@ Jonathan Schwartz from Ramat Gan, Israel who is a member of a union there but doesn’t seem to be convinced that we really need them here and now)
I will take any Union to no-union.
What happened in this country is a disaster. Systematically, the GOP killed the unions in the private sector (now less than 7 percent) and is trying their best to kill the Public Sector Unions by pointing to their benefits and getting regular folk to get rid of them because tax payers are paying for them! Only James Bond villains would think of their schemes. And that is what the Koch Brothers are.
Israel still didn’t manage to kill all the socialist principles it was built on. Bundtists are rolling in their graves including my great uncles who emigrated there before ‘48 with what Likud has done to their baby but I am digressing.
Please read Gordon Lafer’s The One Percent Solution. Yale PhD teaching in U of Oregon and very friendly to Bernie. He has it all down with masterly use of data and facts.
6
I believe Finland experimented with a UBI....and it failed. They abandoned it.
See: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/universal-basic-income-finland-ontario-stockton_n_5c5c3679e4b00187b558e5ab
At least one of Trump's "help the poor struggling 1%" tax breaks gives more tax breaks to companies who take their corporations overseas. Why? Who knows. But it clearly hurts U.S. citizens.
I love Bernie, have donated to his campaign and hope and wish he would win......my concerns are that he is a Jewish man in his 70's....WOULD most Americans vote for him? ONLY if they are made to see he is the ONLY person who really wants changes for their benefit.
5
Great article from Mr. Bouie. He's scholarly and independent. (It looks like I'll need to leave it at this to get posted.)
2
Mr Bouie: Thank you.
3
I remember the bleeding hearts and bombing boomers of the 70’s. I remember the arrogance of the unions. I remember the 20-year-olds with 5 years of semi-adult experience, like me, desperately crying out, “Is there TIME to get this right before the END swallows us.” I remember the street protesters beaten & bleeding inside each other’s wounds as they made their way to Canada, stopping along the way in Port Huron to make a statement.
Nobody is wearing white hats here. Bernie’s “collective” heart & mind won’t change. For him, incentive, is not moral & not proper when so many are suffering of ____ (choose one of 12,345 choices below).
I don’t know what is right. But I sure know what is not right. Right now, things are not right. Selfishness by the most powerful rules. Back then a collective dream was “in”. It wasn’t about pounding a square peg into a round hole. It was about pounding a 1000-sided peg into a narrow, perfect (for the Far Left) round hole.
I gave up on the GOPs in 2000. However, my problem is having a long memory dating back to the Flower Power, Anti-War, Radical Drug Chic years.
Bernie Sanders is suddenly overflowing with plans. Since he announced this second run at the presidency, he has spewed out plans with the regularity of a Yellowstone geyser.
My question to Senator Sanders is this: Where are your bills? We pay you $174,000 a year to legislate - meaning to introduce bills then "work the room" for support. As GovTrack shows, Sanders has a zero rating in getting bills out of committee. He got just ONE bill out of committee in all of 2018 and that was his pipe-dream to remove forces from Yemen.
Sanders' record is the record of an ineffectual blow-hard, but as president he will get things done? Good luck with that.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
6
If crackpottery refers to the blindness to evidence, then Bernie is so afflicted. I like Bernie, he has a heart of gold, and he seems like a great guy. But I really want to see him now as a permanent gadfly than in office.
Who did he think he was going to 'organize?' Uber drivers? Starbucks baristas?
Because despite every bit of evidence, he continues to believe that his appeal of 'free' will make whites snap out their ethnic nationalism induced high. He seems unaware that the more he talks about 'free,' the more tightly whites outside of city centers cling to their guns, flags, bibles, AM radio gods, conspiracy theories, Trump, opiates, celebration of aimlessness and joblessness, blaming others, and self-destruction. Notions that women can live free is too horrifying to American women (60% of whom vote republican), and notions that non-whites can enjoy the same freedoms as everyone else is too horrifying to about 80% of all whites who reliably vote republican. The flag waving, gun waving 'patriots' would have Russia meddle in our elections as long as the power is directed toward making "those" people miserable, or plain gone.
If Bernie does not see the direct, significant correlation between the more "free" stuff he promises, and the rising popularity of Trump (90% of all republicans are willing to enshrine him as god), then issues of his insanity are worth discussing.
3
The power of Labor needs to be restored in the U.S. since the gross economic and social inequality is a product of the shift in power to Corporate interests and Corporate welfare. Whichever Democrat becomes our next President, they must address this rot in our society and restore Labor to equal footing with Corporations and business in general.
6
Radicalism? Yes, anything but capitalism that the rich use to get ever richer.
4
@Larry from London (who desperately wants to make social democracy a failure and choses the wrong example)
The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund was created for that eventuality. It is now worth around $1 Trillion Dollars. I will leave it to you to calculate what that is per capita while you count the days to Brexit.
I have not visited Rinkeby but have spent a long time in towns like Birmingham just a little away from the fair London-town.
Patriotic feeling asides, I know so many British people who have been to Norway, Denmark or Sweden who would swap places in a heart beat. Social Democracy works. The standard of living in Scandinavia is so much higher than the US and the UK (except for the posh Kensington type areas) in general that it is mind boggling. And it was achieved without enslaving others, robbing them from their land and welfare like we and our cousins across the "pond" achieved their wealth and empires. (I am aware of Sweden and Denmark as Kingdoms fighting wars and the inuits of Greenland but they are epsilons compared to what we (and you did)).
Have a great night.
5
I would love another FDR.
But frankly, I would be happy with just a second Eisenhower. That, approximately, would be Warren...not Harris or Biden.
2
It always seems strange to me that coal miners, particularly in WV, were known for their bloody, pitched battles with management goons, and today seem like the most docile and resigned of workers. Coal jobs are not coming back but these people are content to keep reelecting coal company stooges who will do nothing for them and their families. They also seem fine with not holding the coal companies responsible for the devastation of their environment, apparently out of fear that might anger management. What happened? Who is striking now in WV? The teachers!
6
The middle class was built by unions and local small businesses. Both are disappearing and our elected officials are guilty of either pushing them to the brink (Republicans) or doing nothing to stop it (Democrats).
Thank you, Jamelle, for giving me a little hope that your newspaper is still on the side of people like me. I was on the verge of cancelling.
5
Yeah the Radicalism of Bernie Sanders.
My family and I lived through the radicalism of the 1960s and 1970s in Detroit. By that time Bernie had fled from Chicago, where is he was a "protest organizer", to Vermont. You know, back to the land and all that.
Forget about any sort of working class unity. The Democratic Party is now the party of the victimhood intersectional matrix.
I'd love to share my family's experiences during the enlightened 1960s and 1970s while living on the near east side of Detroit. But you might not like what you hear. It doesn't fit well into the current false narrative of white privilege.
3
There's nothing more American than ensuring your own survival. So, sitting back and waiting for the inevitable conquest of your pension plan's solvency, of your benefit package's attractiveness, of your career work's longevity, and of your toil's reciprocation is not part of our DNA.
Where lies our treasure, is where treasure hunters dig. Scoundrels ready to grease political palms, cut-throat managers taking shears to your end, and CEO's paid royally to escort the legacy salaries off the premises --- workers' interests are their easy target.
Do union naysayers have an alternative to federal protections for organized labor? No. The naysayers have no plan.
To revive workers' capacity to fend-off exploitation and to reverse workers' pummeting compensation, an extensive and detailed plan is needed. Find Bernie Sanders' at this opinion's first web link: "Workplace Democracy Plan". Is there better? Not really.
Thanks, Mr. Bouie for reminding us of THE HOW of America's progress for workers.
2
Bernie Sanders is speaking truth to power! He is representing the voice of the those who are largely voiceless against the corruption of corporations ,lobbyists, corrupt politicians and a largely rigged system in general. The mainstream media is frightened of Sanders because he is exposing their complicity and corruption for all to see.
3
Baloney.
The political system has ample mechanisms for forcing corporatism to take second place in favor of live humans, without electing a wingnut.
All it takes is participation. Real participation, not a bunch of idiotic tweets. People have the ability to influence their elected representatives, and BTW it is the House that makes the laws, not the president.
That the Democratic party so willingly allows Sanders to be trampled by its other runners is the larger message. Corporatism is the hallmark of boh parties, not just the Republicans. Clinton, is a corporatist.
Any movement to restrain corporatism needs to start at the House level. Electing smeone who pines for 1919 isn't the way.
We have no democracy in the work place, no democracy in the family, no democracy in the schools, no democracy in the military, no democracy in most major religions, no democracy in just about all of our institutions - yet we insist on calling our republic a democracy.
There is democracy in some workplaces and they are highly profitable corporations. Look into Mondragon Corporations to see how some people do it without begging politicians for help, an act as useless as praying for help from some imagined deity. You have the power. You have always had the power - until you willingly handed it over to a ruling class - hoping they would dole it out to everyone evenly. Good luck with that.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
4
In this age of rampant misinformation, the Democratic Party must beat down the GOP dogma of Democratic Socialism (DS) = Communism = Total government control of the masses.
The Dems need to keep pointing out Social Security is DS. Public Libraries are DS. Police and fire departments are DS. Heck, salaries to all government employees, including Congress falls under DS.
Furthermore, if you really analyze it, the USA military is a Communist organization, but best not to push that button.
Unfortunately, insular Americans are not savvy to the minutia of political policies.
Heck, you can barely get them to vote.
One can only hope the present day circus that resulted from voter ignorance will not happen again.
3
Unions have died out or are dying out because Americans are shortsighted and selfish. I am, they are, we all are. Rather than spend our money to support our fellow American union workers, we go for the trendy imported product to show the capitalists that we aren't going to take their greed anymore. And so shrivel up and die those union jobs. Bernie's plan will be the last nail in the coffin of the American worker. Don't talk about supporting unions, put your money where your mouth is.
3
After 12 years of Republican rule in America, the Great Depression descended upon America.
*When the great British economist John Maynard Keynes was asked if there had ever been anything like the Great Depression, he said, “Yes. It was called the Dark Ages and it lasted 400 years.”* http://tinyurl.com/y2lu5zxp
3
Clueless or poignant that The editors or Mr. Bouie chose that leading photo from Greenville, South Carolina! For if any area of the nation has been historically Anti union, it would be the south. Union organizing has not ever met with much success there.
1
Wait a minute... you mean that Sanders and Biden and Warren and Klobuchar and Williamson are running for the presidency of... The United States? I though all this noise was about leading the AARP.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
1
I am for Bernie or Elizabeth.
I am for unions and helping the working class.
My father was union my mother a secretary. I am from the working class and the first generation in my family to go to college which I started working when I was ten years old and paid for myself.
But I also remember the unions that were associated with people like Jimmy Hoffa.
They were not good-hearted liberals. They were authoritarians. They were often racists and sexists.
There are still city worker unions where streets and sanitation gets an hour overtime for 15 minutes past the hour and most people are getting that 15 minutes.
So while we need bargaining power, the unions have to do their part.
3
Ending at-will employment is an exceptionally bad idea. If I have fifty employees that I can pay according to what the market determines and I lose a customer accounting for a third of my business, requiring retrenchment, am I supposed to be stuck with all fifty when I can now only afford thirty? And, remember, at will runs both ways, Certainly no worker should be expected to forego job mobility and a better deal from competitor. Workplace democracy has a progressive, rather wooly, ring to it but the vast majority of actual businesses don't aren't run that way and shouldn't be.
5
Perhaps there could be exemptions for smaller companies or ones with pay ratios of less than 3:1.
If an employer is genuinely straining to keep staff employed and is financially struggling him/herself, then it seems reasonable there might be exemptions. But if the "struggling" employer is concerned keeping the slightly underperforming single parent on the payroll may get in the way of a Maldives resort vacation, then Mr. Sanders' proposal is exactly relevant.
5
"Workplace Democracy Plan"...being forced to join a union sounds more like communism than democracy.
As an American, you should have the right to decide whether you want to join a union, as "right to work" laws guarantee...no mandatory union membership.
It would be one thing if unions stuck to union business, but they don't. The leadership of the NEA (National Education Association) for instance, feels compelled to take a stance on abortion. What's that got to do with education? Many teachers are against abortion, and do not want to be forced into a union that supports abortion rights. By forcing them into the union, you would be denying them their freedom of speech.
The people you hire determine the character of your company. In a privately-owned company, one ought to be able to fire someone just because you don't like them, or for whatever reason (at will employment). Private company owners should be able to determine the character of their own company, and by extension, they should be able to impose ethical and behavioral standards on their employees.
Publicly owned companies are a different matter. They have to be more permissive in their relationships with their employees, and be more inclusive.
2
--The idea that the workforce of today is in the same condition as the 1930's... is ridiculous. There have been a whole host of labor and workplace laws set into place since the 1930's that have greatly change the workplace from what is was 100 years ago. ..And of course there are now programs like Medicaid & Medicare which did not exist in the 1930's..
.. The point being.. this is NOT the 1930's. Why would Mr. Bouie be advocating old 1930's types of responses.. to issues which are of the 21st Century.? ---We'll have to do a whole lot better than that..if we actually want to be successful.
Go Bernie Go. He has changed the conversation on so many things. He is a hero. It will be difficult for Republicans and big money to beat back the wave that is coming. Workers have had enough. CA just passed some new laws protecting workers. Others will follow.
5
So many workers today, from the lowest paid to the top executives, not only have forgotten, but most aren't even aware of, the debt they owe to those who fought for unions and collective bargaining, some giving their lives to the fight. The five day work week; paid holidays and vacations, benefits, and if not pensions, a 401K plan, among other taken for granted benefits. These are shared by those in management and those who have never belonged to a union or paid dues. And unions, and the rights and benefits they fought for formed the rock hard base on which the Democrats once built their strength.
But no longer. Beginning with their capitulation to Reagan when he fired the Air Traffic Controllers, and ever since, they've abandoned the working class in favor of the donor class and Corporate America. Bill Clinton's triangulation - benignly called The Third Way - bargained away the protections of American workers with the signing of NAFTA and the ending of Glass-Steagall in return for the support of the oligarchy - all but ended any protections for the working and middle class. And Obama, who was seen as the New Hope, never delivered. When given the choice to bail out Wall St. or Main St., he and the Democrats chose the former.
It's taken a guy from outside the Democratic Party to get them to return to thinking about their former base - Sanders, and it's interesting how the NY Times and MSM continue to try and ignore him. But before there was Warren, there was Sanders.
6
Wow.
After 40 years of predation against workers by managements in league with bought and paid for politicians someone at the NYT noticed.
After Bernie Sanders has been giving his speeches for 20 years about the necessity of labor having the ability to bargain in order to restore the American middle class, someone at the NYT noticed.
Please, I really appreciate everything this writer said and I am grateful that someone with a voice in the corporate media has at least tentatively shone light on the reality of the predicament of the American working man. The more we can bring this one true core issue into the marketplace of ideas the more people will start to understand what their rights are and what powers they have. And they will start to understand the enormity of the punitive legislation that has been erected to punish unions and undermine the rights of all American citizens.
I fully expect this to be the last time Mr. Bouie mentions this issue because his managers will insist that he never write anything like this again if he wants to keep his job, and I expect that he wants to keep his job. But I sincerely thank him for having the courage to deliver this small moment of truth. Maybe his example will stir the courage of some other writer who happens to wield a pen in the media that is nationally read. And that next writer might inspire the one after that. In the land of the free, no matter how many writers they shut down there will always be a next one ready to stand up.
8
Workers are not in a struggle with their employers, as union supporters argue, but with the customers of companies that they work for who push for lower prices and higher quality, and completion from other workers. Unions merely shield unionized workers from the pressure of the marketplace and grant them an advantage over customers who lack unions. If everyone had a union then the power of unions would be neutralized as they would balance each other out. Now workers with unions hold an advantage over other people without. Public unions stand in opposition to their employers the taxpayers, school children and commuters as evidenced by the enormous burden of pensions, poor public transport with limited capital budgets, and terrible school outcomes. Even the NYT had to admit that it costs six times as much to build one mile of subway in NYC compared to all other major world cities. As I can attest firsthand, as employers, unions themselves skirt the very tenets that they espouse splitting full-time jobs into part-time ones to avoid supplying benefits. Unions impose regressive work rules and promote laws and policies that retard industrial progress and productivity. After imposing a minimum wage, now California unions are supporting a law strictly restricting the use of automatic checkout machines in supermarkets in order to prevent automation precipitated by the policies that they promote. Unions help some of their member workers but hurt many others.
1
The issue is Trump. The battle ground is the midwest - period. All the rest is hot air.
I agree. Strong unions provide some leverage for working people as a voting block and union membership needs to be encouraged. The repeal of Taft-Hartley is long overdue.
We could learn a lot from the Europeans and their unions.
6
The Union movement and its advances were not easily born: violence, horrible work standards, unified opposition, Communist revolutions, intellectual, philosophical, movement politics...a whole lot of stuff went down.
Today, Union workers and many workers generally are not suffering under the same harsh weight.
Moving forward is a process that has not been engaged by the people who foot such movements. Without the people, the masses, there is no progress.
For me this is all talk. There is no long term strategy, no discussion of consequences, no organized leadership. And too much talking becomes frustrating and people loss interest and peel away. There is nothing to hold on to.
Occupy Wall Street - what real change happened? Not sustained.
Raising Minimum wage - great but inflation has eaten those increases away.
ACA (Obamacare)- it was a start but, it was pushed forward to address other concerns.
I guess this is why the visions painted by President Trump are so attractive to his supporters. "You are a winner, I am a winner, we are winners - it is a done deal." Again it shows how smart he is: he understands and played to the reality that no one in the USA is leaving their couch and wide screen TV for any revolution. And if there is a revolution it better be entertaining with good food and good music.
Why are folks mad at President Trump? He only plays into the reality of his supporters. It is up to his supporters to know better.
1
THIS is the world of progressive politics. If we focus on the rights of individual interest groups in lieu of working class struggles the power establishment will be over-joyed. The sixties are long gone. The establishment today does NOT represent oil barons, industrialists and other Republican caricatures (who usually didn't kid themselves that they were humanists). It is largely democratic. It's the medical/pharmaceutical industry, silicone valley, Hollywood, corporate media and agencies of the federal government. The professional/academic class today keeps wealth far from the hands of the working class and their children. They quietly fight anything that changes the class-based distribution of wealth access/opportunity. It's not about taking hard-earned money from person A and giving it to person B, who didn't lift a finger. It's about using our public resources to provide equivalent (not necessarily identical) support to every to child and young adult. They are happy to help society's outliers, as long as it doesn't include helping those below the median (who may actually resemble them) - as this would be a true sacrifice.
5
These Sanders proposals amount to crazy stuff. As Bouie points out, we are VERY far from the mass poverty of the 1930's even if prosperity isn't as widely shared as he (and Sanders) would like.
These proposals defy the fact that it takes 60 votes in the Senate to pass legislation and even if (which won't happen) democrats have those 60 votes, it's far from assured that even 60 democratic senators would agree.
For one thing, to abolish 'employment at will' in favor of an Italian-like system where workers can ONLY be dismissed for cause invites Italian-like economic paralysis:
No Italian company EVER wants to hire a worker, knowing that incompetent workers are in jobs for LIFE. Not to mention, the company takes ALL the risk for paying the worker even if, during an economic downturn, it can no longer afford to keep the worker on payroll. Italian unemployment is 9.7%. Spain, with similar laws, has a 14% unemployment rate. Why would the US want to follow these awful examples by implementing policies that cause these problems??
3
Have you been to Norway, Sweden or Denmark? Have you spoken to workers at Volvo in Gothenburg or Statoil (now Equinor) in Stavanger?
Please do if you have a chance. And speak to their managers and they managers. What you will find is satisfaction and happiness with their lot.
Now try that in the US. In Detroit for example.
Social Democracy works. It is the system the world needs to move from current forms of dysfunctional capitalism if they want to save it from disintegrating into fascism.
We are constantly being fed garbage by the media (and of course by Big Food and Big Pharma). It is part of something called The American Rhetoric.
Let’s shut that white noise out.
When we do, you won’t write comments like this.
3
@Larry from London (who wants to show social democracy in a bad light but choses bad examples in doing so)
The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund was created for that eventuality. It is now worth around $1 Trillion. I will leave it to you to calculate what that is per capita while you count the days to Brexit.
I have not visited Rinkeby but have spent a long time in towns like Birmingham just a little away from the fair London-town.
Patriotic feeling asides, I don't know too many British people who have been to Norway, Denmark or Sweden who wouldn't swap places in a heart beat. Social Democracy works. The standard of living in Scandinavia is so much higher than the US and the UK (except for the posh Kensington type areas) in general that it is mind boggling. And it was achieved without enslaving others, robbing them from their land and welfare like we and our cousins across the "pond" achieved their wealth and empires. (I am aware of Sweden and Denmark as Kingdoms fighting wars and about the Inuits of Greenland, but they are epsilons compared to what we (and you did)).
Have a great night.
5
@Blunt Social democracy works in Beverly Hills too - everyone is the same and costs of living there are so high that no one can immigrate there (relocate). So yes, make the immigration laws the same as Danish ones - impossible to immigrate to, and make 90% of the population to be the same and indeed you get your wonderful Scandinavia in here. Same goes for Japan.
You're right, this proposal didn't receive much coverage. Probably because it's very unlikely to help Saunders, for a variety of reasons. For example, when it becomes more difficult to let someone go, employers become more reluctant to hire people. This is problem in France, for example.
I doubt that this will help him even in early primary states. He should put his college political science books back on the shelf.
3
Thank you for this excellent history of US labor fights and articulating why this agitation matters and is needed now. Also, thanks for the really great links to some of the scholarly literature! I'm excited to check out some of these titles from my local library.
6
"Workplace Democracy Plan"...being forced to join a union sounds more like communism than democracy.
As an American, you should have the right to decide whether you want to join a union, as "right to work" laws guarantee...no mandatory union membership.
It would be one thing if unions stuck to union business, but they don't. The leadership of the NEA (National Education Association) for instance, feels compelled to take a stance on abortion. What's that got to do with education? Many teachers are against abortion, and do not want to be forced into a union that supports abortion rights. By forcing them into the union, you would be denying them their freedom of speech.
The people you hire determine the character of your company. In a privately-owned company, one ought to be able to fire someone just because you don't like them, or for whatever reason (at will employment). Private company owners should be able to determine the character of their own company, and by extension, they should be able to impose ethical and behavioral standards on their employees.
Publicly owned companies are a different matter. They have to be more permissive in their relationships with their employees, and be more inclusive.
1
@Raz
Literally zero people are talking about "forcing" people to join unions--especially unions that take non-work-related political stances.
The NEA is a voluntary union. If you don't think it represents you, you can leave it. Wouldn't preventing their leadership from taking a stance on Abortion be... wait for it... wait for it... "denying their free speech?" Certainly seems like it to me.
"Right to work" laws do not support workers. It's genuinely absurd to say otherwise. All they do is help employers keep their employees from organizing.
6
@BB
There are many school districts where it is mandatory to join the union, or pay an agency fee, or representation fee, if you choose not to join (the fee generally being about 80% of the normal dues).
The unions can take whatever stance they want on issues, but then people should have the choice of whether they want to join.
As far as "zero people are talking about 'forcing' people to join unions", you're just dead wrong. Right to work laws protect an individual's right to choose.
4
@Raz Please document--with real evidence your contention that people would be forced to join unions. "Right to work" laws mean exactly the opposite of what you think they do. What they really are is "right to bust unions and pay people less" laws. That particular language gambit (calling something the opposite of what it really means) goes back a long way. Remember your high school or maybe college history courses? Remember the "Federalists" vs. the "Anti-Federalists?" Actually, their politics were the opposite of what one would thing from their titles. It worked for the Federalists for a while, and the Anti-Federalists not at all. It's an old trick, like some anti-labor guy promising working class people that only he could save them. Didn't work out, but that should be no surprise because the guy's history shows he always was anti-labor.
