Archive for November, 2008

Saga of an Earlier Labor Bill

The union card-check bill, AKA the insultingly-mislabeled “Employee Free Choice Act” (EFCA), looks ready to slide through Congress without a hitch.  But, as both history and many clever sayings remind us, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over and the fat lady sings and the chicks hatch. (add your favorite cliché in the Comments section.)

 

Back in 1974, the Democrats strengthened their control of Congress with a big win in the wake of Watergate.  They picked up 49 seats to cement a huge 292-143 majority (makes Ms. Pelosi’s 235 votes look small).  Democratic constituency groups wanted things.

  Continue reading ‘Saga of an Earlier Labor Bill’

Who Is Killing The Unions?

Unionism in the private sector is not just down; it’s almost out.  Membership has been falling steadily for half a century and is now circling the drain, with membership at 7.5% of the workforce.  In 1953 it was 36%.

 

This disastrous decline has been partly masked by the simultaneous growth of unions in the public sector.  While private unions sank, public ones climbed from near-zero in the 1950’s to around 36%, where it has held steady since 1980.  Decline has also been disguised by the growing political power of the union movement, as its electoral organizing skills have improved even as membership organizing has languished.

 

Why the decline?  Why have private sector workers stopped joining unions?

 

The unions have a ready answer:  it’s too hard to organize because employers cheat.  They scare and intimidate and fire workers who try to organize.

  Continue reading ‘Who Is Killing The Unions?’

Hungry Hungry Egos

John McCain campaigned hard and for the most part honorably.  Had he been elected, he might have made a good president. We’ll never know.

Obama campaigned hard and well, and for all we know may make a good president.  It’s possible.  We’ll find out.

But this campaign, which scored so many firsts, was also an unnnoticed first of a sadly different type.  I believe it was the first time voters had to choose between two sitting (while running) senators.  And that is not a good thing. 

The US Senate reminds me of a childhood game called in which players try to gobble up marbles with mechanical hippo jaws.  In the Senate the game is Hungry Hungry Egos.

The US Senate was conceived by the Founders as a sober body of elder statesmen removed and largely retired from politics; a House of Lords for a democracy.  Instead it has become not only a part of our partisan battlefield,  but also a luxury kennel for the care and feeding of our tenderest egos.

I suspect that Sarah Palin’s most egregious sin was not her attempt to break into the vice presidency, but her lack of respect for the senatorial club.

If someone out there wants to propose an amendment to the US Constitution disqualifying sitting senators from the presidency,  they’ve got my vote.

Fathers of Daughters

A friend of mine used to theorize that all conservatism, and therefore all defense of society, rests on the fathers of daughters – FODs, as he called them.

 

He explained that it is only when one has children that one begins to recognize how fragile is the future, how dangerous the present, and how great our responsibility to protect the vulnerable, such as children. 

 

The problem is that women, for the most part, tend to believe that the world is dangerous only by accident, rather than as a basic, natural condition.  My friend claimed that he had never met a woman who would not agree with the statement that “People are basically good.”  And increasingly many men agree with them.

Continue reading ‘Fathers of Daughters’

Democrats win another domestic election

I know the election is over and it is time to, as they say, “Move On”.  But not quite yet.

 

Presidential elections can fit many patterns, and this one was no exception.  In retrospect it has a certain (and false) sense of inevitability.  Unpopular president, bad economy; these things don’t bode well for an incumbent party.   Yet nations, like individuals, possess a kind of free will, and formulaic determinism will always fall short.

 

But one pattern jumps out.  This was an election in which the domestic economy was the “top topic” on voters’ minds.  When that has happened recently, Democrats usually win. Continue reading ‘Democrats win another domestic election’

“Employee Free Choice Act” Bad For Unions

 

I am a lifelong union man: an organizer, negotiator, staffer and leader.  I believe in unions and their importance for our society.  That’s why I think HR 800, the Orwellian-titled “Employee Free Choice Act” is an abomination.  And more than that, it is not good for unions.

  Continue reading ‘“Employee Free Choice Act” Bad For Unions’

President Pandora

It appears that the answer to Melanie Phillips’ question (see below, “Is America Really Going To Do This?” is “Yes we are, because Yes we can” (or something).

Electing Obama is like electing Pandora, in the hope (there’s that word again) that when the box is opened good things will fly out.  That’s a heck of a hope, given the glimpses we have seen (through the media blackout) of Obama’s background and past associations.

And, once opened, the box will keep on giving.  Court appointees will determine our laws for decades to come (you thought congress did that?) The foreign policy results may take years, and fortunes in blood and treasure, to undo – if they can ever be undone.