[Marxism] Time to Get Rude; Time to Get ... French!

[Dennis Brasky <dmozart1756@xxxxxxxxx>]

>
>  *Time to Get Rude; Time to Get ... French! * *Have We Turned Into Sheep?
> *
>
> By DAVID MACARAY
>
> There were a couple of moments which, had they gone the other way, could
> have made a big difference for organized labor.  One was Ronald Reagan
> firing those 11,000 striking air traffic controllers, in August, 1981.
> Reagan is president for ten minutes and he pulls off the greatest anti-union
> coup since Taft-Hartley.
>
> We’ll never know what would’ve happened had the controllers not walked out,
> had Reagan not been handed the opportunity to publicly humiliate labor, and
> had Corporate America not been “energized” and given the impetus to mobilize
> against unions.  But one thing can’t be disputed:  organized labor hasn’t
> been the same since.
>
> The other moment (maybe connected to the first) came in the mid-1980s, when
> corporations began eviscerating employee health and pension benefits.  While
> some companies clearly needed the relief, the majority of the others jumped
> on the bandwagon simply because these cuts were now in play.  The prospect
> of deflecting medical premiums and “harvesting” those rich pension funds was
> too tempting to resist.
>
> As for the affected employees, rather than protesting the cuts, most of
> them expressed their disappointment by grousing to fellow workers or cursing
> the inequity of the “system.”  These workers behaved like sheep being led to
> slaughter; they did everything but apologize for having the benefits in the
> first place.
>
> Although people joke about France’s laid back, *c’est la vie* attitude,
> let’s give French workers credit for knowing how to respond to an outrage.
> When corporations try to tell French workers they’re going to slash their
> health care benefits or mess with their pensions, the workers behave the way
> people *should* behave when the wealthy and powerful try to snow them.
> They go totally ape-shit.
>
> Unlike us Americans, who don’t run into the streets unless our houses are
> on fire or a professional sports team has won a championship, when the
> French face economic catastrophe, they have, historically, taken to the
> barricades like fiends; they block traffic, burn cars, and generally raise
> hell.  Win or lose, they show the authorities how seriously they value their
> standard of living.
>
> Which brings us to the stunning part of the American equation.  Because
> labor unions, by virtue of their bargaining power, were the last group to
> have these benefits chipped away, people actually criticized organized labor
> for not “sacrificing like the rest of us.”  Now how bizarre is that?
>
> How bizarre is it that instead of rejoicing in the fact that a workers’
> collective had successfully stood up to the greedy bastards, you had people
> resenting unions for hanging on to what they themselves had been forced to
> give up.  Instead of cheering for the victors, they were urging them to join
> the vanquished.
>
> A woman once asked me, in all seriousness, why unions “put themselves above
> other workers.”  She wasn’t outraged by corporate deceit and manipulation,
> by downsizing, outsourcing, and off-shore tax shelters; she wasn’t upset at
> lavish executive compensation.  What bothered her was that you still had
> working people out there who were clinging to middle-class benefits.
>
> When I suggested that, without *resistance*—without being willing to fight
> back—workers don’t stand a chance against Big Business, she accused me of
> sounding like a “thug.”  And this woman was no well-paid professional; she
> was an hourly worker earning $12 per hour ($24,000 a year), with practically
> no benefits.  Obviously, Corporate America had bitten her on the neck and
> turned her into a zombie.
>
> It’s no coincidence that the country’s greatest period of prosperity—the
> postwar period, from the early 1950s until, roughly, the late 1960s—happened
> to be the same period when union membership was at its peak, with close to
> 35% of the workforce organized (versus the 12% it is today).
>
> Workers need to overcome the view that a middle-class can be built on
> what’s left over after all the profits, perks, rake-offs and write-offs have
> been divvied up.  A livable wage and decent benefits need to be the core
> around which we build, not the fringe.  It needs be the *starting* point,
> not the “if there’s any left, you’ll get yours” point.
>
> Consider what the result might have been in the mid-eighties had thousands
> of workers poured into the streets and created hellacious mini-riots in
> order to retain their wages and benefits.  Corporations might have been
> forced to pay attention to business instead of becoming the “financial
> engineering” whores that drove us into the recent fiscal crisis.
>
> Look what happened at tiny Republic Windows in Chicago, in December of
> 2008, with the members of UE Local 1110.  Demanding that management give
> them the severance and vacation pay they were entitled to, the union
> occupied the building and refused to leave.  The company agreed to discuss
> the matter, but only on the condition that the workers vacated the
> premises.
>
> The workers refused to budge. The media covered the event, and, happily,
> the public seemed to take the side of the union.  With Republic finally
> agreeing to pay everything it owed, it was a rare but conspicuous victory
> for working people, one achieved by rank-and-file determination and
> sympathetic media coverage.
>
> While there are no simple answers, one thing is clear.  We’re making it way
> too easy for these people.  Without resistance, nothing’s going to change.
> Without resistance, corporations, politicians and, yes, union leadership
> will continue to pacify us with promises and excuses.
>
> You don’t stop a bully by giving him your lunch money; you stop him by
> punching him in the nose.  It doesn’t always work.  Sometimes you wind up
> getting the crap beat out of you.  But continuing to give up your lunch
> money isn’t an option.
>
> American workers need to get serious.  They need to get rude.  They need to
> get ugly.  They need to get *French*.
>
> *David Macaray*, a Los Angeles playwright (“Americana,” “Larva Boy”) and
> writer, was a former labor union rep.  He can be reached at
> dmacaray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> http://counterpunch.org/macaray05282009.html
>
>
>
> "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."- *Voltaire*
>
>
>
>
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