On Wisconsin - The War To End the Day Job (As We Know It)

Do you like the weekend? Ever taken a vacation? How about overtime pay? You like? Then, thank the Unions. The simple truth is, if you work for a paycheck, you benefit from unions, whether you're a member or not. Workers have rights, and today's unions serve to protect your rights. You're probably too young to remember how real people really fought and really died for you... and your weekend. In the 1800s very American institutions like the 8-hour workday/40-hour week, child labor laws, Workmans' Comp., and work place safety regulations did not exist. Today these and others worker's rights exist because union organizers and members fought (and occasionally died) for them.

When people fight and die for a cause - a very righteous cause - it is called a war. This war was not against some ginned-up, imaginary, foreign entity, in some yellow-caked fantasyland, far far far away. It's a war where people who *worked* for a paycheck fought against people who *signed* paychecks, some of whom literally killed those who simply tried to organize their co-workers. People who worked for a paycheck had one weapon, ironically called a "strike" - where everyone who worked for the same employer/factory simply stopped working. Those acts of solidarity made history. Because, for the first time ever, people who *signed* paychecks had to listen to their workers (who were the *real* creators of wealth). Those who were "stricken" decided they would rather kill people who worked for a paycheck, rather than listen to them. The idea was, that by killing a few, the others would just fall into line (probably, out of fear). Some folded and buckled, of course. But thankfully, enough of them did not. Over time, the battles became less bloody, giving way to a process called "collective bargaining". Eventually, many of these bargaining agreements became law, as America decided that our society was too good to allow for abuses of our workers (e.g., child labor laws and other "big government regulations"). Soon, the world would see how America's working people made her great. Now, Europe more accurately call unions "Democracy in the Workplace". Without the warriors of the American Labor Movement, there would be no middle class. Before them, there were only robber-barons and serfs... In other words, just "kings", basically feudal lords whose power knew no real limits... and their pawns, whose only "freedom" was to either submit to the will of those "kings", or to starve.

I see the other side of the coin, too. I really do get it: If I were signing your paycheck, I would see how *any* limits - legal, or otherwise - upon what I can force you to do (in order to keep your job), is bad for profit. Paying overtime is bad for profits; and so is the federal minimum wage. If I promised you a pension after X amount of time in service to me (and/or my company), and then made some bad decisions that put me in the red, those laws that force me to pay you what I promised are bad for profits. If I signed your paycheck, I would NOT want you to unionize... I wouldn't want ANYone to unionize. Instead, I want a nation of workers who have to shut up and grind... for as long and as hard as is mandated by my desired profit margin. If I were signing your paycheck, it would be in my best interest to destroy any and all remnants of the American Labor Movement. Because it's good for profit. The absence of government regulation in the workplace is good for profit.

As an American worker, you face a decision: Shall we return to the American workplace of the 1800s, and its plantation mentality? The "Do what we tell you to, or else" workplace model really was good for profits (in the same way that Trans-Atlantic slavery was good for slave-owners). Those battles waged by the American Labor Movement changed all that. But the losers of those battles did not die and they did not forgot... They've sneakily begun another very important battle right now, in Wisconsin (ironically, the birthplace of many of these most treasured American labor institutions, with at least 7 towns/cities named "Union"). Wisconsin is a battlefield for very survival of the union. And Indiana and Ohio are on the horizon.

I deeply despise those violent war-like metaphors that are tossed about all too frequently in American political discourse. But in this latest skirmish between We the People and the Corporatocracy (which, just like Faux News, is NOT always American), it's not a literary expression. Real people really died. And this war never really ended; the stakes therin are very real. Like it or not, if you work for a paycheck, you're already on the battlefield.