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Trends
in North Texas
_________________________________________________________________
Why the Cuts?
As this is written, Texans are waiting for Governor Perry to call a special session on school "reform." He has been floating trial baloons (announcing ideas without any commitment) for months. None of his press announcements has indicated any possibility of a solution to the crisis in Texas education.
It is not cynical to suggest that the Governor and the majority he controls in the State Legislature have no intention of improving the schools. Rather, they will use the special session to razzle-dazzle the populace with complicated promises and proposals while actually continuing what they have been doing for some time -- undermining our right to education. They will push vouchers, "faith based" solutions, home education, and charter schools just as they have been doing since they came to power. Perry himself went to the Bahamas with some of public education's worst enemies for the expressed purpose of discussing educational "reform."
It is not cynical to realize that the attack on our right to educate Texas children is part of a larger assault against all social services and worker rights in America. The details are different, but Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, environmental protections, on-the-job safety, national security, right to organize, and all the other government services and rights that we fought for over the centuries are being deliberately eroded. This has been going on, very clearly, since Reagan was elected in 1980.
Why?
The answer is found in international economics. After World War II, the United States was the only industrialized nation in the world that had not been bombed flat. Americans then enjoyed decades of worldwide economic supremacy in all areas. The rest of the world bought our products or did without. By the 1970s, when Japanese and Germany automobiles began to take over American highways, it was apparent that they had recovered and brought competition back into the international economic situation. President Nixon responded by adjusting the United States' underwriting of gold and all international finance in 1972. The fight was on!
American manufacturers and other bosses compensated for their dwindling markets by cutting the workers' share of wages and benefits. By 1980, their program had clearly extended to federal government policy. The union - busting at PATCO that Reagan carried out was only a small part of an overall attack against the power of American workers. His tax cuts were actually much more serious, because government policy had begun to re-distribute the tax money to the rich while government services began to suffer.
Americans have have bravely but sporadically fought back, and we haven't lost nearly as much as the bosses intended, but the battle rages on. The trend will not change the way it did in 1914 and 1941. In those years, international rivalries were settled by blood-soaked world wars. The bosses of the industrialized world destroyed each other, but they did not destroy the world. But, since 1945, it has been quite possible for them to employ weapons that would do just that; consequently, world war is not a likely option. A continual squeeze against those under their power -- workers in America and in the nations that America dominates -- will continue. Industrialized nations in Europe and Asia will do the same thing to those under their power.
The good news is that our fightbacks are characterized by more and more unity. Evidence of this growing unity is in virtually every part of this Jobs with Justice web page. Whether or not we will achieve sufficient unity before our bosses and their allies in government reduce us to slavery is the question before us.
--Gene Lantz
Fight the Budget
Crisis!
Almost
daily, Texas newspapers reveal the proposals being considered in the Legislature
as they try to grapple with the $10 billion estimated shortfall and their “no
new taxes” pledges. The only thing the proposals have in common is their
viciousness. Some would cut children from school, nursery school, or health
care. Some would cut senior citizens from their life support!
The
politicians innocently throw up their hands and say, “It’s the economy, what
can we do?” They have conveniently forgotten that they gave away Texas’ big surplus
with tax cuts and special giveaways to corporate greed. They have overlooked the
coming war in the Mideast that will cost billions of dollars that could be used
to save the lives of children and old folks.
For
many of them, the entire process was intentional. They knew what they were doing
all along. They didn’t like health care programs for children, public schools, health
care for poor people, or any of the programs they sneeringly call “giveaways.” The
only giveaways they like are tax abatements and other incentives for big corporations.
They gave the money long ago with full knowledge that government’s commitment
to serve the people would have to end abruptly!
As
this is written, we still don’t know exactly which of the Legislature’s vicious
proposals will be enacted. Organizations don’t know who will be hit, and they hope
it will be somebody else. But it won’t be. It’s going to be all of Texas that will
suffer unless the legislature is forced to increase revenues from those who can
afford to pay. That can be done by closing tax loopholes that big businesses exploit
today, or it could be done by changing the tax laws. They could do either, but they
pretend that neither alternative exists as they sharpen their knives and get ready
to slash the flesh of the poor and less fortunate Texans.
What
is needed is a united response from Texans. Let’s work on that!