4
Sanders and Trump were the only candidates in 2016 talking about a political revolution. One of them won and promised to help the everyday American. Instead he has robbed us blind, taken to destroying worker's rights and the very environment we live in.
Perhaps Trump's win was a blessing in disguise. Perhaps the people who bought into him the first time around see him for what he is, and will listen to Bernie, Elizabeth, or another candidate who actually has a plan to level the playing field. Then again, they might be so blindly tied to a party that they can't bring themselves to vote in their own interest.
5
Be very careful of unintended consequences of Bernie’s proposals
1
Bernie may not win the nomination - and I'm not sure I want him to - but the party certainly owes him a massive debt for ideas like these. Even if they aren't fully realized, they move the debate closer to where it ought to be.
1
The Republican Party is the political party of the Autocrats and the wealthy Oligarchs.
It should be noted that the American Oligarchs have found a common cause with the Oligarchs of the *East*, as both groups of Oligarchs have found Democracy to be an huge inconvenience. That is the real scandal that threatens our way of life.
The USA does Not need two political parties for business.
Our Nation needs a political party of the people, by the people, for the people.
We once had political party of the people.
The DNC is currently unable to reform itself to return the Democratic party back into being the people's party.
Bernie Sanders needs to be elected to stop the Democratic Party's slide into catering to the right-wing's line of thinking.
Bernie Sanders is the only person I'll be voting for.
This NYT's article is long overdue.
I thank Jamelle Bouie for this timely article.
--
8
I applaud Mr. Bouie for - I would like to say "reminding" but I doubt many Americans know anything at all about the Labor Movement, so I will say - enlightening us about the history of labor.
Far too few of us are aware of the fact that our grandfathers literally fought and died for the right to unionize. We do not remember the names of those who were jailed, beaten, lynched for daring to stand up to mill and mine owners.
Bernie is fighting to give the common man a toe-hold on a decent life and a chance for today's children to have a world that can sustain them.
Give him a chance. He is the real deal and is pilloried by the elites for it. He is the FDR for our time.
6
What an excellent informative editorial. The 1930s was in many ways a fascinating time, even in terms of racial justice reformers hoped to change the one-sided nature of the criminal justice system which perpetuated white supremacy in so many ways.
4
As the days narrow down in this ongoing Democratic primary selection, it's important to take stock of those candidates yielding to financial considerations. If big shot proffered money appears in your fundraising coffers & you blame staffers making the decision to accept, how can you be trusted to resist when those donors show up for compensation after the election?
Sanders relying on many thousands of contributions from average citizens will not have the same contradictions. Unless you distrust America, another reason to support Bernie Sanders for POTUS.
4
' Work place Democracy' does have pitfalls as seen in1960's union power in British and US auto, motorcycle and such manufacturers where unable to innovate. Almost all British legacy manufacturers were stuck making products with 20 to 30 year old technologies, their motor vehicles were of poor quality.
Honda and Toyota came along with reliable efficient advanced engines and soon every British motor vehicle maker was gone. US manufacturers barely survived. Only recently have US makers come close to Japanese quality and reliability. Same with electronics manufacturers..in these cases unions are directly responsible for harm caused.
Does anyone think Microsoft, Apple could have grown in work environments described in this piece?
1
Read through Bernie's Workplace Democracy Plan. Allow federal employees to strike - can you imagine the impact of a TSA strike on air travel or an IRS strike?
2
Yep. That is called democracy.
The funny thing is if Bernie persists the need for TSA may decline and whomever is in charge with transportation security will be treated like human beings who in turn will treat us like human beings. The IRS will do just fine. It will be treated fairly, it’s staff won’t be cut to a minimum so they have to work twice as much.
3
The IRS, that's a fair point. The TSA is unconstitutional and creepy, and are free (and urged) to strike for good.
Bernie represents working class Americans? Hardly. In his career,he has the inability to compromise,therefore the lack of legislative accomplishments. The problem with the likes of Corbyn or Sanders is they want a eutopian society ,when the problem is not the economic/political system but the inability of mankind,the populace to accommodate or follow any one system. Republicans tend to deny the necessity of being democratic in order to have a republic. Democrats tend to deny the failed policies of communes. All tend to fail that laws are made to protect humans from other humans. But America does best when we have a goal, a positive inclusion of all Americans in the dream .Not by right but that we are only strong as a nation when we think of aal who are Americans as one. That we protect all Americans,not just white,Christian, or English. So nothing should be free. Not education, not healthcare ,housing, or transportation,it should take all of our efforts and money. The right to organize is as basic as the right to free speech . If a business is a closed house , then people who oppose unions should not work there. Just look at corporations ,such as Toyota in San Antonio ,who place workers of a 'temporary' status for years ,to avoid commitment to their labor. They have effectively denied their labor force to negotiate with the company. Denying free speech.
1
Excellent and very important article, Mr. Bouie. Your presentation of labor history is pointed and precise. Thank you for reminding or introducing readers to Irving Bernstein's great work. As a former history professor and one who has lived abroad on two occasions for an extended period of time, I marvel at am depressed by the ways working-class Americans have been beaten down by the relentless power and greed of corporate America, and of how much worse it is for them than it was after World War II. This is almost entirely a result of the relentless attacks on them by Republicans and those Democrats who supported anti-union and anti-worker policies and legislation.
2
Frankly, IF companies treated their employees and contractors AS THEY SHOULD, there would not be a need for unions to demand fair practices and workers rights. But there is no democracy in capitalism. It is ruined by the greed and corruptness of those making the rules.
4
Far too many Americans believe that a democratic workplace is socialist and an extremely capitalistic workplace is democratic. Just like the notions of an, "at will," work agreement is a farce and a cruel joke to employees so are the notions earlier stated. The idea that a miniscule group of unelected, usually men, should decides the fates for us all, for how all of our resources are utilized, for where our industries are, for where we live, etc. seems more like feudalism than even capitalism. We and our elected officials are ruled by those who have the gold. This is an old tactic of divide and conquer. Many think this is the best reality for us here, but many other citizens of other nations would never dream of trading their workplace for ours. Our overcrowded cities our blighted rural areas, all by design of those precious few unelected people whom are the real power brokers of this nation.
5
@Yuri from Vancouver (who is maybe too optimistic about human rationality)
You sure are making the same mistake as Kuznets made. I very honest mistake that is a direct function of the data set he had available to him. The 45-50 year period he observed was pretty unique in history. Piketty (and even more impressively Scheidel) went back more in time. Human greed and irrationality seems to have been the rule not the exception. Scheidel, an Austrian polymath who teaches at Stanford shows persuasively how only natural and man-made disasters account for true wealth and income redistribution’s over millennia, not just decades or centuries!
2
Weeping here. Something unabashedly clear and positive about Sanders - who has a t-shirt from every picket line in the country for at least the last 20 years. Thank you.
6
I have to tell you, it's such a relief these days to finally see at least a few of the ideas getting into the mainstream that rarely circulated beyond Lower Manhattan bars and coffee shops and being considered as appropriate and worthy solutions of the problems we face. If only the chattering elite were listening 30 to 40 years ago, maybe it would never have gotten this dire.
9
I support Bernie. I support his idea about the vital importance of the labor movement. I support these suggestions, except for one.
"institute industrywide “sectional” bargaining (versus organizing at individual companies)"
That was Mussolini's idea. He built his Fascism around a transformation of Italian labor unions into such large scale interests. He was a labor movement publisher and propagandist; he may not have actually realized what that idea really did to unions.
It gutted unions. They lost their power inside individual companies, and became tools to control the labor of whole industries.
I can't believe for a moment that Bernie Sanders has any idea of doing that. However, this idea has been tried, and it doesn't work the way he seems to think.
I honor his motives. He messed this one up, badly.
2
@Mark Thomason
Thank you for this. I've got some homework to do. I was actually concerned about the unwanted consequences of preventing employers from canning individual employees based on their on job performance. There are many ways to protect workers from exploitation, en masse. Protecting our domestic industries and labor pools would empower workers without undermining individual employers from managing their workforce, selectively.
2
Good point, Sir. I hope he reads your comment and amends his thinking on this very important concept.
If candidates read readers comments they will find out so much. This bring an excellent example. Than you.
2
@Mark Thomason
Yeah, no. Mussolini (and Lenin in the USSR) outlawing individual unions in their respective countries is not at all what Bernie is talking about. Mussolini and Lenin's "unions" weren't democratic, and workers couldn't even wage strikes. Bernie is talking about allowing individuals more freedom; not taking it away.
1
Capitalism evolved from Feudalism: land-capital evolved into industrial-capital and then into financial-capital--Landlords evolved into "Captains of Industry" and then into Moneylords.
Serfs--who "went with the land" like trees and animals--evolved into employees--who still "go with the corporation"--new owners get them as well as buildings and patents.
But slowly employees acquired rights and collective bargaining--to a large extent due to ideological threats of the USSR. Increase labor rights or risk having private capitalism turn into state capitalism.
Even Conrad Black, the regressive Canadian newspaper baron, argues that FDR's New Deal saved American [private] Capitalism.
But with the demise of the USSR, Russia evolved in an neo-feudal oligarchy. It now buys US politicians and fixes US elections. Gone are the ideals of the labor movement--the whole bag of labor rights--and employer duties.
Instead the GOP--with colluding Democrats, like the Clintons--sought/seek to systematically undermine worker rights and enhance employer rights--as well as undermining public infrastructure and services--marching back to feudalism.
It's as though employers are Nobility--Royals--born to private ownership and political/economic rule.
Employees are the commoners--victims of "the tragedy of the commons" as the "commonwealth" steadily shrinks. getting privatized.
6
Unions created the middle class where concentrated wealth creates abuse of power as they buy the govt they want or get elected president and proceed to use the presidency to enrich themselves and their family. GOP is owned by big money interests and would eliminate social security and medicare if they could get away with along with a flat tax benefitting the super rich and their families. Demagogues like Trump front for these special interests look at all the lobbyist Trump installed in the agencies they are supposed to regulate. Huge tax cut for the rich and powerful and ignoring the crumbling infrastructure which if undertaken would have had a better payoff than a billionaire getting $ for a new mansion in the south of France.
3
Politics is really pretty simple. It's about money and power and who controls it. Over the last 20 years the top one percent of Americans gained $20 trillion in wealth while the poorest 50% of Americans lost $900 billion in wealth. Not much else needs to be said.
5
@Mark: One more thing needs to be said - stop electing millionaires.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
2
Mr. Bouie: THANK YOU (sorry, moderators, for all caps, unavoidable in this case!) for this incredibly necessary, needed, and ultimately *classic* (hopefully how it will be regarded) statement of why Mr. Sanders' message is so critical at this moment. We are at an ultimate crossroads & no one ever said this like you have, except maybe Bernie himself.
Some context: I was, honestly, writing off Mr. Sanders as a fading could've-been, whose message was now better advanced by successors (esp. Warren) following his lead & inspiration. These proposals & stances suggest he may be as fresh, relevant, & necessary as ever. Yet.....
...despite all this, I'm still (only somewhat less, after reading this) unsure if as to a "Sanders presidency" the time may not be past. I'm thinking, at least this moment: go for broke, all in: a Warren-Sanders or Sanders-Warren ticket.
Many think this is too ideologically lopsided (in the "radical" direction), but it's time for unity & clear dedication, not hedging.
Mr. Bouie, you put your finger on, without saying it, how neoliberalism has destroyed the social contract stability & prosperity depended on since the Great Depression. Neoliberalism substituted for rule of law, checks & balances, mutual accountability, & labor protections/rights a Hobbesian-Darwinian "Melian" melee of "strong do what they can weak suffer what they must" under a phony guise of "meritocracy." It has been pure theft & violence sustained by an idolatry of money, wealth & power.
97
@Anon
Anyone who thinks that Sanders message is "radical" is so far gone that they should apply for a job as an opinion writer at the NYT. Sanders is describing nothing other than the common wisdom of the decade of the 1930's when government saved the economy from the depredations of wall street. FDR experimented and found ways that worked based on American practicality and not on anyone's ideology. Had we had leaders with the wisdom to leave the work of those geniuses alone we would not be in the middle of the catastrophe that we are now. As anyone who has studied economics knows, the only way to fix our economy is to replace the fundamental regulations that provided the balance that created the powerhouse that was the American economy after WWII. That economy is long gone due to the short sighted greed of wall street and the extremist right wing economics of a few wealthy privateers. The job before us now is to repair 40 years of vicious damage to our regulatory structure and then go beyond that into the grand experiment of how to rebuild an economy that has been decimated by the anti democratic sabotage of our domestic enemies. Bernie's ideas are sound and level headed and quite conservative given the damage that he seeks to repair. The media may again be able to distract the population away from the issues like they did in 2016 but I hope they have learned a lesson and do not do it this time around. We only have so much time left.
11
@Anon
Bernie may be old news. But do we always need "new and improved" products. Warren likely voted for Reagan, twice... and I guess Nixon, twice. She faked her run for her senate seat to amass corporate money to run for president, like Hillary did in NY. Unlike Bernie, the people and papers of her home state are very skeptical. What she proposes today is great, but she's probably only reacting to popular sentiment changed, in part, to Bernie's now resonating, message - a coherent message that he hasn't changed for 40 plus years. Unlike Warren, Sanders is not signaling to the corporate establishment that he only seeks a "revival", rather than a political "revolution". On the other hand, Tulsi Gabbard wants to dismantle the military industrial complex - and she's the one who could actually do it, poltically... and just watch so- called liberal news outlets avoid her! Shameless.
8
The only candidate worth voting for. He's not going to walk back, evolve, modify, rethink, or reassess his positions. That's why they hate him, that's why they'll all - the media, the DNC, the corporations, the rich - will do anything to stop him: he's for real. The uber rich and the thieving corporations will pay taxes; Wall Street will be put on a leash, and the insurance companies will be told where to get off. The minimum wage will go up, unions will be un-muzzled. Elections will be reformed. He will beat the living daylights out of Trump and the Republican criminals and neo fascists who have hijacked our country.
I think the Times and all the rest of his naysayers are really going to be shocked when the cranky old socialist from Brooklyn starts winning the primaries. I can't wait for their heads to explode when he becomes president.
5
I thought only Republicans dreamed fondly of a glorious past that will never be seen again. Apparently not.
2
Wow! A positive article about Bernie Sanders. Thank you Jamelle Bouie and thank you NYT. I am a regular donor to Bernie, but today I will make an extra donation in honor of this fine oped.
6
OK.
Time to put aside the grandfatherly charm of the avuncular Bernie.
To this day he is campaigning to be the Democratic nominee for president but refuses to register as a Democrat.
He ran in Vermont and won as a Socialist, his preferred label.
He and his evil twin, Warren, tell us all that we will lose our private health insurance if they are elected. Since millions of Americans depend on this, sounds like a winning promise to me.
He smiles in the videos of him on his honeymoon in Moscow.
These will be all over the TV if he is the nominee.
He is the right man to re-elect Trump if that is your goal.
3
@simon sez -- If Bernie is "not a real Democrat" then that is a problem for the party, not for Bernie.
5
Many people, all Democrats, have worked for years to strengthen unions and resist right-to-work legislation. Once again, Bernie gets credit for the work of others, while accomplishing exactly nothing himself.
1
I find it hilarious when dilettantes support Sanders by calling Franklin Roosevelt "our last socialist president."
FDR didn't come up with the New Deal social programs; he cribbed them from popular figures of the day like Huey Long, Father Coughlin, Norman Thomas, and Dr. Townsend. He did it not as a "socialist," but to save capitalism from the millions of angry people marching in the streets. People today have all but forgotten the Bonus Marchers, and how FDR refused to help them after they got him elected.
People who claim FDR was a socialist would make him throw back his head and roar with laughter. When FDR gloated of The New Deal to a true socialist, Norman Thomas, rhetorically asking, "How do you like the way I delivered your platform," Thomas aptly replied: "You delivered it on a stretcher."
The bulk of the democrats now trying for the nomination, including Sanders, are millionaires feeding their ego.
People who elect the rich lose the right to whine that the government doesn't understand working people.
It is revealing that in order to find even a remotely progressive democrat millionaire we need to go back over 85 years. Talk about desperation.
And no, republicans are not better. I toss that in for the benefit sheep who see only the Good Cop/Bad Cop game and fall for it every time. They will read this and surely label me a conservative republican. As in my imagined FDR moment, that makes me throw back my head and roar with laughter.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
2
for me the bottom line is: unions are divisive. all worksers should be treated fairly union or not.
2
@jazzme2: "Should be"? I, for one, am tired of people "shoulding" on us. Without unions, workers don't have a balance of power. History shows that workers cannot, like Blanche DuBois, "depend on the kindness of strangers," which was her genteel way of saying that she was a prostitute. Sorry. Those days are long dead.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
2
I am glad that Bernie brought up the role of Unions. They are not really playing a role in today's labor market for a variety of reasons. May I make a suggestion? Unions need to get involved in training and retraining of their members and especially unemployable workers. If Unions would offer job training at low cost it would improve not only the job prospects of their members but would significantly increase membership. Being involved in education will elevate the standing of unions, make unions widely acceptable as helping workers and employers alike and hopefully eliminate shady job training programs like Trump University.
1
Other first world countries don't have the problems we have.
They don't have the poor urban black or poor rural white we have.
They don't have the opioid crisis we have.
They spend around $5,000 per person for healthcare and have some form of universal healthcare. We spend around $10,000 per person and have parts of the US with infant mortality rates of a second world country.
They have better schools for blue collar workers.
They have cheaper university. Most have trade school or two years of college.
Many have maternity leave.
They all have better economic mobility, the ability to "pull your self up by your bootstraps."
They can do these things, why can't we?
Instead, we have the highest incarceration rate in the world.
We have more economic inequality and something like the richest 400 Americans have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of America.
4
I find it hilarious when dilettantes support Sanders by calling Franklin Roosevelt "our last socialist president."
FDR didn't come up with the New Deal social programs; he cribbed them from popular figures of the day like Huey Long, Father Coughlin, Norman Thomas, and Dr. Townsend. He did it not as a "socialist," but to save capitalism from the millions of angry people marching in the streets. People today have all but forgotten the Bonus Marchers, and how FDR refused to help them after they got him elected.
People who claim FDR was a socialist would make him throw back his head and roar with laughter. When FDR gloated of The New Deal to a true socialist, Norman Thomas, rhetorically asking, "How do you like the way I delivered your platform," Thomas aptly replied: "You delivered it on a stretcher."
The bulk of the democrats now trying for the nomination, including Sanders, are millionaires feeding their ego.
People who elect the rich lose the right to whine that the government doesn't understand working people.
It is revealing that in order to find even a remotely progressive democrat millionaire we need to go back over 85 years. Talk about desperation.
And no, republicans are not better. I toss that in for the benefit sheep who see only the Good Cop/Bad Cop game and fall for it every time. They are read this and sure to label me a conservative republican. As in my imagined FDR moment, that makes me throw back my head and roar with laughter.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
2
Why didn't we hear about this as soon as Sanders released it?
This should be a headline in every major and minor news outlet around the country.
Instead we hear about Brock Turner coaching girls tennis or sexual assault of men in the military.
Sanders addresses something that could turn the fate of millions of workers and we hear virtually nothing about it.
My guess is that even if we did the media would make it more about socialism or communism than how it would help a vast chunk of our population.
5
Trade unions flourish in Germany, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Those countries social welfare programs are vastly superior to those of the U.S. with less poverty and state-sponsored health care.
I worry that Bernie is too old, too radical, and to irascible to be a good president, but I think his point about unions is well taken. since many unions in the U.S. have become disenfranchised or somewhat castrated, the oligarchy has gotten totally out of hand and capitalism has run amok.
1
When will we be rid of Baby Boomers forever looking backwards for the answers to today's problems? I don't want to know where my leaders were or how they felt in 1968, and I'm not convinced that FDR had all the answers in 1932, much less the answers for 2019. I want younger leaders capable of finding 21st century solutions. I don't want my next president to have one foot in the grave physically, and I don't want him or her to be fighting the same old battles of the last 50 years.
3
Tom, at age 67, I really don't disagree, except for the part about one foot in the grave.
21st. Century solutions like the “gig economy”? It’s only the young that think there is nothing to learn from history. By the time you reach my age you have seen history repeating itself, over and over. The expression “there’s nothing new under the sun” didn’t come from nowhere.
5
@Tom Meadowcroft:"When will we be rid of Baby Boomers forever looking backwards for the answers to today's problems?"
You already have. Jamelle Bouie was born in 1987.
Unions cannot influence automation if automation replaces human workers. We are going to have a lot more automation which will reduce the need for numbers of human workers, and that will keep the power of unions limited. Any efforts to achieve equity will probably have to be done through government more than unions can do, now.
2
After an effort to make Missouri a right to work state failed again, I am hopeful that Missourians know how hollow and deceitful the phrase "right to work" is. Taft Hartley created the actual right to work condition by outlawing the closed shop. "Right to Work" laws such as republicans push are an effort to weaken unions by denying them money for negotiation and grievance expences. It would be a relief to unions if a national law was enacted to make "right to work" illegal as it is grossly unfair to union members who have to bear all the expenses of membership while the nonunion employees get a free ride for whatever benefits the union has bargained for.
3
Unions provide collective bargaining which is effective in gaining for workers a fair share of the profits from their productivity. They are also notoriously anti-democratic organizations, which groups controlling them who do not represent the workers but themselves, with a few exceptions. Some were controlled by organized crime, some by Communists attempting to politicize the unions, and some where the union management were partners with company management. Then there are the dynamics of group psychology which opposes workers who are too productive as well as workers who do not meet a minimum of productivity. Then there are the attitudes of workers where they place tribe before brotherhood. For a long time, union membership rejected non-whites during the 1930's. All of this results in mixed feelings among labor for unions. Overall the benefits of unions were clearly in favor of workers, but it was not a pure kind of good.
4
@Casual Observer -- Democracy can elect bad ones. It can also throw them out.
What is the alternative? There isn't one.
No union at all is not a remedy either.
2
@Mark Thomason
Getting rid of undemocratic union governance is very difficult. It takes government intervention to do so. But even crooked unions get more from employers than can employees individually.
1
The US labor history in the late 19th/early 20th centuries is awful and worth reflection. However, unions and labor conditions/rights were established; class conflicts were diffused in an era of rising incomes and diminishing disparities. Unfortunately whoever can take advantage might. Unions at times bargained for terms that hurt competitiveness. Before we uncritically laude the European approach , recognize that European employers are hesitant to add workers that might be difficult to let go if needs change or they turned out to be lousy employees. Public sector unions can at times negotiate with the politicians they elect, resulting in gold plated benefits that are breaking the budgets of local governments. It is also the case that labor in today's economy is overall very different from the manufactured-centered employment of the past. The challenge is to find approaches that can balance the needs of employers to sustain their businesses, (and therefore jobs) and the needs of workers for reasonable terms of employment. Sorry I don't think Bernie has a clue and frankly almost everything he proposes lacks grounding in economic reality. I don't know all the better answers, but I do recognize "solutions" that are likely to lead to many unintended negative consequences. We do need to re think but let's really think. For example, Andrew Yang's proposal for guaranteed basic income makes sense in today's, and tomorrows, world, but more compelling ideas are needed.
