When Our Troubles Began
Salon has very good news story covering developments 1982-present and the significance of today’s upsurge. Lone Star Project caught it for their daily news summary. I posted it on my FB page. It’s excellent.
My only problem with the article is that, like nearly all liberal analysis of today, it implies that labor’s problems began with Reagan in 1982. All of them, including the most erudite economists, start in 1982 with evil Republicans and recommend, as a solution, voting for liberal Democrats. They say that 1945-1982 was “normal” and that we could “get back” to that era by voting Democrat.
Nobody, except me and a handful of radical economists, especially Pikety, start with 1947, when America’s real troubles began. When the unions, some of them reluctantly, accepted the Taft Hartley law, solidarity ended.
Not only did the CIO separate from 14 of their best unions after Taft Hartley, the remaining unions raided them. What inevitably followed was decades of union isolation from one another and, even worse, from the public at large. The so-called “Treaty of Detroit” in the 1950s was a tragic error, not a wonderful accomplishment by Walter Reuther of the Autoworkers. When the UAW accepted employer-provided pensions and health care, they turned their backs on everybody else. We’re all paying for it now.
The great tragedy marked by Reagan’s firing and blacklisting of PATCO air traffic controllers was only made possible by the failure of the rest of the labor movement, and its public supporters, to respond. PATCO union leaders made several bad mistakes, including among them their having supported Reagan for election, but the historic lesson from the PATCO firing was that nobody helped them.
Once we understand that it was the lack of labor solidarity, not just Reagan, that was the root of our problems, we can see an actual solution — and it’s not just voting for liberal Democrats. It’s building up the movement for working families!
The current labor upsurge, especially the UAW strike, is attempting to rectify a catastrophe decades in the making. It will take all of us to win!
–Gene Lantz
I”m on knon.org “Workers Beat” radio talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. They also post my “Workers Beat Extra” podcasts there and on Soundcloud. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site
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