Really excellent piece, Chris. Thank you for doing it.

I love how you tie all these pieces together. It makes perfect sense.

Thanks for the kind words, Carla. It really is just a long comment. You've drawn out the main & important story line about attacks on the Employee Free Choice Act as a systematic means to go after Democratic Senate candidates across the country. Payday loans as a reason to target Jeff Merkley had me poking around in the bigger Berman swamp at the end of May & early June, but I never worked out how to paint a coherent picture of the proliferated muck ponds. To shift metaphors, it was only after you'd brought out the big story that I could see how to use these particular threads in Rick's web illustratively, and, I hope, support the bigger story.

Well Kurt, since the Teamsters aren't a p.r. outfit who work extensively in public by trying to make it look like there are a lot more people behind them with multiplying websites, press releases, op-eds, a house "news" wire-service than there really are, that would be a leetle harder. Actually I haven't even touched the more equivalent relations here, which would be the corporate funders who hide behind illegitimate Berman's 501(3)c and 501(4)c curtain. If I were to follow your suggestion, however, I'd have a lot more real regulatory and prosecutorial work put on the public record by federal officials to draw on than exists for Berman's empire, which has been given a pass, so far.

Chris, I agree this is great work, and recommend that you consider upgrading more of your comments to posts. Seriously.

If they'd only gone for the plural, that one site could have been:

teachersunions</s>exposed.com

Darrel, I don't have much time for the lies and distortions, but these folks are good with language & I'm not surprised they caught that one.

Kurt, I think you took a second reply to you from Edward as being from me by mistake. I am not by any means uncritical of unions in the U.S., not least because I've studied labor and working class history extensively, and think many would benefit from a greater degree of internal democracy, and that the union movement would probably be more vigorous and in better shape if that were the case. Some of what Jaco alludes to has some relationship to that.

But I can't really agree with an "equal problems on both sides" kind of perspective. This is in three senses. One is that the problems, on the whole, are asymmetrical because the nature and purposes of the organizations are fundamentally different. For instance there are forms of union corruption in some unions that may or may not be technically legal, that are worse for the proper functioning of unions to their basic purpose (giving workers a voice and bargaining power in the workplace) than what I would regard as counterpart forms of corruption from the point of view of societal functioning (e.g. excessive executive compensation) are for the functioning of corporations as currently established.

There is a whole debate to be had about the proper nature and purpose of corporations and their relationship to societal democracy about which I expect you and I would disagree. But even if we were to posit that at some level beyond the functional there is some correspondence between the issues of union democracy and accountability and corporate internal and external social accountability (never mind democracy) --something with which you perhaps would not agree to being with -- the possibility of practical movement on that debate depends IMO on prior reform and reinvigoration of internal union democracy and accountability, without which many unionized workers will be disengaged if not actively alienated.

Secondly, there are problems with the industrial relations system that either apply to unions or to management distinctively, and others that apply to both but manifest themselves differently on either side.

But thirdly, within the current context and reaching back to about 1970, there has been a strong movement in U.S. business to the effect that "companies have a right to be non-union," which simply is not true. The right to organize in and as unions is a fundamental human right of workers recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a great deal of other human rights law, and to a significant though imperfect extent in U.S. law. (Some major aspects of current union difficulties IMO derive from the fact that for a long time the AFL-CIO colluded with industry groups to keep the U.S. from ratifying some important provisions of international labor law relating to the ILO, in part because they would have required reform of undemocratic internal structures in a number of important unions.)

There is no corresponding corporate "right" to be "union-free." The Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932, which outlawed "yellow dog" contracts making repudiation of union membership or efforts to organize a condition of employment is the fundamental expression in U.S. law of the universal human right.

However, the powerful ideology that there is or ought to be such a spurious corporate "right" has had a great deal of influence on corporate behavior in the last 40-odd years, which means that within the imperfections of the Wagner Act as modified by Taft-Hartley (& smaller subsequent laws), the abuses on the employer side are significantly more prevalent than on the union side. There is a pattern of deliberate and strategic violation of industrial relations laws actively promoted by law firms, consultancies and other groups that specialize in "union avoidance," which in addition to teaching abusive techniques to hinder union organizing, also teach businesses to treat the unduly limited penalties for violating workers' right to organize as simply "costs of doing business." And especially since the election of Ronald Reagan, the NLRB and even more the Department of Labor has been a captive regulatory body that does not adequately protect worker rights to organize.

