Ramblings

Lost amidst the wall-to-wall coverage of Predatorgate last week, yet another bunch of political appointees from the Bush administration quietly destroyed a hard-won right for millions of Americans: the right to unionize. The political implications are greater still.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling should have been front-page news for days; it wasn't. Organized labor in the U.S. has become so marginalized, and mainstream media so routinely ignores labor issues, that practically nobody noticed.

The NLRB ruling came as a long-awaited response to a series of cases, which I wrote about in July, collectively known as Kentucky River. In the cases, employers were bidding to break nursing unions by having the nurses reclassified as supervisors, which, under the notoriously anti-union 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, are legally prohibited from unionizing. The attempt came despite the fact that the nurses in question didn't hire, fire, set policy, mete out discipline, or set schedules. The logic was that more senior workers "oversaw" the work of less senior ones and employees with less training, such as nurses' aides.

Such a ruling, it was feared at the time, could be applied widely as precedent to almost any employee who worked with apprentices (i.e., most of the trade unions), less experienced workers, or colleagues with less training in a particular skill. AFL-CIO organizing director Stewart Acuff estimated in July that the worst possible scenario, in which the NLRB would issue the broadest possible ruling, could disenfranchise eight million American workers from the ability to organize. Organized labor in the U.S., decimated by free trade, loss of manufacturing jobs, and decades of membership erosion, these days only has 12 million members.

So how did the ruling turn out? "It's the worst decision they could have made," Acuff says now. "It's the worst single labor board decision since there's been a labor board, the single worst union decision since the Taft-Hartley Act. It confirmed all of our fears. It took eight million people who could form a union out from any possibility of forming a union."

The AFL-CIO, of course, is planning to fight the ruling. Acuff ticks off the strategies: litigation, negotiating local contracts with specific waivers of the NLRB ruling (including job actions if necessary), and working with Congressional Democratic staff members in the hopes that more Democratic power in Congress could lead to legislation overriding the NLRB ruling. Kentucky River, says Acuff drily, "clarifies what's at stake in the midterms."

Ah, yes. Labor, elections, and the Democrats. For decades, organized labor in the U.S. has relied on the Democratic Party to do its legislative bidding, and the results (as with, say, free trade) have been mixed at best. Amazingly, however, Democrats on Capitol Hill were almost completely MIA in either publicizing the pending ruling, pressuring the NLRB, or reacting last week to the ruling itself.

Why is it amazing? Not because Democrats are stiff-arming organized labor; that's old news. But this ruling both affects and is aimed at not just unions, but the Democrats themselves. "There's no justification for this decision; it's just a way to weaken the labor movement," says Acuff. "These guys (the politically appointed NLRB) are actively trying to weaken worker power and worker strength and lower the standard of living for workers."

Acuff has his turf to defend, but weakening labor is as much the means to an end as the end itself. For all its legislative fickleness and reliance on DLC-style corporate cash, unions still contribute a lot of money to local and national races on Democrats' behalf. Even more importantly, they're critical to the Democratic Get Out the Vote effort, providing volunteers and shoe leather to walk precincts, doorbell, and ferry people to polling places. Destroy what's left of organized labor in the U.S., and you also take out a big chunk of the Democrats' electoral infrastructure.

How many employers will use this ruling to either break existing unions or forestall new ones? Hard to say. But at least 120 disputed unionization elections were put on hold in cases before the NLRB this spring and summer by employers anxious to see what the NLRB would rule, and whether they could simply render their particular dispute moot by reclassifying their employees right out of their union elections or contracts. Many of them now can.

The NLRB ruling didn't get much media play, but union members certainly noticed. With only a month until the midterm elections, only a small sliver of the American public wasn't already angered by Katrina, Iraq, or the spectacle of the entire Republican House Leadership covering up for a known pedophile colleague for at least five years (if you believe ABC news, that is, part of the evil liberal media conglomerate, Disney). For anyone not already enraged by these or dozens of other transgressions (e.g., the ongoing, direct assault on the U.S Constitution), here's another alienated constituency to add to the list: anyone who is, has ever been, or might ever want to be a union member. The Bush administration certainly has a flair for energizing its opponents.

