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Bill Moyers & Company S1E21: Is Labor A Lost Cause? [New]

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Exploring if unions can rebound and once again act strongly in the interest of ordinary workers (56:47):

1. Bill Moyers Essay: The Cowardly Lions of ‘Free Speech’: Following a Supreme setback, Bill exposes the ‘hoax’ of Citizens United (6:43).

2. Bill Fletcher Jr. and Stephen Lerner on Unions in Peril: Two experienced union organizers join Bill to discuss the future of American labor (24:23).

3. The Poetry of Philip Appleman: The writer behind Perfidious Proverbs talks with Bill and reads some of his poems (21:39).

Episode description:

Is Labor A Lost Cause?

July 6, 2012

Bill opens this week’s show by explaining how last week’s Supreme Court decision not to reconsider Citizens United exposes the hoax that Citizens United was ever about “free” speech. In reality, Bill says in a broadcast essay, it’s about carpet bombing elections “with all the tonnage your rich paymasters want to buy.”

Also lost in the Supreme media chatter last week: a disturbing ruling in Knox vs. SEIU Local 1000 that restricts labor unions from directing collected dues toward political causes. There’s no similar limit on corporations, naturally – yet another indication that the power and status of modern unions is waning, especially when compared to the unbridled influence of Corporate America. With a sharp decline in union membership, a legion of new enemies, and a series of legal and legislative setbacks, can unions rebound and once again act strongly in the interest of ordinary workers?

On this week’s Moyers & Company, Bill talks to two people who can best answer the question: Stephen Lerner and Bill Fletcher, Jr. The architect of the SEIU’s Justice for Janitors movement, Lerner directed SEIU’s private equity project, which worked to expose a Wall Street feeding frenzy that left the working class in a state of catastrophe. Fletcher took his Harvard degree to the Massachusetts shipyards, and worked as a welder before becoming a labor activist. He served as Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO, and is author of the upcoming book “They’re Bankrupting Us!”: And 20 Other Myths about Unions.

Later in the show, Bill talks with and invites readings by poet Philip Appleman, whose creativity spans a long life filled with verse, fiction, philosophy, religion… and Darwinism. Appleman’s latest collection is Perfidious Proverbs.

 

BlahEhMmmmInterestingFantabulous!

Saturday, 7 Jul, 2012 at 1:00 am

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  1. Emocrat [New]

    Saturday, 7 Jul, 2012 at 1:53 pm

    That opening segment is terrific. “It’s all a sham…”

    If Moyers is really that far along in his thinking, then perhaps this is another data point suggesting we are in a pre-revolutionary period.

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    • The Big Hurt [New]

      Sunday, 8 Jul, 2012 at 12:41 pm

      yes, the fletcher-lerner segment was something else. I saw the episode this morning and it was very very interesting. take this exchange:

      BILL FLETCHER, JR.: But I would say we’re weak because in the late 1940s in the face of the Cold War organized labor ceased being a social movement. It gave up being the champion of economic justice and took on more of the form of a trade association. And so in that it lost the moral standing that it held with millions and millions of people. There was a point when people would say, even if they weren’t in the union, “I’m not going to cross that picket line. I’m with the union.”

      Their issues are correct. Over the years as unions stepped further and further away from being the real champions of economic justice and I’m not just talking about a good speech. I mean real champions of economic justice, real allies of community groups that are fighting for them. When we stepped away from that of course we were going to become weaker. We were going to become more isolated. And we’d be looked at as special interests.

      BILL MOYERS: Why the resentment among so many working and middle class people who’ve been exploited themselves? Why are voters not standing up?

      BILL FLETCHER, JR.: Because it’s it is easier for regular working people to start blaming someone that they can physically identify, someone that is not very strong, someone that cannot penalize them, rather than actually taking on the real powers. They’re focusing on other weak, and I’m using the term broadly, weak sections of the population rather than focusing their attention on who really, who holds the power.

      STEPHEN LERNER: But the thing on this that I think is really important is none of what’s happening now is a surprise. For 30 years many people have said again and again and that if the private sector isn’t organized and private sector workers lose pension plans and private sector workers lose their healthcare that they’ll then be convinced they shouldn’t fund it for other workers. In going forward there is no way out of this mess unless we organize millions of private sector workers. You will not have a public sector labor movement that survives if private sector workers are, have been impoverished in the country.

      BILL MOYERS: And private sector are now how much, what percentage of the workforce?

      STEPHEN LERNER: Only 6.9 percent of private sector workers are now in unions. It is now lower than it was at the start of the Great Depression. What the right wing has managed to do is get workers who have been crushed angry at somebody else. You know, their neighbor her, their neighbor who has a little bit better, than against Jamie Dimon. And we shouldn’t be afraid to name names. Or the guys who are the cause of–

      BILL MOYERS: Which raises the question why conservatives have been more successful than progressives in appealing to populist anger and populist aspirations?

      STEPHEN LERNER: We don’t connect with people ’cause we’re not saying who the bad guys are. And the second part is if we’re in bed with and afraid to take on the people who have caused the crisis in this country, then why would people rally behind us?

