The other day I read a piece on Talking Points Memo that grabbed my attention. The title of the piece is "Do Blogs Take Labor Issues Seriously?" The writer of the piece points out that a lot of the blogs out there did not mention some important information on recent Supreme Court Rulings. His statements are accurate; it was the comments that caught me off guard.
This is just one labor activist's rant on the whole subject. My hope is to get some people to get on the bandwagon.
The other day I read a piece on Talking Points Memo that grabbed my attention. The title of the piece is "Do Blogs Take Labor Issues Seriously?" The writer of the piece points out that a lot of the blogs out there did not mention some important information on recent Supreme Court Rulings. His statements are accurate; it was the comments that caught me off guard.
There was a clear mix of pro-labor people working day in and day out to help labor move forward and others that didn't know that labor was still alive - those smacked me the hardest.
It is difficult, at best, to know that we are working as hard and fast as possible to spread the word of labor in the United States, and no matter our efforts, we have a long way to go. It seems, at times, that we are making a dent when we review the traffic of Union Review and other labor blogs, or when I know how many emails I am getting from the site and at the MYSPACE counterpart from both union and nonunion workers seeking information; but that dent is what it is ... a dent.
So, what do we do from here? I don't know the specific answers, but I do know that we need to get more people involved online and off line in spreading the word on labor and labor issues in the United States. We need to share stories of our victories, why we strike when we do and why we vote the way that we do.
[A simple Sunday morning aside: I just finished going through the entire Washington Post. My girlfriend read through the house ads and made a comment about the amount of foreclosures in the DC, MD, NVA community. I told her if she thinks its bad here, look to see how many are posted in her home town of Lorain, Ohio].
I think it is imperative that we all talk about the Employee Free Choice Act and why that legislation is so important to us personally and professionally. We need to discuss the American Dream and how it apparently is a dream for only a few nowadays and a foreclosure nightmare (see aside) for many more around the United States.
But do bloggers outside of the labor movement even know about the Employee Free Choice Act? Do folks even understand why Colombian Free Trade Agreements are heinous to consider when a union leader there is shot at on an average of one a week? Does everyday working people (union or nonunion) know what it means to be misclassifed in their job as independent contractors and ultimately refused insurance because of their status? What about Bud being sold to InBev and the 7,000 or so Teamster jobs; does anyone give a shit out here? Did anyone say they'd rather not take the kids to Hershey, Pa. this year to stand up for the Peppermint Patty workers who were let go when the company took operations to Mexico?
Maybe bloggers don't vent on this stuff in their rants as often as other things because they just don't know what is taking place with labor. Maybe people are confused with the alphabet soup that labor presents: CBA, AFL-CIO, CTW, IBT ... the list is endless and reminds me of a song from the musical "Hair."
The comments at the blog the other day really slapped me around. They are comments from everyday people who have a strong opinion of labor, workers, and this country's labor laws -- but, in my opinion, many of the opinions are terribly ill-informed. I think that is our fault ... we are simply not getting heard.
We can get into a whole argument on mainstream media and how the labor beat is long gone and buried into the business section. We can talk about the fact that rank-and-file are hardly asked what they think -- and mostly how they feel. We can isolate and identify all kind of variables, but the owness is still on us because we have the opportunity, now, to educate, mobilize, and if you are as crazy as me, organize online. So, why are we not doing it?
As for the naysayer-types, those that think labor died with Ronald Regan - we need to talk about our fierce power and how - as a movement we are making changes. And we are making tremendous changes for ourselves, our children and in some contracts, our grandchildren.
With the Teamsters (where I work) I am endlessly writing about the School Bus and Transit Workers, about FedEx Mechanics, Waste Management Workers, and so many other campaigns. I am also involved with getting people schooled up on Colombian Free Trade Agreements and how that is just a bad deal for both American workers and our Colombian sisters and brothers. I post about Barack Obama's stance on labor and why he is the choice for labor as whole.
[Aside 2: Barack Obama has gone on record about replacement workers. He has said that he would work toward getting legislation passed that would ban replacement workers. Do you know what that means to a rank-and-file worker? That means that, though no one - not the union or the company - likes to strike, if it is the last resort and that tool (striking) is employed, the experienced workforce on the line will not be permenantly replaced by scabs. Do bloggers outside of the labor movement know what a scab is?]
I never so passionately felt the need for help on my mission to spread the word of union labor in this country. I call on anyone who is reading this to help me spread the word of the union movement - even if it is just cutting and pasting articles, commenting more frequently or forwarding the articles you read on Union Review to your friends and family. There is clearly a general public of nonunion people who are severely ill-informed with very strong opinions of us; it is up to us to change that opinion with real life facts and stories of what we contend with on a daily basis.
If anyone is interested in blogging about labor issues in the United States but doesn't understand the intricacies, please feel free and unashamed to ask. My email address is Richard@unionreview.com. I will do my best to either answer questions that I can, or get an answer from someone else when I don't know how to reply.
Are you in?
"Do Blogs Take Labor Issues Seriously?"