Rochester, N.Y.-- Our Labor Movement's righteous fight isn’t just about saving middle class values. When Congress enacted the Wagner Act and created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in 1935, it acknowledged how plummeting wages during a similar corporate push against workers in the 1920s led to a drop in consumer power, unemployment, poverty and civil unrest which ultimately led to the Great Depression.
When there is no check on the steady growth of corporate power or political corruption, we lose the balance and equality necessary for a functional democracy to exist. The rise of the Labor Movement in the 20th century and it's very existence built America's middle class and transformed our economy and infrastructure.
The Wagner Act protected our economy
The Wagner Act was designed to protect workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively. Moreover, the Wagner Act wasn’t just about protecting workers’ rights. It was about protecting the economy against another depression by providing a counterbalance to the greed and malfeasance of unscrupulous employers.
By Congress implementing the NLRB, it chipped away at irresponsible corporate power. And, Congress wanted to give unions power to act as a stabilizer to this corporate lawlessness and authority. It also must be stated that to this day, the House GOP has never given up the fight to weaken the NLRB's ability to affect change. Unions give workers the right of due process and equal protection under employment law-- something all patriotic Americans should admire and value. Collective bargaining is seen as an obstacle for lawmakers who want to privatize public services.
As Congress saw it back then, public policy allowed employers to amass unchecked power as they wreaked havoc on American families. Workers, on the other hand, were mere individuals who lacked the collective influence to bargain as equals with their employers. The result was the rich got richer while wages and working conditions declined. Again-- it led to poverty, crime, lawlessness, economic collapse and social unrest. Congress had to intervene to save the economy. Looking back, haven't we learned anything from our own sordid history?
The greatest heist in history
No economy can function when the working class has been stripped of all its equity and spending power. The fact is that right now no less than 16 newly elected Republican Governors around the country are promoting anti-worker legislation disguised as budget deficit reduction plans. The fact is that our country is not broke-- the wealth that the working class generates has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
To illustrate this point that we are not broke, Wall Street's five biggest firms put aside nearly 90 billion dollars for executive pay raises or bonuses for 2010-- the GNP of 13 entire developing countries. Additionally, most of the top Fortune 500 companies saw record profits for 2010. On top of all of this, the GOP continues to write legislation that makes it easier to send your hard earned tax dollars to multi-billion dollar corporations and individuals who are insulated from any harm regardless if we are in a recession or not.
Interestingly enough, these companies are creating a few jobs-- just not in the USA and defintely not in your backyard. They are investing your tax dollars in emerging middle class markets in China, Brazil and India. How does that make you feel?
The Taylor Law is a stabilizing force
The same argument about stabilizing the economy can be made for why New York State passed the Taylor Law in 1967. It was Gov. Nelson Rockefeller who opened a whole new era for public workers at the stroke of his pen when he signed into law the Public Employees Fair Employment Act, also known as the Taylor Law. It was and still is, the most comprehensive law of its kind providing for formal collective bargaining that offers complex democratic solutions to labor-management relations.
We’re carrying the fight not just for all public employees and the contracts we have bargained for, but also for the vital public services we provide to our communities. We are also fighting for every worker in America, even if they are not represented by a union. What we care about is creating value so our neighborhoods are worth living in. When working families have consumer spending power, unemployment dips and our economy becomes much healthier. Also, our communities become much stronger.
If the authors of the Wagner Act and the Taylor Law are correct, we’re also fighting to save the United States economy from self-destruction brought on by an out of control pathological greed by the top 2 percent of richest Americans. Today, the fight that corporations and Wall Street are waging against American workers is unprecedented and overwhelming-- but it can be addressed by fact-based reasoning, people-power and at the ballot box.
Workers who cannot say no to unjust actions are no more than slaves and not free people; they are not citizens of a civil democracy. That is what we are fighting about-- this is what anti-labor forces aren't telling you.
Now more than ever, everyday citizens need to know your public employee neighbors and friends who keep your streets safe and your drinking water clean, our parks open and our libraries humming should not be the scapegoats for our societal ills and budget woes.
The time-tested ability for workers to collectively bargain for a better future has lifted countless generations out of poverty. It is a testimony to America's greatness. Over several decades, America's labor unions have also provided stability in government and to our marketplace.
The American people are hungry for our leaders to restore a vision for a national future founded on the premise that social justice and material prosperity are not competing values-- that they can co-exist and are necessary to each other for a healthy, sustainable and growing economy. The sooner we recognize that, the better.
To read a recent fact sheet about collective bargaining, please click here to an earlier post.
