(Laura Clawson)
On Tuesday, Markos
announced the launch of
Daily Kos Labor, "a new vertical focused on issues of importance to working Americans." That means we're focusing on workers who are not in unions and those who are. We're focusing on the ongoing class war from above and its many effects, from stagnating wages to high unemployment to state budgets balanced on the backs of working people to every well-publicized implication (or outright declaration) that the problem here is that regular people, working people and those out of work are just lazy or looking for a handout and that strengthening the social safety net rewards that laziness.
In short, we want to re-inject the voices and concerns of workers into economic coverage. In this, Daily Kos Labor pushes back against the trend of recent decades, in which, as corporations and their Republican allies have waged a class war against the middle class, the voices of working people have fallen out of the story the media tells about work, business and the American economy. Believe it or not, it used to be common for newspapers to have labor reporters. Now, they have business sections that talk about stock prices and corporate restructuring and only rarely take notice of how workers are doing. So we're going to do it.
In Markos' announcement diary, several people saw the name Daily Kos Labor asked if we would be covering non-union workers as well as unions and union workers. The answer is yes, but it's important to say at the outset that the distinction is not as big as it's often made out to be. That fact—that working- and middle-class people have more experience and economic interests in common with each other than not—is critical to understanding the new class war.
Labor doesn't just mean unions. One question that came up several times when Markos announced the launch of DK Labor was, "Will you cover workers who aren't in unions?" In the United States these days, yes, "labor" is frequently shorthand for "organized labor." But Dictionary.com defines labor as:
–noun
1. productive activity, especially for the sake of economic gain.
2. the body of persons engaged in such activity, especially those working for wages.
3. this body of persons considered as a class (distinguished from management and capital).
We could argue that defining non-union workers out of the term labor is part of a longer-term attempt to drive a wedge between union and non-union workers, to diminish class consciousness. But whatever the reason we've gotten away from identifying ourselves-as-workers with the term labor, the vast majority of us work for a living, "labor" is an appropriate term to describe what we do, and if you have to work for a living, your interests are more aligned with those of other people who have to work for a living than they are with the interests of the wealthiest 2 percent.
Unions make a difference for all workers. You may have seen it as a bumper sticker or on a mug: "Unions: the folks who brought you the weekend." Weekends and occupational safety laws and the like are one of the clearest ways unions have changed the work experience for everyone. Mitt Romney recently demonstrated how that fact can be used in an anti-union way, by implying that the appropriate role of unions is historical but that they've outlived their usefulness. As I pointed out at the time, though, you have only to compare the safety records, as measured in traumatic injury and fatalities, of union mines and non-union mines, to see that just because we now have occupational safety and health legislation (thanks in large part to unions) doesn't mean that we're safe for all time. Without an organized force pushing for better laws and more inspections, corporations would gut the protections we have now. Similarly, unions today work to push legislation like Wall Street reform and unemployment insurance extensions that benefit all workers.
But most of all, those waging class war from above know the rest of us are in it together, even when we don't. Here's just a sample of stuff we've covered in the past month: 88 percent of the growth in real national income between June 2009 and the end of 2010 went to corporate profits, while just 1 percent went to wages. No less a bastion of capitalism than JP Morgan said that wage reductions have driven increases in corporate profit margins. Two-parent families are earning a tiny bit more than in past generations, but only by working a whole lot more hours. Meanwhile Republicans in the House of Representatives are gearing up for an attack on minimum wage and overtime protections. Child poverty is nearly 25 percent, but hey, the Heritage Foundation says some of those poor kids have cable television, therefore they're not really poor and we should cut the safety net. Meanwhile, over the past 12 years tax rates for the 400 richest Americans were cut nearly in half—but that didn't prevent a mighty howl at the notion of eliminating a tax break for corporate jets. Corporations are helping to write legislation that shows up in states across the country, while House Republicans shut down the FAA in a drive to strip workers of union rights and Senate Republicans promise to block Richard Cordray, President Obama's strong nominee to head the CFPB. Meanwhile, unemployment is at 9.2 percent, and we face the end of extended unemployment benefits.
They—corporate CEOs, hedge fund managers, private equity executives like Mitt Romney, Republicans—are making war on the rest of us. The evidence is everywhere, in economic statistics and in the stories of struggling families. They bring a lot of firepower to this class war. We can at least be clear that it's a war and that we have to reject efforts to drive wedges between us.