On Your Way to WalMart? Think about This First

WALMART frequently rationalizes its low-wages and poor treatment of employees on the grounds that that is what is required to run a successful business. Slaveholders in 1860 used similar arguments. Facts suggest that a prosperous enterprise can pay decent wages and provide benefits. Costco is a working example, it pays higher wages, provides benefits and recognizes a Union. It does this all the while making a profit and providing inexpensive goods for consumers. It can be done, it should be done.

Union Members Are Beginning to Feel That Sharp Pain Between the Shoulder Blades

When ObamaCare was passed the Dissenting Democrat said it was more of a payoff to the private insurance industry than a benefit for the people. Now Unions are finding out that Obama lied when he said union members could keep their existing policies. Obama lie? What else is new? Don’t be surprised if one of Obama’s post-presidential plums will be a seat on an insurance corporate board.

The following excerpts come from THE HILL (May 21, 2013) —

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) — a 1.3 million-member labor group that twice endorsed Obama for president — is very worried about how the reform law will affect its members’ healthcare plans.

Last month, the president of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers released a statement calling “for repeal or complete reform of the Affordable Care Act.”

UNITE HERE, a prominent hotel workers’ union, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are also pushing for changes.

In a new op-ed published in The Hill, UFCW President Joe Hansen homed in on the president’s speech at the 2009 AFL-CIO convention. Obama at the time said union members could keep their insurance under the law, but Hansen writes “that the president’s statement to labor in 2009 is simply not true for millions of workers.”

_____________________________________________

Many UFCW members have what are known as multi-employer or Taft-Hartley plans. According to the administration’s analysis of the Affordable Care Act, the law does not provide tax subsidies for the roughly 20 million people covered by the plans. Union officials argue that interpretation could force their members to change their insurance and accept more expensive and perhaps worse coverage in the state-run exchanges.

Hansen, who is also the head of the Change to Win labor federation, told The Hill that his members often negotiate with their employers to receive better healthcare services instead of higher wages. Those bargaining gains could be wiped away because some employers won’t have the incentive to keep their workers’ multi-employer plans without tax subsidies.

“You can’t have the same quality healthcare that you had before, despite what the president said,” Hansen said. “Now what’s going to happen is everybody is going to have to go to private for-profit insurance companies. We just don’t think that’s right. … We just want to keep what we already have and what we bought at tremendous cost.”

Temps of the World Unite

The following article reminds us that there is an economic process going on in this country which is eating the heart out of what used to be the middle class. The term is “Proletarianization” which is just a very large word meaning that the poor folk are getting poorer. For those who once thought they could have a good life as a professional separate from the requirements of Capitalism, the economy has proven to be a hard task master. The fact is there are but two classes, those who work for a living and those who own them. As Sara in the article learned being a lawyer doesn’t keep one from being a Temp. Teachers have learned that as well and Doctors have become supervised as tightly as assembly-line workers.

The other feature of the excerpt is the realization that we need to craft new weapons with which to defend our interests. The old labor unions have been decimated by a concentrated union-busting campaign. Sara Horowitz’s Freelancers Union may be a new model.

STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Soon after landing a job at a Manhattan law firm nearly 20 years ago, Sara Horowitz was shocked to discover that it planned to treat her not as an employee, but as an independent contractor.

“I saw right away that something wasn’t kosher,” Ms. Horowitz recalls. Her status meant no health coverage, no pension plan, no paid vacation ­nothing but a paycheck. She realized that she was part of a trend in which American employers relied increasingly on independent contractors, temporary workers, contract employees and freelancers to cut costs. Somewhat bewildered, somewhat angry, she and two other young lawyers who were also hired as independent contractors jokingly formed what they called the “Transient Workers Union,” with the facetious motto, “The union makes us not so weak.”

Ms. Horowitz’s grandfather was a vice president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, and her father was a labor lawyer. So it was perhaps not surprising that she responded to her rising outrage by deciding to organize a union. What she organized, however, was a newfangled version. The Freelancers Union, with its oxymoronic name, is a motley collection of workers in the fast-evolving freelance economy ­ whether lawyers, software developers, graphic artists, accountants, consultants, nannies, writers, editors, Web site designers or sellers on Etsy.