With these sorts of actions and trends, what is the great hope of Republican strategists in November? "Microtargeting." Aptly named, because Republicans are shrinking their pool of potential supporters every day. Let's hope the Democrats can take advantage of it this year, and then have the cajones to dare George Bush to veto a bill overriding the Kentucky River ruling.

Because if they don't, at least one or another dim bulb in the Democratic leadership must realize, Democrats will soon either have to completely reinvent themselves structurally -– something the activist base very much wants anyway –- or face such a structural and financial disadvantage that they won't be very competitive in 2008.

Did the NLRB take such things into account in Kentucky River? This, remember, is the administration that politicizes everything. You decide.

Does The Constitution Need Defending?

Dear Members of Congress:

Each one of you who serve in Congress took an oath: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

You promised us -you promised God--to defend the Constitution.

An oath is supposed to mean something. In our civilization, an oath is understood to be---"a special appeal, an expression of sincerity backed up by the threat of divine retribution should the uttering prove false-hence the term 'oath-breaker'. An oathbreaker was assumed to have committed a crime against God or of some divine entity, which would lead to damnation or another form of severe penalty."

Did you take your oath seriously? Or were these just meaningless words you spoke so that you could step into your position of power?

From some of you, we sometimes hear the expression "God-fearing," but can anyone who can swear on the Bible "So help me God," without meaning what he says, be God-fearing?

The Constitution Now Needs Defending

Most of the time, that oath of office does not require the Members of Congress to do much. That's because the Constitution doesn't generally need defending.

But has there ever been a moment in American history when the Constitution has needed defending more than now?

Has not a disturbing pattern emerged? From what we reliably know, and from what the administration itself has disclosed, is there not already discernable a pattern of disregard for the law?

We see this in the warrantless searches; in the apparent practice of torture; in "signing statements" numbering over 700; in the deception of Congress on vital national issues, including matters of war and peace; and in the succession of bogus arguments advanced by this administration to justify its usurpation of power and its assault on our system of checks and balances.

Is there not more than enough evidence to require you at least to suspect that the Constitution stands in need of defense? Yet you are not rising to its defense.

Would not a Congress that kept faith with its oath of office at least be seriously investigating this apparent assault on the Constitution? Yet serious investigations have not been conducted, and indeed have been repeatedly blocked.

But really, on some matters, there's grounds for more than mere suspicion. The American Bar Association felt it had enough information, for example, to declare unequivocally that the administration violated the FISA law. Moreover, this administration has advanced claims -in written documents, and in public statements-- that it doesn't have to obey the laws passed by Congress. And it has declared that itself not subject to judicial oversight. If such claims are not an assault on the Constitution, what would be?

Under these circumstances, your failure to defend the Constitution, after taking such an oath, is simply dishonorable.

The oath you take is directly descended from such oaths of fealty as knights took to defend the King. Such oaths left no room for anything to take precedence over doing one's utmost to protect one's lord. Not just when it's convenient, but whenever it's needed. Not just to the extent that's comfortable, but all-out, even at the cost -if necessary--of one's life.

To betray such an oath was to forfeit all honor, to be faithless and worse.

Your oath puts the Constitution in the place of the King. The pledge remains one of the highest moral and legal seriousness. It is said: "It is often considered a treasonous or highly illegal offense to betray one's oath of office"

You've been entrusted by the people of the United States with the defense of our American birthright to live in a free society under the rule of law. Have you considered that your betrayal of that trust -in failing to rise to the defense of our American constitutional democracy--might reasonably be regarded as treason?

An honorable person, taking an oath -like the knight who swears to protect the king--risks all to fulfill his oath. But you -members of both parties--are treating other considerations as more important.

Those of you who are Republicans face a political difficulty in that the assault on the Constitution comes from a president of your own party. It's not easy opposing your own party's leadership.

But your oath gives you no honorable choice but to defend the Constitution. It does not allow you to defend such a president against the Constitution. It does not allow you to yield to the temptation to ingratiate yourself with power at the cost of the Constitution. You are obliged, by that oath, to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Even if that risks your losing your present proximity to great political power.

Those of you who are Democrats seem to have judged that you will pay a political price if you make too big a stink about the fact that this presidency is dismantling the Constitution and the rule of law. You may be right about that (though I doubt it).

But it doesn't matter whether your fears are well-founded. Your oath does not say you'll defend the Constitution only when it is politically expedient. The pledge is unqualified. Just as the honorable knight is prepared to die, if necessary to defend the king, so your oath obliges you to be ready to commit political suicide if that's what the fulfillment of your sacred pledge requires.