--Gene Lantz, 3/14/03
Hang
Together or Separately
Jobs
with Justice has a special role in answering today’s challenges. It should
have become clear to all that the Bush Administration and its allies in government,
corporate board rooms, and almost all news and information offices are out
to slash the ordinary people. We are losing our standard of living, our rights,
and our power to join together and effect change. It is a general trend that
runs through all kinds of situations and affects all kinds of people, but
its overall aim is to move wealth and power away from ordinary people and
toward those with big money. It is succeeding mightily.
One
particular aspect of this war against the people is what they call their “war
on terrorism,” which is being used as a handy tool to beat us with. It is also
being used to take away the wealth and power of people of other nations in ways
similar to those used at home.
No one
sector of the world population can stand up. Seniors, children, minorities,
women, and others may be targeted more than others at first, but it is all
ordinary people who suffer in the long run. Our only hope is to realize what is
happening, then join together and fight back. Joining people together and
fighting back is what Jobs with Justice does best. We were specially created to
join labor, church, civil rights, and community organizations together for a
united fightback.
Please
join us soon.
**
How’re We Doing
on November 6?
The Democrats were trounced again in 2002 at the
polls in Texas. If they had differentiated themselves from the Bush program of
aggression, anti-worker-ism, and anti-freedom-ism; they might have done better.
Or at least, they might have positioned themselves to win in 2004. By leaving
Bush completely free of criticism, he was could conduct an unencumbered
offensive that was devastating to labor’s candidates. All that the Republican candidates had to do in Texas, and all
that they effectively did do, was say, “I’m with HIM!”
Labor didn’t pick “our” candidates, and we didn’t
pick the issues they ran on. We don’t have that much clout in Texas and that’s
just where we are. What we could do, and what we did do, was work on political
clarity for our members and their families. We worked on politicizing our
membership and getting them to take a part. According to the Texas AFL-CIO, we
had more volunteers and a bigger union-led turnout than ever in our history. We
also clarified our own focus by working together as labor rather than just
sending volunteers into candidates’ offices. A good example was on the first
day of early voting, when unions led rallies all over the state.
OK, the labor-based
candidates lost big time, but we’re not new at being disappointed in
candidates who still depend on big corporations for their funding and guidance
– and both parties’ candidates fit that category and none other. What we did
do, and did it very well, was increase our own political clout. We turned out
more people, and we helped them learn their own issues. The Democrats lost, but
labor continued to move ahead in political activity.
We have to work to continue increasing labor’s
energy and understanding. On to the next fight!
--Gene
Lantz
**
Bring
Labor’s Message to Your Church
“Labor in the Pulpit” is a program to make sure that
every church and synagogue gets labor’s story on the Sunday before Labor Day.
All anybody has to do is ask their pastor. If you are willing to talk, but
don’t know what to say, here are a few bible quotes that might help:
The Lord
told Moses: "Do not mistreat foreigners who are living in your land. Treat
them as you would an
Israelite,
and love them as you love yourselves. Remember that you were once foreigners in
the land of Egypt. I am the LORD
your
God." (Leviticus 19:33,34) undocumented
Deuteronomy
14: Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he
be of thy brethren, or of thy
strangers
that are in thy land within thy gates:
15: At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the
sun go down
upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against
thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto
thee.
Thus says the Lord: Do justice and
righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been
robbed. And
do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed
innocent blood in this
place. -Jeremiah 22:3
Jeremiah 22:13 "Woe to him who makes
neighbors work for nothing and does not give them their wages."
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is
the Kingdom of God. Luke 6:20
"You shall not abuse a needy and
destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger in one of the
communities
of your land. You must pay him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets,
for he is needy and urgently depends
upon
it." Deuteronomy 24:14-15
And whether
one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured,
all the members rejoice with
it. 1 Corinthians 12:26
Behold, the hire of the labourers who have
reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the
cries of
them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth (James
5:4)
Ecclesiastes
4:1 "God sees the oppressions that are practiced."
God rested on 7th day Genesis 2:1-2
Open hands to poor & needy. Deuteronomy
15:11
Love your neighbor as yourself Luke 10:27
Romans 12:26 if one member suffers, all
suffer.
I Corinthians 3:6-9 Each will receive wages
according to the labor of each
James 5:4 The wages of laborers kept back by
fraud cry out.
Rich people
are to be generous and ready to share I Timothy 6:18-19
You cannot
serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24
Come now,
you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Listen!
the wages of the
laborers who
mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the
harvesters have reached the ears
of the Lord
of hosts. James 5:1,4
Labor and work honestly with your own hands,
so as to have something to share with the needy. Ephesians 4:28
"...Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself." Romans 13:10
"Verily
I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren,
ye have done it unto me." St Matthew 25:40
Graham: 'It is interesting to note that fifty
million Americans, through family ties, have labor union
connections.