I am particularly unimpressed by the responders' efforts to argue against stronger workers' rights. I expect that if responders had been required to fill out a COI form beforehand, the reasons for that would be obvious. Simply put, economically vulnerable people need collective action to successfully fight for a fair wage. Corporate America and the Republican party have been saying "Trust us. What's good for corporations and the rich is good for everyone," for 40 years now. I think we have let that experiment run long enough. It appears to me that guys like Mitt Romney and the other private equity boys doing their leveraged buyouts are hardly "job creators." Shareholders and Chicago school economists will try to scare people by saying Bernie's plan will hurt the economy, but I am unconvinced. When the super rich refer to "the economy," what they really mean is "their money." The corporate buy backs and glut of cheap capital show that the rich have so much money that they have run out of ideas or places in which to invest.
Give me a philosophical argument for why workers should be legally prevented from speaking to and organizing with one another, and I will listen. The practical arguments for restricting labor rights ring hollow now.
5
Bernie is my preferred candidate because he has consistently demonstrated a willingness to get physically involved in workers and consumer rights. Although I am not sold on Medicare for All because there are high earning Americans who don't need it and others who prefer their private insurance. However, He is the people's candidate. I recall when Danny Glover and Bernie went to Mississippi not once but twice to show solidarity to Nissan employees who were trying to establish a union. Unlike Obama who campaigned that he would join with strikers, Bernie actually has a track record of doing so. I think Elizabeth is Bernie Lite come Lately. I like and prefer her over antiquated Joe, but she's not a true grass roots candidate like Bernie is. I don't think she's willing to fight outside of a comfortable, air conditioned conference room where she merely releases more plans.
4
Mr. Bouie is carelessly fueling the ardency of Bernie supporters. Enough already. This is not the 30s, we don't have a depression driving worker radicalism. This is strangely a lot more like Italy in the 20s, but with the world's strongest economy it defies precedent that some Americans are so strongly dissatisfied they would support a would-be dictator in the person of Chairman Trump.
Regardless of historic precedents, task one before us is correcting our political baseline. We are not a democracy, despite the "common knowledge" that we are the world's shining example of democracy. In a democracy all voters are roughly equal, in the US certain voters have much more power than others and many voters squander their power holding out for pie-in-the-sky socialist reform candidates who have no chance of prevailing in a nationwide political contest. Unions are not helping, and haven't since the days when Nixon co-opted Teamsters and construction trade unionists to beat up anti-war protesters. Unions and their rank and file do not play nicely within the Democratic party. They do not support environmental goals. They do not support minority rights. They do not support fair immigration policies. They do not support the equal rights of women and gay citizens. Until unions learn the hard lesson that they are part of a political coalition, no Sanders-based reforms will help the situation.
1
@Pete -- "This is not the 30s, we don't have a depression driving worker radicalism"
Yes, we do.
You don't seem to appreciate the desperation of large areas of the country that never got much of the recovery from the Great Recession.
We've got a suicide crisis. Those are largely distressed workers. I include veterans who return to little economic hope. There is a whole cadre of middle aged laid off worker drug users hiding from their lives.
That can boil over. It hasn't yet, but it is coming if something isn't done. There was a time before the Bonus Marchers, when something should have been done to head that off. It wasn't then, and it isn't yet now.
3
Unions can protect workers' jobs. But unions also protect lazy, unproductive workers. Unionized auto workers got way too greedy, asking the company to pay for everything on top of $30/hr plus jobs and generous benefits. Meanwhile, they were producing an inferior product that could not keep up with Japanese and German automakers.
That is why the auto industry had to be bailed out by the federal government.
Many auto workers eventually too early retirement packages. Some of them even opened Subways.
Workers have to remain flexible and be open to retraining.
2
The inferior product was not the fault of the assembly line workers - it was the result of design and engineering directed by upper management to favor flash over reliability, profit over quality, and short term gain over long term viability. Meanwhile, unionized German and Japanese workers were being empowered to stop the line when a problem arose. Let’s give (dis)credit where (dis)credit is due.
4
@Vox -- "But unions also protect lazy, unproductive workers."
That is an old hit job. For example, with Diesel engines the railroads wanted to reduce train engine crew to one guy. They wanted him to sit there for hours, no bathroom breaks, pay full attention at all times for hour on hour.
There was a use for a second man. I know, because my father was one of those "firemen" who was kept on by the Grand Trunk Railroad when it converted. That was before he went to the police, right out of the War.
I also worked inside an auto plant, as part of the UAW. Management really resented the guys who put time into union leadership roles, like counseling workers in trouble, and speaking up for us. I clearly recall times when the union rep told management, "No, we won't finish that job unless we get overtime." Management would happily up the workload to unbearable, and keep it there.
I represented unions. I was a lawyer unions provided to their guys under contracts. Those guys had no other place to go. The union rep with them made it much easier to help, because he knew that contract inside out and all the ways it worked in the shop. That union rep was the "unproductive worker" in management terms.
3
@John Leinung -- Those "bean counters" and industrial engineers also added value, a lot of value. Like anything, it can be abused. However, the Chevy and Ford trucks and cars that remade America and won WW2 were much less expensive and easier to maintain because of those guys, compared to British or German or Italian or Japanese (in WW2) trucks and cars. The Japanese saw that value, and adopted it, and improved on it, as they mastered industrial production.
Yes, they did accept ideas and input from the line. Some Americans did too, and they were the ones that ran best. That is one reason why today the distant physical separation of management from manufacturing causes defects.
The big issue of quality control relating to unions was protecting guys who came to work unable to work, hung over or still drunk, or otherwise impaired. They had a duty to help those guys, members who were in distress. They did not have many ways available to help. What was needed was more ways to help. Options. Those came later, slowly, and are still incomplete. That is the problem. We need to help our people.
2
Great analysis. This was exactly the motivation I needed to get me to make another contribution to Bernies campaign. This country has been drifting off course for too long. Bernie 2020!
6
So, if unions are so great than why did the textile industry pick up stakes and move to the Far East? Virtually every heavily unionized industry has at some point failed. Steel, airlines, textiles, automotive have all been driven into bankruptcies, government bailouts or offshoring because of unions. That doesn’t include the mobbed up unions (remember the Midstates Pension Fund) who used pensions as a piggy bank to fund corrupt enterprises. Unions are dinosaurs and the vast majority of union workers belong to public sector unions which are driving cities, states and the federal government into bankruptcy.
7
@Art Hudson -- "So, if unions are so great than why did the textile industry pick up stakes and move to the Far East?"
Because they paid off politicians to allow that.
They got to pay people ten cents an hour and work them six and a half days a week, living in barracks, and physically abused to keep them motivated. Why not? It is profit. We let that happen, and called it "competition."
2
Bernie Sanders's plan is stuck in the past.
If unions want to thrive, they need to offer a better product at a competitive price. The fact that they need government coercion to exist shows the weakness of their value proposition.
4
@Liberty hound -- They need government protection from employer predation.
Corporations themselves only exist because government created them. That is a normal part of economic life.
2
So where were all these bright ideas in 2016? He's certainly had plenty of years in which to think them up.
2
Mr. Bouie, your article is the epitome of regressivism
4
I will be voting for Bernie in order "to give labor the tools it needs to forge a path to a better world for people without the privileges of wealth or the power of capital". Period. Better said impossible.
9
If you can't picket, BOYCOTT!
3
The main lesson here can be viewed as rather bleak.
But let’s review:
Jamelle Bouie offers a magisterial background to the passage of the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935 which, less than 15 years later, was essentially gutted by Taft-Hartley—passed by Republicans overriding the veto of Democrat Harry S. Truman.
An obvious reading is that collective bargaining might still be completely unprotected by statute if not for the grinding desperation engendered by the Great Depression.
Clearly the mandate for our ruling class is to keep the 99% so miserable and bereft of hope that they will not stand up for dignity and humanity. But then again, not so miserable and hopeless that too many of us succumb to sweet seductions of slow (or explosive) self immolation.
But wait...
3
hands down, the most well-versed, insightful columnist for the NYT
14
Democratic socialism beats Corporate socialism.
https://youtu.be/nbN9OD83f5I
14
Highlighting Bernie Sanders’ proposal is very important and this essay which reviews labor struggles from 80 years ago is a good reminder of the origins of organized labor. Even better would be to review the disaster that unions are to industry and jobs as witnessed by the destruction of Detroit and the auto industry through labor actions in the 60s and 70s for example. With record low unemployment, rising wages among the lower and middle classes and record low poverty levels, the economy is working and improving. The Proposals by BS amount to the imposition of socialism on the economy and history shows that labor actions lead to job losses and poorly running businesses. The best proof is our own MTA in NYC where the second avenue subway took decades to complete at a cost per mile seven times more expensive than the next most costly system in the world. Unions survive in the public sector because of their funneling of donations and votes to the politicians that “negotiate” their pay packages using money from taxpayers that they are unaccountable for, the result can be seen in our terrible municipal government function. If you want to destroy the economy quickly this proposal by BS would surely be the most effective way.
1
His plan to enhance workplace democracy puts fears into Paul Krugman
Reread his last election column
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/opinion/sanders-over-the-edge.html
1
May I add that strengthening workers' rights would make it much harder for the Right to pit white against black.
Before McCarthy-era expulsions from the unions, the labor movement was often the rare integrated place in the public square.
Let us not succumb to the anti-"socialist" bug the way we previously succumbed to the anti-"communist" bug.
8
Bernie has failed to make the case he knows how to put ANY of his plans into action. He can't because he REALLY doesn't care enough to learn himself. He is unable to win votes from the center. Stop talking about him. It's a waste of time.
2
@Sam -- So, we should vote instead for people who won't even try?
People who get their money from the employers, in return for continuing assurances to sell us out?
4
Very educational & thoughtful piece.
7
How absolutely wonderful to see this in the NYT! Bernie's plan is really the bare minimum to take the boots off the necks of American workers. No other candidate has proposed anything half as good.
9
Bernie Sanders is the kind of person who has never considered the idea that he might be wrong. He's completely unfamiliar with the history of oppression stemming from the Left, seeing any and all forms of tyranny as emanating from the Right. Like many of the columnists from, and readers of, this newspaper, he starts with the assumption that capitalism is something that needs restraining, needs molding, taming, if not overthrowing.
At best, capitalism is seen by intellectuals as something that must be tolerated. Usually, it's downright wicked, allowing greed and exploitation and plutocracy, the trampling of the laborers. "Can't we all share? Why are things so unequal?" The Left's attack on hierarchy in the workplace (Elizabeth Anderson), and really as such, given the natural fact of inequality and hierarchy, is nuts.
The above is why Bouie sees the only path forward for labor as one of confrontation rather than cooperation. Don't liberals love Scandinavia? Why then insist on perpetuating a union model so unlike Sweden's or Denmark's? A big part of unions' decline is ignored: their unpopularity with workers. This isn't the 1930s. We now have "a safety net of benefits for the elderly, disabled, and unemployed; a 40-hour workweek, paid overtime, and a minimum wage; prohibitions on discrimination; workplace safety standards; personal leave; and ... high-quality health insurance."
It's time for something else. https://www.city-journal.org/html/more-perfect-unions-15258.html
3
maybe, because American corporations are not interested in cooperation, and prefer to attack the hardly won the rights by introducing contracts that are unfair to workers, and by qualifying the workers as a contractors with no protection. That's why we s very weak safety net, stagnated wages, unaffordable health care and proliferation of such agreement as non-compete that decreases workers ability to better their situation.
7
This is from the website AICGS ....which quotes Angela Merkel in support as a bridge for cooperation between Germany and the US.
Re labor unions, AICGS says:
"Following a system of co-determination (Mitbestimmung), German labor unions are cooperative by nature, intended to facilitate conflict resolution between employee and employer, and provide a more “democratic” way to run a company.
Labor representatives are included in the decision-making process alongside shareholders. Workers form “works councils” on the floor level, which then choose labor representatives to put forth their interests at a managerial level. The representation of workers’ interests goes all the way up the chain of command."
So for the 2020 election, we need columns on the differences between other advanced countries and the US. We are in a 21st C Gilded Age, with worse inequality and basic security for Americans than for citizens in many other capitalist democracies ---where they actually support health care for all, union membership, apprenticeships, low cost college, and family/child support.
A pattern.
Here, the put downs are ready for these proposals in both congress, and in media---- "left wing, readical, socialistic, big govt. anti business, anti profit---thus "Anti American Freedom". These labels work like a charm for many uninformed, manipulated voters.
It keeps our politics and media defensive, so they stay 'within guidelines' set up by our corporate-financed politics.
A pattern.
4
I believe that as part of fostering a sustainable economy (high social, environmental and economic performance) we need dramatically strong incentives for businesses to have non-managerial employees be business owners. For example, cut in-half the corporate income tax rates for businesses where non-managerial owners are a significant ownership percentage (like 40+%).
We don't need labor strife. We need a globally competitive economy that minimizes environmental footprints and inequality. Worker ownership is a key tool in getting there.
1
@cljuniper -- Germany does that, with great success. Unions are required by government, and they are required to have a place on the Board of Directors.
3
Bernie and the progressive Democrats have some good ideas- but why call it "Socialism." For one thing, they are not really Socialists and for another it's a gift to the Republicans.
If the Democrats want to really get radical, they gain control of the executive and legislative branches and then grant statehood to Wash., D.C., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. That would be 6 more Democratic Senate seats.
And how about packing the Court? Moscow Mitch has had the gloves off for awhile now- fight fire with fire. Admittedly, it didn't work for FDR, but it might work now.
5
I will be voting for Bernie -- this legislation alone is reason enough to support him. (I'm OK with Warren too.)
7
Thank you for raising these points, Mr. Bouie. It would be impossible to comment on everything in this valuable column without writing several other columns. I'd like to comment on one thing: "We are not living in an era of mass unemployment and inescapable deprivation". In fact, counting the people who are left out of the official unemployment statistics, yes we are living in an era of mass unemployment. When we add the millions of people who are underemployed, including people working more than one bad job, we have a very large segment of the population who either can't work at all, or can only work in jobs with bad conditions and inadequate compensation. The result is a strikingly high rate of official poverty and a strikingly high rate of "neediness", the condition of being just above outright poverty. And most people who are in one of those conditions are not going to be able to rise out of them. Strengthening unions is necessary and will help somewhat, but we need so much more (we also need to be careful not to turn ourselves into France).
7
Of course the corporations that control our country, and the world will never let Bernie be the nominee. So unfortunate, as he would be our next FDR. I am still sending him my weekly donations though.Just maybe,if enough people get out and vote,he could be.He is the polar opposite of trump,and most of the politicians.Thank you Bernie for the light, that still gives our country hope.
8
Ok I’ll say it: I love Bernie Sanders. Im so happy to see this article. Finally my favorite paper runs a piece in favor of my hero. Why do the MSM fail to honor him, even run articles disparaging him when he is the real deal, the one who says it like it is, the one whose ideas are perceived as too radical until they quickly become mainstream? Yes I love Bernie and have been with him from the get go. That’s because from the start this has not been about him but about us all. He has never wavered. I wonder if the MSM is hesitant because Bernie is not afraid to take on the corporate forces that keep us stuck.
10
All wealth begins with and is sustained by labor. Henry Ford would not have make a nickel without depending on the men who worked on his assemble lines. We tend to glorify the Fords and Rockefeller's and forget the workers who made them billionaires. We desperately need to return to a more balanced relationship between labor and our current owners of immense wealth and power.
14
@norv blake -- "We tend to glorify the Fords and Rockefeller's"
We would not have had those jobs without the ideas and organizational skills of Ford.
Therefore, we should take special notice that Ford himself set a very high value on his labor force. He paid it very well by standards of the time. My family history is that he treated them very well too, by the standards they expected and hoped for. He knew some things. Don't recall only the employer parts of it.
3
I get the idea that Jamelle has never owned a business, signed a payroll, dug into his own retirement savings to make a payroll, given an employee a down payment on house, or ever functioned in a management position.
He's perfectly qualified to tell people how run a business. Let the employees make all the rules.
6
And the number of employers who have dug into [their] own retirement savings to make a payroll or given an employee a down payment on a house is an infinitesimally small percentage of all employers. If the commenter has done those things, and treated his employees fairly and ethically, then I would suggest that he has no need to fear unions. But to suggest that workers should just trust all employers to be as ethical and compassionate as he is, reveals a naïveté of truly astounding proportions.
6
And where are these employer? The ones which I saw could not care less about employees. They would pay nothing if they could, otherwise how we can explain the stagnated wages despite growing economy.
5
@Ernest Montague -- "I get the idea that Jamelle has never owned a business, signed a payroll, dug into his own retirement savings to make a payroll, given an employee a down payment"
I have.
He's right.
Loyal employees are a blessing. They make it happen.
3
Bernie Sanders may be right to advocate for workers’ rights, but the New Deal has other lessons to offer that may be more relevant.
Reforming labor laws are not going to help much in an automated economy. Employers, given the choice, will use technology to replace people; and who, given a choice, would really want to do factory work anyway? There is nothing wrong with letting workers in emergent economies climb out of poverty.
Here in the U.S. we need federal work projects modeled on the WPA that will give people meaningful work and a middle-class wage, paid for by taxes. The WPA employed construction workers, artists, photographers, designers, and more. Projects ranged from hydroelectric dams to exquisitely illustrated catalogs of American antiques. My parents received their design education at a WPA funded design school and lived productive lives.
Today, work needs to be productive but it doesn’t need to be driven by the private sector. Let the corporations create wealth. That’s what they are good at. Just tax them to pay workers on public projects.
Globalism is not the problem. Distribution of wealth is the problem.
6
Sanders' idea to give labor more power is excellent.
Sanders' idea to do away with private medical insurance is horrible from a political standpoint. On the merits it makes some sense. Reasonable people can and do differ.
On net, he decreases the likelihood we will be able to get rid of Trump next year. On net, Sanders is hurting this country.
1
I think it takes a lot of guts to write this for publication in the NY Times. Thank you Jamelle.
I have strongly criticized the AFL-CIO leadership, particularly Mr. Trumka, for the repeated failure to give the type of rousing Labor Day speech which the state of the American worker and the low level of unionization call for, not to mention the fate of labor's share of the national income and wealth since its peak in the early 1970's. You, Jamelle, have supplied what Trumka cannot; I listened to his breakfast talk at the Christian Science Monitor's forum just before Labor Day and he was confident and optimistic, not angry and defiant. I was scratching my head: he must be leading a life I can only dream of.
I write as a former Chief Steward and Head Negotiator of AFSCME Local 2285 at the Mercer County Bd. of Soc. Services, Trenton, NJ, where the scope of what we could bargain for was set at the state budget-legislative level and we were in a clear, limiting straight jacket. There had been a strike in the years before me, but we had lost the right to strike, if I recall correctly from more than 40 years ago.
I was also, in a later life the Director of Conservation for NJ Audubon Society, and chief lobbyist.
I think I have stood for two marginalized communities in American life: Nature and Workers.
Too bad the AFL-CIO today seems focused on defending old gains, not reaching those who need help the most.
Green New Deal bridges the gaps. Trumka has scorned it.
9
@William Neil. Green New Deal doesn’t bridge any gaps - it destroys jobs and the economy.
2
@Jackson
We must be reading different documents: my version of the 14 page Resolution from Sen. Markey and AOC has a "just transition" for workers and communities who lose their jobs due to phasing out fossil fuels/carbon spewing, and a jobs guarantee for full employment.
Sanders says his version of the GND will create 20 million jobs in the US.
Let's do the numbers: Sanders $16.7 trillion dollar plan spread over ten years in a GDP of $21 trillion means it would equal about 8.5% of GDP per year; in 1945 the US defense budget was 35-40% of GDP...so if we want to do it, need to do, it's doable.
Let's have a debate on it Jackson, any stage, any time bring two full professors, so it will be three on one...you pay my transportation and lodging...see you then; "let's get after it."
2
... while saving the earth. What good is a booming (or just barely hanging on) economy if we're all dead?
2
Thank you for this. That Workplace Democracy Plan, like so many other proposals Sanders has made in the past few months would alter the power dynamic in this country and potentially rescue democracy from the corrosive effects of a system that looks increasingly like an oligarchy. I wish everyone would try to contemplate a healthier society with less income inequality and a greater sense of shared purpose. If we have any hope of surviving the ravages of climate change that fundamental change in our society is essential.
8
The picture in this article is dated 1934. Much has changed since then. At the time, conditions for workers were horrid. Low pay, no benefits, miss a day of work and someone would be in your spot when you got back, the toilet was a bucket behind a curtain and you only had a minute or two to use it assuming you had any time at all because the assembly line (for manufacturing jobs) couldn't stop. Unions were the by-product of worker frustration and the fact that other than the hated "scabs" who broke union picket lines, corporations were not a part of the global supply chain we have today. Today, international corporations, indeed any corporation, is free to offshore work to attain cost savings. As we all know, the driver to Corporate America is greed for high executive salaries and high enough dividends and share price growth to keep the stockholders happy. Why make garments in the US paying workers at least minimum wage when workers in Bangladesh can do the same work for a pittance? Workers at companies where they consider themselves well treated are loathe to rock the boat by unionizing. Rock the boat and workers in some other country who cost less will win the work. I think Bernie needs to realize that 2019 is not 1934.
3
I honestly feel bad for Mr. Bouie.......
He's lost track of the fundamental character of Bernie Sanders....which is......"he's a politician".
He honed his act as a college professor.
This part of Bernie's schtick makes him popular with the Alexandra "Sandy" Ocasio college-kid crowd.
But let's review the record.
Bernie has been elected again and again and again and again by his fellow NYC Vermont constituency centered at the Univ of VT......and he has accomplished.....uh.......nothing.
He's great a giving lectures about the advantages of communal living and the history of 1905 Russia and such.....but beyond that....Bernie cant even keep a promise to stay in retirement!!
7
None of which is responsive to the proposals he puts forth. This is,rather, simply an ad hominem attack.
7
I've joined a union. My dad was a lifelong member. They certainly have an up side: increased pay, better benefits, more workplace safety, workers' rights.
But is it worth losing your life for a few dollars more per hour? Yes, you can barely survive on minimum wage, if at all. So maybe it is to some folks -- but not to all: You get only one life. I don't want to risk it even to improve working and living conditions. My back would have to be against the wall to risk everything for a union strike.
That just ain't the case in today's America, by and large. Yes, I'll be hungrier and live in near-poverty perhaps, but I'll be alive. It's an unhappy dilemma with no good options, but an intact life beats severe pain, disablement, or death.
It's a Chinaman's choice. And to my armchair critics I'll be pilloried as a fair-weather union man. Nonetheless, I'm not dying for $15/hour. Maybe, and I want to underline maybe, you would. But walkin' and talkin' are two different things.
And those rabble-rousers in print won't be on the picket line with you. Let's face it, one way or another, big dogs always win -- unless you'll accept a pyrrhic victory. It's the way of the world.
So, workers of the world, unite, yes; but when the bayonets come out, serious second thoughts appear, and they should: hard truths for hard times.
1
@Jim Muncy -- "But is it worth losing your life for a few dollars more per hour?"
You wouldn't have those few dollars more, without the union bargaining power.
You wouldn't keep the job, the first time you had a problem, without a union rep to help and a contract to cite.
2
We are in a race to the bottom. The message we get from the corporatists who rule the world: consumers want low prices, we can’t compete with Asian labor pools, American labor demands cost too much, but keep consumers spending or the economy will drag.
The corporatists (who believe their corporations are “people too, my friend”) have destroyed unions, and continue to destroy workers’ futures, to extract labor and wealth from the middle class.
That is the “Great Sucking Sound” Ross Perot identified. It’s the sound of the race to the bottom. It’s the sound of life being extracted from people who have no choice but to get up and go to work every day so they can pay the bills.
Have you seen “American Factory”? Watch that documentary and you may see a dire future of labor in the world, unless we do something radical like what Sanders and Warren are talking about. Socialism would definitely be better than an “American Factory” ruled by a Chinese corporation.
