Confronting Big Business & Bad Government

Unions Vs. Big Business & Bad Government – Confronting Power with Power

July 11, 2011 | Posted by Jerry

Update 10/31/11 – (dedicated to the #Occupy forces all over this nation and this world. )
With a firm date set for a General Strike in Oakland for Wednesday, November 2, I felt it a good idea to introduce my Occupy Friends to the original architect of Effective Strikes, Ray Rogers.  Enjoy the reading, learn more about the history of civil disobedience, find a few surprises, and then put this wisdom to work for you.  SOLIDARITY
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Whenever I conjure up the Great Depression in my imagination, I think of the dust bowl, long lines of unemployed, people on streetcorners selling apples for a nickel, and…Labor Unions.
Americans think that we have it tough in this financial malaise we are calling the “Great Recession” – and we do – but nowhere close to what was experienced during the Great Depression of the 30’s. As poor a “safety net” we seem to have, there was nothing remotely equivalent to unemployment insurance, health care, workers rights, etc.
It was during this time, while Americans were scratching for bare survival, that the Union movement became energized. Over time, by standing up for worker’s rights they became big, powerful, didn’t back down from intimidation, and they set the stage for a better life for all of us.
A better life that appears to be evaporating, it would seem.
As much as he has accomplished given the financial mess he inherited, Obama has not proven to be the “second-coming” of FDR. That Democratic President of the 30′s said of his political opponents, “They hate me, and I invite their hate,” and then he proceeded to bulldoze progressive programs and reforms so as to see that the common citizen would have a “fair deal.”
That was just the encouragement Union people – your great grandparents, aunts and uncles in faded tintypes and photographs – needed to hear. Here are the fruits of their activism:
March 3, 1931 Davis-Bacon Act The Davis-Bacon Act requires that federal contractors pay their workers the wages and benefits prevailing in the local market when working on a public works project. The law keeps employers from importing cheaper workers from outside the region.
March 23, 1932 Norris-La Guardia Act The Norris-La Guardia Act proclaims that yellow-dog contracts, which require a worker to promise not to join a union, are unenforceable, settling a long-standing dispute between management and labor. The law also limits courts’ power to issue injunctions against strikes.
March 5, 1933 Perkins Named Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins becomes Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, the first woman in U.S. history to hold a cabinet post. She favors a comprehensive, pro-labor agenda including minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, old-age pensions and abolition of child labor. Her influence on labor policy in the New Deal will be huge.
July 27, 1935 Wagner Act President Roosevelt signs into law the National Labor Relations Act, known as the Wagner Act. The law safeguards union organizing efforts and authorizes the National Labor Relations Board to assure fairness in union elections and during collective bargaining with employers. The new law tilts the playing field significantly in labor’s favor, prompting a huge unionization drive throughout the late 1930s.
June 25, 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act The Fair Labor Standards Act sets a 40-hour workweek with time-and-a-half for additional hours. It also establishes a national minimum wage and puts severe restrictions on child labor.
No, Dorothy, businesses did not “give” workers a 40-hour week, overtime pay, social security – they were taken as legitimate rights for ALL workers. And, where do Unions stand today? Greatly weakened by business-friendly government regulations, smaller worker populations, and public apathy.
Let me assure you, Unions are “Down, But Not Out,” if people like Ray Rogers, the most recent subject of my PWRNradio weekly show, has his way. “You must confront power with power,” he declares, and it demonstrating that with a vengeance in his campaign against the excesses and crimes of the Coca Cola company.
As part of this fight, Ray Rogers is the subject of a Documentary being filmed by Pulitzer-Prize Winner Nancy Siesel, called “The Man Corporations Love to Hate.” (Take a peek at the trailer here (cut and paste into your browser):  http://bit.ly/n8ejz8. Ray is an acknowledged and important pioneer in the Union Movement, described by The Boston Herald as labor’s most innovative strategist and “one of the most successful union organizers since the CIO sit-down strikes of the 30’s.”
Tune in and hear what this man has to say, then go out there and do your part. Being silent, is being complicit. The job and country you save, may be your own.  To hear this interview (cut and paste into your browser):   http://bit.ly/pG0ieL.