Today in Labor History—November 28

November 28, 1891 - The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers was founded on this date. The IBEW currently represents approximately 750,000 members in utilities, construction, telecommunications, broadcasting, manufacturing, railroads and government. (From Workday Minnesota)

November 28, 1944 – 400 people in Rotterdam attacked a coal warehouse. The Nazis executed 40 Dutch men in retaliation. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 28, 1953 – A photoengravers strike shut down New York City’s newspapers for 11 days. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 28, 1994 – In the wake of years of outsourcing and downsizing, Bell-Atlantic announced another 5,600 lay-offs. In response, 1,200 employees in Pennsylvania came to work in T-shirts that portrayed themselves as road kill on the information superhighway. Management suspended them all without pay when they refused to remove the shirts. (From the Daily Bleed)

The Not So Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy Wall Street

Image from Flickr, Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Naomi Wolf’s expose on the federal role in the crackdown on the Occupy Wall Street movement, “The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy,” has been making the rounds in the liberal blogosphere, getting replayed here and here, for example. In her piece, Wolf calls the violent crackdown on OWS protesters a “civil war” by the U.S. government against its own constituents. She believes that Congress is colluding with Obama to suppress the people they are “supposed to represent” and they are doing it because they have “started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth.”

In other words, Wolf sees a conspiracy by an upstart class of 1%-er wannabes to keep secret the fact that they are enriching themselves on the backs of the 99% so that the 99% will continue to vote for them and so they can continue their nefarious plot to become members of the ruling elite.

Of course there are numerous sinister and disturbing aspects to the crackdown, not the least of which has been its level of violence and the use of military hardware. But the violence is not unprecedented, as Wolf and others decry, nor even deadly.

So far, no one has been killed by the police at OWS protests, though hundreds of workers and activists were killed by the police in other protests and strikes over the past 130 years.  In the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, for example, 10 workers were shot dead by militias just in Maryland and 20 more in Pittsburgh. Many others were killed and injured by militias, police and federal troops in other cities, too. There were numerous other labor struggles in which labor activists were shot and killed by police, militias, private security or vigilantes, on behalf of the bosses (e.g., Homestead, Everett, Columbine, Ludlow, the Battle of Virden, the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903-4, the Battle of Blair Mountain). There were also the massacres of the 60s and early-70s, like Kent State, Jackson State, Southern University and Orangeberg, and the political assassinations (e.g., Fred Hampton, Bobby Hutton, members of MOVE).

Wolf also complains about how the movement has been infiltrated by local and federal law enforcement and vigilantes, while local police responses have been coordinated by the feds. However, none of this is new either, while the “organized and coordinated by the feds” angle isn’t even necessarily true. COINTELPRO, HUAC, McCarthyism and the Palmer raids were all federally-coordinated police responses to domestic activism and infiltration of movements is so routine that one would have to be very naïve to think their political meetings and protests were free of infiltrators and provocateurs.

In order to get to the bottom of this “unprecedented federal coordination” of attacks on the OWS movement, Wolf asked OWS what their message was. Within 15 minutes she received 100 responses. The number one demand was “get the money out of politics.”

This is hardly radical or revolutionary and cannot be the reason for the suppression of the movement. In fact, the demand to reform the political system indicates that they accept and embrace the existing political order. It presumes that the system is inherently good and did, or would, serve the interests of the 99% if only it weren’t so corrupt. Indeed, the goal of reducing the influence of money in politics is such a mainstream idea that it has been sought by mainstream politicians and 1%-ers like John McCain and Russ Feingold.

Their number two demand, according to Wolf, is that the banking system be reformed, by implementing new rules to prevent fraud, for example, and restoring the Glass-Steagall act. Again, this is hardly radical or revolutionary and indicates that they embrace the existing economic order, including the 1%’s right to be much richer than the rest of us. Banks can still exist and make money by exploiting labor; they just need to follow the law.