99
@Gelfling I watched that devastating documentary last night. I wish everyone would watch it. Global authoritarian capitalism will lead to the death of democracy. It’s already happening. We need to think about what we are doing and change course before it’s too late. Sanders is the only candidate proposing the transformative change this society so desperately needs.
24
@Gelfling
They were aided and abetted by economists that made their career formulating theories that pleased the rich
Read
https://slate.com/business/1997/03/in-praise-of-cheap-labor.html
Opposition to outsourcing was declared to be "moral outrage"
8
@Kathryn Levy. No, no one wants his changes.
2
Socialism has been a terrible scurge to human liberty. It brought us the USSR, the National Socialists (Nazi), the DPRK, the Khmer Rouge, the Shining Path, Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Greece, all the national economic collapses . Every nation that embraced free enterprise and markets has prospered. Why do people always fall into the economic bigotry and resentment of socialism? Is it less overt than racial bigotry and resentment? Is it being promoted on campuses now? It's shocking for an American.
6
Socialism and Communism are not the same thing. Socialism and totalitarianism are not the same thing. Socialism and extremism are not the same thing. Not any more than capitalism and Fascism are the same thing. There are socialist democracies that are free and dedicated to the rule of law, and there are capitalist kleptocracies that that are repressive, murderous dictatorships. The shared characteristic of the “scourges” cited is greed and lust for power, NOT “socialism.”
5
@John Leinung -- All true.
In addition, the Greek problem was and remains that a small elite has all the money, trades power back and forth, and does not pay any taxes on its extreme share of the wealth. A country can't function that way.
3
Thank you Jamelle Bouie !
8
Does this guy live in a closet? France has all those labor protection laws and twice our unemployment. Has he heard of the gilets jaunts riots? The level of critical thinking here is abysmal.
7
@SJW51 -- France does not have double our unemployment. They count the whole labor force in their numbers, and the US does not. The US has a separate "labor participation rate" taken out before "unemployment."
3
So many commenters here that have never read Zinn's the Peoples History of the United States. Republicans have dumbed down our country so much and re written history so thoroughly that I actually think it's pretty much all over and we should now change the name to Gilead. Get rid of 1984, burn it. Like a good nationalist. Animal Farm? What a funny story. Burn it. The Jungle, well, mostly nobody remembers that. The rich have a plan for getting what they want. The first step is to make everyone stupid by cutting education. Step 2 is to Goebbels them into believing like Smith, 1+1 =3. We're there. All Hail Trump. Hail Putin. Jolly good work Boris. Thank a lot of rich white guys for all this. Let the second colonization begin.
3
The times seems to have ignored bernies call for 3rd world women to have free access to birth control. Apparently population is still off the lefts PC screen. He was beaten up on both sides for saying what we all know is obvious. that population growth is driving the climate change and immigration crises and controlling population is the key to solving both problems. He's got my vote on that issue alone, but I guess it's too "radical" for the nyts?
5
Both Sanders and Warren are for workers rights.
Warren/Sanders OR Sanders/Warren in 2020... Go for the Gold...!!! They would end Presidential corporate influence. Only THEY would CHANGE our country for the better... Neither of them has ANY dirt for the GOP to plunder... The GOP FEARS both of them... The GOP wants Biden to run...!!! They have TONS of dirt on Biden... The GOP has more dirt on Biden than they had on Hillary. Biden will provide a ton more of gaffs... The GOP and trump will make Biden look like a JERK... Biden will continue to take corporate dollars... Warren and Sanders will not... Thanks for your service Joe Biden. but please retire…!!!
3
@Carl
Hey Carl, take a look at Tulsi Gabbard. The Bernie-Tulsi ticket would transform the country after 16 years into a modern, developed nation again - and would win in the general election more easily than any other combination. (Most of the country, by far, are Independents and non-affiliated - and no fans of American Imperialism, unlike NYT.) And unlike Warren, Tulsi doesn't seem to have significant integrity issues, i.e. didn't (or wouldn't) vote for Reagan, twice... or Nixon.) See her interviews with Colbert or Anderson Cooper. She graciously turns them into little, Establishment boys.
4
@carl bumba
So very glad to read your promotion of a Bernie-Tulsi ticket.
I have seen Bernie in person, when he spoke in Montgomery a few months ago to a packed building. I had long thought that Bernie's ideas and proposals were sensible and doable and critically needed for the country. Seeing him in person showed me that his personality is riveting, also. The man believes in his mission, so it is easy for his listeners to believe.
And if anyone is still stuck on the "socialism" charges? Look up the definition of the word, and you'll see that America already shares some aspects of socialism in our public schools, police stations, fire houses, libraries, health clinics, and more--all essential elements of our lives, none operated by forces of capitalism. If we get to the point when the production of goods is done by the state, then we can worry about "socialism," but Bernie has no intention of going there.
Tulsi Gabbard has, to me, the same sense of gravitas and cold, unshakable belief in cause that Bernie possesses. Together, these two would be unbeatable--and they would be anathema to corporatists and Republicans who love party more than country. Of course, there may be Democrats who love party more than country, but I hope they'd see their error before 11-03-20.
Again, Carl Bumba, thanks for promoting a Bernie-Tulsi ticket!
3
@TinyBlueDot
You're welcome, Carl! I had the privilege to live in VT seven years... Bernie had folk hero status.
4
Bernie ' Holler A Lot' Sanders is not the 2nd Coming of America's greatest white liberal progressive of all time aka John Brown.
Bernie Sanders thick Brooklyn accent and over the top blovaiating near buffoonish caricature New York City archetype style-Al Sharpton, Chuck Schumer and Donald Trump- betrays a carpetbagger in the 2nd least populous and one of the whitest states in the union.
When the most loyal and long suffering base of the Democratic Party is black African American Protestant female, why are there three 70+ old white European Americans at the top of the 2020 Democratic Party primary contingent?
Including 2-time loser POTUS Joe Biden and one- time POTUS loser Bernie Sanders. America has never had a female President. Elizabeth Warren will not change that fact.
3
Such a revival of unions would make the USA (even more) non-competitive in the global economy.
4
There's a level of desperation in workers having to organize and strike that suggest conditions should not have gotten there to begin with. Again, this points to a failure in government to stand up adequately on behalf of workers. Conditions need to be set that go beyond a bare minimum such as safety and well-being, to also include basic standards in how profits are shared.
3
These comments show how little most folks know about our long history of workers rights. It wasn't that long ago that workers were payed enough to afford to have a kid or two, and buy a modest house, and retire. Now everyone thinks the only folks who have these "luxuries" are federal/state workers (and that they should be despised for it)? I've worked around them as a contractor for years and while some have health care and a decent salary, most have seen their wages stagnate like the rest of us. Why are folks hating their neighbor for having something all of us should have? How about get your co-workers together and demand to be treated like a human being by your employer. Oh wait, that is exactly what Bernie wants to help you do.
Bernie is trying to bring us back to 1960's American worker rights culture, not the USSR. In the historical sense, he's about as "radical leftist" as a goldfish.
10
Socialism is a failed experiment. As a Centrist in every way I have just one warning for the Democrats. Give me Sanders, and I'll stay home. And many more like me will stay home as well. I loathe that man and all he stands for. And he isn't even a Democrat, unless he needs that party to run for president. There are better, smarter and younger candidates (all actual Democrats) I can get behind. Not Sanders.
2
@AMM
You've got this pretty black and white.... Do you REALLY believe Bernie is promoting Communism, Stalinism, Maoism, Trotskyism, etc., as opposed to Democratic Socialism, like that of the world's most developed nations? I'm not so sure you should describe yourself as a "centrist" with the opinion, "I loathe that man and all he stands for." Where does that then put Trump on your aversion scale, "ultra-loathed"?
6
@carl bumba “The world’s most developed nations”? Like Venezuela - the only true socialist country remaining? The Nordic countries, let alone other Europeans nations, are free-market, capitalist economies. This is one of the most egregious lies propagated by the Sanders wing of the party - that socialism and social democracy are one and the same. Sanders is unquestionably promoting a Soviet-style state ownership of the means of production. I am a liberal and I loathe him and everything he stand for.
The Republicans have worked long and hard to get rid of worker protections. They continue today as they roll back Environmental Protections. It's in their best interest because their rank and file doesn't really understand. They save their Union dues while the company they work for uses them up and kills them.
In the state in which I live the retired Auto Workers are all in for Trump. They aren't smart enough to get that the generous benefits upon which they live and many others would love to have are the result of labor unions and democrats. They think the loud-mouthed vulgarian is it. The man who has never worked a day in his life is standing up for them.
Once upon a time the Labor Unions would have told them what is in their best interests. No more. The GOP is ensuring we have an ignorant working class who can never get ahead.
2
Ending "at will" employment is a terrible idea. Bernie Sanders is stuck in time, never having updated his ideas about the labor movement in last 40 years.
"At will" employment is a two way street; employees have the freedom to quit for any time, for any reason. Would Bernie's bill change that?
I'm a Democrat who voted for Gore, Kerry, Obama, and Hillary Clinton, but there's no way I'm supporting a candidate who signs on to this nonsense.
6
Sir: when you write of employers, you write passionately about the powers workers must have; “He would give federal employees the right to strike and ban the permanent replacement of any striking workers. He would also end the prohibition on secondary boycotts, which keeps workers from pressuring “neutral” employers — like suppliers and other service providers — in the course of an action against their “primary” employer.”
Now, substitute employers in this narrative for African Americans. Imagine groups banding together to force Black business owners to use suppliers or do business as the selfish employees (who are free to seek higher wages for their talents elsewhere) demand. Else they strike (which is extortion save for laws making it an exception to the rule) and cripple the business who pays them.
Unions are bastions of pathetic, entitled and dishonorable workers who cannot command what they deem fair wages for their talents. The free market disagrees with their conclusion. But thanks to Democratic Party passed laws to permit what is illegal and immoral (collective bargaining and unions generally) to give their votes powers by government action. Imagine if Business Owners and all Employers formed a union? They agreed on wages all Employers would pay. The government would bust up that group as an illegal monopoly which stifles competition.
But you think labor should be able to use extortion, but not anyone else?
This is why we have a Constitution. Democracy stinks.
4
@Socrates (whom I usually perfectly agree but seems a little pessimistic about Bernie’s chances)
I would like to think that Bernie has a chance to win the nomination.
It is easy to dismiss the American electorate as a bunch of idiots who voted for Trump over Hillary (a flawed but infinitely better candidate for their own good). Rationality is in the side of that argument and I do not dispute it.
But, for one minute, let us go though a thought experiments like I used to do when I was still a scientist. Let’s assume the average voter was hit by lightning the same way the character in Oliver Sacks’ fascinating Musicophilia did and turned rational (the character, a real person, turned an excellent musician from practically a tone-deaf guy).
What would that average voter do? Seeing where he stands versus where he stood (say in the days of FDR), he would reverse course and vote for the candidate who would undo the damage as quickly as he or she can.
And that candidate is Bernie. Warren can join the ticket to make it even more formidable.
Well, that is the good thing about thought experiments, you can dream a little too. Funny thing is that they sometime work. And change the world!
4
Chrystal ball's unintended consequences: Drop in expected EPS growth = U.S. led global stock market collapse = less consumer spending = global depression = decades of zero interest rates = bank and insurance industry collapse plus pension plan collapse = state and local gov't collapse = dollar collapse = IMF-backed global QE and IMF chryptocurrency = ?
“You may have missed it...” starts this thoughtful essay because U.S. media routinely give very little attention to labor news, and give especially short shrift to a plan that empowers workers and is authored by Bernie Sanders.
2
So, if an airline pilot, or a surgeon comes to work drunk he or she cannot be fired unless they are first warned and it happens again? Seriously?
2
@misplaced modifier (a wise man who might have made the wrong decision to come back here from Norway)
Having travelled to Norway extensively over the past 25 years advising Statoil (now Equinor), I can tell you that even flying back from their beautiful airport to JFK is sufficient to remind you of how the two countries went in such opposite direction. Norway, brilliantly used their new found wealth to raise the level of their society as close as one can to Rawlsian Justice, exactly as Reagan took us in the opposite direction, oligarchy tending to fascism under Trump.
I wish every American who votes republican visits Norway to gain perpective and stop beating the jingoistic drum.
6
@Larry
The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund was created for that eventuality. It is now worth around $1 Trillion Dollar. I will leave it to you to calculate what that is per capita while you count the days to Brexit.
I have not visited Rinkeby but have spent a long time in towns like Birmingham just a little away from the fair London-town.
Patriotic feeling asides, I know so many British people who have been to Norway, Denmark or Sweden who would swap places in a heart beat. Social Democracy works. The standard of living in Scandinavia is so much higher than the US and the UK (except for the posh Kensington type areas) in general that it is mind boggling. And it was achieved without enslaving others, robbing them from their land and welfare like we and our cousins across the "pond" achieved their wealth and empires. (I am aware of Sweden and Denmark as Kingdoms fighting wars and the inuits of Greenland but they are epsilons compared to what we (and you did)).
Have a great night.
2
@Larry
The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund was created for that eventuality. It is now worth around $1 Trillion. I will leave it to you to calculate what that is per capita while you count the days to Brexit.
I have not visited Rinkeby but have spent a long time in towns like Birmingham just a little away from the fair London-town.
Patriotic feeling asides, I don't know too many British people who have been to Norway, Denmark or Sweden who wouldn't swap places in a heart beat. Social Democracy works. The standard of living in Scandinavia is so much higher than the US and the UK (except for the posh Kensington type areas) in general that it is mind boggling. And it was achieved without enslaving others, robbing them from their land and welfare like we and our cousins across the "pond" achieved their wealth and empires. (I am aware of Sweden and Denmark as Kingdoms fighting wars and about the Inuits of Greenland, but they are epsilons compared to what we (and you did)).
Have a great night.
2
I want to just look at the provision about getting fired. Currently for whatever reason in this country it's incredibly hard to get fired unless it's sexual harassment. Why why are so many lame incompetent workers allowed to do whatever they please and never get punished or fired (I'm talking to you medical office workers). Our education system is in shambles partly because no one can fire a bad teacher, why do we allow this? I'm all for Bernie but some people just need to be fired that's is often the only way they learn.
1
But do you make sure that they fired over incompetence not barely because the employer found a cheaper replacement or because ideological differences or because he demanded better working conditions?
2
Bernie Sanders can call himself a socialist all he wants to, but, he is really a New Deal democrat. The ideas of both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren should not be considered radical or new...they come straight out of the mouth of President Roosevelt. We should listen more and knee-jerk react less.
3
great work. thank you.
2
A Trotskyite in the Oval Office? Well, after Trump anything anybody is possible.
1
In other words, Bernie wants to radically expand government power, weaken the rights of shareholders, cripple the ability of owners & managers to run their company’s, and more broadly institute socialism across the America.
France already has similar rules. Mandatory lengthy vacations, difficult to fire employees, government meddles far more in private enterprise... and they celebrate 1% GDP growth, tolerate general unemployment at 10% or more, youth & minority unemployment above 20%, and routine rioting in the streets.
The left’s romantic fascination with socialism remains a mystery. It fails everywhere it’s tried. But hey, let’s give it another go, what the heck. Let’s elect a president with zero private sector experience whose only economic accomplishment has been enriching himself at the public teat.
3
The Right's inability to see capitalism failures, just astonishing. Great Depression, Great recession had to be corrected with the Government involvement. Introduction of the Government laws made lives of workers less miserable, otherwise we would have millions dying on streets unable to afford retirement or healthcare.
2
Nice to see you waking up. Belatedly but still.
2
The 60, 70. 80 year olds of America earnestly want to believe in Bernie. The older half of the Boomer Generation has been leading the nation ever since Bush,Sr cynically destroyed America, sabotaging California in the process. Clinton took over and it was "Hurray for Our Side".....free love, do your own thing, dont trust anyone over 30, America must pay for its sins...and end the Vietnam War(1992).
Well....it turned out that the hippies and SDS leaders of 1968 were no better at leading the country than sinister, cynical CIA chief George HW Bush.
But now, like a supernova, finally exploding and becoming a dimly lit dwarf.....Bernie shows up with all the re-hashed rhetoric from an SDS rally circa 1968.....and the old hippies get to relive their long lost days of youth pretending like Bolshevic Rhetoric is going somehow Save America....the same America they destroyed with exactly the same off-the-wall philosophy.
The saddest part is watching the wide-eyed, naive millenials follow the Pied Piper of Socialism down exactly the same path.
1
@YRUNGA Speaking of Boomers: Worth remembering that the first presidents we got when all the Boomers attained voting age were Reagan and Bush, Sr.
Reagan because the boomers were suckled on TV and remembered him from their childhood - and Bush because he was Reagan's trusty TV sidekick for 8 years.
As we see demonstrated over and over, the older Boomers simply cannot not grow up. Their political neoteny results in a need for a strong Father Figure. As we see from the results, it is very dangerous.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
1
The very notion of this proposal, as demonstrated by the pictures chosen to accompany this piece, is that of mob rule.
2
Without a strong labor movement, American democracy is little more than a theatrical charade, a farce staged for the TV cameras to mollify the masses. Hence, with the decline of labor's power, the political process has devolved into Trump's "Twitter presidency," the whimsical rule of the reality-TV game show host.
Since the end of WWII, the right wing capitalist class has been doing everything in its power to claw back the concessions FDR made to the working class during the labor insurrections of the 1930s -- things like a living wage, unemployment insurance, on-the-job safety, the 40-hour week. As FDR recognized, the choice the US faced during the Depression was between supporting labor (i.e., democratic socialism) or fascism -- as the examples of Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy demonstrated. In these two nations, of course, the capitalist class preferred fascism. What will it be in today's United States?
1
@ando arike. Would you put Gates and Zuckerburg in the right wing capitalist class? How about Soros or Steyer?
Why don't you nominate him and see what happens?
1
Fear mongering is ugly as exemplified by this Opinion.
Resurrecting photos of labor disputes from 1934 is demagogic.
Endorsing a law that permanently forbids the federal government from replacing striking federal workers is dangerous nonsense.
3
This is sad joke...
Perhaps keep a hardcopy of this column in your wallet - so when you're stuck between stations in the dark during the next MTA strike, you can pull out your iPhone and use it as a flashlight to read it...
4
Liberal Democratic mayor de Blasio of New York City does not want to pay prevailing wages on affordable housing projects. He says paying prevailing wages would limit the amount of affordable housing the City can build. The very definition of hypocritical scab politician.
BTW Most of the statewide media supports his position.
Bernie's major fault is that he is using the (much confusing) term "socialism" instead of "Nordic Model". The Nordic Model is plain and simple. The means of production are private hands, Labor is well organized (80-85%) and the Government sees that the two are working in congress for the well being of the entire population. How civilized!
Bernie, please, will you please use the term Nordic Model?! Thanks
2
@Nicholas You left out that one of the reasons the Nordic welfare states can give away so much to their citizens is that they don't foot the entire bill for their national defense (thanks to the U.S.A.), and they don't have crushing debt weighing them down like we do. They also don't have identity and economic tribalism gumming up their politics like we do.
That picture had me shuddering until I looked at the people trying to protest--then, I felt so much for them. There have been multiple worker concessions with fewer strikes for the longest time now. The excuse that increased worker conditions would drive out business seems pretty lame by now--the outsourcing and other closures have happened anyway! It takes someone like Sanders to broadcast what has been needed for the benefit of working people for a long time now. I give him full credit. Additionally, repeatedly, I'll comment that the fundamental problem of these times is the trend in non-voting by the majority of citizens. The "winners" have many times been by default of those in the non-majority who do exercise their right to vote. We get many of these hideous laws that opinion piece writers very properly note as such because of those defaults. It would best explain why there are those laws despite surveys that show "most people" want otherwise. Non-voters have only themselves to blame. I hope that the turnaround, with great results, in the record voter turnout last year will be a hopeful sign from now on. Study the candidates that most reflect what we want and VOTE!
1
Yes, in the US, employers can fire at will. But then their payments into the state unemployment compensation shoot up, and any sane employer is going to think twice about giving an employee the boot in an angry rage. And if personality issues have become too overwhelming, the answer is of course to pay the employee off with unemployment compensation and severance, not to have him remain festering inside the company.
The power and rights Senator Sanders wants to return to the working class are exactly why he is anathema to the Capitalist ruling elite of America. They will do everything they can to defeat him . . . The San Francisco General Strike did not just paralyse the city. The Strike Committee ran the city for three days. Also, it was the famous "sit down" strikes of the late 1930s, when workers occupied the factories, mostly led by Communist organizers of the new Congress of Industrial Organizations, that unionized the basic industries like auto and steel across the country.
2
It's only "radical" in the U.S. Most of what Sanders proposes is pretty vanilla, tried and true stuff in the rest of the developed world and has been for decades. The middle class is already on the ropes in the U.S. More and more of the wealth and income is going to the top .1 - .01%. Everyone working. Most falling behind. The U.S. falling behind on all the social metrics.
2
Unions need to go further and demand that employees be given ownership in the companies they work for. And consumers need to support companies that are at least partially employee owned. Labor is nothing without capital but capital is equally ineffective without labor. We need to meld the best of capitalism with the best of socialism to achieve the best world we can. But political dogma pitting one against the other is a powerful opioid indeed.
The Left fails to understand the harm to workers and country caused by making if difficult to terminate employees.
For many decades we have seen around the world, making it difficult for employers to fire causes higher unemployment, reduces social mobility and reduces improvements in living standards. Thats why France, Italy, Spain, etc., have persistent high unemployment, especially for the young and low growth.
When firing/layoffs becomes difficult, employers:
- automate more, use outside contractors and source from outside the US. This increases unemployment and decreases wages.
- delay hiring new employees for as long as practical and then some as terminating the employee will be difficult if the time of the hire was bad or the person did not work out. This increases unemployment and career mobility.
- taking a “chance” on hiring or promoting an employee that is not a perfect fit is strongly discouraged. Why take a chance on a worker who has been unemployed for too long, a mother re-entering the paid workforce after a decade as full time mother, or the person who was in prison, or the person is different from past hires?
Adopting this terrible policy is also very hard to undo after its harm educates the country that it is a bad policy. Unions block its removal through politics and actions in the streets.
3
There is a simple chart that shows what has happened when the Rich won the war on unions. I wish I could post it, but you can find it in many places. One is:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_productivity_and_real_wages.jpg
The chart has 2 graphs. One simply indicates the average hourly wage paid to workers , The other indicates productivity of these workers, the value of the goods and services produced by workers in an hour.
As you can see, from about 1946 to 1973 these two curves moved in lockstep. When a worker produced more value, he got paid more. This period, 1946 - 1973 has been called the Great Prosperity during which GDP growth averaged 3.8% and real median household income surged 74%.
Staring in 1973, the curves began to pull apart. Productivity continued to increase, but wages flattened. For a few years after 1980, the election of Reagan, real wages actually dropped. After that productivity continued to rise, but wages has stayed low, thus getting further and further away from productivity.
The result of this can be seen in the following graph which shows where the money went:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/opinion/leonhardt-income-inequality.html
Yes, it went just where you thought it went.
3
Somehow I think that the average t rump supporter, seeing his neighbor with a good paying union job, would rather see that union destroyed, and his neighbor brought down to his level, than join the union and get better pay.
The republican party's war on education, common sense, common decency, science and reason seems to have paid off for their donors and owners. Leaving the rest of US to find our own ways out of the swamp.
I would love to see a Nation wide strike, union shops and wanna be union shops together, and watch the rebirth of a labor movement.
The bosses have sold an awful lot of us on the idea that capital is the only part of the economic system that matters.
We the People need to stand up and show them differently.