Today, the Freelancers Union is one of the nation’s fastest-growing labor organizations, with more than 200,000 members, over half of them in New York State. Ms. Horowitz, who has never lacked audacity, says she expects to expand the organization to one million members within three years. For some perspective, the United Automobile Workers union currently has 380,000 members. Of course, while hundreds of thousands of auto jobs have disappeared, the country is awash in freelancers and other independent workers. Studies by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Government Accountability Office show that there are more than 20 million of them. Many companies, including The New York Times, employ these workers.

The Freelancers Union, which is based in Brooklyn, doesn’t bargain with employers, but it does address what is by far these workers’ No. 1 concern, by providing them with affordable health insurance. Its health insurance company covers 23,000 workers in New York State and has $105 million in annual revenue. Impressed by that success, the Obama administration recently awarded Ms. Horowitz’s group $340 million in low-interest loans to establish cooperatives in New York, New Jersey and Oregon that will provide health coverage to freelancers and tens of thousands of other workers.

Having health insurance makes it far easier to be a part of what Ms. Horowitz calls the “gig economy.” But many freelancers would prefer not to participate in that economy at all. They would rather have regular jobs, but companies will often hire them only as independent contractors. Companies find these workers less painful to dismiss and generally less costly because they rarely receive severance pay or benefits like health insurance or paid vacations.

“There are some freelancers for whom this is great ­ they love the flexibility,” Ms. Horowitz said. “And there are some freelancers for whom this is the worst thing in the world.”

While being an independent worker allows certain advantages ­ you can go to yogaclass or on vacation whenever you want ­ it also means economic vulnerability. An internal Freelancers Union survey found that 58 percent of the group’s members earn less than $50,000 a year from freelancing and that 29 percent earn less than $25,000. The Survey also found that 12 percent of members, many of them college graduates in their 30s and 40s, received food stamps during the recession.

“In today’s economy, there’s a huge chunk of the middle class that’s being pushed down into the working class and working poor,” Ms. Horowitz says, “and freelancers are the first group that’s happening to.”

Historically, through the power of collective bargaining, labor unions helped reverse that equation, enabling many unskilled workers to earn middle-class incomes. But astraditional labor unions have steadily declined in size and power, groups like the Freelancers Union, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and Domestic Workers United have stepped up, trying to give collective voice and power to often-marginalized workers.

Some union old-timers argue that the Freelancers Union is more like an association than a union and will not be able to achieve truly significant gains for workers. Its members don’t pay union dues, which means that joining requires no sacrifice, and the Freelancers Union doesn’t negotiate contracts with employers or represent freelancers when they have grievances. (Under the National Labor Relations Act, freelancers are considered independent contractors, not employees, and employers thus have no obligation to bargain with them, even when they form a union.)

Ms. Horowitz, 50 and a Brooklyn native, insists that her organization is indeed a labor union because, like other unions, it is a large, influential, self-supporting organization of workers that pushes to advance their interests, although its members work for numerous employers in many industries.

“It reminds me of the old guilds” ­ the precursors of modern-day labor unions ­ “that focused on workers’ individual autonomy, trying to build their own careers, with the backing of a collective organization to assist them,” says Janice R. Fine, a professor of employment relations at Rutgers University. “Sara is terrific at adapting old ideas to help today’s work force.”

Excerpted from the New York Times (March 23, 2013)

Scott Walker Naked in Wisconsin

The holiday for MARTIN LUTHER KING was long fought by the Republican wingnuts but now that it is well-established even wingnut politicos go through the motions. Everyone knows that it is hypocrisy and not idealism that fuels such escapades.

Case in point: Governor Scott “Union-Killer” Walker of Wisconsin did his bob and weave on the dais of the State’s King Day observance but was given his come-uppance by its guest of honor. Margaret Rozga, widow of civil rights activist James Groppi, accepted the King Day Heritage Award on behalf of her husband and used the opportunity to rebuke Governor Walker.

“As a person who remembers that Martin Luther King was killed while he was working to organize sanitation workers, I know that anyone who works to curtail union rights is not in the tradition of Martin Luther King,” Rozga said.

Walker, who having busted public employee unions in his State, went on to curtail voters’ rights, must have shrunk a bit when Rozga added, “As a person who got her start in the Civil Rights Movement by volunteering to work on Southern Christian Leadership voter registration campaigns in Alabama, I know that those who [propose] any curtailment of voting rights are not in the tradition of Martin Luther King”.