While none of this is revolutionary, radical or even a remote threat to the hegemony and wealth of the ruling elite, the rich do not want to give up any of their wealth or power. When the rabble rises up, even with modest demands, it is like an uppity housekeeper or an insubordinate employee. The proper response is to aggressively discipline them or else they might get bigger ideas and their contagion might spread. What if OWS decides that banking and political reforms aren’t enough? What if they decide to elect a bunch of greens or demand higher wages or free healthcare for all? What if they manage to organize a real General Strike?

The Shocking Truth is that biggest threat may not be what the OWS protesters are currently demanding, but the sympathy they have garnered among the rest of Americans. According to Michael Moore, 72% of Americans want to increase taxes on the rich. While Moore is not the most trustworthy source, the point is that average Americans are pissed off about their declining wealth, material security and chances of being able to retire in comfort (or at all), and the OWS movement feels to them like the best expression of this angst. They do want the wealthy to pay more in taxes and they want that extra revenue to rejuvenate their schools, parks, libraries and other services.

However, they seem to also want another New Deal, or something like it, and this would really set the rich back.  Under Roosevelt, the marginal tax rate increased to 94%. The corporate tax rate increased from 12% in 1931, to 40% in 1942.  New rules regulating banking, including Glass-Steagall, were passed, that nominally restrained their ability to make profits. The Wagner Act (NRLA) was passed, which nominally restrained employers’ ability to interfere in unions and labor organizing.

It also resulted in a massive increase in government spending on public works, which put people back to work and income into their pockets. This, too, the wealthy cannot stand, as it would require a realignment of government priorities away from subsidizing the wealthy and their businesses and toward subsidizing the 99%.

However, it is just plain absurd to say that this is all about Congress trying to keep the public from learning their dirty little secret and helping them to become members of the 1%. Most members of Congress were already members of the ruling elite well before becoming members of Congress. They came from jobs as CEOs, bankers and large-firm attorneys. And the public has always known that they were enriching themselves further while in Congress. This is probably why their approval of Congress has been so low for so long. With the exception of a blip in 2002, the Congressional approval rating has consistently been less than 40% for the past 36 years.

Today in Labor History—November 27

November 27, 1937 – The ILGWU-commissioned the kitschy musical "Pins & Needles" opened on Broadway, with a cast made up entirely of International Lady Garment Worker Union members. Rehearsals were held at night and on weekends, and performances were all on Fridays and Saturdays to appease their bosses (i.e., keep their jobs). In 1962, a 25th anniversary edition of the score was released featuring Barbra Streisand. (From Workday Minnesota)

Today in Labor History—November 26

November 26, 1868 – Ignoring orders to kill only warriors, an Army contingent led by General Custer massacred 103 Cheyenne in their sleep — during the "Battle of the Washita," Oklahoma Territory. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 26, 1883 – Emancipationist and former slave Sojourner Truth died on this date in Battle Creek, Michigan. (From the Daily Bleed)

November 26, 1911 -- Paul Lafargue, son-in-law of Karl Marx, died on this date. Lafargue wrote “The Right to Be Lazy” in 1893 while in prison. (From the Daily Bleed)

We Want Jobs? Not If We Can’t Feed Ourselves!

Cooks Lining Up For Soup (from Flickr, gamillos)

Liberal politicians and union leaders seem to think that if they could just create more jobs, the economy would suddenly recover and everyone would be happy. Of course those who are unemployed, particularly the long-term unemployed, are desperate for some financial security and relief, and jobs seem like the simplest way to appease them.

While the absence of work is a terrible burden on families, the presence of work is not necessarily their salvation, and shouldn’t be their primary goal. Workers need material security, safer and better working conditions, better living standards, more leisure time and sufficient wealth to enjoy it.

Most jobs do not provide these things. In fact, many jobs do not even provide material security.