4
@Bob Laughlin
Your assumption that union members are not themselves Trump supporters is unfounded, so the whole argument is baseless. In 2016, union households voted for the Republican (Trump) in the highest level (43%) since 1980 (Reagan). The spread between the two candidates was an incredible 8%! As long as Democrats remain in denial about this we'll continue to lose the working class vote - a constituency that is fundamental to the core philosophy of the party. We'll need to either start listening to the non-professional classes of the country again - or change our values and positions (to something that won't likely include me). Because right now it's a charade.
3
I was in a union for twenty years, working for a large airline. The pay was good, the benefits were great and I have a pension. There is a balance about working in a unionized environment. The company was strict about the rules, but the union was there to mediate any problems. Members felt basically safe and the vast majority did a good job. The company respected the union rules and rarely stepped over the line of improperly disciplining a member. Things usually got tense around the time that the contract was renegotiated but we never did have to strike. I know things have changed since I quit flying, but the basic balance still exists.
I have spoke to many people who are in jobs without union protection. The fear of being fired isn't foremost in their minds, but the "what if" hangs in the back of their minds. If it happens and they feel they were wronged, there isn't anywhere to turn. Government protections for workers are in place, but to complain and that complaint to be address is a grind of months or years. As a union member, I could relax into a feeling of security that they don't have.
5
I’ve lived in this country all of my life and I feel like we live in a third world country in many ways. Quality of life and worker’s rights are one area where we are woefully inadequate. Sander’s plan makes sense as it will actually help the working class deal with a situation that favors the corporations and the wealthy.
When I worked, I was in a union and I was on strike. It wasn’t easy, but necessary, and as a result of favorable working conditions I ended up with a decent salary, good benefits and a pension that is comfortable and secure. Why shouldn’t all workers have something similar?
5
This is a great article with one caveat: great as it applies to labor employed by for-profit industries and commercial businesses. The New Deal labor front succeeded with auto, steel, and coal unions at the forefront. The textile industry effort did not quite succeed as hoped, despite some courageous strikes.
Giving government employees greater rights may be fair, but it is not in the spirit of the 1930's strikes, which enabled fragmented employee groups to participate in sharing the profits created by their own labor. Government instead is a cost to the Republic, not a source of profit. A healthy labor movement would share in the profits of Google and Apple, Amazon and other highly profitable companies. Government workers extracting more advantages from taxpayers is a form of extortion. Mike Quill was a terrific leader for NYC subway workers, but stopping the trains to get a raise was not in the spirit of John L Lewis or Walter Reuther.
1
This is a pretty weird opinion piece. It approvingly cites a tiny, fringe labor group that eventually merged into something called "The Communist League" as if it were a major part of American labor history. Unions only caught on and enjoyed mass support when they explicitly disavowed radical leftist politics. Further, the author here praises Sanders' proposals such as ending the concept of "at will" employment. Nations that have tried this (I am thinking of various places in Southern Europe) just end up with armies of temps, a vast grey market labor pool, and high youth unemployment. This experiment has been run and the results are not good. I'd love to see a more robust private sector union movement emerge in the USA, but there is a difference between organizing for wages, benefits, and job conditions and between organizing to fundamentally reorder the USA's system of free enterprise. Jamelle Bouie is not showing himself to be a strong student of American economic or cultural history here.
As it is on the ground in America...
A Kroger store in the PNW is negotiating with its employee union while it has also placed an ad for strike breakers at $15hr a wage they do not pay many if any of the workers they are negotiating with. When reported on the news the lame excuse offered was there were no benefits for the strike breakers.
We need to re-establish the idea in the public mind that the worker is entitled to a portion of the profits they produce for the company.
Another related problem is the idea that a company having been fined should be allowed to raise prices so they do not have to actually absorb the cost of the fine on the bottom line and by that avoid the punishment altogether while increasing profits and falsely causing a rise in the cost of things in the economy.
3
@magicisnotreal
I didn't make it clear, there is no strike going on currently. The employees and Kroger are still negotiating.
This advertisement for strike breakers is a negotiating ploy of Kroger. I guess the offer of $15 is just to spit in their faces.
If an employer is not allowed to terminate an employee at will than that employer will be very, very cautious at taking on new employees. The result would be ever larger unemployment. Basic economics tells us that there is no free ride.
1
If the Democratic platform will be a list of free stuff they’ll guarantee if elected, they are certain to lose. Most Americans want to earn what they have not be a serf to the nanny state bureaucracy. I’ve never made more than minimum wage and often less. My neighbors, my employer and Jeff Bezos owe me nothing. My grandfather had a sixth grade education and my father left school midway through the ninth. I will be forever grateful that I was able to finish high school. But then, I don’t have an entitlement mentality and know that I am not owed the opportunities that wealthier parents provided to their kids, including my boss.
2
Labor unrest is the best thing capitalism can hope for. Economics 101 states the most controllable variable cost in business is labor. Whoever can best keep down the cost of labor will succeed against competitors. This means trouble for workers.
No business owner will listen to labor without some degree of unrest or the legal threat of unrest, and Bernie's proposals help to keep them aware of this. Labor unrest is a steam valve that actually prevents communism, for those readers who are worried about such things as revolutions.
1
I worked for the Postal Service for 33 years and the last 2 years in management. The right to strike was not something the unions wanted. It was something management wanted. When contraction negotiations would start the unions would make demands that they knew management would never accept. This would move the negotiations into arbitration. The unions plan was always to force negotiations into arbitration. Arbitration always gave them a better contract. It was an arbitrator that raised all Letter Carriers to pay level 6 from pay level 5. The arbitrator agreed with the union that delivering sequenced mail was more difficult than carrier sorted mail. Sequenced mail is mail sorted by an OCR machine. Almost all mail now is sequenced mail, The Letter Carrier does very little sorting in the office now. This a huge efficiency gain. It was an arbitrator that gave carriers double time after 10 hours or 4 days of overtime. Arbitrators almost always came down on the union's side. Every efficiency move that the Postal Service implemented was fought tooth and nail by the unions. It was an arbitrator that stopped the Postal Service from adjusting routes in anticipation of Letter Sequencing. The right to strike would have forced the unions to negotiate a contract and reach a consensual agreement and not given them the gift of arbitrators that were for the most part union biased. Yes Bernie, Postal Management wants the workers to have the right to strike, please give it to them.
Is Bouie suggesting that workers have rights that supercede capitalists' rights to exploit them for profit? Is he suggesting that democratic and human rights supercede greed and avarice? Is he really suggesting that capitalism is a fundamentally unjust system?
If so I guss there is nothing to do but for Workers of the World to unite.
6
Thank you, Mr. Bouie, for your summary and analysis of Bernie Sander's proposals to revive the power of organized labor. It is a subject of which I know very little, being a life-long citizen of a "right-to-work" state where unions are practically non-existent and anathema to most people. Even though both of my parents and many of my relatives and friends were textile workers during the years following WWII, I had never heard of the textile workers' strikes in my state until after college. The subject was taboo, and, to some extent still is, because of the determined government and industry forces ardently engaged against unionized labor. So, from my perspective, the labor strife of the1930s had no lasting impact in my community, except to strengthen the resolve of the wealthy and powerful forces aligned against it. On the other hand, because of publicly funded education and the hard work of my parents, I was given the opportunity for a brighter future and because of government programs such as Social Security and Medicare, my parents were able to avoid impoverishment in their retirement years. In my view, the restoration of equitable taxation on corporations and wealth to provide adequate support for public education, effective health care and retirement programs, infrastructure, and other such programs for the common good are more important and probably more realistic in these times. That should be the focus.
The Greatest Generation EARNED the GI Bill and built the postwar economy into what it became. We boomers, Gen X and the millennials have done nothing of the sort.
I was referring to publicly funded education, generally, not the GI Bill. In the 1970s, because of state funding, a working class family like mine could afford to help their children defray the cost of attending a public university. I also had a job. These days, state support has been reduced to such a degree that a university education is beyond the means of many working class and even middle class families. That needs to change.
2
The Sanders plan would be an utter disaster for the economy and for workers in general. The entire business model for tech is one of independent contractors. Mill and factory workers are scant in this economy and trying to bring back unions is absolute folly. States like Texas would fight tooth and nail against such laws. Right to work laws benefit the vast majority of the people in this country.
3
@Iconoclast Texan There is more private investment capital right now than there is money in the stock market; corporations have record cash reserves. The money is there, it just isn't being given to workers.
4
I was raised in a labor household. I can remember my dad, a union carpenter, being on strike. In 2000, as a member of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), I walked a picket line for 40 days as part of one of the largest white collar strikes in US history. Trust me - striking isn’t some walk in the park; no one chooses to strike until all other options are exhausted. It was through this action and this action alone that we were able to retain years of contractually negotiated wages and benefits. The right to strike and the willingness to exercise that right are a critical countervailing element to the power and excesses of capital. I applaud Bernie Sanders for promoting it and bringing the issue front and center.
13
@Steve
Bernie is the only candidate who understands the devolution of labor’s well-being in this country. The gains made because of mostly external factors during the post depression years (the ones that Simon Kuznets’ data showed that inequality was down and labor’s share in the capital labor pie was up, and won him the Economics Nobel Prize) were lost very precipitously under Reagan. The unionization rate fell almost five times in the Private Sector since 1930.
Moral of the story, we need to undo the damage that Reagan did (which was perpetuated by very single president including democrats like Clinton who really kept the status quo for all practical purposes when he was not repealing indirect benefits due to the Glass-Steagall Act) quickly. Who else but Bernie even wants to do that? Liz Warren? Great, let her join the ticket.
7
The Democrats need to focus on the electorate. In the last congressional elections the Democrats were able to flip 40 seats of those only two were progressives. That should speak volumes to us all. Here in the Midwest (which is needed to win the presidential election) there are many (specially farmers) that are disappointed with Trump but I don't believe they will vote for anybody they identify with socialism.
1
After 28 years as a freelancer in what has grown to be a heartless but apparently acceptable "gig economy," and after only two months as a healthy person on Medicare who is still paying premiums and co-pays while getting worse coverage than I had before, I am beginning to revise all my ideas about the other Democrats and suspect that voting for Bernie might, after all, be the best thing I can do for myself, the country, and our future.
8
@EA No, moving out of NY State would be the most prudent thing you could do. Almost anywhere else would give you an immediate raise.
This is just one of many reasons why we need Sen. Sanders. Most of his policy positions are absolutely necessary. He has lead us to Medicare for All.
Sanders and Warren together outpoll Biden by far. Eventually they will come to a deal supporting each other. Meanwhile, two campaigns are better than one.
6
The first step toward countering the outsize power of capital and management in this country is at the ballot box. In order to restore some semblance of balance and fairness, working people should vote to remove Republicans and the cult of big money from power. That means swearing off the irrelevant but divisive "cultural war" nonsense long peddled by trump, the GOP and Fox News. It's no coincidence the decline of the labor movement - and the American middle class - parallels the rise of modern Republicanism in the 1980s. It's been downhill ever since.
2
That capital has outsized power is a liberal falsehood that keeps getting repeated. Virtually everyone, with rare exception, can perform some sort of labor. From stuffing envelopes to performing brain surgery, labor is ubiquitous. On the other hand, only a select few have the spare billions to invest, to fund startups and to spend on matters important to them; think Carnegie and Gates.
@From Where I Sit: And how did they get those "spare billions"? Often through exploiting their workers, arranging sweetheart deals with various governments, or price fixing.
3
The number of men and women working in union jobs is a tiny portion of the workforce at ~10%. In private industry, it is under 7%. Unionism is unlikely to make a strong comeback, even to the 20% of 1983.
These facts, coupled with emerging technology require some sort of UBI or it is likely the number of working poor (even at the holy grail of $15/hr) will increase more dramatically. The concept of "being paid to do nothing" is antithetical to professed American values. The specter of widespread poverty and all the baggage it carries is also ingrained in the American psyche.
We are heading into unchartered waters where working hard, in more than one job, leads to bankruptcies, evictions, repossessions and an even greater health crisis than the one we are facing today.
2
@Rick Spanier
"Unionism is unlikely to make a strong comeback, even to the 20% of 1983."
This unlikelihood is not a consequence of some natural order of things; it is a political reality. Sanders uses the word "revolution" a lot because his aim is to midwife a change in that political reality. May he succeed.
5
All the power should not rest with employers. Today, employees, with certain exceptions like tenured professors, can be let go with no warning, and the employer doesn’t even have to give a reason. That is abusive. It should be illegal for any organization to behave like that. Go Bernie!
5
There are a multitude of reasons to let employees go. Spiraling wages as businesses are extorted into the $15 minimum wage. Leftist initiatives like NYC’s paid time off and California’s scuttling of the gig economy. A growing sense of entitlement by employee who demand that their life choices be underwritten by employers who’ve had no say in their actions.
@From Where I Sit: How many self-important executives would agree to work under the conditions they impose on their employees?
Working temp, both clerical and industrial, for three years during the Reagan recession was a real eye opener for me.
4
The right has demonized labor at workers' expense. It is time we unite and fight back for rights that were gained in the past. I thank Sen. Sanders for speaking up for the people, who alone are weak, but collectively are much stronger than the owners. After all, it is the worker who provides the means of production and prosperity for any business. One only need look at the correlation between the decline of the middle class and unions to see what we have lost over the last forty years. Again, thank you Bernie for continuing to be labor's champion.
3
Mr. Bouie's argument could be extended further into a strategic argument for Bernie Sanders for president. How are any of the other Democratic candidates going to accomplish their ambitious plans for workers and society without flexing their muscle at the workplace? Will Elizabeth Warren regulate evil out of the financial system? Will oil and gas companies peacefully hand over their trillions in reserves? The powerlessness we all felt when Donald Trump was elected was because we have no extra-political power, no ability to put on a general strike, no agency to tell those in power when to stop. Let's elect Bernie Sanders and get it back.
5
Over a long lifetime, I was a teamster, labor negotiator, corporate executive, and finally a teacher. The one constant; was an odd, anti-union fervor from personnel the higher up the ladder you went. Management people who just hated unions and never had any logical reason for it other than fear of a performance review. And the sad thing was how few working class folks ever made it on to that ladder, being welcomed to contribute their ideas. Corporate executives talked a good story, but in many cases were just hot air.
I was speaking with a divisional manager once, back in the seventies, who told me that it really made him angry that truck drivers could afford to live in the same neighborhood as him.
Corporate meetings were usually about how to divide the workers, reduce benefits, and orchestrate discontent. Just ask anyone who was ever involved in that environment. Some old labor union organizer once told me you get the union you deserve. I don't know about that but, workers today should not fear organizing because I suspect the attitude that existed during my career is still lurking behind those boardroom walls.
5
Government workers, including public school teachers, should not be allowed to strike. They are in a monopoly position, and there is no constraint similar to what exists in the private sector - like the risk that the company will go out of business if union demands are unreasonable. Not only that but public employee unions work to elect the people they ostensibly will be negotiating with.
Labor contracts in the public sector should have to be approved by both parties involved - the union members on one side, and the taxpayers on the other.
2
Labor hasn't had a raise in 30yr healthcare took it all. Many of the benefits also have been depleted. The retirement is now a 401 where the worker has to pay for his own retirement after the corp wears him physically out. The State has thwarted any issuance for self help. Safety has suffered because of liquidation of rules protecting workers . The union are run like a business and fear any disruption in the dues. The workers have no collective guts to see any struggle through.
3
@Sean Daly Ferris. Poor you - imagine having to contribute to your own retirement. I guess you expected me to pay for it.
Put this idea in perspective - takes away a huge amount of leverage in the tech world and increases secondary (social security, medicare, etc.) revenues that are needed to close the rich-poor gap.
Having worked at three Silicon Valley companies, I saw the ever encroaching use of contractors for what it is - an opportunity to evade taxes and polish the bottom line at the expense of workers and the government.
When the misuse of the exempt and non-exempt classification got turned around and resulted in some huge fines and compensation, whole departments were turned into contractors who didn't have 401k, PTO, health care and other benefits.
Now, if Bernie just does away with H1B visa program and the U.S starts taxing foreign earnings, he'll got my support and vote.
4
Republicans promise a lot to billionaires and Wall Street and oil companies and defense contractors and they usually deliver. Democrats promise a lot to labor and seldom deliver even when it would be relatively easy to do so. I really hope that Bernie -- or whoever wins in 2020 -- will finally put their muscle where their mouth is and do something for the labor movement before the Right succeeds in finishing us off altogether and then there will be no more "ground troops" left for the Democrats to take advantage of and disappoint.
3
@Dave. So you admit that unions force their members to contribute to Dems.
I am a long-time member of the WGA, the Writers' Guild of America which represents nearly all working screenwriters and TV writers. Our top members make over $50 million a year. But over half our 15,000 members don't make their health insurance in a given year (less than $40,000).
Five months ago we were all forced to fire our agents because of a dispute over packaging fees which really only affects the top 1% of members (our donor class). Many of us are struggling to pay our bills without advocates in a fiercely competitive industry, but the Guild Leadership has threatened to blackball us if we leave the Guild including publishing our names in the LA Times so people know not to work with us. This is illegal, but has been done in the past to chilling effect.
No one in my two decades in Hollywood has ever treated me more dishonestly, contemptibly or selfishly than the Guild leadership (and this is Hollywood I'm talking about!)
So let's just say I'm not as Pro Union as I used to be.
5
Bernie Sanders is the most AUTHENTIC politician the United States has produced in 100 years.
Currently in 2019:
--50 million American workers are in the contract/contingent full time work with no benefits/no job security/ one paycheck away from complete bankruptcy
-- The net assets built by the American Middle Class since 1940 ARE GONE.
--The net economic impact of women doubling their participation in the workforce from 1977 has been ZERO Dollars.
--Until "fight for 15" there was a 40 year hourly WAGE FREEZE.
--The American middle class is ranked in some studies as being as low as #17 in the world
These are facts.
For people to act like American workers don't deserve a decent LIVING WAGE, with benefits and paid vacation in a SANE working environment is absurd.
Keep at it Bernie.
WE NEED LABOR LAWS that actually support working people.
Bernie is the real deal. The young see this.
7
@KHD. Perhaps you can tell us what job Bernie has ever had besides eating from the public trough.
Yesterday I was watching the Hasan Minhaj episode on Policing in the country and why Police personnel consider them above the law, in general. There I learned some very disturbing information about the role of Police Union to protect rogue Police official and promote a culture of impunity, which encourage them to be very trigger happy and act more like an army than a police force.
Professors' union is another very powerful labor union which manage to remain behind the scene and weld huge influence. It's probably the only labor union that's also a major part of management and responsible for lack of transparency and increasingly more expensive higher education (to make the faculties richer and less productive) are few of its consequences.
Yes, American businessmen and big companies do cheat its employees and promote a very feudal work culture. That need to be addressed. At the same time, (mostly) Left leaning politicians like Benie need to give serious thoughts on how to discipline labor unions to become rogue, minimize such unions from promoting self-serving union leaders and unproductive employees.
2
@bonku: The main function of the AARP (if that's what you mean by "professors' unions") is to prevent tenured professors from being fired and to make sure that long service to an institution is rewarded with tenure.
It literally can do nothing to prevent the leakage of the cutthroat business school mentality and the fungus-like proliferation of administrative positions into academic settings, nor can it counteract the growing propensity of such administrators to use retirements, resignations, and deaths to replace full-time professorial positions with multiple adjunct positions filled with fully qualified but underpaid and insecure part-time instructors.
@Pdxtran. Those faculty members increasingly prevent neutral investigation against any tenured faculty of scientific misconduct (that include plagiarism, stealing intellectual property (of students, PostDoc, non-tenured faculties, non giving due credit to people involved in the research/report/review articles if the tenured faculty does not like him/her (for any non-academic reason), sexual harassment/violence, destroying career of any student/PostDoc/Non-tenure staff if the union member does not like him or see him as a professional threat.
Most of the time, they work in close collusion with the administrators. In most cases, University Ethics committee or such divisions are basically an eye wash, if not a means to identify potential "trouble makers" and punish such people.
They are the main driving force to make working condition in most US labs inhuman, besides very poor salary. It's reported that about only 1% (36 out of ~3700) of US universities (or such degree granting Institutes) actually follow NIH guidelines in terms of Student/PostDoc benefits and salary range. that include a single day paid leave. Many faculties even in those 36 institutions coerce PostDocs to work without taking any leave, forget paid leave. And all seem to be fine as those tenured faculties are almost immune to any investigation or disciplinary action (unless they anger some very influential Professor or Admin.)
Perhaps a reprise of David Ricardo's "Iron Law of Wages" would be helpful at this juncturel, to wit:
"The Iron Law of Wages is a theory which claims that in the long run, real wages (wages that are in line with the amount of goods and services that can be purchased with them) always tend to move in the direction of the minimum wage that is necessary for the survival of a worker and his family."
1
Thank you Jamelle Bouie
3
I am very much in favor of unions. I was a union member when I lived in Europe (a professional union) and it was very helpful. My union arranged for supplementary health insurance, called for a strike when the promised salary hikes did not materialize, and in general took good care of us. But anything that Sanders touches is tainted for me by his embrace of socialism. Only people ignorant of history and economics can seriously consider socialism as a plausible alternative to the ills of American capitalism (and no, social democracy is not the same thing as socialism). If any rational politician champions unions and offers non-compulsive ways to encourage union participation among both white-collar professionals and blue-collar workers, I will listen. When Sanders speaks, I tune out.
3
We need real and meaningful change in our leadership. I lean toward EW but the longer I go without seeing any real challenge to the current insanity, the more I get pushed toward Bernie. I worry that we will lose control even more if the people in this country do not unplug and begin to think about the real consequences of DT and all that this current mess means. The world may never forgive us. And we may never see this country without chaos again. I put my hope in our children and the young voters of today to turn this around. We have let them down.
3
At will employment works two ways. Will employers have a right to demand continued work from someone who wants to quit? And further, at will termination both facilitates hiring and makes separation less invidiously record making.
1
Unions are the working man’s friend, to a point. I have been a proud UAW member my whole working life and I’m retired now enjoying the benefits of my labor and my union. But over the years I’ve watch the union lose its bit and bend to the will of the company. Gone are 40 hour work weeks replaced by 10 hours a day 6 sometimes 7 days a week ,forced. Gone are good health care benefits. When first hired I never pay a penny in deductibles now it’s hundreds. Gone are the work rules that saved jobs and made life easier replaced by go go where you are needed not to mention seniority rights. The company’s are simply moving with the blessing of the republican government. Whom are not the working man’s friend. One more thought. Unions are for the private sectors labor force and should never be for public employees. That’s the way unions were born if you noticed the article all union battles were in the the private sector , public worker are employed by the private sector their pay is my tax. Their boss is my government. They need no union.
3
I really like the idea of Bernie / Yang ticket.
Yang seems to understand how to explain why socialism undergirds responsible capitalism.
And their pitch should be:
INVESTING IN PEOPLE
Investing in your communities, your health, your education, your safety and our shared prosperity.
4
@Al M Bernie Sanders the socialist, who loved the labor movement, Cuba, the old Soviet Union and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, we knew about. Bernie the millionaire, who knew?
Actually, why is anyone surprised that Bernie is now part of the 1%? He owns three homes, including one on the "Vermont Riviera," the shore of Lake Champlain, that cost a bundle.
Clearly Bernie has become accustomed to the upscale lifestyle he has long made a career of eschewing and excoriating. Now that he is in a higher tax bracket he is surely getting schooled on tax avoidance and sheltering income, lessons that plutocrats learn at their fathers' knees. And I wonder how much of his considerable income he is willing to redistribute. And his wife does their taxes? Right.
I guess Bernie will have to stop ranting and raving against millionaires and spend more time explaining to voters 1) why he is not a hypocrite and 2) how socialism will benefit them while he is taking advantage of good old capitalism. As Margaret Thatcher so aptly put it, "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money."