      BILL FLETCHER, JR.: But there’s another issue, Bill, which is that the right wing has a story. And they have a story, particularly right wing populists have a story that is very compelling, particularly to white people. A story that’s intertwined with the myth of the American dream. And they use that story as a way of focusing on scapegoats. Of moving people away from real issues of power. Of playing upon people’s resentments. And what we on the left side of the aisle often do is throw facts at people. You know, we’ll say to people there’s this vast polarization of wealth. Well, that’s true. But people can draw different conclusions about that, including that maybe if they play the right number they too can be on the upside of that.

      We have to have a story that puts these pieces together. That explains to people how does Wall Street operate. What does this mean when we’re talking about changing taxes? What is this issue of power? Who is to blame?
      http://billmoyers.com/wp-content/themes/billmoyers/transcript-print.php?post=10321

      I find the We don’t connect with people ’cause we’re not saying who the bad guys are. And the second part is if we’re in bed with and afraid to take on the people who have caused the crisis in this country, then why would people rally behind us? quote to hit nail in the head. can you thing of anything wrong with this idea?

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      • David [New]

        Monday, 9 Jul, 2012 at 6:16 am

        I agree on that quote. I’ve been banging this theme for some time, and it drives me nuts to see people who truly care about what’s going on, who have the information to see it, and yet (for example) they talk about how cutting taxes is bad for balancing the budget instead of these people are looting our inheritance. And still you have people insisting that voters are stupid because they don’t listen to the facts, as if facts absent a narrative matter (they don’t).

        Thanks for posting this – off to check it out.

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      • Emocrat [New]

        Monday, 9 Jul, 2012 at 9:48 am

        That line of reasoning distills quite nicely the pickle labor is in. It’s hard to project a solid, oppositional narrative, when you’re actually in bed with “the bad guys”, or at least some of them. Sans some kind of revolt among the rank and file, I don’t see how labor finds its sea legs and makes real progress.

        The stuff about the Cold War eviscerating the larger basis for the labor movement is also spot on. Who coulda node the anti-communist cudgel could be used to get labor leadership to sell out, lest they be accused of being Reds?

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  2. David [New]

    Monday, 9 Jul, 2012 at 7:14 am

    Anyone have any links for public opinion on public sector workers / unions? Everyone here seems to assume the public is strongly beyond the attack and I suspect this is partial at best.

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    • Emocrat [New]

      Monday, 9 Jul, 2012 at 9:31 am

      I suspect your suspicions are correct. I haven’t seen any real research on PO on this issue–anything that clears up this question. I have seen the many media narratives and I have heard far too many people, even people who surprised me in doing so, talk about how “we can’t afford these ridiculous pensions.”

      I don’t take that to mean there really is broad support for such an idiotic attitude. But it seems to indicate that it is significant. Add in aspects like the 38% of union workers who voted against Walker’s recall thinking the recall itself was wrong–since official corruption seems to no longer be sufficient reason to boot someone from public office–and you have a significant barrier to deal with.

      In a media environment only slightly more diverse than the old Soviet Union’s (hyperbole alert), it’s not hard to push the resentment button in people. To be effective, it doesn’t have to garner mass support for attacking public workers or unions more generally. It merely has to weaken union supporters to the point of ineffectiveness.

      In WI, we saw this at work. A large segment of union members couldn’t even be bothered to defend their own interests–and people should be paying a lot of attention to that segment. Still, the margin favoring Walker wasn’t exactly a mandate. That polity is still highly polarized. If we add in all the various efforts at disenfranchising “liberal” voters, a majority sentiment isn’t even required to win elections and continue the rampage.

      The fact is that amplified lies, gone unchallenged, tend to work when they hit the right emotional buttons. And it’s hard to challenge lies when one isn’t allowed access to the same outlets as the liars. So it’s not that Americans are really so mean. It’s just that’s the only game in town, so to speak.

      So a big Thank You to Ronnie Raygun for trashing the Fairness Doctrine and also to Bill Clinton for the Telecom Act of 1996.

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      • David [New]

        Monday, 9 Jul, 2012 at 9:41 am

        In WI, we saw this at work. A large segment of union members couldn’t even be bothered to defend their own interests–and people should be paying a lot of attention to that segment.

        The same holds true for the Democratic Party, which refused to run on the labor issue and instead pinned its hopes on the ‘Walker is divisive’ thing that appealed primarily to the David Brooks set. Fletcher was right, I think, that unions need to engage in a lot more education with their members (this point not limited to unions.)

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        • Emocrat [New]

          Monday, 9 Jul, 2012 at 9:57 am

          Absolutely! The Democratic Party is where social movements go to die.

          I found 90% of their campaigning mostly nausea-inducing. “We just want to compromise,” is not a strong selling point and that’s no way to earn respect from people. And ultimately, if you can’t earn respect and speak directly to people’s interests, they can easily tune you out, especially when the entire media environment is dominated by well-funded Koch Heads.

          If there’s one thing Democrats are actually good at, it’s this kind of failure. They want power, but only to negotiate away everyone’s standard of living as a sign of “reasonableness.” It should surprise no one they fail to inspire people to their cause.

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