Happy May Day from a non-Marxist leftist

First, pretty much adapted from last year?

Two things to note.

One? This should be the date that "Labor Day" is celebrated. It's the date of International Workers' Day. It's the date that the American Federation of Labor called for the eight-hour day to be implemented, in 1886. And, that exact date is the day the Haymarket rally started.

Per the first link, ConservaDem President Grover Cleveland pushed for the September Labor Day date precisely to "defang" it and remove Haymarket connections.

Even worse? Per that page, Ike, Mr. "one nation UNDER GOD" Pledge of Allegiance president, declared May 1 to be Loyalty Day. Because "godless Communism," of course. 

Remember that the American imperial class will co-opt anything they can, then claim America is "classless," then get many American people to buy it. 

Second, riffing off a piece from last year?

Once again, no, we don't actually need yet another Communist Party. 

Beyond Marxism being pseudoscience, with more on that here, with the degree Marx was locked into the exploitation of the natural world ideas of capitalism, we don't need any form of Marxism in today's climate crisis. 

 

Texas progressives and Abbott and Texas Dems and China and more

Texas Dems are still the gang that can't shoot straight, as misunderstandings and eventual acrimony about whether or not Dem Legiscritters should skip the second special session show. And, contra James Talarico, no "harm reduction" was achieved. Why did people like you bother to skip the first special session?

Socratic Gadfly used Labor Day and the end of extended federal unemployment benefits to talk about what's up next for restaurant and retail employees who still aren't going back, as well as larger labor issues.

Off the Kuff analyzed the 2020 election results for State Board of Education districts.

On medical ethics, turns out China's been treating the Uyghurs kind of like the US treated the Tuskegee Airmen. Waiting for an apology from Margaret Flowers and Max Blumenthal in  ...

Speaking of, does Michael Hudson actually believe some of the shit he writes? This one, claiming such equitable distribution of Chinese economic advances (setting aside whether the Uyghurs participate or not  if true) sounds like it could have come from Max's keyboard. (Or, more to the point, Richard Wolff's.)

The Bloggess looks back on a fateful September for herself. 

The Dallas Observer updates us on the latest move by conservative activists to restrict academic freedom.

Mary Tuma details the reasons why Greg Abbott's assertions about SB8 and rape are meaningless.

Steve Vladeck shows why the "shadow docket" was a big problem even before the cowardly SCOTUS ruling on SB8.

Scattershooting Labor Day: Bourgeoise unions, more

Nothing new to blog about, but offering a roundup of some of my past thoughts on labor issues.

First, an unpopular, but carefully considered cold take that will resonate popularly to the left of the Democratic Party but not within it, nor within AFL-CIO type unions. Per the header? American labor unions arguably don't even go along with duopoly politicians in claiming Merika is a class-free society. From their early days, the AFL half actually believed in climbing the ladder then pulling it up. That remained a problem for decades and still is to some degree. That same post reminds you that the AFL-CIO types opposed Harry Truman's push for national health care cuz they figured "bennies" was a great union drive recruiting tool. (The first possible push for national health care was actually pre-Truman.)

Second, even those types of unions continue to be ignored by national neoliberal Democrats. I wrote this five years ago, but Hillary Clinton, among others, showed it's still true.

Third, and related, the Dem-neoliberals continued to kowtow to China.

Fourth, Hillary and Barack were hypocrites on NAFTA in 2008 while running for election.

Fifth, and related to one and two? The "Protestant work ethic" is bullshit and management exploits your belief in it.

Sixth, given all the above, and per Janis Joplin's definition of freedom, why does US organized labor still enserf itself to the left half (or sometimes the right half) of the duopoly? I said eight years ago you need to free yourselves!

"Happy" #LaborDay, including words for the #TrumpTrain and unions

Income inequality and economic immobility both continue to grow, even as Speaker Paul Ryan tells easily refuted lies about the latter.

How did this happen?

A mix of many factors.

One is not directly economic, but the general cowing of workers through courts siding with businesses in stripping away workplace civil liberties is a psychological factor. And, other than in rare cases like Ledbetter, where it's actual discrimination, not civil liberties in general, many Democrats have gone along.

Just as Democratic presidents, while not actually working to gut the National Labor Relations Board, generally declined to reverse gutting by their Republican predecessors.

On income inequality, people still don't talk about how bad it's gotten. For the US as a whole, it's as bad as Mexico. That may be another reason fewer Mexicans are coming to the US. (A greater and greater portion of Hispanic illegal immigrants are from Central America.)

An article by the NYT, claiming that $16.60/hour would be the same in Rochester, New York, as in the Bay Area, leaves it halfway pulling its punches on this issue.

It is right — but doesn't push on it hard enough — that allowing companies to designate more people as contractors is another problem. Republicans encouraged this one, too, and Democrats generally acquiesced, until Obama tried to take too big of a bite back at one time, and too late in his administration.

The biggest problem, in many ways? Organized labor.

The Carpenters and AFL-CIO heads both sitting on Trump's business council? Nothing new. Remember Nixon's hardhats in the early 1970s? Reagan Democrats? (A full 22 percent of them went for Reagan in his first election, and 34 percent of them who thought civil rights was moving too fast.) Andy Stern's suck-ups to big biz of the previous decade? 

Goes back before that.

Maybe as far as Haymarket. US organized labor was in general, at that time, more bourgeoisie than its European counterparts. And, Haymarket, Bethlehem Steel and Ludlow coal world incidents aside, more willing to play ball. The American presidential-driven, duopoly-based political system, by helping shut out a political party that might be labor-specific, was a related problem.

But organized labor itself was often part of the problem.

Yes, Debs' railway union and Bridges' longshoremen were color-blind, as well as having stiffened spines, but AFL unions before the rise of the CIO? And even somewhat after that?

Not.

Sure, Jacobin can point at Communists working to help blacks and whites organize together in the South in the 1930s, but that's the exception that proves the rule. Long before that, black workers were used as strikebusters in urban areas North, Midwest and South. Having often been shut out of organized labor by whites, having been opposed in the workforce by white laborers, at best, they often felt they had little choice; at worst, they likely felt smoldering resentment.

(The next time the likes of Jacobin writes an "it's all classism and never racism" piece, ask them how many black faces they can find in, say, pictures from the Flint strikes of the late 1930s. In my opinion, it's intellectually dishonest to try to gloss over the history of racism in organized labor, or to try to reduce racism to classism in nearly every instance — and that goes for people beyond Jacobin.)

Mainstream AFL-CIO unionism would shoot itself in the foot in other ways, or if not direct foot-shooting, undermine broader politically left issues.

It was the third leg, along with the AMA and big business, in opposing Harry Truman when he made the first serious push for national health care in the US.

It cooperated willingly with the CIA in helping establish anti-Communist sham unions outside the country, especially in South America.

Many of its leaders, as well as members (those hardhats), virulently opposed antiwar efforts in the Vietnam War — and later.

In industries like autos, its members believed the whisperings of the ownership class about job loss fears and stridently opposed the environmentalist movement as it grew in the 1970s.

Much (but certainly not all) of organized labor has slouched toward Gomorrah for decades.

That said, so has the American workforce that is not unionized.

Class-conscious in a way that the Paul Ryans of the world won't admit publicly, but surely push to enhance privately, for many gray-collar and tech-collar employees, "union" remains a dirty word.

The labor movement in America, inside and outside unions, isn't going to get better until these things happen:
1. Democrats stop nominating neoliberal candidates / or Greens start breaking through with labor voices

2. Union leaders stop willingly being co-opted by Republican leaders and business leaders

3. More workers indicate their willingness to look beyond the Democratic Party and beyond organized labor if 1 and 2 don't happen.

Healthy food, and food for thought, for Labor Day

While you're celebrating the rights (diminishing, along with numbers) of organized labor — while remembering that Dems love to take unions' money and unions' votes while doing as little as necessary for union workers — and not forgetting that May Day in Europe was pushed by unions there to remember Haymarket and should have been May Day here, but for ... erm, a conservaDem President! ... too, you can also enjoy life.

Here's some healthy late summer (if you're in the South or Texas) or end of summer, if further north, picnic-type food. Healthy and tasty both.

I've got some healthy, Italian-themed end of summer food for you.
Egg salad, Italian style.
This is for 1 dozen eggs.

1. Crack, peel, slice and dice eggs and place into whatever your storage container will be.
2. Substitute creamy Caesar salad dressing for at least half your mayonnaise.
3. Add Italian herbs to taste; not fancy, I use a generic dry herb blend plus additional dried basil.
4. Extra Parmesan-style cheese.
5. If you've got it, about 2-4 tablespoons, to your taste, of broccoli raab, if you have any of it. Just enough to enhance, not overpower.
6. Again, to taste, dice up some pepperoncini.
7. And speaking of pepper, some black pepper, preferably fresh ground.

Meanwhile, push for more progressivity in the tax code for labor, something else Dems talk about but little. And don't forget that labor rights are ultimately about human dignity.

A few workers' thoughts on wrapping up #LaborDay

First, per friend Perry, let's hope that Labor Day doesn't get made even more irrelevant by a combination of most Republicans and large chunks of neoliberal Democrats.

Second, per a cartoon, let's hope that, regarding things like both illegal immigration and a fair amount of legal immigration, the folks above and others stop exploiting many workers — and that more and more average Americans become more concerned.

And, said workers do more than pick lettuce and tomatoes. If you're a Texas liberal, and live in a new house, how much of the construction work was done by whom and at what cost?

Third, let's hope that, if you've gotten a holiday day today, or if you're in a job you have to work today but you get a comped holiday day, that you're not overworked when you get back to the office.

Fourth, let's hope that Tea Partier types finally find some enlightenment (and that maybe Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein can help deliver it) that your jobs are stagnant, and that it's not the fault of President Obama, that it's not the fault of black men in general, and that Bretbart alums' guerrilla campaign against abortion or Tea Partier politicians selling that tea isn't going to make your job any better. Because Pat Robertson gets it right when he notes "economic patriotism is dead." Your GOP prez candidates are among those who have helped kill it.

Fifth, and related to that, and while rejecting the capitalism-driven myth of "time is money," and the myth of both Protestant work ethic and "callings," and New Age versions of both, along with rejecting the myth of "quality time," do remember that work is dignified, per Mike Rowe. Or the "I Am a Man" of 1968 Memphis sanitation strikers.

Finally, re those GOPers, neolib Democrats, and libertarians, and the business managers and owners who think that way: don't believe the "work hard, play hard" bullshit, and don't drink similar Kool-Aid.

Cesar Chavez, hugely flawed hero

The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography by Miriam Pawel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

(Addendum, outside the review, and expansion of it, itself. Noting the one retweet of this, despite Chavez' numerous flaws, I reject the idea that organizing farmworkers was bad, and I also reject the idea that Chavez' later Hispanic political empowerment, even at the expense of farmworker neglect, was all bad. So, to anybody dedicated to following the ideas of Hayek, or beyond, or other doctrinaire conservativism, no soap from me, and I'm putting that right up front.)


Miriam Pawel, author of a previous book on farmworkers, offers us an in-depth, totally honest must-read, based on thousands of hours of audiotapes, notes and more.

Pawel, in the first "critical" biography of Chavez, gives us the good, the bad, and the ugly in the life of the man who gave California's farmworkers their first union, then, due to stubbornness, wrongly-directed singlemindedness and authoritarian leadership, essentially wrecked that same union, to the point that farmworkers today are little better off, in a number of ways, than they were before Chavez founded the United Farm Workers.

Where to start? Here: Pawel quotes Chavez talking about that "singlemindedness." That was part of his genius in getting the United Farm Workers started. So, too, was his recognition that, because agricultural workers were largely uncovered by US labor law, there were few rules to play "outside of." Related to that, he was an outside-the-box thinker in early tactical and strategic moves.

If only we could end his life, or freeze it, in the early 1970s, then the Chavez of myth — a myth largely perpetuated by Hollywood-type liberals, which in turn adds to the degree of truth in generalizations about that subculture — would closely match that of reality. But, we don't end there.

Pawel shows that recognition as a union, especially on larger contracts, meant that the UFW was no longer "outside the system." That became even more true in the mid-70s, after California passed into law the bill creating the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

It was at this point that, as Pawel shows, Chavez essentially went off the rails. He decided the UFW needed to be a social movement, not a union. He decided his single-mindedness needed to be more authoritarian. And, to bring this all together, he decided to borrow some "control" tools from the notorious 1970s cult, Synanon, even working with its founder. The result? Longtime Chavez supporters were accused of being traitors to the cause, Communists, or whatever, and booted out. Besides Synanon, Chavez also borrowed ideas from Mao and the Cultural Revolution.

All of this was new to me, the stuff related to Synanon, Chavez turning UFW headquarters into something akin to a cult, and his refusal to focus on union development issues because that would force him to delegate authority.

Meanwhile, because he wasn't a good administrator, but was too much of a "controller" to delegate administrative tasks, maintaining and renegotiating contracts fell by the wayside. Expanding the union outside of California did the same, with Chavez even crushing independent organizing efforts. (Austin having a "Cesar Chavez Boulevard" could be considered a bit laughable for this reason.) And, the UFW wound up owing a bunch of back taxes.

At the same time, Chavez began intervening a lot more in California politics, an idea he once rejected. He also began marketing the UFW as a brand, especially to the likes of those Hollywood-type liberals, even as more and more contracts with growers were lost and the union was shrinking.

This isn't to deny that things like pesticide use in the fields weren't important issues. It is to say that things like that were secondary to renewing efforts at organization of union locals, getting new contracts signed with growers, etc. It is also to say that many of them were "pitched" at appealing to those Hollywood-type liberals. And, as Chavez because more and more of a national political star and icon, that, the elbow grease work of maintaining a union, appealed to him even less as the 1970s moved into the 1980s.

However, as a result, he was able to expand the political power of "la raza." And, to do so somewhat outside of California. So, Austin's commemoration of him isn't totally wrong, either.

Given that the farm workers' movement really started in my pre-school days, that the slide of the union and Chavez' move to becoming a cult leader happened before the end of my high school days, growing up in a politically quite conservative household, and that his next move to political icon and final abandonment of original unionization efforts happened before I had started escaping that background, let alone gone beyond more stereotypical versions of liberalism, I never had understood what had happened to the farm workers' movement. And now I know — Cesar Chavez happened to it — the good, the bad, and the ugly.

This just catches the tip of the iceberg of a must-read book. And, should lead a reader asking, was the expansion of political power worth it for the price that Chavez eventually left farmworkers to pay?



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Some Labor Day reading: Socialism!

I suggest some articles at WorldSocialist. You'll learn that the hypocrisy hypercapitalism can generate at times isn't just confined to America, or even just to the developed world; even Bolivian President Evo Morales, a darling of many, is guilty of it.

Beyond that, there's plenty of good articles on the current state of employment and unemployment, including on how even healthcare jobs aren't necessarily a safe port in a major recessionary storm.

Tax the rich ideas and more for Labor Day

As we await Labor Day tomorrow, otherwise known as "The GOP deludes tea partiers into believing it cares about workers while Democrats hypocritically walk across the Mackinac Bridge day," let's think about ways to empower labor, whether its union-organized or not.

First, many people of intelligence recognize that  relatively unprogressive federal tax rates (combined with often regressive sales taxes at state and local levels) allow the rich to accumulate money which does little to stimulate a sluggish economy.