As for policies, Sanders' espousal of free everything for everyone, not to mention allowing felons to vote from prison, can only guarantee Trump's re-election if Bernie is the Democratic candidate in 2020.
2
Good column. We’ve forgotten, ignored what so many suffered so that we can enjoy weekends off, a minimum wage (however outdated it may be). But we cant afford to ignore the other part of union history and how it was infiltrated by corrupt crime families, political Party usage.
And a recent NYTimes story on a New York union, backing election finance reform as long as NY Repubs blocked it, but with the new Dem majority in NY, now coming out against it- fearing the loss of financial leverage.
And then there are the union elections- often boring, ignored, making little difference on local company interests. To say nothing of that passe, patronizing use of ‘brothers and sisters’.
For all it’s warts, united action can make a big difference. Which is why Repubs, with their pathetically outdated platforms, fear it.
2
I'm all for unions and belong to one (albeit not in the US). However, in all fairness it should be pointed out that the phrase "tyranny of unions" sometimes pertains to real situations and that not all unions ultimately care the weak, oppressed worker. Strong unions often care most for strong workers.
On the freedom of the non-union public sphere see:
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/394727-non-union-public-sector-employees-will-be-free-from-tyranny-after-janus
1
A strike is a collective effort to render business operations inoperable. A picket is the PR campaign that accompanies the strike and enforces the strike's intended inoperability. The two are related but distinct.
The effectiveness of the picket has diminished in the wake of labor hostility and globalization. Labor is no longer localized or organized for geographic convenience. One company where I worked had 1,300 employees across 3 continents, 12 departments, and I don't know how many countries and time zones. That's before counting our vendors and customers. Try organizing that mess into a picket.
Strikes on the other hand... Well, I'm not sure. Results will vary. You could organize a massive digital walkout. However, we've lost the ability to bargain collectively. I mean young people for the most part don't know how to identify as labor on a scale sufficient to effectively drive industry wide change.
We're all bright shiny snow flakes, remember? — We were taught that collective bargaining is bad! Your talents are better appreciated when you negotiate your wage in private.
Aside from being taught a lie, the story also destroyed a skill set: How do you identify as an employee? How do you organize as an accountant or marketer or analyst? Trust me. These people are treated just as badly or worse than the electrician pulling cable.
Should we start a union for the abused white-collared worker? Where do you begin? I honestly don't know.
2
Jamelle,
I think this column has jumped the shark. Bernie marched with Dr. Martin Luther King and has been an outspoken advocate for racial justice throughout his lengthy political career.
My sense is that you've overplayed the race card and wasted valuable capital by smearing a thoroughly decent man.
Organized labor has its problems, but worker movements have learned from previous mistakes and still have an important role to play in addressing the income inequality that is strangling this country.
This convoluted look back into 20th century labor history was a long walk to raise doubts about Bernie's views on race. You and the woke left have lost my respect for gratuitously employing flimsy purity tests when they support your political views.
1
@Steve Bernie is the MLK of the 21st century. Racial justice AND economic justice (championed by the unions as brilliantly illustrated in this opinion piece) were inextricably welded together by MLK in the second half of the 1960’s. Unfortunately, Dr. King was tragically prevented from completing his goal of destroying the three great evils of American society- poverty, racism, and militarism. FDR->MLK->Bernie.
Discouraging when the way forward only appears to be through confrontation. In the end, all of us are in this world, country, city, town, etc. together. Wondering what it takes to get to that basic level of understanding?
The real issue is ignorance. That is ignorance on the part of most workers on how bad work life was 100 years ago and how much of what they take for granted today could be taken away.
Case in point. Last month I went in for a MRI at a Kaiser Hospital here in San Francisco. The office was empty except for the clerk and myself. I asked the clerk, a member of the SEIU union if she was ready for the strike next month.
She responded that she could not strike as, "...things are so expensive here in the Bay Area, like my rent...". Basically, she was saying she could not strike because she could not afford the roof over her head if she went on strike.
For people like her it is a Catch-22. She may well go on strike if she was told she was going to have to work 6 days a week for 14 hours a day. If she was told she was not going to get any workers compensation. If she was told she had to pay cash for all her health care needs and on and on.
What business like Kaiser are doing is to slowly chip away at all the gains of the last 100 years. They do it slowly and incrementally so that the workers do not think it is work going out on strike. Very smart on the employers part.
In another 30 years most workers will be back where it all started. Now with a National Security State with face recognition and tracking technology, no labor leaders will be allowed freedom of movement to re-organize. The technology and the powerful will merge to create a group of workers who are free in name only.
2
Labor needs an effective way to push back against management. It's called countervailing force, and unions are the mechanism to provide it.
In the past, unions have been racist, have put the interests of their members against other workers, and had corrupt leaders. So what? Other Americans have been racist too, and hopefully we're all working to end that. Other organizations have had corrupt leaders that put their interests ahead of everyone else. That's what happens in organizations. We can out them and get them removed.
We still need unions. But now they have another task: ensuring that there is adequate housing for their members. In classic capitalist theory, if the unions obtain big raises, the market will create housing for them to buy. In today's reality, it doesn't create enough, and landlords will capture the extra money that the unions wrest from employers.
Indeed, housing is one of the main reasons that American workers have difficulty competing with workers from overseas. You have to pay them enough to afford rents and mortgages.
The economy is an organic whole, where all the parts interact with each other. It is not a bunch of unconnected parts. An organization that worked on all aspects of workers' economic lives could have a profound effect on how workers live.
2
Since Ronald Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers in the Patco strike of 1981, there has been a relentless assault against labor unions, primarily by Republicans, in our country. As a result, worker's rights and the collective power of labor has been sharply diminished while the exploitative power of capital and business interests has grown exponentially.
Labor unions and labor activists gave workers the 40-hour workweek, the weekend, access to quality healthcare, the right to livable wages, and much more. None of that came about through the largesse of business owners and the rentier class. It was fought, and sometimes, died for.
Income and wealth inequality is at a grotesque level, not seen since the 1920's. Wages are stagnant, workers are often mis-classified as temp, contract, or gig workers. And the ludicrously named "right to work" laws have given too much power to business interests. If workers can't strike, they can't push for better and safer work environments, or better wages, or most importantly to demonstrate against the missteps of our government. I often hear the refrain that we Americans should be protesting in the streets over the illegality and overreach of the Trump administration. Most of us would like to, but because of the current weakness of unions, our jobs would be at risk. Republicans love this, because it stifles dissent and the necessary pushback against their greed. But the damage to most Americans is severe. Thank you, Bernie.
7
another brilliant comment by Bouie! and yes, the disempowerment of labor, though the action and inaction of Democratic as well as Republican administrations, is by now almost complete. And the result is economic inequality as greatnesses as that in the ages of Marie Antoinette and JP Morgan.
But alas, even a president can't revive labor by fiat -- it will require decades of patient work by grassroots organizers. Sanders plans would createsa terrain upon which the labor movement can grow. What about the other candidates?
5
Secondary boycott
Railroad workers helped many strikers by refusing to cross picket lines. I believe the Teamsters did also.
1
As grateful as I am for this rare blip of support for Sanders in the NYT opinion section, I am a little disappointed that it does not address his advocacy of Worker Cooperatives and Employee Stakeholder models. Others have criticized his advocacy for unions as retrograde, a return to the 1930s, etc. That same criticism cannot be leveled at Worker Cooperatives. Worker ownership makes unions irrelevant. Instead of delving into the turbulent US history of strike actions, the author could have described the success of the Mondragon Corporation.
4
You go Jamelle Bowie,
The picture showing National Guardsmen in 1934 facing off against steel workers shows exactly what can happen when the government sides with the “owners”.
Bernie is not radical . He just courageously speaks out for work for workers.
Thanks to Bernie and to Jamelle for describing justice in plain terms.
18
About all I remember from my freshman economics class from 50 years ago is 1. Supply and Demand Curves, 2. The Iron Law of Wages per David Ricardo and 3. John Kenneth Galbraith and the book American Capitalism and countervailing powers exemplified by unions.
The Iron Law of Wages states that if you pay workers too much they reproduce with larger families that consume the benefits of the higher wages. Of course that is an argument for starvation level wages exemplified in company towns with company stores. The minimum wage is the restatement of the iron law of wages.
Now that the libertarians and Kochs and Plutocrats with "right to work" which is code for the new Iron Law of Wages and working 80 hours a week for $8 an hour to afford a two hour commute and no benefits in a "Right to Work State", what countervails the power of The New Plutocratonic Party?
The 1 percent owns congress, funds elections with dark money, writes laws with ALEC, owns the supreme court and cons the public with the sophistry of the AEI, CATO and Heritage Foundations.
What countervails the massive power of the 1 percent and the Plutocratonic Party? How does democracy work when $1 equals one vote instead of one person one vote?
Now that the Plutocratonic party destroys any threat to their power what countervails them?
Vietnam Vet
7
Case in point: Jeff Bezos empire of sweat shop workers...wow he raised their pay to 15 dollars an hour, at Bernie's insistence, but they can't take a break in their eleven hour work day of more than ten minutes while their schedule in the workplace becomes more intense as Bezos offers speedier delivery and more products. They are virtually enslaved by any past standards of working conditions that the unions would have provided. Imagine what would happen if Bezos had a strike at his plants....Wow, then maybe Fed Ex and Big Brown might be able to save their businesses from going down the tube...
7
I wish the author would read Paul Krugman, or if does read him, comment on his objections to Sanders. I am often saddened by the lack of professionalism among NYT opinion writers. A minimum of professional standard requires reading great economists and - if not agreeing - argue seriously against their expert opinions. The author's attitude can explain though why he ignores Warren, who has far more serious and elaborated ideas, who has been fighting business monopolies, and who herself is one of the most accomplished economists. It is amazing that in the US even the best of the media takes education, brilliance, ideas as secondary to populist rhetoric.
3
The history of the American labor movement is never taught in high schools as part of American history. And for good reason.
The same political force that support capital against labor also control the levers of our political system, including our school.
The violence mentioned in this article is but the tip of a very big iceberg. Few Americans know that up until WWI, the most frequent deployment of American troops was actually on American soil to support National Guards and police against striking American workers.
Simple demands for wages, safe work conditions and a 40 hour week were met with violence from the bosses. In a famous strike in Detroit against Ford motor company four workers were killed by police and over 50,000 people turned out for their funeral.
Today's workers are different. We've shifted to a service economy but the issues are the same. Work place democracy, better wages and conditions, health care, parental leave, ending sexual harassment.
Just like the 40 hour work week none of these needs will simply be given by employers. We need unions and we need to get the weight of these anti-union laws off our backs.
So far Bernie is the only candidate to seize this issue. Congress, including most Democrats will fight him on this. But at least he will have changed the debate about the American working class. That's why I support Bernie.
For an excellent documentary on our labor history see Plutocracy I and II. Both available for free on Youtube.
14
Union representation is down to what a measly 13% of workers and income disparity high. I don't see a way out for workers in the traditional way of strikes as big companies shut down steel mills, auto manufacturing plants, and leave workers in the proverbial ditch. The coal workers on the railroad tracks trying to halt the coal-loaded trains from delivering their already sold goods in Harlan County, KY, may get their past due pay, but what else? The USA has moved from production to service and most of us scurry to get gigs to survive. Yes to Andrew Yang and other futurists who have gone beyond Bernie's plans for a more equitable and realistic future for workers and all of us who are not top income earners.
4
Why does Sanders get more credit than Warren for being pro-Union in this piece? I am constantly reminded of the unacknowledged or subconscious gender bias of male progressives.
8
It appears Senator Sanders is reliving his sophomore year in college where many a young student dreams radical ideas and plans untethered to reality. These plans are sure to move the US closer to several European countries which the senator loves such as Spain , Italy and France and their 20% unemployment rate.
1
The methods of labor action that were sometimes effective in the industrial age are unlikely to be useful in today's world. Government action is going to be needed.
1
The unspoken agreement between management and labor (for the unions that still exist) to simply continue ‘benefit bloat’ in exchange for not demanding a boardroom seat at the table, must come to an end. Unions are handicapping themselves by being unable to accommodate present economic and sectional realities. This stance makes them open to the charge of ‘fiscal irresponsibility’ and limits the growth of unions generally in the eyes of the public. If unionizing in the 21st century is to have any realistic chance of succeeding it’s going to need a better argument than JUST extracting ever-more benefits from corporations.
The shackles need to taken off. A page needs to be taken from other countries that have successfully used governmental power to encourage the private sector to enter into real partnerships with labor. That means a seat at the table, where management, shareholders, AND labor are considered the ‘3-legged stool’ upon which stability, equity, and innovation are considered mutually beneficial aspects for ANY corporation worth its investment in a business plan. Profits will still be made, wealth will continue to be generated, and buy-in by labor (instead of agitation/confrontation) will be guaranteed.
We KNOW this works because other capitalist democracies do it, and are fully competitive with us, who don’t. In fact, they are good enough to raise the ire of our current obscurantist administration with calls for tariffs in retaliation for ex/im imbalances.
4
No system is perfect. But until Americans understand that unless each of it's citizens has adequate food, clothing, and shelter and some assurance that should things go awry there is a robust social safety net, the culture will continue to deteriorate. A society where only 25% of the citizens are truly secure, every day, is not much of a society.
23
Sanders supports labor because it is the American thing to do. After all our country is all about freedom. Therefore, individuals should be free to join private or public labor unions and act collectively with the government ensuring the scales of justice remain balance between labor and capital. That should be the American way. However, capitalist, acting collectively, have successfully petitioned the government, using the levers of a political system built on legalized bribery to tip the scales of justice in their favor. How is that American?
The congress and courts have determined that corporations and the wealthy acting collectively is as American as apple pie while workers acting collectively is un-American. In addition, congress and the courts have determined that socialism for corporations and the wealthy is American while socialism for people is un-American.
This country has fought wars, overthrown elected governments and caused misery for millions all in the name of the free flow of capital — the right of corporations and the wealthy to move money around the globe to exploit natural resources and foreign labor. Unless I missed it this country has never fought a war for labor abroad and has rarely fought for labor at home.
I love my country and I support real capitalism not the predatory, crony capitalism that is allowed to purchase laws, rules and regulations that advantage corporations and the wealthy while disadvantaging organized labor and workers.
11
The author and Bernie live in a fantasy land of nostalgia for the good old days of labor strength.
Not mentioned is the weapon of employers ability to outsource at the mention of labor demands. Unfortunately the only President to claim he combatted outsourcing is Donald Trump. Until the Democrats embrace Obama's failed attempt to punish outsourcing and rewarding insourcing through taxation, Bernie's pro labor stance is just hot air. The GOP gift to corporations with undeserved tax cuts and no penalties attached for outsourcing has made Trump's rhetoric of bringing jobs back no different than Bernie's promises. A phony rewriting of NAFTA brought how many jobs back?
Obama's rescue of the auto industry with major union concessions shows how the labor movement has been decimated by outsourcing and foreign competition that includes thousand of US workers building foreign brand cars in the nonlabor friendly South. Listening to Bernie talk about Unions is like listening to Trump tell labor how only he will bring the jobs back.
3
The reason unions are failing can be summarized in two words: China and technology. U.S. workers are already overpaid in comparison to Chinese workers and technology makes it easy to replace them. Unionization increases workers' pay and business costs making U.S. workers even more overpaid and businesses even less competitive against the Chinese. China already has our backs to the wall in international trade, unionization only helps them. The American left is actually on the side of China! If I were China I'd be discretely funneling money into the American labor movement.
3
Excellent and informative, but the title is downright WRONG! There is nothing radical about Bernie's plan, especially in light of America's labor history. When I was a kid, strikes, picketing and job actions were commonplace. Healthy capitalism will strive for a proper balance between capital and labor. But with a government who sells legislation to the highest bidder the balance is now badly out of whack and Bernie is just trying to bring it back into equilibrium. Don't fall for the propaganda that there's anything radical about advocating for workers. That was once the primary purpose of the Democratic party that has since lost it's way.
23
I'm not sure about the details and Sanders doesn't happen to be my candidate, but he understands two crucially important points:
1. A strong labor movement has usually been critical to wider progressive success -- especially on issues of economic fairness, but also on other important issues.
2. Where labor is weakest correlates with increased Trumpist and right-wing strength amongst working people, because no even somewhat-trusted institutions exist to tell a different story.
Starting with Bill Clinton -- or arguably Jimmy Carter -- Democrats have taken labor for granted. Whether you care about inequality or public education or climate change, the results of that indifference are now clear. Strengthening workers' effective organized power in the workplace ought to be a very high priority.
13
If we are being honest (and most libs are not), we would acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers are simply looking for a better life and are not suffering from tyranny and persecution. This approach is like me showing up at a PGA tour event with my clubs demanding that I be given the chance to play for the big bucks. I don't want to have to work tirelessly on the mini-tours, I would rather just move to the front of the line. After all, I'm only trying to provide a better life for my family.
6
@Thomas Lashby They might have had a chance at a better life in the places where they were born if we had not stolen their land and resources and installed and supported their authoritarian regimes.
11
Government employees make up a large percentage of unionized workers. This means that these workers are protected by both the union and civil service rules. More importantly, the complex web of union and civil service “protections “ means that it is impossible to fire or demote terrible employees and difficult or impossible to promote very good workers. Any manager of these doubly protected government employees can tell you story after story about the outrageous consequences of this state of affairs and how it impacts the quality of government services. So whatever the value of unions in the private sector, they have no place in government.
3
This is utter madness. Wy can't we think rationaly?
The income inequality has been declining in the 20th century until the 1970s. Then something happened, and the inequality has been rising ever since.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that the Taft-Hartley Act, 30 years prior, was the reason.
But it's not just in the US. It is all over the world, Australia, Germany, Sweden, India, Argentina, Indonesia, same trend, decline until the 1970s, then rising.
It's not the decline of the labor. It's the arrival of the computer tech, making human work ever less needed, creating a surplus of labor, causing wages stagnation and the rise in inequality.
At this point, it will take redistribution of $5 trillion, every year, from top to bottom (via income tax/basic income), just to roll back the inequality gains since the 1970s.
Or put it this way: It would take $20,000/year basic income paid to every adult, financed by taxing highest incomes.
We can have that tomorrow, and it'd be the right thing to do -- millions of surplus workers freed by the automation, they are NOT working. Employed, but their contribution to GDP is tiny, and their pay reflects that.
They should NOT be working. They should be paid UBI, stay home to make themselves useful. To their kids, to their elder parents, to their communities.
That's what we need, not workplace democracy.
* The charts from Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the 21st century" are available here:
http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/en/capital21c2
6
You sure are making the same mistake as Kuznets made. I very honest mistake that is a direct function of the data set he had available to him. The 45-50 year period he observed was pretty unique in history. Piketty (and even more impressively Scheidel) went back more in time. Human greed and irrationality seems to have been the rule not the exception. Scheidel, an Austrian polymath who teaches at Stanford shows persuasively how only natural and man-made disasters account for true wealth and income redistribution’s over millennia, not just decades or centuries!
1
The chats from the Piketty book show how income inequality was declining in every country, as "capitalists" had to bid against each other for the limited labor supply. It also meant that GDP growth was often limited by the labor supply, not by the aggregate demand.
The arrival of computers/robots changed that equation. From then on, the labor supply was always in surplus, and the GDP growth has been limited by the aggregate demand. Hence the sharp turn in the inequality trend in the 1970s.
"...in case you missed it...." Unfortunately, I read the Times every day, so naturally I missed Sanders's plan for revitalizing a long-moribund labor movement. There's an embargo on news about Sanders due to his alleged radicalism, that is, his being an actual FDR/LBJ-style liberal in an era when people will actually write in to the comments section, as they do here, to deplore the right to strike.
I was in the Teamsters back in the 1960's and 70's. My local never struck, but we always negotiated a fair contract; I had health care and a decent wage. That my fellow workers and I should have had these things made America "noncompetitive"--or so we were told. So for thirty years both political parties did their best to break up the Unions, and they were largely successful.
And now we have the gig economy.
32
Bernie is the best hope to save America. Had Hillary Clinton and her cronies in the Democratic Party not conspired against him in 2016, he would have won the nomination and would have trounced Trump. Lets hope they get it right this time.
17
Bernie Sanders has always put people ahead of corporations and those who hold great wealth. He wants to end the lifelong exploitation of the middle class and the poor by those whose only motivation is greed and the lust for ever more power.
Unions are what the corporations fear most, hence they will do anything to defeat Sanders. Sanders is no more a socialist than FDR was, and FDR saved the nation.
26
Like the home and the classroom, the workplace is decidedly not a democracy. In each of those instances, and many others, someone must be in charge. To provide order. To provide leadership. To make decisions and follow through. That person or organization is naturally the one paying the bills. The left’s expanding efforts to turn this country into a workers paradise will fail in time. And that failure will be spectacular in the polls, in the workplace and in the streets. As a society, we’ve become unruly, undisciplined, needy and soft. Only two generations ago, we buckled down and won WWII. It required sacrifices big and small. Meat and gasoline were severely rationed yet today, it is front page news when veggie burgers, chicken sandwiches and seltzer are in limited supply.
42
So, what do you propose we "buckle down" for? To make rich richer and poor more poor, or you have more noble goal for buckling down. And if we can not expect improvement for workers, at least we could know for what goal we should make a sacrifices. In WWII it was clear, but now there is no war, so what is the goal?
133
@From Where I Sit
The leadership principle is an ancient human tic that needs abolishing as we progress to the comity, beauty and nobility of the collective.
51
Some “workers’ paradise” with only about 10 percent of workers unionized.
Indeed, the most prosperous time for the United States was during the fifties, sixties and seventies which saw the greatest number of unionized workers.
Unions are good for the country. Wages go up. Tax revenues go up. The middle class has more discretionary income and can buy houses, cars and other big-ticket goods. That creates demand which leads to expansion.
There maybe was a moment in time when owners/employers cared about their workers and realized that fairly-paid workers with benefits and some measure of security were what was best for companies in the long run.
But that has changed. Now the standard is to squeeze ever last ounce of effort out of workers and pay them as little as possible. With some CEOs earning 4,000 percent times what the average workers earn, something is clearly out of balance.
Rapacious capitalism with no restraint is part of what is killing the United States as a country. It has lead to bankrupt companies, high unemployment and a struggling and alienated populace. That leads to populism and Donald Trump.
In a truly free country, a person has a right to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, a safe and healthy work place, paid vacation, sick and maternity leave, health care, and a living wage with a pension at the end. This is what the US needs. This is what other western democracies have.
Why should American workers have so much less?
182
More and more Sanders shows that he finds democracy or federalism a nuisance in his master plan to recreate America. Over half of the states have right to work laws, many since the 1940's. They include some of the fastest growing states like Florida and Texas. But that would just be another nuisance that needs to be removed by First Citizen Sanders. But to remake an economy you need to break some eggs, just ask Stalin or Mao.
4
We don't need to ask Mao or Stalin, the workers eggs got smashed for long time in the US with the right to work laws, unaffordable healthcare, non-compete agreements, ban of class action and so on. I guess Bernie thinks that it is time to smash some eggs of capitalists, it will be only fair.
Another uniquely radical thinker in the race is Andrew Yang, whose UBI proposal will allow displaced workers to feed their families without being completely dependent on their employers to give them income. Mr. Yang is also standing up to corporations like Google and Amazon who pay nothing in taxes. Between Mr. Sanders and Mr. Yang, I'm going with Mr. Yang.
70
I am not so sure. Sanders gives the workers mechanism to fight for their rights, Yang gives the one time deal with an expiration date, because of inflation, although 1k is not really livable income even now. Then the battle will be constant to increase this minimal income through the elections that happens ones in 4 years. It will be like a battle for minimum wages that were not changed since 2009.