We wish we would have been there, it had to have been as much fun listening to Margaret Rozga as it would have been listening to the children who exclaimed, “The Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes”.

Community-Labor Partnerships

A recent success for carwash workers demonstrates the power of community-labor partnerships –

After years of organizing, Los Angeles carwash workers successfully negotiated contracts with three carwashes and gained workplace rights most workers should be able to take for granted: sick leave, access to healthcare, workplace safety, lunch breaks, living wages and respect. The carwash workers were successful, in large part, through the strength of community-labor partnerships: the United Steelworkers teamed up with the Community Labor Environmental Action Network (CLEAN), faith-based groups such as Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice and low-income immigrant rights organizations such as the Wage Justice Center and Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance.

“There’s a whole network of organizations that believe in unionization, believe in workers’ rights that are coming together with the CLEAN Carwash workers across ethnic lines and really backing each other up,” says Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

— From the AFL-CIO newsletter

“Community Unionism” is becoming the new model for union organizing. Instead of viewing unions as something to be left at the shop or factory door, activists are seeing them as part of a community-wide coalition. That coalition helps the union organize and the union in turn supports that coalition in activities outside of the workplace.

Solidarity Goes Global

Excerpt from the NATION (December 21, 2012) blog —

“Our main goal,” said Cortina*, “is to try to call
attention to the company, that they should sit down
and negotiate with unions in the United States.”
Cortina said that many customers who saw the
workers demonstrating showed “solidarity attitudes,
singing with us, and making signals with our
hands.” “The exercise of the right to strike,” he
added, “is a very common thing here.. it’s not
something strange for us.”

Walmart did not respond to a Thursday request for
comment.

Last week’s Day of Action was followed by protests
this week greeting a ship that activists said was
unloading Walmart goods from Bangladesh, first on
Tuesday at the Port of Newark, and then yesterday
at the Port of Charleston, where union members
refused for an hour to unload the cargo.

“When Walmart first came” to Argentina, said
Cortina, “they were terrible.” Early on, he said,
“workers burned tires and broke windows.” To win
union recognition, Cortina said, “We had to fight
tough in every place and try to convince [Walmart]
that they had to talk to us, and they had to adjust
their way of doing things.” To this day, he added,
“they are not the same as the other retailers. They
are tougher and that makes us deal with them
sometimes tougher.”

But Cortina expressed confidence that, with
international pressure, Walmart would eventually
change its labor relations in the United States. “At
the end of the day,” he said, “the world is going to
advance on organizing workers. We are going to
advance on organizing workers.”
_________

* Rueben Cortina, President of the Union Federation

Corporations move across national borders to pursue their goals especially if one of those goals is to crush unions of workers. The Labor Movement will need to go global to counter Corporate power. The Argentine strike in solidarity with American workers is a good sign. American workers need to reciprocate as necessary.

Fact du Jour

As of the latest stats, 2147 Americans have died in the 10 years of the American war on Afghanistan. Meanwhile, back in the States, 4609 workers were killed on the job in 2011 alone.

Both figures are troubling. Nevertheless, workers may need “combat pay”, and it is notable that States without Union shops (Right to Work States) have higher rates of death and injury than do Union shop States.

VRW Conspiracy to Castrate Unions

The VAST RIGHTWING CONSPIRACY seeking to ban Union political contributions leaving elections to Corporations alone

Carl Bloice  –  BlackCommentator.com

Quiet as it’s kept while the nation’s attention is
focused on the November 6 Presidential election, a
ballot box battle is underway in California, the
implications of which extend far beyond the borders
of the country’s largest state. Here, rightwing big
business operatives have launched an effort that,
should it succeed, would seriously undermine the
political strength of working people and undermine
democratic decision-making.

Attempts to restrict labor unions’ ability to engage in
political campaigns have been on the ballot in
California more than once and each time they have
gone down to defeat. This time, the effort is
masquerading as an attempt at electoral reform. In
fact, it would mean that three million members of
labor unions would be unable to contribute to
political campaigns while large corporate financiers
would be exempted from any restrictions at all.

