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Dave Lindorff: In America, Selfishness and Lack of Solidarity Know No Bounds

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 11:15am.

As the strike by transit workers in Philadelphia enters its fifth day, it is clear why unions have such a tough time in the United States, where fewer than one in eight workers is covered by a union contract.

Although the average pay of transit workers is just $50,000 a year (that represents take-home pay of less than $35,000 take-home after taxes or about $3,000 a month to live on for a typical family of four), the suburbanites who feel put out because they have to brave huge traffic jams to get to and from work in the city are grousing that the transit workers are greedy for holding out for a slightly less than 4% per year pay increase over the three years of their contract.

I just got into a debate at the local YMCA gym with an older guy who probably makes over $100,000 a year and whose children are already grown, who was incensed that the "greedy bus and subway drivers" were asking for a raise at this time "with the economy in such a mess."

But I also noticed, as I drove my son into school this week in the traffic crush, that these same suburbanites are, for the most part, continuing to drive to work one to a car. What a lack of creativity!

My wife, who frequently travels to Rome to do research, has on several occasions landed in that city during one of its frequent transit strikes. She reports that the people of this ancient city take these job actions in stride, getting out their bicycles, taking leisurely walks to school, or simply going on holiday for the duration. People don't get mad at the workers. In Italy, it's understood that when one group of workers fights for better pay or working conditions, everyone benefits in the end.

This fellow I was arguing with about the Philly transit strike, said, "It's not like this is the 1920s or '30s, when unions were really needed because people were being exploited."

"Oh really?" I said. "You don't think the workers at Wal-Mart or in your local supermarket are being exploited?" The truth is that working conditions for American workers have been getting progressively worse in recent years, while pay has actually been falling in real dollars, because union representation has been falling for several decades from a high of over 35% back in the early 1950s. Those unions, such as the transit workers union in Philadelphia, which are still fighting the good fight, are really all that stands between ordinary American workers and a truly nightmarish return to a Dickensian era.

Does anyone believe that the type of manager that we have seen pillaging the economy on Wall Street, or stealing jobs and already earned pay from workers at Republic Window & Door in Chicago, is an exception to the rule? Hell no. American managers are congenitally ruthless exploiters of human beings constrained only by unions or their fear of unions, and by the protective legislation, such as minimum wage laws, occupational safety and health laws, etc., which Congress has grudgingly passed because of the pressure from unions and their workers.

We should all be cheering the workers of the Transport Workers Union Local 234 in Philadelphia for their grit and determination in standing up to the management of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. Their fight is our fight. They like us are struggling to pay rent or mortgage bills, to buy food for their families, and to pay their medical bills.

Workers all around the Philadelphia area should be organizing car pools, getting their bikes out of the garage, and collectively telling their own bosses to cut them some slack if they're late to work or have to stay home for the day because of the strike.

We should also all be writing letters condemning the bias of the local media in Philadelphia, which have as a group focused entirely on the hardship to commuters caused by the strike, and not at all on the issues confronted by the transit workers themselves.

Furthermore, it is not the fault of the SEPTA workers in Philadelphia that bus and subway fares are too high. Nor is it their responsibility to accept low wages to subsidize lower fares. It is the responsibility of the state of Pennsylvania to keep those fares affordable. Mass transit cannot and should not be self-financing. It is a social good. It helps protect the environment by reducing air pollution from cars, reduces wear and tear on roadways, and helps reduce the nation's dependence upon oil imports.

Instead of complaining about the union for calling a strike, we should all be cheering them on. America needs more labor militancy, not less.

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net.

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Alas, these observations about Americans are generally true . .

Submitted by Renard on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 8:56am.

Too many of us have become too intellectually lazy to analyze current events and figure out that we, the working (if we're lucky) class are getting screwed big-time.

What is really pathetic is to hear working people throw apoplectic fits at the prospect of low income people benefiting from any sort of government subsidy or--horrors!--collecting welfare and "cheating" the system "at our expense," or, as pointed out above, earning a decent Union wage. A critical mass of our population has become so stupid that these arrangements are now generally seen as somehow detrimental to their own situation.

Meanwhile, theft on an unfathomable scale continues on Wall Street and K Street. Where is the outrage over the relentless rape of what is supposed to be "our" government and collective resources?

Until there is a general sense of outrage over the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the very rich and powerful, we are all dead meat.

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America, You Have Lost Your Way

Submitted by maheanuu on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 8:23pm.

My father who died in September of 1976 was a lifelong Union Member.  A Teamster and a very proud Teamster.  When He retired, he set aside a part of his pension so that mom might have something to live on if anything happened to him.  Needless to say it did, and he was gone within a year after retireing from a very agressive lung cancer that at the time was pretty much untreatable.

Mom is still alive and has that retirement pension that Dad set aside for her and even though they didn't have as much for the little retirement that they had together, mom still gets the Teamster Pension and manages to live quite comfortably in her own home and among her own progeney.  Had Dad been selfish, Mom probably wouldn't be with us today.  But then again Dad was a member of that "Greatest Generation" the one that fought in WWII and formed the unions, and gave us the chance to be educated and to have a middle class..

One day a few months ago, there was a sit in in a window manufacturing factory where the workers refused to leave until they were properly re imbursed their wages and all the benefits that they had accrued.  My Sister was screaming that it was all the Unions Fault and the company had a right to make a profit and the people who were the management deserved to leave with their bonuses and fat cat wages.  I told her that Dad would be appalled at her selfishness and greed.  Needless to say I was the Fascist/Commie and all I was doing was trying to start trouble.  My sister couldn't remember or didn't want to remember the hard times just after the war when money was really tight and Mom and Dad scrimped and scrounged to make ends meet.  I do remember those times, and I know that at the time in the early 50's there wasn't any money for college so there was only the Navy or one of the other Services that I could join to learn a trade that would carry me for the rest of my life.  I was never a Union Member, I was career military, and when I retired out, I became a Field Engineer which was above the worker grades and Union membership was not available for us. 

I have long been retired now, and my home is in Tahiti, we do have very good Union Groups down here and they are working tirelessly to see that the local workers get paid a fair wage, and that the schools and other necessities are provided.  I for one would today stand alongside any Union person in any country.  They are the unsung hero's of the middle class and the lower class. 

Most of the world thinks that americans are piggish and rather ignorant.  Having been one of you and now packing a French Passport, I have to agree.  You have let your education system slip over the edge and into the abyss.  I am sorely afraid for you.  I feel that you will never be able to return to the point that you were before all of this.  I think that you are lost and gone forever..

 

Just this old Chief's 2 cents

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Unions have been demonized.

Submitted by Masi on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 5:02pm.

Unions have been demonized in this country. People forget what unions have done for the workers of this country but even worse the students are not even being taught our history. I live in Fl and it has what is called "a right to work" policy. It works just the opposite of it's name. One can be fired at any time for no reason. Then you face a mountainous battle to collect unemployment bennefits.

 I constantly hear that same statement here, as the one from the guy in Penn. "Union workers are greedy" but as soon as you turn your back that same person is trying to figure out a way to screw you from here to Sunday. Americans HAVE become selfish uncaring unapathetic hipochrites. Also cowards afraid to fight for their rights for fear of reprisal from who knows who. Constantly preaching Cristianity and then doing just the opposite. But then will cheer the attack of an unarmed nation buy the Most powerful armed force in the whole world. We have become the Evil Empire and the people in power will do anything (even screw over their own countrymen) to stay there.

 

P.S. Buzzflash is against monopolies but only has features that work with IE. COPY and Paste won't work with Mozilla browsers. What's up with that? Also my spell check doesn't function here.

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