This means that the largest number of people in our churches come from this
group.
Graham: 'Labor unions started as a result of
a spiritual and moral revival. As a result of the preaching of John Wesley,
Britain
passed the first enlightened labor legislation. The greatest impact on
organized labor in America in the beginning
stemmed from
Britain and Wesley's social revolt... to industrial relations. It is
representative government and reasoned
compromise
taking in the place of authoritarian rule by force in the economic sphere. In its highest form it is
the Christian
ideal of
brotherhood translated into the machinery of daily life. It was proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah when he
said:'Come
now, and let us reason together, saith
the Lord'."
National
Council of Churches (Representing 33 million Protestants) "Whereas, the
churches, in the statement of 'The
Social
Ideals' have stood for 'The right of employees
and employers alike to organize for collective bargaining'.
Graham: 'As
union members you are God's stewards. You have the strength and the power and
the heritage to lead this
country to a
new moral and spiritual awakening."
Southern Baptist Convention: "We
recognize the right of labor to organize and to engage in collective bargaining to the
end that
labor may have a fair and living wage,
such as will provide not only for the necessities of life, but for recreation, pleasure, and culture."
Jewish "We believe that the denial of
the right of workers to organize and to form group associations so that they
may treat as economic equals with
their
employers is tantamount to a curtailment of human freedom. For that reason, we
favor the unionization of all who labor."
Lutheran
Church "It is the right of every man to organize with his fellow
workers for collective bargaining
through representatives of his own free
choice."
What the world needs is not redemption from
sin but redemption from hunger and oppression: it has no need to pin its hopes
upon Heaven, it has
everything
to hope from this earth. Friedrich Durenmatt, The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi.
Pope John
Paul II: "Unions are good for working people."
Presbyterian Church: "Labor unions have
been instrumental in achieving a higher standard of living and in improving working conditions. They
have helped
to obtain safety and health measures
against occupational risk; to achieve a
larger degree of protection against child
labor; to
relieve the disabled, the sick, the unemployed; and to gain a more equitable
share in the value of what they
produce. These and other gains which labor
unions have
done much to win have reached far beyond their own membership and have benefited those who have not shared
in the activity."
(William
Penn, Quaker leader) "To help mend this world
is true
religion."
Catholic "Labor can have no effective
voice as long as it is unorganized. To
protect its rights it must be free to bargain collectively through its own
chosen
representatives."
"Resolved: that the National Council
record its conviction that not only has labor a right to organize, but also
that it is socially desirable that is
do
so because
of the need for collective action in the maintenance of standards of living..."
Methodist Church "Collective bargaining,
in its mature phase, is democracy applied
Graham: Billy Graham:"Jesus Christ was a
laborer and He would be a union member
now. He
would belong to the Carpenters' Union. The fact that He was a laborer gives
dignity to the working man.
And, in
their recent statement, "A Catholic Framework for
Economic
Life," the U.S. Catholic Bishops declare: "All people
have the
right to economic initiative, to productive work, to
just wages
and benefits, to decent working conditions, as well
as to
organize and join unions or other associations." quoted
by John
Sweeney, 12/96
**
America
Can’t Stand Much More Help
The unending “War on Terrorism” is being used as a war on American
working people. Our freedoms, our economic security, our retirement hopes,
our environment, and our safety are all being sacrificed. Yes, our safety,
too, because the terrorists who struck on 9/11 aren’t noticeably weaker. They
seem to be picking up allies in country after country as American foreign
policy makes fresh enemies day by day. People in other countries are less
and less happy with the United States.
Most
politicians, including major union leaders, profess to support President Bush
in the “War on Terrorism,” while opposing him on social security, right to
organize, environment, tax giveaways, and corporate crookedness. But the
Administration uses the same excuse for every transgression against America’s
working people: “fighting terrorism.” Those who oppose them in any way, are
asked, “Why do you hate America?”
American
working people cannot win any arguments with the cards stacked against them by
the Bush Administration and virtually every information source controlled by
big corporations – which is just about every information source. We especially
can’t win when we give away the argument before it even starts. That’s what we
do when we begin by saying “I support the President in the “War on Terrorism.”
Let’s stop saying it. They’re beating us to death with it.
--Gene
**
What Should
Unions Do?