So I don't agree that "most corporations make solid attempts to follow the laws" when faced with organizing drives -- though they may be solid in respect to other basic laws regarding wages and hours, workplace safety and so on (some are not, of course).

In this context, regarding Wal-Mart, I think that some things they do are legal, that some things they do are borderline, and that some things they do are illegal but "get-away-withable" in the current system. I also think that some of the things that are legal under U.S. law (such as coercive and intimidating captive audience meetings which workers are obliged to attend) violate the human right to organize, i.e. U.S. law is inadequate and allows U.S. workers' human rights to be violated.

I am not clear if you view Wal-Mart as inside your posited category of most U.S. businesses that "make solid attempts to follow these laws." Do you think they do, or not?

So while I will agree with you at the most abstract level of generality the "there are problems on both sides," below that level I think the problems need to be analyzed distinctively due to both differences of kind, and differences of degree, about which on given issues there is not equality.

As to the specific cases you cite, I am not well familiar with them. What I know about Cintas wouldn't support your apparent view, but I wouldn't claim to have well rounded sourcing on. As for Wackenhut, I'm aware of them mainly as something like latter-day Pinkertons & don't have a clue about what you mean (references welcome). I don't know about Smithfield Farms.

Again returning to the most general level, I completely agree that any and all outrageous behavior by any party, at both ends of the spectrum, and also in the middle (I believe that there is such a thing as centrist outrages) should be addressed, in thought, criticism and action.

Jaco,

Do I think that much mainstream Democratic politics can be legitimately criticized from the left? Sure.

Am I mightily disappointed with Andy Stern on numbers of issues related both to organizing and to larger social issues, particularly health care and heath insurance? You bet.

Do I think my own best attempts to figure out how to navigate my own relationships to individuals and organizations who are dealing with circumstances not of their own choosing or creation, in many instances (to paraphrase Marx's famous beginning of The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon) are indubitably right and above question or criticism? Nope. Do I admit I might be wrong, and have been in the past, Yes, certainly.

Yet, with all of that, I just don't agree with all of your characterizations of things. Personally I think Merkley's base, like the DP's, is mixed, and as a result creates policies and actions that are likewise mixed or contradictory or insufficient for some aims I support, or would like to be able to if we could even get them into the debates seriously. To me reducing those results down to character flaws ("hypocrisy," "whoring" etc.) rather misses the point, which you get to better when you raise the issue of bases.

When last there was serious attempt to create an independent, labor-based party with substantial resources and an organizing outlook and strategy, I took part in that effort. Since I'm a petty bourgeois intellectual whose family has been either petty bourgeois or skilled artisan since the ancestors who left the farm, maybe it would have been better if I'd stayed away, I don't know -- but I tried my best to build it, for better or worse. That didn't work out too well, unfortunately, and there's no similar effort in sight.

So now, faced with a choice of Jeff Merkley with all his contradictions, who will support EFCA and maybe in some other ways act to improve the situation for more effective worker organizing, or Gordon Smith, who will not, I will support Merkley. From your point of view, I may well be part of the mixed-base problem, couldn't say. Supporting Merkley doesn't mean I think he's perfect. Railing from the sidelines wouldn't be perfect either.

At the same time, I will continue working on other kinds of politics in other settings, related to issue-focused social.

That's the best I can come up with for myself. Good luck in finding what suits you, and if it actually looks better or more effective in substance, I hope you can find ways to communicate it to expand the base, and not simply reject people who haven't or haven't yet seen it. Because I also think that if a broader deeper progressive movement ever forms, it will have to include people who at present fit that description only imperfectly, and maybe some who fit it not at all right now.

Kurt, I don't have time to reply substantively just now, will try later, but I did want to thank you and say I am glad that you regard my response as candid & allowing further discussion. That is what I was aiming for, especially since I have seen enough of your comments on various matters to believe that on the whole you seek genuine exchange of ideas, and not just ideological point-scoring. Discussions are both more interesting and more illuminating on that basis, IMO. I appreciate your approach, and return the compliment about your candor likewise.