According to a recent report in Labor Notes, 28% of cooks live in food-insecure homes. In other words, more than a quarter of the people who prepare our food in restaurants, fast food chains and cafeterias do not earn enough to feed themselves and their families. Campus food workers, for example, had a median wage of only $17,176 in 2010, while many farmworkers are earning the exact same wages they made ten years ago.

There have been organizing drives among food workers at numerous college campuses over the past decade, most notably among employees of Sodexo (See here and here). These efforts still have a long way to go. At Pomona College, for example, 90% of kitchen staffers signed a petition for union recognition in 2010, but the college ignored it. Employees there were being fired for taking sick days and many are still earning less than $12 per hour, even after working there for 20 years.

What is most compelling about the statistic that 28% of all cooks go hungry on a regular basis is that it clearly reveals that food is not a human right, but a commodity that is produced by members of the 99% for the profit of the 1%.

In a sane society, a cook would not only be able to eat on the job and take food home from work for his or her family, but would be paid well enough to eat healthy, organic, locally produced food every day, go out to nice restaurants occasionally, and take time off to relax with family and friends. But they cannot do this because the food belongs to the bosses. The equipment to prepare the food belongs to the bosses. The buildings were the food is produced belong to the bosses. The right to hire and fire and set wages and working hours all belong to the bosses. And if they challenge any of this they will be unemployed quicker than they can say Sodexo.

This is not to say that workers should roll over and accept these conditions. A strong trade union can help to improve wages and decrease food insecurity for workers. However, trade unions cannot end workers’ dependency and subservience to their bosses, nor do they wish to. Their entire existence is predicated on the subservient relationship between workers and bosses. They act as the intermediary or advocate for the workers in an attempt to mitigate this relationship and make it as painless as possible for their members. They accept the premise that the boss is entitled to own and control every aspect of the workplace and become wealthy by paying their members less than the value of the goods and services they produce.

While the pain can be mitigated, workers will never truly be free, nor will they ever earn the true value of their labor, as long as the workplace remains in the control of bosses. Workers will continue to be forced to accept compromises, including declining wages and increasing work, just so they have any income at all. They will always face the dilemma of accepting abuses and degradations or risk being fired. Even when they earn enough to eat every day, they can rarely (if ever) eat as well as the 1%.

Thus, it is insufficient to demand jobs or even better jobs. We must also fight for a world without bosses and wage slavery, in which everyone has material security and access to the good things in life, leisure time, and the opportunity to contribute to society under their own volition and not under the boot of the 1%.

Americans Love Homosexuals and Hate Atheists

According to Harper's Index, 67% of Americans said they would vote for a homosexual candidate for president, while only 49% said they'd vote for an atheist.

So what does this say about Americans?

Considering all the sturm and drang about gay marriage, I find it surprising that so many Americans would support a gay presidential candidate. Then again, the statistic implies that nearly one-third of Americans would NOT vote for a candidate because of his or her sexual orientation, which is still a very high degree of bigotry.

On the other hand, what Americans really love is rich and powerful people. The evidence is that these are the only kinds of people they vote for and who win elections. So who really cares what their race, gender or sexual orientation is, when Americans overwhelmingly and repeatedly support their own subjugation?

This data also reminds us that we live in one of the most religious societies in the world, where belief in god is a far more important qualification than experience, intelligence or compassion.

The 1% Pays Only 10% of Their Profits to Feds

According to the Harper's Index, corporations paid only 10% of their profits in taxes last year, compared with 40.6% in 1961.

What's changed?

The ruling elite have been able to slash business taxes over the last 25 years. Simultaneously they've increased their profits by working their employees harder, longer and faster, while paying them less. According to Harper's, 3/4 of their increased profit margin is due to depressed wages.

What hasn't changed?

The ruling elite then, like today, had a monopoly on political power and the machinery of production, compelling the rest of us to sell them our labor under whatever conditions they dictated. There was still homelessness, unemployment, poverty, hunger, want and privation. They were befouling the air and water, poisoning low income communities, pillaging poor countries in the global south, and slaughtering civilians whereever U.S. hegemony was being challenged.