The
Sweeney AFL-CIO leadership has developed a good prescription of organizing and
political development to cure what ails us. Even more importantly, they
prescribed positive relations with labor’s natural allies. But not all AFL-CIO
bodies and not all of the union internationals are taking the medicine. And we
are a long way from making the necessary changes at the local level and on the
shop floor.
I join
conversations with union leaders and with workers on the shop floor. They
invariably blame each other for our failures. Rank and file members say their leadership
is too narrow, too close to the bosses, too closed off, too tight fisted, too
scared, and not nearly militant enough. Union leaders, from shop stewards to
the top, have told me that there’s nothing they can do because their members
just don’t care to get involved.
Both
of them are right, as far as it goes, because government repression, concerted
efforts from employers, and unprecedented decades of American prosperity
conspired to sap the fight out of both our leaders and our members while successfully
dividing us against one another. Anybody that cares to study American labor
history can see it.
I tell
union members to get involved with their unions. I tell them to carry out the
programs when they agree and to fight for better programs when they don’t. I
tell union leaders that they need to spend money and time on organizing and
political activism. Additionally, the leaders need to encourage transparency in
their actions and openness with their members. Every union local, in my
opinion, should have a published budget, a regular newspaper, and other
opportunities to inform and interact with their membership. Union leaders will
never get their members to work actively with them until genuine trust is
developed.
Will
it happen? Will we develop the open and active kind of unions that can survive
and grow? In my conversations, many doubt it. But I don’t. It will happen
because it has happened before. It will happen because American workers have
proved themselves the smartest and bravest in the world.
It will happen because it has to!
**
Why Help
Immigrants?
In February, 2000, the AFL-CIO made a dramatic and
historic change in their attitude toward the nation’s immigrants. Instead of
calling for deportation and criminal fines against employers who hire
undocumented workers, they called for amnesty for all workers. Barely a month
later, the Dallas AFL-CIO was forming a coalition with immigrants-rights
leaders. A month after that, both groups had begun to reap their reward: the
immigrants’ rights groups greatly legitimized their effort with speakers from
the AFL-CIO, even top level national speakers; and the labor movement showed
over and over that they stand for all workers without discrimination. Both
groups had bigger and better public actions!
But the value of this new labor-led alliance is much
greater than the obvious immediate gains. The American labor movement is under
attack today more than they have been since the really big setbacks of the
50’s. Without becoming hysterical, it is easy to claim that the current federal
government, and several state governments, are on the move to destroy the workers’
movement in America. From the ease with which they took away our prize health
and safety accomplishment – the new ergonomic standard that was annihilated in
two days flat – one can infer that anti-union forces have a lot of support in
government.
From the clearly anti-democratic, anti-environment,
and anti-union activities since January, 2001, one can infer that those running
the government are willing to take big risks with the concept of “consent of the governed” that has made our
nation as democratic as it is. So they are powerful, desperate, and hell-bent
on destroying the labor movement.
On our side, we basically have the unions. About 14%
of American workers are organized, even though not all of them are fully
affiliated with the AFL-CIO at the national, state, and local levels. Those
three levels, by the way, are not entirely in harmony with one another, either.
Only the unions have the power to stand up against the economic tide generated
by the employers and what is more and more obviously their pet government.
Alliances between the 14th organized
workers and the other 86% unorganized, as well as alliances with Americans who
aren’t even in the workforce – such as retirees, homemakers, and others – is
vital.
The number of undocumented workers in America is
estimated at between 6 and 12 million. They have connections to the entire
Spanish-speaking community in America. They have the support of
liberal-thinking America. They tend to be the most eager to find allies and
organizations because they are the most oppressed workers. They tend to be the
most willing to join unions once they learn that unions offer them more job
protection.
I mentioned that we have a powerful and rather
united anti-union government. I also mentioned their desperation. Those are the
elements that move a nation toward fascism. In Europe, there are strong fascist
currents and political parties. What do those skinheads and fascists focus on
most? Immigrants.
Our labor-immigrant alliance is the best possible
news in the fight against the growth of fascism in America.
For all these reasons, I would encourage American
progressives to get involved in labor-immigrant coalitions were possible. We’re
helping ourselves. --Gene
**
Why Fight for the
Right to Organize?
North Texas Jobs with Justice stands up for the
right to organize as a fundamental American right. Last year, the National
AFL-CIO started their program and called it “Seven Days in June.” They continue
today to stand for workers’ right to organize unions. As the situation changes,
though, the battle is growing more important by the day. It is also concerns a
great deal more territory than union organizing drives. Our fundamental
democracy is at risk.
