EFCA and many other workers issues and do not want to see you or the Democratic Party embarrassed.
We look forward to hearing back from you on this matter.
Sincerely,
James P. Hoffa Teamsters General President
Bruce S. Raynor UNITE HERE General President
Penn has said that he was not directly connected to the Cintas campaign, and he has stated that his company's actions are distant and separate from the Clinton campaign.
It is unfortunate that any candidate or Democratic supporter would align themselves with such antiworker activities, but it speaks to a bigger problem and that is the overall attitude our country takes toward union busting and the resulting weakening of labor movement.
As I've said before, most Americans are not aware of the violence brought by corporations on working people who tried to organize in the past. And those who did learn about labor clashes of the past, believe they are just that – history. That simply is not the case as this video demonstrates:
Corporations continue to hire their own security forces to threaten and harass union organizers and strikers. It's an age-old practice made famous by Pinkerton guards who shot union organizers in Chicago 140 years ago. But as recently as last week, CP Rail security harassed and roughed up a striking union member who was peacefully walking a picket line in Vancouver, Canada.
More than 1,000 maintenance of way workers struck the company on May 15 because it wouldn't bargain in good faith. CP Rail, a coast-to-coast freight railroad in Canada has subsidiaries in the U.S. -- the Soo Line and the Delaware and Hudson line.
CP Rail is just one example of how anti-labor practices follow global capital as it roams the world. This video documents allegations that Coca-Cola Enterprises, Coca-Cola's largest bottler, allowed death squads in Colombia to murder eight pro-union employees. The company stands accused of contaminating groundwater in India and discriminating against racial minorities in the U.S.
Every day we hear about how insurgents in Iraq attack our troops: mortar fire, roadside explosives, car bombs. We don't hear about the subtler methods used by corporations to keep unions out. High-paid union busters lie and threaten, break the law and incite violence, all in the noble cause of depressing workers' wages and stripping away their benefits. Here, Martin Levitt, a self-described "economic terrorist," tells how he harassed and intimidated workers at the behest of his corporate bosses.
Teamsters battle union busting daily. Once every 23 minutes, a worker is fired or harassed for trying to join a union.
The experience of Kenny Tucker, a driver with Quickway Carriers in Landover, Md., is typical. The company made sure Tucker was present when they fired one of his co-workers for union activity.
Ken Flynn was fired by FedEx in Northboro, Mass., because he wanted to join the Teamsters. Bob Williams, a FedEx driver who led the union push, lost his job after he hurt his back lifting a package. All told, FedEx fired or pushed out 11 workers at the Northboro terminal because they supported a union.
Connie Torres drives a school bus for First Student in Pine Bush, N.Y. Management threatened to fire her because she gave a friend a union card and leaflet after hours. She received more anti-union letters and leaflets at home, attached to her paycheck and dropped on the seat of her bus. She was told to call the police if an unannounced visitor came to her house because it might be a union member.
A series of debates among the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates is coming up. We need to make sure that candidates are asked where they stand on the economic issues that are crucial to so many Americans. Will they or won't they sign the Employee Free Choice Act? Where do they stand on fast-track and free-trade agreements? Do they support a guest worker program?
Here's the schedule of upcoming debates.
Write or e-mail the organizations sponsoring these debates, the journalists asking the questions, and urge them to demand candidates answer hard questions about economic justice: