Demanding a Slice for Labor
I luckily got an open treadmill towards my gym’s closing time. The rest were occupied, and the only available machine had a TV that was frozen on Fox. After watching my favorite Carrie Underwood song, “Jesus Take the Wheel,” covered on American Idol, I was unable to change the station and I got stuck with commercials.
On came the Domino’s Pizza propaganda: David Brandon, the CEO of Domino’s, surrounded by pizza deliverers in front of the U.S. Capitol. There he ridiculed the slew of corporations that took bailouts before the advertisement cuts to him walking through New York’s financial district. He told viewers his new lower prices are for them — not the CEOs — as he literally snatched a pizza box out of a hedge fund manager’s hands.
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Why is Brandon, a huge GOP donor and once-potential candidate himself, sounding like a left-wing populist? It’s because Brandon – like many marketing executives – can smell what’s cooking.
Former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently said on MSNBC that in times of crisis people either blame the “mob at the gates or the rot at the top.” In 2005, the targets were immigrants (documented or not); these folks symbolize the masses at the gate. The current targets are the rot at the top: greedy corporations with their ill-performing, but high-rewarded, bosses. Everyone from President Obama and my apolitical favorite pop radio station to Sen. McCain and the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post are ranting against AIG’s bonuses.
Now is the time for the labor movement and its allies to switch recipes and return to the classic: class struggle and aim to grab a larger piece of the pie. Thirty-second television spots about higher wages without a coherent explanation of what EFCA actually is won’t cut it. To get EFCA passed during this ideological shift in the public appetite, unions should show voters who exactly is against the bill — the greedy CEOs and corporations who got us into this mess. We should be telling folks with wishy-washy Senators (see below) to force them to not let big business get away with this nonsense.
The Right, through its disciplined organization, coherent message, and outright lies has convinced a good number of people -– especially those paying close attention –- that the Employee Free Choice Act would eliminate the right to a secret ballot. While in fact the legislation expands democracy, and 53% of Americans still favor EFCA, we should avoid fighting the Right on what is now a defensive battle. As a student of George Lakoff, I blame this defensive posturing for many of the Left’s defeats over the last few decades.
It’s time to add democratic options to the menu, to include both a secret ballot and majority sign-up. While extra toppings are great, however, it’s also the moment in history to tell capitalists that they haven’t delivered us our fair share for thirty years or more. Now they have to give us our Employee Free Choice Act for free.
So make your calls, join a pro-EFCA rally, get signatures for this petition, etc. Build the movement to pass this bill –- we only have three months!
To paraphrase James Oppenheim: “We don’t want just breadsticks, but roses too!”
Target Senators:
Mary Landrieu (LA): 202-224-5824
Blanche Lincoln (AR): 202-224-4843
Ben Nelson (NB): 202-224-5274
Mark Pryor (AR): 202-224-2353
Michael Bennet (CO): 202-224-5852
Evan Bayh (IN): 202-224-5623
Mark Warner (VA): 202-224-2023
Mark Udall (CO): 202-224-5941*Bold where there are YDS chapters.
Nice post. That list of target senators is the core of Evan Bayh’s new All-Asshole Caucus.
Things just got more complicated: http://www.kansascity.com/444/story/1099479.html
Starbucks, Costco (which already has some union shops), and Whole Foods want to settle for a compromise. They have proposed a lame alternative which mostly just increases fines to both sides breaking the law. I am sure they view it as a stepping stone and would rather add meat to theirs than fight to take stuff out of EFCA. Some big-time centrist Democratic operatives are supportive of this compromise.
So what’s bad: centrist and right-wind Democrats have cover to sell-out EFCA.
So what’s good: business community is divided.
Re: the populist Zeitgeist, do folks feel that the populist mode of politics is dangerous and lends itself to illiberal or right-wing deformations?
I’m of the mind that torches and pitchforks are, for better or worse, indispensable to the left. I don’t accept the liberal conception of politics as a good-faith exchange of ideas between citizen-constituents of the democratic state. I’m also unconvinced by radicals that view politics as merely a contest between competing interests, communities and antagonistic classes, each dispassionately pursuing their best interests (although that is part of the story, to be sure).
Ultimately, I think there is no left without a passionate and angry fantasy of social revenge. Is that too Jacobin?
I’m of the thinking that the Jacobins come out of the same radical democratic tradition that lead to the socialist movement. I’m pretty much with you. Class identification, polarization and struggle — even by a determined minority — are all prerequisites for social change.
It’s worth adding that my Senator, Kay Hagan, is in the Bayh group, but supports EFCA, so shout outs to her.