While the referendum measure, Proposition 32, on
the November ballot proposes to end labor unions’
use of funds collected from members through dues,
and bars corporations from using their operating
funds for backing candidates and parties, the
illusion of equal treatment is a fraud. No restriction
is placed on the ability of billionaires, either
individually or collectively, to contribute any
amount they wish to political campaigns, which is
their usual route. Furthermore, the framers of the
measure wrote in special exemptions for corporate-
linked super PACS.

John Logan, a professor and director of labor and
employment studies at San Francisco State
University and member of the California Teachers
Association warns that, “If Prop. 32 passes in
November, right-wing activists will promote a
tsunami of ballot initiatives in 2013 at the local
level and in 2014 at the state level designed to drive
down working conditions in both the public and
private sectors. Lacking the ability to oppose these
reactionary measures under the new election rules,
California’s workers could soon face some of the
weakest labor standards in the country.”

“Prop. 32 is not campaign finance reform, but a
billionaires’ bill of rights, one that would be a game-
changer in California politics,” Logan wrote recently.
“When it comes to ballot initiatives, Prop. 32 is the
ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

The hardly pro-labor San Jose Mercury-News says
Proposition 32 is “a deceptive sham that would
magnify the influence of wealthy interests while
shutting out many middle-class voters.”

The Proposition 32 campaign is being run by a
superpac that operates mostly in the shadows but is
linked to the notorious Koch Brothers and others
who have bankrolled anti-union campaign in other
parts of the country. The group most publicly
identified as a promoter of the proposition the
Lincoln Club of Orange County. The 50-year-old
business group is associated with Republican Party
operations and its founding members and past
luminaries have included such rightwingers as
Arnold O. Beckman, the founder of Beckman
Instruments, Walter Knott, the founder of Knott’s
Berry Farm, and Si Fluor of the Fluor Corporation,
former U.S. President Richard Nixon, and actor
John Wayne. The group’s leaders say it was
“instrumental” in advocating for the recent Supreme
Court Citizens United decision that defined
corporations as people with regards to campaign
contributions. Two years ago, the group joined Tea
Party activists in a failed attempt to restrict union
political contributions, but that failed to qualify for
the ballot.

As the progressive activist network, Credo, describes
it, Proposition 32 “could cripple our ability to beat
back right-wing candidates and ballot initiatives in
California for decades to come.”

“Proposition 32 was written to limit the voice of
nurses and other working people in Sacramento,
while giving free reign for corporate interests and the
wealthiest Californians to exert limitless influence
over public policy in California. RN duties and rights
will be encumbered and made subordinate to the
hospital industry’s for-profit business enterprise.”
DeAnn McEwen, RN, co-president of the California
Nurses Association/National Nurses United, wrote
September 27 in Daily Kos.

“For nurses, that means that we would have far less
ability to counter the efforts of the wealthy hospital
industry, insurance companies, pharmaceutical and
health technology corporations who are in the halls
of the Capital every day lobbying to roll back
longstanding workplace safety regulations to
increase their own profits at the public’s expense,”
wrote McEwen. “Similarly, other public safety
workers and teachers would be unable to fight
effectively on issues that matter to us all – like cuts
to our schools and colleges; and, police and fire
response times.”

But this is not just a California story.

The Nation magazine’s Washington correspondent
and regular commentator on MSNBC, John Nichols,
was in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago where
he address a group of determined local union
activists. He called Proposition 32 “an absolutely
critical matter” of “relevance to the whole country.”
If it passes, he wrote recently, “it will go national
just as groups like the American Legislative
Exchange Council and its corporate allies are
mounting multi-state drives to silence unions.”

If Prop 32 passes, unions “could become almost
extinct in California politics,” UC San Diego political
science professor, Thad Kousser, told Nichols. “First
they silence our voice,” says the California Labor
Federation. “Then they will come after our jobs,
wages and retirement.”

Three million members of labor unions would be
unable to contribute to political campaigns while
large corporate financiers would be exempted from
any restrictions at all

“In Michigan, unions are trying to get ahead of the
fight with a “Protect Our Jobs” amendment on the
ballot this fall that would add the right to collective
bargaining by public and private sector employees to
the state Constitution,” wrote Nichols, author of the
new book Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the
Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street.
“Right-wing interests have poured millions into a
brutal ad campaign falsely claiming that the
amendment would block schools from removing
employees who are former criminals. Michigan’s
Protect Working Families coalition has countered
with the truth: `States with higher levels of collective
bargaining have lower poverty levels, higher average
incomes, fewer workplace deaths and higher
pension and health insurance coverage for all
workers, according to the Economic Policy
Institute’.”