34
@Sarah Johnson No one has ever heard of Yang but, sure, let’s ‘stand up’ to the company’s who are innovating, growing, and hiring. I know we need to prove to the world for something like the 20th time that Socialism does not work.
4
@Sarah Johnson
Sanders has been fighting for these things for years. I know Yang is much younger but he still has had enough of an adult life to have shown he was committed workers' rights instead of seeking to make money.
17
"You may have missed it, but late last month, Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign released the senator’s proposal for revitalizing the American labor movement."
Missing a significant plan from Bernie Sanders, one of the leading candidates, was probably because the Sanders campaign is typically ignored by the Main-Stream Media. When he's not ignored, Sanders is misrepresented or mocked.
Yet his plans warrant fair coverage and discussion, as we can read here; they resonate with voters across the spectrum and are increasingly in the mainstream of ideas.
Thank you, Jamelle.
18
Well over a hundred years ago a young man could be seen cowering in the bushes of Tompkins Square Park as all around him workers fought the police.
Then and there Samuel Gompers (for it was he) decided the true role of Organized Labor was not to encourage such scenes of strife and violence, but to prevent them.
The same must be said of Bernie's plan. Only a fool--or someone who's never experienced a violent labor strike--would romanticize the process.
45
@WOID
In America Labor has not been socialist. Except among some 19th century German immigrants and some Jewish immigrants from Russia Labor has supported capitalism but with rights for workers as well as for employers.
7
@WOID So tell me, why were the police fighting workers on strike? The police have their own unions, why should they fight other unions taking action? They should have stood down then, and if they didn't, they deserved to have been met with equal or greater force.
8
@Garlic Toast
I'm not arguing for or against the legitimacy of violent action by workers, I'm bothered by the tendency to romanticize violence by well-intentioned "progressive" friends of the Working Class.
To paraphrase Rosa Luxemburg: "Violence is not a bagel you can chose, pumpernickel of plain, at the deli counter of History."
6
Thank you for this pro-labor article, the first I've seen in the NYT in the last decades. It's a sign of the growing recognition that neo-liberalism is a failure, succeeding only in concentrating wealth and power in the hands of Wall Street and a handful of billionaires. Our world is a mess and we need the kind of change that Bernie promises.
18
A commenter on this page:
"I am self-disciplined and lack any sense of entitlement. My parents couldn’t afford college so I didn’t belong there. That’s how capitalism works."
Is it? What does capitalism have to do with the ability or desire to go to college? You are born poor, or middle class, or wealthy, therefore stay in your class?
If that's how "capitalism works" then you can have it.
13
As an American who has lived in Norway and traveled throughout Europe over the years, I find it unbelievable any American thinks Bernie is radical. I also find it astonishing that Americans can’t understand the difference between Socialism and Social Democracies.
Being back in America is disturbing — it looks like a third world, the government behaves like a third world, and its citizenry seems to be woefully ignorant and unable (or unwilling) to think critically. Coming back to America is like stepping into a time capsule of 1982 visually. It’s like stepping into the gilded age politically. And it’s like stepping into the dark ages culturally.
576
@Misplaced Modifier: The corporate right wing regularly accuses social democrats of being socialist. They 've controlled the narrative and effectively removed the moderate position (social democracy) from the discussion.
82
@Misplaced Modifier
I totally agree. I have been living in Italy for more than half of my life and have also travelled throughout Europe.
Americans have been so indoctrinated by radio and tv personalities on the right that they cannot distinguish between communism, socialism and social democracy.
Ideas which were not radical in the 1940s or 50s are now considered too 'far-left'.
With all of the strange, anti-scientific ideas beeing promulgated (creationism, flat-earthers, anti-vac) America seems no longer to be a citadel of progress and pragmatic, advanced ideas, but rather a medioeval, fortified town which has turned its back on rational thought. No longer the country whose image is of the proud, thoughtful individual but rather of the sheep-like herd.
One wonders if in the USA evolution reached its peak 50 or 60 years ago and we should talk more about devolution.
110
@Misplaced Modifier
We Americans who have lived elsewhere understand what a bill of goods Americans are sold with this whole "greatest country on earth" myth. The US isn't a bad place to live, and the size of its economy does offer certain advantages, but it's definitely second tier in median quality of life.
I think the most notable sign of American decline, however, is the fact that the country can't find away to ban assault weapons even as American children are being regularly slaughtered in their schools. This is a symptom of a deep cultural and social sickness when a country prioritizes the desire of its emotionally regressed men to play with guns over the lives of its children.
145
I can't believe I'm reading this in the New York Times, which has given Sanders such biased coverage. Thanks, Mr. Bouie.
24
The words of Frederick Douglass still ring true. "Power concedes nothing without a struggle." Sanders, more than any other politician, gets it.
30
De-industrialization? It’s called “Offshoring” Corporate power enabled a mass migration of jobs to slave-wage countries, I grew up fearing Communism. Then we found out how. Cheaply they would work. Greed trumps ideology. Title of this story should be “Corporate greed destroyed the Middle Class” Mass movement of jobs, Tax Cuts, Union Busting, etc. people are killing themselves in record numbers, “deaths of despair” it’s called. Our middle class has been wrecked because Congress is so easily bought. Bribery is the dirty little secret. Congress has its own subway in DC so they can avoid even looking at us. Computerized elections means any time it’s close it can be magically stolen. Anyone with a brain knows computers can be hacked. So 48 states use them. Go back to paper ballots.
8
"He would give federal employees the right to strike"
I guess Federal workers, who already have a benchmark number of days off per year, benchmark retirement plans (just having a Pension is unusual), benchmark number of sick days and excellent pay without being worried about producing much or getting fired,
would need to go on strike to make their situation even more superior than those in the private sector.
Nice.
62
@Michael
Sure we all should have worked a state or Federal job. But since most of us don’t, not sure what you’re trying to say.
38
@Michael, Here we go again with this old canard. If federal or even state- or local-level government jobs are so superior, why hasn't everyone been flocking towards them? Because the pay -- far from bering "excellent" -- is much, much lower than pay in the private sector.
121
@Michael You’ve got it backwards. Vacation days. Sick days. Retirement security. Workplace protections. Won through collective bargaining and the power of organized labor. I think there are a lot of Americans who would like a job where they have a modicum of security, dignity, paid time off, and the ability to be sick without losing their job. The solution is a stronger labor movement in the private sector and an end to over 70 years of anti-labor restrictions that hamstring the power of working people to organize on their own behalf. This is a major step towards addressing inequality in America today.
418
The symbolic significance of being “pro-labor” gets watered down when one analyzes the history of unions. There we find that unions have been primarily interested in some laborers, sometimes against the “interests” of other workers, often ignoring the welfare of laborers in general. Divisions in America are not bridged by demonizing industry. Nor is strengthening unions in their present guise a solution to division. Just as industry needs to keep human need and human welfare better in mind and action, so, too, do unions.
27
Good points. I’m a progressive and a Bernie supporter but I’m old enough to remember when unions excluded African Americans, disfavored women, supported the Vietnam War, etc. And let’s not forget what police unions do to prevent the firing of killer cops. So I’m more than a little ambivalent about making unions the primary vehicle to achieve social justice.
13
@rjon,
so you are suggesting that labor rely on "the industry to keep human needs and welfare in mind"? just look at the picture, and think about the last 200 years of labor versus profits!
34
That just shows the need for reorganization of the union making the to work more together, but it will be moot point of there is no unions. And if so, how do you propose to fight for worker's right?
15
It is not the candidate that is important it is the idea. To enact these reforms as well as the ending of the gig economy as California has done we need three things (1) a Democratic Majority in Congress and (2) a Democratic President and (3) abolition of the fillibuster.
Liz Warren should endorse these changes and say if Bernie Sanders can get them through the Senate and Polosi in the House, President Warren will gladly sign it into law and she will co-sponsor the idea during the campaign.
It is the idea that counts. There is no copyright or patent on ideas when made public they can be used and improved or adopted by others. Kudows for Bernie but there are other ideas on other issues and qualifications and the people do not need Bernie in the WH for example, if Liz as president promises to adopt or adopt and improve on Bernie's very good idea.
What concerns me is the coverage if the proposed legislation. I am 85 years old and remember the 44 hr. work week, people worked half a day on Saturday and there was no such thing as a weekend or a paid vacation. My father owned a small factory employing about 8 workers. Pop worked in the factory and when there were insufficient orders we had to lay workers of and Pop know every worker, her family and who had a husband with a job and who would be in trouble. s He knew what union scale was and paid more because they stayed forever. I suggest that the scope should be companies with 50 employees or more.
28
You argued against your own position when you admitted that your father paid well of his own free will, not due to some socialist mandate from distant bureaucrats who never had to show a profit or make payroll or pay a dividend.
2
The question is how many owners have such good free will? Most of us will not kill other people. It will be our free will not to do, but yet we. don't rely on free will, we prefer to have laws than van killings.
4
@Sheldon Bunin: We also need a Democratic party that's truly on our side. We don't have it yet, and that's why Trump won.
Like you, I currently believe that Warren is the best hope to make that happen.
4
Plans like this one and Medicare for All are the progressive version of Trump’s “Build the Wall” and Mexico will pay for it— rallying cries in the form of promises that, for all practical purposes, will not and cannot be delivered on. That so many Americans fail to see that is one of the reasons we are in this mess to begin with.
1
"If passed into law..."
St. Bernard is in one way very much like The Don. I can understand someone being in favor of the reforms Bernie dreams of, just like I can understand people supporting the type of change that Trump promised. The problem with both is that neither of them are the ones to get it done.
Donald Trump, the greatest dealmaker of all time!, has done absolutely nothing as president. Nothing. He has one legislative achievement: the tax cut. And that is a bill any other Republican president would have gotten as well. A Bernie presidency would be exactly the same (save for the fact that he would lose to Trump by the largest electoral college landslide in history, but alas).
We're to expect a guy who has authored 5 bills in 30 years - 3 of which were to rename post offices - to lead a legislative overhaul of American life? Give me a break.
1
What do you offer? Status quo? It is even less than Bernie or Trump.
Any private sector employee should have the freedom to strike and bargain collectivel. Any employee paid with tax dollars should not be allowed to strike or be in a union.
2
"Striking mill workers facing off with National Guardsmen in Greenville, S.C., in 1934." - the caption on the photo
The slant of that title is repeated again and again in this rag and others... 'protesters confront police, protesters face off against police' ..when the truth is the exact opposite - people exercising their free speech as protest confronted by armed men acting at the behest of the state, or in this case, corporate interests.
Let me fix the caption for you:
Mill workers striking for better working conditions and fair pay are met by rifles and bayonets carried by the National Guard in an effort to intimidate them by violence.
17
Can you imagine police response today if, as pictured in this article, a civilian raised a club to strike a police officer?
2
Shocking to see government troops with fixed bayonets confronting unarmed strikers.
3
“You may have missed it..” so it starts this thoughtful essay.
No, I haven’t missed it and NO one should have missed it. It is our core democratic and civic duty to follow what is important politically and socioeconomically in our country. Otherwise we get Trump-types elected.
Bernie Sanders speaks the truth. The truth he has studied for decades as the most honest politician this country has ever known. He knows without improving the conditions of labor, there is no way to move away from oligarchy and steer clear of potential fascism under Trump and the GOP.
Blessed he be, the man who is for others and does what they cannot do for themselves.
May Bernie Sanders be our next President. Amen.
297
@Blunt
And that is the Blunt truth!
Great.
40
@Blunt Ameen.
14
@Blunt So, more people in immense numbers across the country need to go out and VOTE accordingly!
20
Thank you for this expose' on the history of labor and its' advancement of human rights and the standard of living for people in America. In this time when human labor is under attack from technology on all sides, if we do not re-define and protect the value of human work, we are in big trouble. Sanders stands for economic social jsutice.
10
"His plan to enhance workplace democracy puts the strike back where it belongs." So right.
Whether Bernie Sanders becomes the president or not, so many of his "radical" stances are now Democratic main stream. And eventually they will be achieved, for the sake of the country, nay the world. And he will be remembered as an effective trailblazer.
But in this election season, the pushes for "Medicare-for-All" and free public colleges "immediately," before beating Donald Trump could sadly backfire, and Trump might even get reelected.
4
The irony of MAGA is that can only be achieved with Bernie’s plan. But unless the Dems win big in 2020 and push for major structural changes in the structure of our political system, it’ll only get worse.
14
As a union member, the chance of unions coming back is impossible. Income inequality, which continues to rise, is all the rage and good entry-level jobs don't exist anymore. I took part in a battle to retain the legally guaranteed cost of living adjustment in public pensions in the state that I spent most of my working life (Rhode Island-formally a strong union state) and the power of all levels of government there was used to deny that guaranteed retirement benefit. Unions in that example, were unable and later unwilling to fight the forces of national anti-pension activists and the COLA is probably, and legally, lost forever. That's how power works against workers these days and it's been going on since the Reagan administration.
17
Like the 1930s, we are living in a Gilded Age. Like that era, there is a yawning wealth disparity, and with it, a power disparity. But today's robber barons have three things their 1930s counterparts did not: 1) A global workforce that allows capital to flow easily overseas, but not labor. 2) Automation allows fewer workers to produce more goods, thereby increasing their productivity, often in the absence of increased skill. And 3) a SCOTUS very favorable to corporations, often favoring them over labor. Any measures a Sanders administration passed favoring labor would be challenged in court, and it might take a state-ratified amendment to enshrine worker protection. With so many Republican-led states, an amendment to protect workers' rights would never pass. Sorry, but Andrew Yang's U.B.I. has a better chance of coming to fruition.
3
These plans from Sanders don’t have a chance of ever becoming law, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. Like it or not, at this time Vermont is not representative of America. The sooner Democrats realize this, the sooner Trump can be sent packing. I’m tired of hearing grandiose plans. I want to hear sensible moderate policy initiatives that will strive to put Humpty Dumpty (The U.S) back together again and Sanders is the LEAST likely to do that as well as being the least likely to defeat the charlatan-president. I’d be very happy to see a Biden-Buttigieg or Biden-Harris ticket, but no Sanders and no Warren.
7
@ManhattanWilliam Sanders IS a moderate. The DNC is center-right. The issue is that America is so far right as a nation that everywhere else that isn't currently under a totalitarian dictatorship looks light the extreme left by comparison.
5
Hooray for an article on labor history and present! Thank you. I’ve always thought that if the NY Times has a Business Section, it should also have a Labor Section.
33
Without labor there is no business: they go hand in hand.
7
"There is an opportunity, in other words, for Sanders or any other labor-friendly politician to give even more teeth to the right to strike, to dramatize exploitation through conflict and confrontation and to give labor the tools it needs to forge a path to a better world for people without the privileges of wealth or the power of capital."
First ...
I am totally in favor of most, if not all, of what Sanders is proposing.
But ...
Putting such a proposal front and center in 2020, as distinguished from 1934, is guaranteed to backfire.
There is simply not the public empathy with strikes that there was back in 1935 in the middle of the Depression.
"More strikes on their way to you" is a rhetorical gift to Trump, even, alas, with his base, many of whom are in unions, or who would benefit from being unionized.
And this logic also applies to those on the demographic margins with Trump's base.
Aristophanes, in the Clouds in 423 BCE, pointed out with deep truth and scathing humor why a demagogue - among whom he included Socrates and philosophy generally, alas! - can make the weaker argument appear the stronger.
Trump is a perverted Aristophanes, because he's a comedian who has been elevated throughhis rhetorical skills, to power on the political stage.
Bernie has already handed him "socialism" and short term unrealizeable Medicare for All boomerangs. There is no need to hand him yet another petard to hoodwink at least 51% of the electorate - or, the electoral college.
2
What we will wind up with is France, where employers are more willing to close their factories and lay off hundreds than hire one permanent employee because once hired, that employee cannot be fired unless he still has the gun in his hand. And a citizenry more stratified, unequal and static than what we have now. And unionize Federal workers! We already have a plague of politicians willing to shut down the government over the quality of toilet paper, let’s give Federal workers the same power. It is hard not to like an old white guy with wispy white hair and arms of a windmill, but he hasn’t learned anything since Marx 101. The way to power for labor is not the streets or rigid rules and gridlock, it is economic and the power of broad legal precedents.... the tax code, penalties for executive compensation beyond legislated norms, compensation based on social goals, expanding EEOC and the remit of the National Labor Relations Board, special courts to expedite employee/management disputes with broad precedent setting authority. There is an endless list of things more effective than the old Labor Union leadership bromide. Do we really want those corrupt and untouchable people back? Get out of the late 19th Century, it wasn’t all that great.
8
Its here we can most clearly see the differences between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and why serious progressives must still support Sanders. Warren has many proposals ("I have a plan for that") that, if implemented, would alleviate some of the distresses suffered by poor and working class people. But, at the end of the day her approach is technocratic -- we will vote benevolent experts like her into power and they will fix things for the grateful poor. Bernie's approach ("Not me. Us.") is to treat the election as vehicle not just for taking office, but for organizing poor and working people of all colors to exercise power -- in their communities, in their schools and workplaces, and in government.
Most American workers are not unionized and most wish they were. The reason for this is quite simply that for the past several decades both political parties have been in the thrall of Wall Street and hostile in practice, if not always in their campaign rhetoric, to the interests of labor.
When FDR was first elected in 1932, he didn't just introduce and pass the New Deal overnight, for the simple reason that the political will in Congress did not exist to do so. Rather it was workers striking and the unemployed marching that forced Congress's hand in 1934 and won the reforms that enabled working class Americans to live with dignity.
As Warren fudges on her pledge not to solicit big money donors, Sanders doubles down on building the power of the working class.
56
It would be a highly informative experiment if we could rerun the years since 1980 without the withering of unions and the rise of WalMart. I suspect we would have had more labor strife and would pay higher prices for most of our material goods (clothing, electronics, etc). But I also suspect the benefits would be greater, with viable small businesses populating our downtowns and a broad middle class that could still afford to raise a family by working a reasonable workweek.
America would’ve been better off under the second scenario.
23
We need enough radicalism to undo the Hoefeller mapping of the congress, let call it House rigging. If anyone has seen the articles on the Hoefeller election map making you can understand why the house is as conservative as it is. Bernie doesn't have the analytic skills to be an effective President. He has been a back bencher writing few laws. And you can't compare a medical system for Canada and 30 million people to a medical system for 330 million people. In the long run independent insurance companies are toast but in the near term post 2020 need their current insurance. In the long fun radicalism doesn't enter into it but we need a big change.
1
Radical is a strong word. Radical should be applied to US management where being an owner gives you rights over humans: a type of unique American corporate enterprise, Corp-slav by another name.
As long as business people are looked at as knowing something and treated like Demi gods labour is a goner.
For instance, the paper of record has no labour section.
Only euphemism.
30
And NPR has no labor hour, only a business hour. The deception, the dumbing down of us, the people, is intentional, wide spread, and sadly successful. Bernie is a hope. We are the answer.
3
Rest assured . Bernie Sanders is not attempting to upend America- he’s trying to save it .
Slowly but surely we’ve devolved into a neo-feudalist society where the common people have no voice , no power and no say over their very existence . This has become the new normal and frankly it’s not ( historically ) new nor is it normal .
There’s nothing radical about Bernie Sanders . He only seems that way because he’s surrounded by peers who reflexively center and do the bidding of wealth and power. Bernies’ should be commonplace among our representatives . That he’s such an anomaly is an indictment of our system and ourselves . And so is the fact that Bernie Sanders is the candidate uniquely suited to deliver the transformational change necessary to save the Republic from itself and ourselves .
It’s obvious what America has become . Efforts to redeem and restore it shouldn’t come down to an elderly Jewish Social Democrat going it alone .
Yet here we are ...
91
@Paul G Knox
Your last sentence is correct, as Bernie himself would agree. He says plainly that no president, including him, can turn this around alone - I think Obama thought he could. We need a movement.
The Republicans have/had a movement for over forty years and it worked very well for them.
Warren talks about building a movement; Bernie is doing it. He has far and away the largest number of individual donors, nearing the million mark, and his supporters are scattered literally all over the nation - even in the reddest of states.
Bernie has the vision and the organizational know-how to create the change we need.
5
Some footnotes. The American Workers Party, which sparked the Toledo strike, was led by A.J. Muste, a minister who resurfaced thirty years later as a leader of the Anti-Vietnam War movement.
The SF General Strike was led by the Communist Party, in its 1930s Stalinist incarnation.
The Minneapolis Teamsters strike was led by the Communist League of America, the Trotskyist faction of the Communist Party, expelled in 1928 by the Stalinists.
The American Workers Party merged in late 1934 with the Trotskyists. After some more mergers and splits, the united group became the Socialist Workers Party, still around, but a Great Leader sect.
Note that the three groups were inspired by the Russian Revolution. Thus the great strikes which you laud (I do too), while 100% American, were in part indebted to a useful foreign ideology and influence.
You write: "Conflict was the engine of labor reform in the 1930s." That is, conflict, division, drove the US forward to a brighter future.
And you're right. We progress through cleavage, through splitting, and struggle. When we are unified, we are malleable, and sitting ducks for such disasters as McCarthyism or the Vietnam War.
And yet, one of the putative outrages of Russiagate is that a foreign influence, Russia, attempted to divide us and break our unity.
Horrors! What if we had ended up in a brilliantly creative year like 1934?
Unity begets dumb wars.
Gimme that old-time internationalism and divisiveness.
3
Let's remember Aristotle's thoughts about what constitutes a democracy: when the indigent, instead of men with wealth (property), become the governing class. Case in point!
3
@manfred marcus
Sorry, but what Aristotle thought is completely irrelevant, as he has been shown to be wrong in many cases (including claiming that women have fewer teeth than men). We need people of good will, humanity, and managerial competence to lead. FDR, who accomplished so much for the working class, was not exactly indigent!
I fully support the right of employees to unionize. My job involves dealing with multiple unions in multiple sectors. The one observation that is missing from this and other left-leaning commentary about attempts to make unionization easier is that many workers don’t like unions. This is primarily because most unions support seniority and support the lowest common denominator for workplace performance and behavior above all other considerations. For employees that value greater compensation for merit and value workplace excellence, a union does not feel right or fit their desire for their workplace.
14
@53
Many workers cannot join unions. Many workers are told---in Pavlovian fashion (thanks for the reminder, Socrates of Downtown Verona)---that unions are bad because of the anecdotes you offer above. Many workers would probably like a couple of weeks off, paid. Many workers would probably like more say in what goes on in the workplace. All the less nauseating features of the workaday world are brought to you, in total, by the struggles of labor against the owners. Today, the owners have the message and the workers, in this "right to work" country, have no choice. Given the choice, workers would like more say and a slightly bigger piece of that fat pie the owners crowd around.
10
Unions only represent the employees that that the employer hires. It is the employer who sets the "common denominator".
Workers who have experienced the all too common employer biases of race, gender, age, nepotism or just plain favoritism that have long been prevalent in the autocratic workplace welcome union representation.
3
The rich outnumber the non-rich with dollars, which allows them to purchase a radical right government that rigs the laws, courts and justice in their favor.
The non-rich outnumber the rich with votes, which allows the non-rich to have an occasional say in things by supporting candidates that support the non-rich.
All citizens must take the time to register, to vote and to help others to register and vote.
While Bernie Sanders labor ideas will frighten Republican snowflakes and send them into a magnificent Pavlovian chorus of 'socialism' and 'workers paradise' mockery, the reality is that the radical right Republican wing has been successfully waging war on workers, worker wages, worker vacation, worker healthcare and the common good ever since Saint Reagan duped Americans into thinking that corporations are vitamins.
Sometimes a political course correction is necessary, and now is the time to vote for a progressive candidate to correct the excesses of the radical corporate right.