Even those among you who have come closest to fulfilling your oath have not done so adequately. Not if the pledge to defend the Constitution is understood, like the knight's oath of fealty, to require one's utmost efforts. It is not enough, for example, to just introduce, in a gentlemanly way, a motion of censure--and then walk away. The knight does not just walk off the battlefield leaving his weapon behind. That is not defending the Constitution to the utmost of your abilities. If your colleagues do not rise to support your motion of censure, your oath requires you to exert yourself more strenuously and escalate your approach. Pick up your weapon (that motion of censure), raise your voice a notch, and make your colleagues' failure to support it -i.e. to fulfill their oath of office-- the issue.

Is there a one of you who has fully honored the oath you took? Have you not all shirked, placing personal considerations ahead of your pledge?

The true issue is not just that you took this oath. It's about what's behind the oath--behind your being required to promise to defend the Constitution.

This is not ultimately even about the Constitution. It's about what the Constitution is about. And what the Constitution is about is the prevention of tyranny.

There is a reason this country's Founding Fathers made the defense of the Constitution the heart of the oath of office. They understood that the natural tendency of political systems is to descend into tyranny and into all the nightmarish corruption and destruction of human dignity and rights that tyranny brings. And their genius lay in constructing a system of protections against that natural downhill slide toward tyranny.

It's because they understood that their handiwork -the Constitution--is the necessary bulwark to preserve the blessings liberty for their heirs that they composed the oath of office as they have. By that oath, they sought to bind you, our leaders, to perform the vital task of protecting us, as a free people, against the unchecked power of the tyrant.

But the oath does not enforce itself. It requires either your honor in fulfilling your promise, or our wrath in driving from office those who break their oath.

We, the citizens of the United States, would like to ask you: Which will it be? Are you going to confront this apparent pattern of presidential lawlessness by conducting investigations and following them wherever your oath of office may require you to go? Or are we going to have to find other political leaders to protect our freedom under the rule of law?

Is Labor Out in Front on Health Care?

February 13, 2005

It'S no secret that surging health costs have become a C.E.O.-level issue. When a company like General Motors looks more each year like a giant health plan that operates a nice little nonprofit car business on the side, who wouldn't sound the alarm?

But to many business leaders, their union counterparts' view of soaring health costs remains a mystery. Given union readiness to strike in the face of even modest efforts to slim generous health plans, these costs almost certainly doom unionized workers to few if any real wage increases for years to come. Do union leaders get this trade-off? Are they hamstrung by political dynamics that make it hard to approve even sensible health plan changes that can be cast as "givebacks"? And what is their answer?

Recent conversations with Morton Bahr of the Communications Workers of America and Andrew Stern of the Service Employees International Union suggest that at least some union leaders think about the health system in ways more sophisticated and businesslike than many chief executives do - and that they are eager to be partners in a national reform dialogue that's overdue.

"There's really one economic pot, and you argue essentially over the size of that economic pot and how it gets distributed," Mr. Bahr said of the growing trade-off between health care and wages. "What it leads to is more strife at the bargaining table because workers are not going to be ready to say, 'Well, the health care costs are going up, so we're willing to take a zero wage increase.' They expect the union to find a way to do it, and that's going to lead to more strikes."

But Mr. Bahr knows that the trends are unsustainable. In late 2003, after completing his last contract negotiation with Verizon, he told a group of Democratic senators that by 2008, when it was time to revisit the deal, the cost for Verizon to insure someone who retires before age 65 would be more than $21,000 a year. "How is the company going to compete?" Mr. Bahr asked, as Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Edward M. Kennedy nodded in agreement. Mr. Stern said that his union members believe that "the implications of not having health insurance are so grave" that all except younger workers (who think they'll live forever) would rather take their last $1,000 in top-quality health coverage than have the same amount of cash in their pocket.

Mr. Stern's real concern about cost pressures is systemic. "What scares me is that the system is going to morph into a catastrophic health plan without any debate," he said. "People would have thought that was a collapse 20 years ago, but when things change incrementally, everybody keeps lowering their expectations. People say, 'Why should those people in those unions get that good health care?' instead of saying, 'Why don't I get it?' " With only a small slice of workers having unions that enable them to resist this trend, union chiefs feel a special duty to make a stand.