“In an honest fight, voters will protect collective
bargaining rights, as they did last fall in Ohio by a
62-38 margin,” wrote Nichols. “That’s why Mitt
Romney, the Koch brothers and their billionaire pals
are spending so heavily – and campaigning so
dishonestly – to silence the voice of unions. And
that’s why, as important as the presidential race is,
it’s also vital to win fights to maintain the capacity
of working people to speak truth to power.”

In an opinion piece in the Contra Costa Times last
month, Leonard McNeil, vice mayor of San Pablo
and a professor of political science at Contra Costa
College, called Proposition 32 an attempt “by
conservative forces in California to curtail and stifle
the voices of working people” and an effort “to align
the political system with their ideological vision.” It
represents, he wrote, “a frontal assault on
democratic pluralism to advance the agenda of
corporations and the wealthy.”

This latest well-financed and deceptive effort to
restrict labor ability to influence political decision
making in California and the nation are not
unrelated to the coordinated efforts to smash public
sector unions, the Citizens United decision and the
ongoing voter repression conspiracy. The plutocrats
and the rightwingers have seen the handwriting on
the wall in terms of political and demographic
trends in the country and they are determined to
reshape politics in the interest of the one-percent by
curtailing democratic decision-making

What Can Working-People Expect from the Democrats? What the Chinese Get from the Communists.

Keegan Elmer, writing at PCULPA.com

In the wake of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s win in the recall elections, I’m afraid that what I would say to my fellow Wisconsinites is all too similar to what I would say to Chinese citizens also grappling with labor abuse:

The party has failed you.

The Chinese Communist Party has long betrayed the hope of Chinese citizens to bring freedom and prosperity, falling far short of the “new democracy” promised by Mao Zedong and his comrades. Of course, most Chinese citizens should and would not expect anything different from the CCP. But can the same really be said for America’s liberal-democratic regime? How much novelty can progressives truly expect from Democrats?

Not much. In a depressingly revealing metaphor, Democrats nominated Tom Barret for the recall election this year in Wisconsin. Barret, the same man who failed to defeat Walker in 2010, was a sorry choice for channeling the widespread public outrage of last spring’s anti-Walker protests into policy-making. The energy of those protests clearly failed to capture the attention the Democratic Party, and a movement fundamentally rooted in attacks on collective bargaining rights for public employees was instead met by spread of Democratic recall candidates who actually shied away from labor issues.

The unions’ steadfast allegiance to a party that has inhibited them from representing the interests of their workers.

Consider the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, China’s state-sanctioned union. Without free elections and effective collective bargaining mechanisms, the union is a effectively a passive servant of the Chinese Communist Party.·

Now, consider American unions. You might be surprised to learn that in both 2010 and 2012, big unions like the AFL-CIO supported Barrett. Referring to Barret’s defeat in 2010, one AFL-CIO unionist admitted, “we were asleep and maybe just a bit complacent.”

It’s worth noting that the unionist went on to praise, perhaps rightfully, the “brave 14 Democrats” who left the state in protest of the Walker agenda. Even bolder measures than that were considered when the South Central Federation of Labor, the local counterpart of the AFL-CIO, which voted to prepare for a General Strike. Under such pressure from state and national union leadership, unions and Democratic leaders ended up directing their reactions towards initiating a recall. Dare we imagine what would the Democratic Party look like without such pressure?

Regardless, though the general historic alignment of major unions with the Democratic Party is unquestionable, the latter has consistently failed to represent union interests. Often, Democrats are quite clear about such intentions – before the 2010 election, both Walker and Barrett explicitly expressed theirn intent to curb union rights in the upcoming term.

The parallels don’t end there. Both China and the US are steeped in vulgar propaganda dominated by institutions that dare not break with the party line. If you’re in China, this point is all too obvious. In the United States, however, the situation is slightly more subtle, where propaganda of the of the rich and powerful permeates US politics.

