HEALTH BENEFITS LOST

Since the recession began in March2001, over 911,000 laid-off workers have lost health coverage. Onlyone in five workers eligible to continue coverage at their own expensecan afford to. Who needs a better argument to eliminate employerspecific negotiated health packages and concentrate on establishing auniversal health plan/single payer system, something that is basicallyrecession proof? Obviously, the former should be merged into thelatter so no one loses benefits whether employed or unemployed.

SWEATSHOP LOBBYIST NOW LABOR DEPARTMENT LEADER

Patrick Pizzalla, who spent the past four years as a lobbyistfor the Saipan sweatshop industry, is the second most powerfulindividual in the US Department of Labor. He worked for the Reagancampaign in 1976 and was subsequently appointed to posts at theDepartment of Education and the Small Business Administration. For thepast four years, however, he worked as the key lobbyist for the firmof Preston Gates on that company’s account with the Commonwealth ofthe Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). The company billed CNMI $8million over a five year period to conduct junkets for congressmen,staffers and conservative journalists to fend off labor’s attempts toenact labor protections for garment workers in Saipan. Pizzella’scurrent position with the DoL, as Under Secretary for Administrationand Management, gives him control over staffing and resources forvirtually every agency in the Labor Department. (from IFPTE)

PATRIOTISM

I’m confused about this thing called patriotism. Early lastmonth, the front page headlines on The Oregonian (Jan 7, 2002)gave this conflicting view: ”Pentagon seeks budget boost of $20billion” and “Dental care for needy may be victim of state cutback.”Seems to me that the patriotic thing to feel about headlines likethat, within inches of each other, would be bloody outrage at suchstrange values. In case you’re confused, I think putting $20 billionadditional into health and dental care would give me, at least, awhole lot more about which to be patriotic!

HUMOR AND BUSH

A recent article I read, and seem to have lost, indicated that,once again, we are faced with an emperor with no clothes and that whatwill help much, if not most, to bring the emperor to human scale ishumor, used much by the US through the two plus centuries of ournational existence. Even bringing a laugh, such as I did the otherevening in the UW-Tacoma bookstore when I took a copy of Investor’sDaily up to the desk and told the woman behind the desk, “I’m notgoing to buy this paper but this guy really does look like AlfredNewman.” She, being old enough to remember the MAD magazine cover,laughed healthily in agreement. I’m also reminded of the words,paraphrased here, of one of my favorite 20th century musicalsatirists, Tom Lehrer, who said, when asked in the 1980s why he nolonger wrote musical humor like his material from the 1960s, “Thesethings are no longer funny.” If we DON’T find our times funny, we willonly solidify the deification going on.

UNIONS GO REPUBLICAN

Several months ago John Sweeney signaled that the AFL-CIO wasno longer in the pocket of the Democratic Party. This declaration wasboth a sign that Organized Labor was dissatisfied with the Democratsand that it was bowing to the reality of Republican rule of the WhiteHouse, Congress and most states. Recent events have shown that thelatter has gripped even some traditionally identified with labor’sprogressive wing.

Reports that 1199, the nation’s largest health care union, is leaningtoward supporting the re-election of New York Republican GovernorGeorge Pataki reflect the prevailing attitude among some top unionleaders that in these times of budget austerity and recession unionshave to take what they can get. Education, public health, mass transitand affordable housing have gone nowhere in New York. Unions have nottaken to the streets to demand that the Governor defer a planned taxcut for the wealthy, or to progressivize the tax system; they preferbackdoor negotiations to mass action. In these efforts they have beenlargely unsuccessful.

But 1199’s president Dennis Rivera got a big chunk of the New YorkState budget: $1.8 billion to pay for wage increases for the union’smembers and a hefty subsidy for struggling non-profit hospitals withwhich his union bargains. It’s a straight deal: money for politicalsupport, worthy of Samuel Gompers’s political philosophy. And the NYCCentral Labor Council has shamed itself by supporting the Republicancandidate for state senate on the Upper East Side to replace RoyGoodman who is joining the Bloomberg Administration. That they havesnubbed Liz Kruger, a long time activist in the hunger movement and aformidable fighter for the working poor, reveals the degree to whichthe one million member New York City Labor Council, the largestmunicipal body in the country, has adopted the opportunistic politicsof despair.

But what about the left? We must admit that progressives havehesitated to criticize top union leaders for the past half century onthe argument that, however egregious the acts of some, anti-laborforces take comfort at internal dissension. I would like to suggestthese are times for dissent. If the left means anything in the labormovement it stands for democracy, militancy and class unity. When ourleaders stray or sell us out we must raise our voices.

-Stanley Aronowitz, executive council, Professional Staff Congress,AFT, AAUP (for identification purposes only). Aronowitz was a speakerat the PNLHA 2000 conference in Tacoma.

UPCOMING EVENTS

There will be a New Studies in American Slavery Conference May17 2002 at UW, Seattle. Gathering some of the most exciting youngscholars working in the field today, this one-day conversationco-sponsored by the Bridges Center will discuss the new ways thatslavery is being studied, and the implications of those studies forpolitics and the study of race, race relations and labor incontemporary society. In particular, the symposium will talk about thecultural and linguistic turns, gender and sexuality, and globalconnections in the history and study of American slavery.

The Bridges Center this Spring is planning a series of lectureson expanding the boundaries of the labor movement. Harry BridgesCenter for Labor Studies University of Washington, Box 353560 Seattle,WA 98195-3560 206.543.7946 pcls@u.washington.edu; depts.washington.edu/pcls.