[Peace-discuss] Fw: [CentralILJwJ] public unions

[David Green]

To see the reprehensible manner in which the NYT says we're supposed to think 
about this, see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/business/02showdown.html




________________________________
From: David Johnson <dlj725 at hughes.net>
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;@chambana.net
Sent: Sun, January 2, 2011 12:54:06 PM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fw: [CentralILJwJ] public unions



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Astrid Berkson 
To: JWJ C-U 
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2011 1:06 PM
Subject: [CentralILJwJ] public unions



SUNDAY 2 JANUARY 2011
Throwing Public Unions Under the Bus 
Sunday 02 January 2011by: Shamus Cooke, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

"Teachers unions are being twice targeted, having suffered under Obama's 
nefarious Race to the Top program."(Photo: Flutterbudgęt) 

The stage is set and the main actors in Congress and in the corporate 
establishment are ready to perform after rehearsing behind closed doors for the 
coming assault on organized labor's most powerful sector: public workers.
The final preparations were smoothed out in Obama's tax "compromise" with the 
Republicans, which gave details of the drama's first act. The tax plan purposely 
did not include a critical element for state funding, called the Build America 
Bonds program (BAB), which allows recession-sunk states to easily borrow money 
from the federal government. In the face of enormous deficits, the states would 
be left to drown. Reuters blogger James Pethokoukis explains:
Congressional Republicans [and Democrats] appear to be quietly but methodically 
executing a plan that would a) avoid a federal bailout of spendthrift states and 
b) cripple public employee unions by pushing cash-strapped states such as 
California and Illinois to declare bankruptcy. This may be the biggest political 
battle in Washington, my Capitol Hill sources tell me, of 2011. 
Public employee unions would be crippled by bankruptcy because union contracts 
are notoriously easy to shred in the court system, where "nonpartisan" judges 
always decide against unions.
To further ensure that states will become bankrupt, yet another law was recently 
proposed that, if approved, will keep money out of states' pockets by making it 
harder for states to sell public bonds. This law demands that states use overly 
strict accounting methods when reporting their debts to public workers' 
retirement accounts, so that the state's "credit worthiness" will shrivel. 
(Reagan used the same trick to destroy the pensions offered for private-sector 
workers.)
Two birds are killed with one stone: public employees will find their pensions 
under further attack, while states will be refused credit because of the new 
accounting methods. The New York Times explains:
The bill gives local governments a choice: they can report [pension obligations] 
the way the [Congressional] members want them to report, or they can give up the 
ability to issue tax-exempt bonds. That is, of course, no choice at all.
and:
In the end, I suspect ways will be found to abrogate some pension promises. But 
even if that does not happen, the trend away from defined-benefit pensions is 
likely to affect most younger public employees, as it already has their 
counterparts in the private sector. The retirement safety net will thus become a 
little more frayed.
In summary, pensions for state workers are on the cutting board, to be replaced 
by the 401(k) scam, while state bankruptcy will "abrogate" [abolish] union 
contracts. But as it stands now, states cannot legally declare bankruptcy. This 
minor obstacle is being handled quickly for showtime, as Pethokoukis explains:
Some Republicans hope the shock of the newly revealed [state] debt totals will 
grease the way towards explicitly permitting states to declare bankruptcy. 
Indeed, legislation amending federal bankruptcy law is currently being prepared 
by congressional Republicans.
The current Congress and President Obama are intentionally creating a nationwide 
anti-union atmosphere. The Democrats' silence over the above issues is, in fact, 
a signal of approval. In the same way that Obama announced a federal pay freeze 
for federal workers, federal actions towards labor quickly set the tone for how 
states deal with labor. Right-wing forces are consequently given the green 
light, and Democratic and Republican state representatives will do their best to 
implement their own anti-labor laws to ingratiate themselves to the feds in the 
hopes of promotion. The feds act as a music conductor and the states respond as 
an orchestra.
This dynamic is similar to the one under Democratic president Harry Truman, who 
began his own anti-labor presidency by presiding over a flurry of anti-union 
legislation, which quickly opened the gates to Senator Joseph McCarthy and other 
right-wing fanatics, who performed anti-worker deeds under the grateful eyes of 
a Democratic president.
Public workers are being targeted because they are the strongest sector of the 
national labor movement and their strength is incompatible with the agenda of 
the political-corporate establishment: making working people pay for the bank 
bailouts and two foreign wars.
The recession has already weakened public employee unions; unknown thousands of 
workers have already lost their jobs due to the states budget crises, which will 
be peaking in many states in the coming years. Public union membership is being 
decimated while workers are becoming demoralized due to lack of action or 
alternatives offered by union leadership. Teachers' unions are being twice 
targeted, having already suffered under Obama's nefarious Race to the Top 
program.
Public workers cannot be spectators in this unfolding drama. They must learn to 
act collectively. Unions must educate their membership about the gravity of the 
coming assault. Anti-union attacks must be resisted while alternatives are 
proposed; state funding must be increased by raising taxes on the rich and the 
corporations. If public employee unions are busted, the rest of the labor 
movement will be targeted next – but it will be too weak to defend itself. 

 

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons 
Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.   


    

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer forWorkers 
Action. He can be reached at MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt 
from "shamuscooke at gmail.com" claiming to be shamuscooke at gmail.com.

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