Bernie Sanders will not win the 2020 nomination, but Elizabeth Warren will proudly represent average working Americans as President instead of the vulture capitalism that has continuously destroyed America with 39 years of 0.1% economic parasitism.
D to go forward; R for reverse.
November 3 2020.
182
@Socrates The only reason Bernie will not win the nomination like you say is because the corporate wing of the Dem party will throw all their weight to prevent it like they did in 2016. Why would vote for Warren when you can have Bernie? Warren is Bernie lite and is already showing troubling signs that she can't be trusted to truly represent the people when she's hanging around the likes of Hillary Clinton.
71
@Socrates
Votes don't help when they're neutered by gerrymandering and suppressed by draconian registration restrictions.
25
@Socrates Bernie has a good chance of winning. I wouldn't count it out. Warren doesn't have POC support and cannot win nomination without it.
33
Bernie’s plans would only enhance the unemployment rate and shrink economic growth. One only needs to study France to understand this.
12
Why do we need economic growth if it doesn't benefit us? Why do we need the jobs that could not pay the living wages? Many people could not afford health insurance, even more could not afford healthcare with insurance, our minimum wage hasn't been changed for last 10 years, we have housing crisis, and all that during booming economy, what happens when recession hits?
1
@Once From Rome
Oh please. Spare us the rightwing nonsense. What growth? The one that benefits the .01?
1
Please don't make any complaints about Trump, if you're going to seriously advocate for a candidate who wants to do something as crazy as end at-will employment. I dislike Trump but would gladly pull the lever for him over Sanders, to avoid what would certainly be a market meltdown is Sanders were to win. Progressives lose all credibility when they take ideas from people like Sanders and AOC seriously.
12
@R.P. yeah, the stock market. Our most important source of values.
6
@R.P.
I suspect you would pull the lever for Trump no matter who teh Democrats nominate.
7
@R.P.
Sure, please let us not do anything to look out for workers. That would be so un-American. And the markets are doing so so well under Trump.
6
So someone has the right to strike but not the right to work ? And a union should be able to determine who that is ?
7
@JOE
The "right to work" is a cynical description, invented by management, to describe laws that allow non-union workers to receive union-negotiated pay and benefits at no cost to them.
Work all you want to, but don't mooch off of the benefits that others have earned.
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@JOE
Right. Much better that a couple of really really rich guys, in Cuban-cigar-smoke-filled rooms, decide. Much better.
1
The slaves had the right to work and no the right to strike. Do you want us to be slaves?
As important, moral, and necessary the changes Senator Sanders proposes, you can be sure the monies class will paint these proposals pink. Somehow the idea of a President Sanders, with no organized support in Congress or grassroots base, somehow leading a revolution from the White House just doesn't seem possible. Although I wish it was.
4
A government that is hostile to unions is hostile to the American concept of equal treatment under the law. Corporations are free to accumulate profits on the backs of workers but need the government to back-up their labor practices. Strikes are good, I've been in a couple. But, the marketplace stings harder, not only crippling revenues but souring the consumer sentiment. Strike, boycott, poison the brands.
14
Even the greatest union man in the history of this country, FDR, did not think federal employees should be allowed to unionize. Nothing has changed since. One of JFKs biggest mistakes. It was done as an EO, why can’t Trump reverse it. Government employees have 535 legislators working on their behalf and they still have defined benefits retirement plans. Every time one of the 11 dwarfs opens their mouth it pushes me towards Trump.
6
What if all Amazon fulfillment workers went on strike? What if all Walmart employees went on strike? What if all burger chain workers went on strike? Hard to imagine isn’t it? Statewide teachers strike did occur and were successful. The reason is that there is a labor shortage right now in the US. There is little appetite for immigrants to fill that gap. So perhaps the moment is now for collective labor action. Wasn’t the US labor movement part of what made America great?
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@Daniel Salazar
Thank you for your insight that the labor movement is what made America great. Let’s bring it back. I’m a retired teacher and I’m so grateful for the movement that allows me to live a decent life every day in retirement. While I’m certainly not living in luxury I can afford to make critical repairs on my house, cook good food, and help out with my grandchildren. Yes what made America great for ordinary people like me is the labor movement.
10
Since you will no doubt get a lot of negative push back for this column, let me be one of the first to say thank you!
Once again, you are far ahead of your colleagues at the Times in understanding the basic issues dividing this country, and it's not just red and blue.
One of the major causes of wealth disparity in this country is that unions have effectively been killed in this country thanks to Reagan who, ironically, was a union man. Once leaders get it in their head that capital is good (and equals freedom) and labor is bad (and equals a drain on capital), they work to give more power to the first and to take it away from the second.
Couple that with the anti-tax movement that we can also thank Reagan for (and now Trump), and you can see the mess we are in today -- men and women having to take on extra jobs to survive while the nation literally falls apart, to the point that bridges collapse from under us when we are driving across rivers to work.
I was a strong supporter of Sanders in 2016 (he won in my state), and still think he would have beaten Trump, because he understands that this is one of the basic issues affecting too many Americans. I'm an Elizabeth Warren supporter this time out, but I would support, vote for, and work hard for Sanders again if he is the nominee. I still think the two of them working together would be unstoppable against both Biden and Trump.
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@avrds
Globalization has changed the structure and rules of labor.
The central feature lies in the fact that manufacturers and service companies can find cheap labor almost anywhere on the planet. The term for this is "labor arbitrage".
If there are no US jobs, unionization has no basis for discussion or action.
Employers are free to move their operations away from union areas, if that will enhance the bottom line.
Do I have a practical solution?
No.
1
@Meta1
Totally understand your point.
But there are a number of jobs that cannot be shipped over seas, from air traffic controllers (Reagan's target) to fast food and healthcare workers -- they need unions!
As for manufacturing, one of the goals should be to penalize companies that opt to produce products outside of the country, just like they should be penalized for keeping their wealth outside of the country. Yes, it becomes more expensive, but I think the country overall has paid an enormous price in pursuit of cheap goods over quality of life (and political stability) for all Americans.
A good old-fashion "Made in America" and "Union Made" campaign wouldn't hurt either. All these so-called patriots should be supporting their fellow Americans, not exploiting cheap labor in China and beyond.
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@avrds
I do agree with your point 100%, as a matter of philosophy.
But as a practical matter, do you think what you propose has a chance?
Oh my, how I DO wish it did!
2
Enhanced labor laws have certainly helped the growth engines and unemployment in Europe. But let’s not let facts get in the way of opinions.
13
I've heard the Scandinavian countries are doing pretty well despite their workers rights. Should we just learn from them, if we are not able to figure out how to keep our workers happy?
3
“You may have missed it..” so it starts this thoughtful essay.
No, I haven’t missed it and NO one should have missed it. It is our core democratic and civic duty to follow what is important politically and socioeconomically in our country. Otherwise we get Trump-types elected.
Bernie Sanders speaks the truth. The truth he has studied for decades as the most honest politician this country has ever known. He knows without improving the conditions of labor, there is no way to move away from oligarchy and steer clear of potential fascism under Trump and the GOP.
Blessed he be, the man who is for others and dies what they cannot do for themselves.
May Bernie Sanders be our next President. Amen.
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Let's get 2020 for a moment? Bernie has a plan for Medicad for all but what union member or private employee is going to give up their excellent medical benefits for it?
It would be revolutionary if everyone was on a level playing field like the Europeans. People say they're for it but if they have it, forget it.
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@JoeG
Negotiating for those excellent medical benefits was, in reality, negotiating for higher pay that went towards insurance companies. If they get the benefits from the government they can negotiate for a higher pay that goes to them.
14
@Donald
Your point is if the employer in all its forms is off the hook for medical insurance wages will go up? Employers will still have to contribute to Medicare. The amount remains to be seen and would it be magical thinking to say wages will go up.
A bird in hand...
Strikes, or the threat of strikes, do not have the same impact on labor :management relations when there is easy replacement of workers by lower cost Third World labor, either in this country or overseas.
6
You have to be very careful here. Yes, the pendulum has swung to corporations at the cost of the worker now but your use of the world radicalism is fraught with danger.
At little as 50 yrs ago it was the other way around with unions striking for any reason, featherbedding, corruption, etc, putting many companies at risk, notably the American auto industry.
Better pay, benefit, pensions yes, no to the paragraph above.
5
And how do you propose to achieve better pay, better benefits and better work conditions?
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@yulia-Thank you for your reply.
1-Workers electing more labor friendly Washington DC officials.
2-Lobbying for benefits in a timing manner. In other words decide on one thing like bringing back a pension plan. Don't ask for the kitchen sink on the first day.
3-Use strikes as a last not first resort if all else fails. Don't strike if you can't get the kitchen sink.
2
How did that work so far? The minimum wage was not changed since 2009. Pensions once quite common, are replaced by 401K when the workers themselves have to fund their retirement. How long the teachers patiently wait for improvement? And how quickly they achieved it when they had the strike? The truth is the unions are working every day, the chance to change power in Washington comes one in 4 years and not a sure thing, considering 3 branches plus the Supreme Court. Lobbying is great, but who will organize the lobby, and who has more money to lobby more efficiently workers or corporations.
2
It's absurd to compare the problems workers faced in the 1930s to the issues workers face today. But it's even more absurd to think that a leftist like Sanders has a prayer of ever being elected President. Not only is he too radical for most voters but his position on workers rights is contradicted by his position on immigration. Sanders is for essentially open borders. More immigrants from the south illegal or otherwise will put more pressure on wages. If Democrats nominate a progressive candidate like Sanders then all is lost. This is political suicide. There is no progressive majority in America & never will be. The numbers are simply not there. And there certainly is no progressive Electoral College coalition in America that could get to the needed 270 votes. This point can't be emphasized enough: almost every progressive candidate in whom Democrats invested tremendous time, money, & emotional energy in 2016— lost. Almost every progressive initiative on the ballot in this country was voted down. What progressives & their co-dependents will never understand is that far-left mobilizes it's opponents to an even greater degree. Anti-left” will always beat “anti-Trump” in most places in this country but especially in swing states like Ohio & Florida. To many swing voters, Progressivism is trigger warnings, vile college protests & obnoxious academics who posture as their will on earth. They hate these people to their very core. Our best chance for a 2020 victory is a moderate.
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A Moderate lost in 2016. No the Russians and the mythical Sanders holdouts were not to blame. At some point ones logic must shift away from letting fear define it.
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In 2016 Dems lost because they were not enough progressive, as result Trump looked more progressive than Dems in term of care for workers. Definitely moving to the left helped Dems to win the House. Dems are much more successful when they are bold. It was risky to nominate Obama against the white war veteran, and yet it was success not only for Obama but for the Party as well. Then Dems folded on the health reform, delivering mutilated version that didn't change the system, as result they were punished in election 2010. Of course, they drew the wrong message, they thought they got punished because Obamacare was too progressive (it was not, many people were disappointed that it didn't include public option), as result Dems tried very hard to be moderate for what they were punished in 2012, despite Obama's win, in 2014 and most bitterly in 2016 when con man won the Presidency. That was a awakening call and more progressive ideas got hold of the Party. The result is the win of the House. As NC election shows moderation doesn't work, the Dems may as well go progressive then tried moderation that didn't work for them before. As matter of fact, moderation didn't work for Reps either that's why they nominated Trump.
21
@Bill Brown you have no revolutionary zeal, how dare you be so pragmatic! Workers of the world unite! Oh wait, right, socialism has been a consistent failure and Bernie never worked in the private sector, and his economic theories are straight out of the failures of 19th century Marx/Engels. Well, let’s just hope no one notices somehow and we get nationwide amnesia and elect Bernie...
5
So, Trump wants to go back to the 50's, and Bernie to the 30's. Sure, that's what "progress" is all about now, I guess.
But none of that is relevant to this century; and neither the New Deal nor the post-WWII economy were these utopian fantasies people imagine anyway. There was no economic "equality", 75% of the population, women and minorities, were de facto and de jure second-class citizens. Unions were a big part of that problem.
We need to develop policies that are appropriate to the present. That means having *universal*, well-enforced labor laws, like what California just passed, that deal with current issues like pseudo-contracting. And extending the existing laws to *all* workers, even if they are traditionally minority/female jobs.
The traditional company- or industry-based union is not a path to benefiting all workers as in the past. Consider just a couple of Bernie's pet projects. Medicare for All is opposed by unions in general, and then there's how the coal miners and auto workers feel about rapid progress on climate change.
Do we really need to continue to reinforce the privilege of the few at the expense of the many? That's what he is suggesting, with this incoherent and archaic thinking.
6
Without the right to collectively bargain, workers do not have real rights. That is something that has not changed since the 1930s.
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And who will ensure that these protective laws will be enacted? These moderate Dems who think that strengthening the worker's rights is too far left?
6
@yulia
Yulia, this is knee-jerk, incoherent slogan-language/thinking. Kind of like Bernie, actually.
The kind of laws I suggest are exactly what "moderate Democrats" would overwhelmingly support. That's because we actually know history, and in many cases have lived through a lot of it, and have a sense of what is practical and what might actually get passed by the Senate.
Who exactly do you think will "enact" Bernie's proposals? I just pointed out that unions are *against* eliminating employer-based health insurance. Coal miners are *against* solar and wind, and auto workers are *against* electric cars.
Where are the votes going to come from for any of this stuff, including old-fashioned unions that were appropriate for manufacturing before globalization and automation, but just wouldn't work for many of today's jobs?
Lots of people are engaging in a kind of magical thinking on this... "If Only" everyone agreed with you, it would all work out. But that's not reality; being a progressive means making progress, not dreaming.
1
I have a simple objection to Bernie. He never explains HOW he'll get his ideas through our reactionary congress.
It's easy to propose idealist solutions to complex issues, but it's not the real world.
8
By supporting this ideas that they were accepted the majority of Americans who could pressure their politicians. After all, in 2016 Medicare for All was anathema, now we are discussing it as a real possibility.
5
@David Henry By negotiating from a position of strength, and making sure every compromise is met with an equal compromise, rather than the usual compromised position that Democrats bring to the table. Also, by activating the progressive bases in traditionally red districts to influence their lawmakers.
2
@David Henry, David David, do you really want to know, all the minutest tedious details of the "how"? Seriously. You will get exhausted just reading the first para of what it takes to get anything through the congress. If anyone, Bernie knows it well, has lived it for decades. So give him some slack and dignity, will you!
5
In a country which claims to favor democracy, there is no excuse to have laws which support corporations over people. Every American should be able to choose whether to be represented by a union. Wal-Mart is a great example: the largest employer in America traditionally offers its employees low wages with no benefits. Many employees are forced to seek help from the government (aka taxpayers) to afford healthcare, housing, and food. Wal-mart has employed many different methods to "discourage" union organizing by its 1.4 million employees. Without a choice regarding unions, many in our disappearing Middle Class have been deprived of an equal playing field.
83
So the far right calls for arming oneself against the oppressive government, while the far left calls for the general strike. Do Karl Liebnicht and Rosa Luxemburg, oh I mean Bernie and Elizabeth, think the general strike is the way to raise wages?
Why not just raise the minimum wage high enough? Pretty simple, something supported by most Americans. Instead we get Bernie’s Trotskyite fantasies playing out on the campaign trail.
2
@Colok
Were you paying attention you would be aware than both sanders and Warren endorse a $15.00 per hour minimum wage. Sanders is far more reflective of Roosevelt than of Trotsky or Liebnecht. Apparently the ideas of Roosevelt are far to "radical" or some -- though not for most of us.
26
So, why didn't we see the minimum wage increase on federal level since 2009? Maybe, because there were not enough politicians like Bernie. And unions gives the workers power not only negotiate pay, which very often more than minimum wage, but also working conditions, vacations, maternity leave and many other matters that make the worker's life easier.
3
Standard union tactics are hardly Trotskyite- these comments show how well the anti labor propaganda campaign of the last 59 years has worked.
1
The capitalists and power brokers won when they convinced average Americans that resorting to collectivism is a sign of individual weakness. Actually collectivism is the only cure for individual weakness—and eschewing it is a sure way to stay weak.
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@617to416 True. Companies, a collective in itself and powerful, divide and consequently conquer the individual employees when collective bargaining is not present.
20
@617to416
Well put. The so-called leadership principle is an ancient tribal tic for fearful troglodytes. Insecure, dim-witted people need Daddy to tell them what to do.
The collective is our only hope, our best chance to walk into the future, and together being each other's leader.
7
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (early 20th cent.) said that we can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.
The only question is: can we still salvage something like a democracy?
This is an extremely important question for this reason: Inequality equals authoritarianism and authoritarianism equals corruption. Always.
A simple, elegant equation: inequality = authoritarianism = corruption.
This is where we are now, and it’s not just happening at the federal level, it’s happening in a lot of states as well.
The corruption is destroying this country, and it’s childish to blame all of it on the Republicans. The Democrats jockey for position to get their snouts in the trough just as aggressively.
Any sense of remaining community is being systematically destroyed, and the rage and alienation is growing.
Even if we’re fortunate enough to get Trump out of office in 2020, if we continue along the same trajectory that we’re on now, then we’ll eventually end up with Trump 2.0.
And the next Trump might be much more effective than the original. That should scare everybody.
We have to make big changes. Nostalgia for the good ol’ days prior to 2016 just isn’t going to cut it.
If we end up with another demagogue, the only question becomes, will we emulate Czechoslovakia, or are we another Yugoslavia?
We must restore democracy while there’s still time.
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@Annie Gramson Hill But you don't suggest how or who can do it. So please tell us.
1
@Annie Gramson Hill Vote Bernie to change the system! Even if he can't do half of what he says, its a start.
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@Annie Gramson Hill
When the election are determined by only 4 or 5 states, we're no longer a democracy...last time I heard we have 50 states, apparently non of the big states like CA, NY are in a play so to speak.
It's all about MI, WI, NC, SC, PA, OH.
So minority rules, can we call it democracy, not really.
Electoral college should be abolished, otherwise we're going to live in this warp purgatory limbo forever.
2
We can't count on Democrats to change the system. The fact that we have two political parties that support corporate control of the state IS the system. Stop expecting the problem to give you the solutions. By being utterly corrupt and not offering a clear alternative to the profit-over-people ideology of the GOP, the Democratic Party establishment have allowed the Trumps, the Kochs, the Adelsons, Sacklers and Mercers of the world to come to power.
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@Michael Sorensen But you don't suggest how or who can do it. So please tell us.
2
Precisely
3
@Michael Sorensen
Oh I get it now. I thought our problem was right wing fascism and voter suppression but now I learn it's corporate Democrats.
This article illustrates to me that we need a balance between labor and capital. Sanders does not seem to appreciate the idea of balance but if I have to lean to one side, I would definitely lean with labor. And, of course, Sanders is better than anyone the GOP can toss out there.
7
Sanders embodies the last hope for working Americans and for any semblance of a return of representative democracy. He, and to a lesser extent, Warren are the only leading politicians with a record of standing up to corporate power -- which is why the corporate media ignore, chastise and vilify them pushing distortions and unrealistic fears. Most of us who are working or retired are living on the crumbling edge. It's time for a return to citizen-first leadership.
337
@Al M Andrew Yang, who is polling 6th out of the 10 candidates for the upcoming debate, also has plans to stand up to corporations, particularly tech giants like Google and Amazon who pay nothing in taxes. The mainstream corporate media has all but ignored Mr. Yang, and in some cases deliberately excluded him from graphics.
18
@Sarah Johnson
Plans and campaign promises aside, Sanders has a long record and proven integrity.
52
@Al M Bernie Sanders the socialist, who loved the labor movement, Cuba, the old Soviet Union and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, we knew about. Bernie the millionaire, who knew?
Actually, why is anyone surprised that Bernie is now part of the 1%? He owns three homes, including one on the "Vermont Riviera," the shore of Lake Champlain, that cost a bundle.
Clearly Bernie has become accustomed to the upscale lifestyle he has long made a career of eschewing and excoriating. Now that he is in a higher tax bracket he is surely getting schooled on tax avoidance and sheltering income, lessons that plutocrats learn at their fathers' knees. And I wonder how much of his considerable income he is willing to redistribute. And his wife does their taxes? Right.
I guess Bernie will have to stop ranting and raving against millionaires and spend more time explaining to voters 1) why he is not a hypocrite and 2) how socialism will benefit them while he is taking advantage of good old capitalism. As Margaret Thatcher so aptly put it, "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money."
As for policies, Sanders' espousal of free everything for everyone, not to mention allowing felons to vote from prison, can only guarantee Trump's re-election if Bernie is the Democratic candidate in 2020.
United we are strong!
We must return to the time when workers could strike without fear of being fired.
61
Thanks Jamelle, and thanks to Bernie.
Unions are the backbones of this country.
Corporations have, and will always, find their way around laws. Forming strong unions is the responsibility of the people to stand united against corporations. This is such an important bill, it is a step in the right direction, unions and workers are losing strength to corporations. Bernie has been standing for the average American for a long time, that is one reason I am standing with Bernie.
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A strong role for all stakeholders make sense.
What doesn’t make sense is a candidate who isn’t even a member of the party they seek the nomination of free riding. If their support is so great, they should be able to run as an independent or social democrat.
8
This makes as much sense as term limits. Let people vote for who ever they want.
10
@Brad: I note that it seems to make sense when he caucuses with the Senate Democrats, though. Or would you prefer that he and Angus King deny the Senate Democrats two seats when in comes time (I hope) to pick a new majority leader in January, 2021?
If Sanders is Democrat enough for the Senate, then he's Democrat enough for the primaries.
3
@Brad you actually believe that there is more than one political party in America? Have you ever heard of the "capitalist party"? There's only one party running the show in this country. It just comes in different colors and flavors.
3
After one of the Democratic debate moderators asked - Senator Sanders, how are you going to roll out such a groundbreaking health plan? Sanders answered something to the effect of: tens of millions of people will rise up and demand it!
That's not a project plan.
For those who are that far left, Senator Warren is a much more organized thinker, and achiever, then Senator Sanders.
Anybody but Trump 2020.
20
@common sense advocate: Anybody but Trump in 2020, including Sanders! The choice is between Democracy and Trumputin & his Trumpublican Party, let's keep that in mind always!
19
@common sense advocate
When provided more than 30 seconds, Sanders explains in detail how his plan is funded and the 4 year gradual implementation of it.
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@common sense advocate
What might not look like a plan to a college educated professional in Connecticut, looks very much like one to the working poor in Youngstown or Reno.
If you actually read them you will see that Sanders proposals are just as detailed and thought out as Warren's. ("I have a plan" Warren doesn't even have a healthcare proposal yet.)
But Sanders answer to the questions addresses a fundamental fact that Warren largely ignores.
Serious progress legislation will have to clear Congress and that won't just happen by electing more Democrats, many of whom are just as in thrall to Wall Street as the Republicans. It will require, just as it did in the 1930s and the 1960s, millions of ordinary working class Americans to use their power to strike and to march in the streets to create the political conditions under which Congress HAS to make make concessions because their Wall Street benefactors are feeling the heat.
It is Sanders realism about the critical necessity of poor and working class people of all colors getting organized and fighting if they are to win anything that accounts for why his support is greatest among lower income and Black and Latino voters while Warren's base is almost entirely white and upper middle class. Its also why Sanders stands a much better chance of mobilizing a large swathe of new or unreliable voters that will enable him not just to beat Trump but to win strong majorities in both Houses of Congress.
24
Sander’s position is long overdue. Companies like Starbucks have the money to advertise all the great things they do. However they also hide their anti labor behavior behind said good deeds. Starbucks in particular takes aggressive action to stop any union activity. Look at their behavior in NYC.
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@Chris
Starbucks responds, "Why would they need a union when they've already got a tip jar?"
41
@Green Tea
Good One. Ha.Ha. I suppose that will get the workers a pension too!
11
@Chris. Maybe you should take a look at Starbucks employee benefits.
1