-Ove Overmyer
The opinions expressed here by Mr. Overmyer are the views of the author only and does not represent CSEA as an organization.
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| PLAY BY THE RULES: HONOR THE TAYLOR LAW CSEA members protest on the steps of the Erie County Office Building, Buffalo, N.Y. on Sept. 16, 2009. photo: Ove Overmyer |
When there is no check on the steady growth of corporate power or political corruption, we lose the balance and equality necessary for a functional democracy to exist. The rise of the Labor Movement in the 20th century and it's very existence built America's middle class and transformed our economy and infrastructure.
The Wagner Act protected our economy
The Wagner Act was designed to protect workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively. Moreover, the Wagner Act wasn’t just about protecting workers’ rights. It was about protecting the economy against another depression by providing a counterbalance to the greed and malfeasance of unscrupulous employers.
By Congress implementing the NLRB, it chipped away at irresponsible corporate power. And, Congress wanted to give unions power to act as a stabilizer to this corporate lawlessness and authority. It also must be stated that to this day, the House GOP has never given up the fight to weaken the NLRB's ability to affect change. Unions give workers the right of due process and equal protection under employment law-- something all patriotic Americans should admire and value. Collective bargaining is seen as an obstacle for lawmakers who want to privatize public services.
As Congress saw it back then, public policy allowed employers to amass unchecked power as they wreaked havoc on American families. Workers, on the other hand, were mere individuals who lacked the collective influence to bargain as equals with their employers. The result was the rich got richer while wages and working conditions declined. Again-- it led to poverty, crime, lawlessness, economic collapse and social unrest. Congress had to intervene to save the economy. Looking back, haven't we learned anything from our own sordid history?
The greatest heist in history
No economy can function when the working class has been stripped of all its equity and spending power. The fact is that right now no less than 16 newly elected Republican Governors around the country are promoting anti-worker legislation disguised as budget deficit reduction plans. The fact is that our country is not broke-- the wealth that the working class generates has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
To illustrate this point that we are not broke, Wall Street's five biggest firms put aside nearly 90 billion dollars for executive pay raises or bonuses for 2010-- the GNP of 13 entire developing countries. Additionally, most of the top Fortune 500 companies saw record profits for 2010. On top of all of this, the GOP continues to write legislation that makes it easier to send your hard earned tax dollars to multi-billion dollar corporations and individuals who are insulated from any harm regardless if we are in a recession or not.
Interestingly enough, these companies are creating a few jobs-- just not in the USA and defintely not in your backyard. They are investing your tax dollars in emerging middle class markets in China, Brazil and India. How does that make you feel?
The Taylor Law is a stabilizing force
The same argument about stabilizing the economy can be made for why New York State passed the Taylor Law in 1967. It was Gov. Nelson Rockefeller who opened a whole new era for public workers at the stroke of his pen when he signed into law the Public Employees Fair Employment Act, also known as the Taylor Law. It was and still is, the most comprehensive law of its kind providing for formal collective bargaining that offers complex democratic solutions to labor-management relations.
We’re carrying the fight not just for all public employees and the contracts we have bargained for, but also for the vital public services we provide to our communities. We are also fighting for every worker in America, even if they are not represented by a union. What we care about is creating value so our neighborhoods are worth living in. When working families have consumer spending power, unemployment dips and our economy becomes much healthier. Also, our communities become much stronger.
 |
| CSEA members take to the streets in downtown Buffalo, N.Y. in Sept. 2009 to protest against unfair treatment of public workers by Erie County Executive Chris Collins. photo: Ove Overmyer |
Workers who cannot say no to unjust actions are no more than slaves and not free people; they are not citizens of a civil democracy. That is what we are fighting about-- this is what anti-labor forces aren't telling you.
Now more than ever, everyday citizens need to know your public employee neighbors and friends who keep your streets safe and your drinking water clean, our parks open and our libraries humming should not be the scapegoats for our societal ills and budget woes.
The time-tested ability for workers to collectively bargain for a better future has lifted countless generations out of poverty. It is a testimony to America's greatness. Over several decades, America's labor unions have also provided stability in government and to our marketplace.
The American people are hungry for our leaders to restore a vision for a national future founded on the premise that social justice and material prosperity are not competing values-- that they can co-exist and are necessary to each other for a healthy, sustainable and growing economy. The sooner we recognize that, the better.
To read a recent fact sheet about collective bargaining, please click here to an earlier post.
-Ove Overmyer
The opinions expressed here by Mr. Overmyer are the views of the author only and does not represent CSEA as an organization.
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