Workers of the World
I grew up in a union household. My dad was union electrician. He was elected president of his local, Local 48 of the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electical Workers). When he got older and had arthritis in his ankle that made it difficult for him to climb around the buildings he was working on, he went to work for the union as a representative. His career included becoming a labor negotiator for the City of Portland Employees, a organizer for unions in the Portland shipyards, a board member and founder of a Credit Union for union members, and began an inter-union coordinating body called the Metal Trades Council, as well as representing the electricians with whom he had worked. He negotiated better wages and benefits for union members. He did this because he knew they deserved it. Workers create. Bosses organize, finance and take.
During my childhood, my mother was a housewife. When I was in college she worked for a few years for the county cemetery. They gave her a headstone when she retired that we still use as a doorstop. There was no talk of communism or socialism in our family. My dad was trying to get ahead in life. He had lived through the Great Depression and knew how easy if was to lose everything; home, school, family. He was determined, in his quiet but forceful way, not to let this happen again. He knew there was strength in numbers. If he and his fellow workers were not going to get taken advantage of by the better educated, more sophisticated and highly financed bosses, he and his fellow workers needed to stick together. He knew he and his co-workers were valuable. He needed to convince the owners of that fact. And he did. The word comrade never came up.
During the fifties, Communism was a threat, according to our government. And perhaps it was. It was the stated goal of communist party to become, eventually, the party of all the workers of the world. The International is the party song. My father fought in World War Two. He fought for America, for his family and friends. He wasn't political, he was practical, and he was an American. Truthfully, I can't tell you what he thought about the international labor movement or communism as a political system. But it certainly wasn't a part of his obvious motivation. We weren't comrades, we didn't have red flags in our house. But he was a member of the Boy Scouts, the Elks, and the Masons but not the communist party - that I know of.
This all leads up to this graph:
This is a correlation, not necessarily cause and effect. However I suspect decreased union membership is a major cause of the income inequality demonstrated in this graph. It is clear that bosses are taking a bigger and bigger share of the value added by labor in this country. It is clear that the government is making it harder and harder for labor unions to organize. When I say government, I mean Republicans. Unfortunately the Democrats have not been successful in supporting organized labor nor have they succeeded in putting policies in place to increase the wages of workers. The income disparity in America and Europe has increased to the highest levels in the history of the world. Greed is winning.
Unfortunately, the people who should be joining unions are against the unions. They are voting with the Republicans for a variety of reasons. First, they associate unions with communism, a bad world in America. Second, many feel that they too will soon join the ranks of the wealthy. America is an optimistic country. Third, unions mean cooperation and Americans are self-reliant, individual, cowboys. And fourth, communism is an atheist political system so unfit for the growing ranks of the christian fundamentalists.
How did it happen that unions came to be looked on as ungodly, anti-America institutions? Political rhetoric. Say it loudly enough and often enough, and people start to believe it. In America, money and free speech are equivalent by law, so those with money, owners - both individual and corporate - can shout the loudest and most often. Social media amplifies the shouts for free. So here we are.
In the decades after WW2 the country pulled together to defeat fascism. Vietnam pulled us apart to some extent. And since the beginning of the 21st century the politics of greed and ideology have pulled us farther apart. Now, that fissure, that widening crack in our national persona is becoming a crevasse. Opportunists such as Donald Trump and the Russian government, either individually or together, are using fear, lies and greed to widen this crevasse between us even further. We must not let this happen. Just as we worked together before to keep the world free from authoritarian rule, Democrats and Republicans, Catholics and Jews, women and men, rich and poor, blacks and whites, southerners and yankees, ruralites and urbanites, educated and uneducated, we must work together again. We must join hands to repair the income disparity in America. Unions are a symbol of cooperation that benefits everyone.
During my childhood, my mother was a housewife. When I was in college she worked for a few years for the county cemetery. They gave her a headstone when she retired that we still use as a doorstop. There was no talk of communism or socialism in our family. My dad was trying to get ahead in life. He had lived through the Great Depression and knew how easy if was to lose everything; home, school, family. He was determined, in his quiet but forceful way, not to let this happen again. He knew there was strength in numbers. If he and his fellow workers were not going to get taken advantage of by the better educated, more sophisticated and highly financed bosses, he and his fellow workers needed to stick together. He knew he and his co-workers were valuable. He needed to convince the owners of that fact. And he did. The word comrade never came up.
During the fifties, Communism was a threat, according to our government. And perhaps it was. It was the stated goal of communist party to become, eventually, the party of all the workers of the world. The International is the party song. My father fought in World War Two. He fought for America, for his family and friends. He wasn't political, he was practical, and he was an American. Truthfully, I can't tell you what he thought about the international labor movement or communism as a political system. But it certainly wasn't a part of his obvious motivation. We weren't comrades, we didn't have red flags in our house. But he was a member of the Boy Scouts, the Elks, and the Masons but not the communist party - that I know of.
This all leads up to this graph:
This is a correlation, not necessarily cause and effect. However I suspect decreased union membership is a major cause of the income inequality demonstrated in this graph. It is clear that bosses are taking a bigger and bigger share of the value added by labor in this country. It is clear that the government is making it harder and harder for labor unions to organize. When I say government, I mean Republicans. Unfortunately the Democrats have not been successful in supporting organized labor nor have they succeeded in putting policies in place to increase the wages of workers. The income disparity in America and Europe has increased to the highest levels in the history of the world. Greed is winning.
Unfortunately, the people who should be joining unions are against the unions. They are voting with the Republicans for a variety of reasons. First, they associate unions with communism, a bad world in America. Second, many feel that they too will soon join the ranks of the wealthy. America is an optimistic country. Third, unions mean cooperation and Americans are self-reliant, individual, cowboys. And fourth, communism is an atheist political system so unfit for the growing ranks of the christian fundamentalists.
How did it happen that unions came to be looked on as ungodly, anti-America institutions? Political rhetoric. Say it loudly enough and often enough, and people start to believe it. In America, money and free speech are equivalent by law, so those with money, owners - both individual and corporate - can shout the loudest and most often. Social media amplifies the shouts for free. So here we are.
In the decades after WW2 the country pulled together to defeat fascism. Vietnam pulled us apart to some extent. And since the beginning of the 21st century the politics of greed and ideology have pulled us farther apart. Now, that fissure, that widening crack in our national persona is becoming a crevasse. Opportunists such as Donald Trump and the Russian government, either individually or together, are using fear, lies and greed to widen this crevasse between us even further. We must not let this happen. Just as we worked together before to keep the world free from authoritarian rule, Democrats and Republicans, Catholics and Jews, women and men, rich and poor, blacks and whites, southerners and yankees, ruralites and urbanites, educated and uneducated, we must work together again. We must join hands to repair the income disparity in America. Unions are a symbol of cooperation that benefits everyone.
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