Kurt,

I don't know if you will look back at this at this late date, but here's a bit more substantive response:

Thanks for the info on the specific cases you cite. As I said, the picture on Cintas is different from what I've heard from union sources, not surprisingly, & I will look into the situation with your construal of the situation in mind. Smithfield Farms is entirely new to me & I will look into that as well. Wackenhut is complicated by various concerns I have about the private security "industry" and it's possible I have not been entirely fair to them on their labor relations. (They provide the security for Pioneer Courthouse Square btw).

The Pinkertons actually go back to the late 19th century; they were the main armed forces on Frick's / U.S. Steel's side of the Homestead massacre in the 1890s.

You wrote:

Norris-Laguardia did outlaw yellow-dog contracts in 1932. Whereby companies could no longer mandate that employees agree to not support a union. That is, however a far cry from the leap to companies not having a right to be union free. In fact, Wagner and then Taft-Hartley codified what a company could legally do in their efforts to be union free.

As a matter of logic, if workers have a right to organize unions that actually is a right, employers cannot have a right to be "union free." What is the case in U.S. law is that employers have a right to advocate to their employees against organizing unions. I.e. this is part of their freedom of speech rights. But if their advocacy fails, the workers' right to organize trumps the employer's preference or desire to be "union free." These are not equally balanced and contradictory rights.

That's why Norris-La Guardia and Section 7 of the NLRA were so revolutionary in U.S. industrial relations.

There is of course no obligation to form a union, and we haven't got into the whole closed-shop, open-shop, agency-shop and free-rider debates regarding individuals who don't wish to join a union that has collective bargaining representation rights with a given employer. The lack of obligation is what makes employer anti-union advocacy per se not a violation of the right to organize.

Companies having mandatory meetings on company time in order to present their "side" or viewpoint are abuot the only effective manner to campaign under the terms of regulations as they exist. Threats are not legal, but stating what the regulations state in juxtaposition to paid union organizers promises is important.

Research shows that a large proportion of such meetings are characterized by implied threats of job loss or plant closing and in some cases by open violations of the law.

You make an interesting statement that employees have a basic human right to organize, and then condemn mandatory employer meetings as abridging that right. Again, under the regulatory terms and conditions of current labor law, what alternative method would you suggest allowing companies campaigning against attempts at forming a union? The meetings are mandatory and on paid time, so I fail to see how this basic human right you state employees have is abridged.

Well, for one thing, companies could make the meetings voluntary, just as choosing to listen to a union organizer or not is voluntary. It is the "captive audience" feature of the meetings, combined with the ways they are used to intimidate workers, that is objectionable.

There actually is an interesting point about democracy here. Employers have a democratic free-speech right to communicate their views and preferences. But workplaces aren't democracies, so they also have an undemocratic employer power to insist on meeting attendance. As our first amendment rights to free speech are suspended at work, at least if we are at-will employees, so too our first amendment rights not to listen to persons or views we find objectionable.

The idea that employers have no other means to communicate their views than mandatory captive audience meetings is a bit silly. When Yale University went through a series of labor struggles in the 1980s (very much driven by outside consultants to the administration), there were all kinds of anti-union communication going on. Employers control the physical spaces of employment, have memos, e-mail, and the power to devote managerial time to the effort; anti-union workers can organize to communicate to their fellow workers. These might be "less effective" than the mandatory meetings. But that's just the point. The "effectiveness" in many cases depends on an illegitimate coercive character of the meetings.

Another alternative to passing a corollary to Norris-La Guardia, saying that employers can't make anti-union meetings obligatory, which is more or less what I suggested above, would be to say that every time an employer calls a mandatory anti-union meeting, it must provide an equivalent time mandatory meeting at which pro-union workers could present their arguments.

<h2>If EFCA passes, I expect that there will be counter-reform efforts that might take forms like those you suggest (parallel to Taft-Hartley vis a vis Wagner Act). If EFCA fails, I'm skeptical that most employers would go along with your last paragraph, since they benefit from the weaknesses of the current system. Either way, perhaps we'll talk more about it then.</h2>