We Are All Workers

I have no axe to grind with other working people. Lately I’ve been hearing that we need to pay freeze the workers in the public sector, that they make too much money, that they are protected by unions and their “bosses” and those protections are not fair.

What isn’t fair is that the rhetoric has devolved so that union members; bus drivers, teachers, civil servants of all stripe, what’s left of the auto workers, and anyone fortunate enough to have a collective bargaining agreement with attendant benefits, are the target of animosity by those in the private sector. Those still working in the private sector are getting steamrollered into longer hours, less pay, loss of benefits and the constant fear of lay off’s. Unemployed workers are targeted by those barely hanging on for their ‘free money’ instead of the puppet masters pulling the strings. In doing a google search for union advocacy I found a web page called “Union Facts” whose purpose is to destroy unions. Union Facts talks with authority about how union non secret certification ballots aren’t fair never mentioning that secret ballots have been discounted by the corporations as fraudulent. Unfortunately the unions have found open ballots as the only recourse.

Union Facts is located in suite 800 on 1090 Vermont Ave. in Washington, DC. as is the “Center for Consumer Freedom” which is in the same suite as “Berman and Company.” Berman is fond of discrediting the “liberal agenda.” Of course he fails to say who pays for the very slick web sites and the claimed thirty staff members. His web site touts, “The Power to Change the Debate.” Richard Berman and his ilk have done that. Instead of working people demanding from those who gained the most from our bubble capitalism to release George Bush’s governmental welfare, we hear from conservative Capital Hill that it isn’t fair that one sector (those making more than $200,000) lose their tax refund and while others ( the vast majority of Americans) get a break. We hear that union elections are not fair. When the barista in my local cafe asks, “How are we going to pay the national debt” or “I guess we needed to step away and recalibrate” instead of asking about who screwed us in the first place, something is wrong. That anyone could link the out of work masses to the incompetence of the wealthy seems a contortion of the most nimble yogi.

We now have a vast sea of labor talent to be used by the powers that be to tamp down wages and benefits. And slowly this is beginning to dawn on all whose income is based on income rather than interest. Forget the term, middle class, NPR did a survey asking American if they were and what constitutes middle class, everyone considered themselves middle class; the range fell between $30,000 to $250,000. What does this mean? As Americans we fall prey to the myth of rugged individualism we all yearn for the company of the middle. But there is no safety in the middle. Yahoo just laid off seven thousand employees. Workers of all stripes are look over their shoulders see their out of work brethren, desperate enough to take a job, any job, for less. Worker’s misguided reflective anger stems from exhaustion and the fear that the organized workers may be gaming workers slicked into believing that they are ‘associates’ in a corporation or ‘contractors’ free to do what ever they want. That workers now talk with anguished concern about budget deficits they didn’t create, wars they didn’t start instead of the grand bonus’s and stock options they didn’t and will never receive is a result of spin misters like Berman. The advantaged tout unctuous lobbying assistance and dictate the terms of the ultimatum; no extended unemployment unless the rich continue to gut the government. With their tax rewards the few of great wealth hire the likes of Berman and Company to further “Change the Debate.”