Since the early 1970s, it has been apparent that the
industrialized countries were in a new state of competition with one another.
Prior to that time, America dominated in all fields of manufacturing. Other
nations had to be satisfied with making trinkets like cigarette lighters, because
their industrial capacity had been destroyed during World War II. But the
cigarette lighters became motor scooters; the scooters became motorcycles; the
motorcycles became automobiles; and today the Europeans and Japanese can
compete on the most complicated aerospace vehicles.
American employers responded by moving work abroad,
driving down wages, destroying benefits, laying off many workers, and
lengthening the working time for the ones that still had jobs. Even with those measures,
whole industries, even basic industries like steel, virtually disappeared in
America. A downward shift in working people’s living standards began, and it
had to be continued because its fundamental motivation, competition from the
now-recovered industrialized nations, continued.
Employers decided that any resistance to the
cost-cutting measures from the American people had to be shunted aside or
destroyed. Democratic rights, particularly the rights of working people, and
particularly their right to organize unions, had to be diminished. Since the
1980s, union-busting has become a major industry in America. There are many
large law firms that don’t do anything else!
Like the rest of the downward slide, there is no
hope that the employers will stop their takeaway war against American working
people. It’s basic reason persists and will persist. The only solution lies in
our hands, not theirs. We are forced to fight. Since 1995, the AFL-CIO has
taken its responsibility to lead the fight for working people much more
seriously than it did during the pleasant days, 1940-1972, when American
industry clearly dominated the world.
Since the Seattle demonstration in 1999, the AFL-CIO
has successfully developed allies in the progressive movement. There are setbacks
and steps forward, but the general trend is to strengthen the forces of
democracy. The employers’ response was to curtail all rights to peaceful
assembly and protest. 3,000 Americans have been arrested since November, 1999,
in Seattle. Civil rights activists, women, students, environmentalists, and
everyone is affected. At the same time, it has continued to get harder and
harder to go through the legal process set up in the 1930s to organize a union.
As always, the unions remain far and away the most
powerful part of the progressive movement in America. In fact, they are the
only ones that could stand up to a full-scale assault by the employers.
Continuing the process of forming alliances between labor and other
progressives is vital. All progressive forces are under attack by the same
forces and for the same reasons. We have to unite to win.
Jobs with Justice is good at uniting various
progressive organizations. That’s what we do. Join us in this important fight
for all Americans’ right to organize!
*****
Historical
Perspective is Needed
Since
January, 1995, American union leadership has been making a commendable effort
to reverse our long term losses in membership numbers and in political clout.
To further that excellent effort, I recommend an historical explanation of the
factors that caused our long slide.
Even
though I agree with the present initiatives in organizing, federating,
coalitioning, and political emphasis, I think it is nevertheless both
misleading and self-defeating to call these initiatives "new."
Union
leaders like UAW President Stephen P Yokich include in their speeches, "The
union is a social movement." The statement isn't exactly true, but it
ought to be if we are to be successful and it might become fully true if we
continue trying. But my point is that "The union is a social movement"
used to be true in America before we went wrong in the 1940's.
In
that decade, most of America's union leaders succumbed, one way or another,
or sold out, to pressure and enticements from the corporations and their agents
in government.
American
union leaders joined the enemy class in conducting the cold war at home and
abroad. On international questions, they joined the CIA. On domestic questions,
they united with the FBI. They gave up the great social causes that had defined
the CIO such as national health care and the shorter work week. Instead, they
turned to policies that enriched their members in the short run while isolating
them from the mass of unorganized American workers in the long run. To the
members, they looked like geniuses as long as the corporations played ball.
Many of them are still considered geniuses by nostalgic members who credit
their policies with "the good old days."
But
when new international competition motivated the corporations to renege on
their cooperation, and this was clearly true by the 1980 elections, American
unions were unprepared for the resumption of open class war. We still aren't.
In
fact, no clear policy of resistance to the corporate onslaught even began to
emerge until the AFL-CIO elected Sweeney, Trumka, and Chavez-Thompson in
January, 1995. One of the missing elements in their emerging new policies was a
clear historical perspective. Those of us who have waited for the clarity that
would spring from an historical analysis of where we went wrong and what we
should do about it... are still waiting.
--Gene Lantz
For some Texas labor history, click here