Citizen’s United exemplifies this reality. It deepened the presence of monied interests in politics, harming labor interests and action for real progress. Nowhere was that more apparent than in the Wisconsin recall battle, largely a struggle between the efforts of in-state working people and rich, out-of-state Republican donors. Unions spent millions of dollars and countless hours of organizing and campaigning on recall efforts. $4 million was spent on primary candidate Kathleen Falk, a candidate with a weak position on collective bargaining who ultimately lost to Barrett. And while unions spent millions more on the general election, Walker’s campaign enjoyed tens of millions of dollars in extra-state funding. In one telling example, a Virginia-based group told voters that a recall “wasn’t the Wisconsin way,” and encouraged voters to keep Walker if they truly believed in democracy. All told, Walker’s campaign accounted for 88% of the total campaign spending, outspending Barrett’s supporters by over 7 to 1.

How will Wisconsin continue to move, as its motto states, “Forward”? Anyone committed to democracy would hold that “forward” should be defined by the general population and not by the halls of power and propaganda machines.

Luckily for China, many Chinese citizens aware of the main problem: the corrupt, undemocratic, one-party dictatorship state-capitalist regime. Unfortunately, the force and effort necessary for Chinese citizens to change their regime is daunting.

Unfortunately for US citizens, many are unaware of the central problems that plague American politics. Corrupted by corporate interests and limited democratic society, our two-party, state-capitalist regime is but one of many challenges Americans face today. Nevertheless, Americans do live in a much more free and democratic society than their Chinese sisters and brothers, and even a defeat like that in Wisconsin shouldn’t daunt us. To quote Rosa Luxemburg:

“The leadership has failed. Even so, the leadership can and must be recreated from the masses and out of the masses. The masses are the decisive element, they are the rock on which the final victory of the revolution will be built.”

FROM http://pculpa.com/liberalprogressive/36-blog-entry/444-lessons-from-wisconsins-recall-what-is-obvious-in-china-is-hard-to-swallow-in-the-states.html

The New Wisconsin Idea

The weeping and gnashing of teeth followed by the rendering of clothing and the bathing in ashes must come to an end and a step back lead to an rational assessment of the Waterloo that was the Wisconsin election. Tom Hayden provided his view in a recent issue of The Nation:

Tom Hayden

The triumph of Scott Walker and the Tea Party Republicans in Wisconsin is heartbreaking for the many thousands who devoted over a year of their lives to one of the most inspired social movements of the current century.

Electoral campaigns are governed by deadlines and voting results, unlike social movements, which can ebb and flow for decades. The pain of a stunning defeat inevitably takes a psychic toll on its participants, similar in ways to a seven-game World Series. It takes time to recover, and some never will.

But politics never stops. If Democrat John Lehman holds onto his narrow lead over Republican Van Wanggarrd for a state Senate seat, Wisconsin Democrats will wrest majority control of that chamber from the Republicans, setting the stage for another showdown this November, when sixteen of thirty-three senators will face election. The legislature ordinarily is out of session during the summer, possibly limiting the ability of the new Democratic majority to foil Walker’s triumphal agenda.

But the big picture is disastrous for Democrats and progressives. Walker beat Democrat Tom Barrett solidly, 53 percent to 46 percent, in a campaign fueled by unprecedented levels of corporate money. The Tea Party, which became relatively isolated during the Republican presidential campaign, is back in the saddle. Its triumph in Wisconsin will embolden advocates of slashing social programs and deregulating the economy to become even more adamant during the coming national budget debates.

President Obama may benefit politically in the short term if the Tea Party overplays its hand in the immediate budget and presidential debates. But Obama disillusioned many Democrats in Wisconsin by his tepid support for the recall and the foolish White House argument that “he had a full plate and did not have time to come.” Obama still holds a slender lead over Romney in most battleground states.

What explains the defeat in Wisconsin?

From the beginning there was a utopian expectation among many progressives that the recall effort was such a righteous cause that it was destined to succeed. One leader of the utopian faction was The Nation’s brilliant narrator John Nichols, who is described by his wife, Mary Bottari, as one of the most idealistic bearers of good tidings in progressive America. MSNBC pundits Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow were swept up in the drama as well and expected the election to be so close that returns would take all night. Michael Moore wrote that the sight of the Capitol Rotunda packed with protesters “would bring tears to your eyes,” and that he was witnessing Corporate America’s “come-to-Jesus moment” in Wisconsin. Despite all the hope, the devil won big.