A result, even in the face of seemingly modest changes, is a liberal form of the kind of "slippery slope" arguments sometimes associated with the National Rifle Association, which argues that even modest limits on gun ownership will ultimately result in the feds knocking on Americans' doors to confiscate every last pistol. Once unions start allowing more copays and deductibles and higher premiums, pretty soon "you end up where JetBlue is, not where United is" on health care, Mr. Stern said, contrasting JetBlue's more modest health benefits to United's more traditional coverage.

Fighting this trend strikes unions as perfectly fair. After all, from their point of view, short-term chief executives are interested mostly in shifting costs to workers to solve their problems - rather than helping to lead efforts to re-engineer America's radically inefficient health sector in ways that would solve everyone's.

Mr. Bahr and Mr. Stern add that forcing a debate about what decent health coverage should mean isn't inconsistent with the drive to bring efficiencies to today's byzantine system. They rattle off the initiatives with which they've been involved, arguing that labor comes to this table with clean hands - and with a greater commitment to systemic reform than the typical chief executive has begun to consider. Mr. Bahr and the Communications Workers of America, for example, helped pioneer managed care networks with AT&T starting in 1989. Mr. Stern talks about "right sizing" hospital capacity and complains that special interests with a stake in excess costs are blocking needed changes. "It's the only industry that's huge with no efficiency to it," he said. When these men talk about pooling back-office functions and contracting out food services and laundries, you might think you were listening to business leaders.

TO be sure, the labor perspective is hardly monolithic. Mr. Bahr, for instance, rejects the call for "consumer-driven health care," which puts individuals on the hook financially for more of their health spending and is expected by conservative advocates to lower costs as a result. "I don't think health care is a commodity that you shop around for," he growled. Mr. Stern seems more willing to look at various means, even if they violate traditional liberal orthodoxy, so long as they promote the decent society that he says belongs at the core of the debate.

But each man says business leaders haven't assumed the more statesmanlike role the country needs them to play in these health debates - a role that will take them beyond their company's or industry's parochial interests to broader questions of national policy.

"Why aren't the corporations speaking up now?" Mr. Bahr asked. "Do they feel, well, 'As long as I can continue to cost-shift to my employees, until I get it down to zero, that somehow I live in a vacuum and I'm not going to pay for it one way or another'? " He shook his head. "We're in this thing together," he said. "We've got to find a common solution."

Who Does The Work?

10/30/02

Many of you have probably seen Pacific Bell's current add campaign telling the general public about the unfair regulations that require us to lease lines to our competition at prices below cost.
In the adds, Pacific Bell stresses the fact that lines purchased from our competitors are not their own. They are lines owned and maintained by Pacific Bell and its employees.
If Pacific Bell is forced to lease these lines below cost, allowing competition to undersell us, profit margins can't help but be affected.
Most everyone by now has seen the news stories about upcoming job cuts at Pacific Bell, and across SBC.
Recent newspaper advertisements has asked this question of our competition, If I lose my job, who is going to maintain the lines?
Take a moment and think about it. What other company can you think of that has ever been mandated to sell its product below cost?
Below are some photos of a recent cable damage in Palo Alto. Crews at a construction site bored through Pacific Bell's lines.
Take a close look at the photos. See if you can pick out the repairmen that belong to ATT, Sprint, or any of the other companies who are trying to force us out of business.
Look as long as you want, you're not going to see any. The men and women pictured here are employees of Pacific Bell. They are members of CWA. We here at Pacific Bell built the network and maintain the network. If our competitors don't have to pay their fair share, then who is going to make up the difference? We are the ones who have made the investment, and continue to spend millions in order to ensure that we have the most advanced telecommunications network in the world.
The advertisements ask the question, and so do we at CWA: Who is going to maintain the network, and who is going to benefit if we are laid off?
If you think that this is a bad idea, an unfair idea, and one that is not beneficial to the consumer, take the time to write to your elected representatives, the California PUC, and the FCC and tell them so. If you don't know who or where to write, check out our links page. There you will find links to most of our senators and congressmen and women.

We Need Your Stories and Experiences!!! If you have a story or a news item that you would like to see published here, don't hesitate to let us know about it. E mail us at cwa9430@cwa9430.org We would love to hear from you.

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