The uprising in Wisconsin was indeed an inspiring social movement in its tenacity, scale, cross-section of activists, range of tactics and permanent duration in spite of freezing snows. Wisconsin seemed to be the place where progressive Americans finally were drawing the line against anti-labor legislation, budget cuts, Tea Party extremism and plutocrats like the Koch brothers.

But at least one year ago there were internal labor polls showing the recall would be very difficult to win. There was no way, however, that a labor leader was going to stand in front of the social movement with a yellow flashing light. Instead, to its credit, labor chose to support the fight in the hope that sheer will power, or mistakes made by Walker, would overcome the odds.

Now the mic checks have to be put on hold long enough for a reality check.

The recall was a concrete test of whether reactionary or progressive populism (the traditions of Joseph McCarthy or Robert La Follette) would prevail in a state where the vote is 85 percent white. White men voted 55–58 percent for Walker, compared to the 54 percent of all women and the 94 percent of African-Americans who voted against him. In those stark numbers is a message that lots of white people are opposed to their taxes going to African-Americans or the poor, especially in a deep recession where they have no confidence in the government.

Neither were the majority of Wisconsin voters moved to replace a governor they had just elected in 2010 with a Democratic candidate they had rejected in that race. These were the same voters that rejected a respected progressive senator, Russ Feingold, for a little-known pro–Tea Party Republican in that same year, 2010.

It is possible, however, that the gloom will lift if Walker and the Tea Party go too far. An analogy might be Richard Nixon’s triumphant presidential victory in 1972 after the progressive left, feminists and peace advocates had taken over the Democratic Party through the primaries, which allowed citizen participation for the first time. McGovern was crushed, in part because his running mate, Thomas Eagleton, was removed from the ticket after it was revealed that he had undergone shock treatments for a mental illness. That wasn’t the primary reason for McGovern’s huge defeat, though it broke his momentum for months. The key to Nixon’s success was the refusal of the mainstream media to pay attention to the unfolding Watergate crisis until after the November election. Here’s the similarity with Walker’s situation today; the Wisconsin governor is being investigated by prosecutors on serious charges of ethics violations. Now that the election is over, the question of possible criminal charges may gain greater public attention. As Nixon fell from triumph to disgrace, the same destiny might await Walker. It’s too early to know.

A more profound unknown is how organized labor, with their numbers declining, will respond to the Wisconsin defeat. It is a true institutional crisis for labor and the Democrats, the greatest since the conflicts of the 1960s. The combination of Citizens United, a pro-corporate Supreme Court and the Tea Party grip on Congress and many statehouses means that the crucial base of the Democratic Party’s campaign funding—organized labor—is facing extinction, with no comparable alternative in sight.

At the risk of offending liberal-left critics of Obama, he often is to the “left” of the Democratic Party establishment on most of these issues. True, he danced with the Republicans in the opening round of the budget debates. But he wants the Bush-era tax cuts to expire on incomes over $250,000—against the opposition of Wall Street’s Senator Chuck Schumer and many Senate Democrats. He wanted some sort of “public option” on healthcare—over the objections of Senator Max Baucus. He once expressed interested in the Robin Hood Tax, but was undercut by his own economic team. He sought to regulate derivatives—but Congressman Barney Frank told him the votes weren’t there. And now Bill Clinton, Ed Rendell, Deval Partick and Cory Booker, among other Democratic leaders, are openly deriding the Obama campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital. It’s hard to recall such backstabbing of an incumbent president by leaders of his own party during a re-election fight.

Since the Clinton era, the Democratic Party has joined the Republicans in seeking Wall Street donations. Wall Street is the top investor in the Romney campaign and its allied Super PACs. And Wall Street is the “single largest source of cash for the national Democratic Party’s various campaign committee,” well ahead of entertainment and real estate developer donors, notes Thomas Edsall in the New York Times. Given these polluted streams of campaign money, Obama is “cautious” in his criticisms of Wall Street, while Romney is an “outspoken proponent of the industry’s agenda,” Edsall concludes.

Given these toxic trends, it is entirely possible that by November, Tea Party–driven Republicans will control the White House, Supreme Court and both houses of Congress, pushing the States towards a 1929-style crisis. Or Obama will be re-elected to govern alone in a sea of conservative followers of Ayn Rand and Democratic lifers too timid to fight.

The outcome in Wisconsin only makes that scenario more likely.

http://tomhayden.com/home/the-heartbreak-in-wisconsin.html