So, first, at the federal tax level:
1. We need more progressivity in income tax rates.
2. We need to tax capital gains and hedge fund money at the same rate as income.
3. When companies offshore more and more money, and then, like the non-liberal Apple, try to hold the federal government hostage by wanting a tax holiday to bring that money home, we need to instead have a surtax on such overseas, off-shored money.
4. If the rich claim that conspicuous consumption of trickle-down economics stimulates the economy, fine, let's up the ante and have a federal property tax. (Watch the Koch brothers shit bricks over that one.)
6. We of course need to up the amount of income covered by FICA taxes, eliminate loopholes in federal personal tax codes (including the mortgage interest deduction, which benefits the middle of the middle class rarely), as well as various corporate income tax loopholes. At the least, on homes, crack down on any deductions for buying second homes, whether they are vacation homes or income generators.

Second, at the corporations as persons level. If corporations want to continue to make that claim, and Supreme Court rulings continue to support it, here's a possible counter-action or two.
1. Put every single member of a corporation on trial whenever corporations allegedly commit criminal activity. People would simply refuse to work for unethical major businesses.
2. Reinstitute the draft and when we have another war, undeclared or not, draft entire corporations, i.e., the Halliburtons of the world. Or, wingnut think tanks.

At the state level:
1. At a minimum, stop making food subject to sales tax.
2. Put more progressivity into state income taxes.
3. On state income tax forms, require a state disclosure form about how much of state revenue comes from various types of taxes and how much comes from fees, licenses and other non-tax "taxes."

At the local level:
1. Have states do revenue sharing on local property taxes. Some states do this in part with school districts, but not municipalities.

Labor must be ready to make long-term break from Dems

Union and social organizer Amy Dean puts this at the bottom of her great column saluting AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka for telling the Democratic Party not to take organized labor for granted.

It needs to be higher, right after her telling Trumka and other union leaders that they need to have action to match rhetoric.

But, it's still good, no matter the location:

Third, we have to be prepared to carry out a new political strategy from more than one election cycle. ...

To carry out a long-term strategy, we have to be prepared to give up our current illusion of influence. Too often, we are charmed by access. We are invited to sit on White House roundtables, or we are impressed that top officials will answer our calls. But what has this gotten us? If anyone has doubt about why simply electing more Democrats will not be enough for the labor movement to thrive - let alone survive - they need only to look at the track record under our past three Democratic presidents. Pro-union legislation and labor law reform failed under President Carter. It was never seriously considered under President Clinton. And EFCA was dead on arrival under President Obama.

We cannot keep making excuses for elected officials, saying that the "political will" necessary for them to do their jobs was not present. Political will begins with us. If we want a different result in the future, we must begin to do politics differently. And that means getting serious about putting force behind our declarations of independence.

Amen to all of this.

It exactly parallels the message Gang Green environmental groups need to heed about the current state of the Democratic Party and the often anti-environmental stances and actions of President Obama, as blogged here.

But, there's still something missing. And that is a failure to make an explicit call to arms for third-party voting.

Dean has a more in-depth piece on what labor can do at In These Times, but, it too has the same "missingness."

Amy, you can do even better.

You should know, and I think somewhere, you do know, that if push comes to shove, you need to shove. Period.

Organized labor gives Dems a wake-up

Or, one organization does. The International Association of Fire Fighters has put a freeze on contributions to federal candidates, which means a freeze on contributions to Democrats. (h/t Salon)

Here's the nut grafs:

Not only are extremist Republicans trying to destroy us -- too few Democrats are standing up and fighting for us.

Over the past two years, politicians from both parties have failed to address our issues in Washington, DC.

Boy, I'd love to see more actions like this.

Happy Labor Day

First, a serious thanks to the public safety folks, the hospital folks, etc., who are working today and need to.

Second, sadly, if you're in retail or similar, this is no holiday for you. But, even if you're working today, you may still not get 40 hours this week.

And, this trend doesn't bode well for the future. (As if many of us need to hear that.)

OK, a rhetorical question ... will Obama take part in any traditional Democratic Labor Day activities?

This is DEFINITELY not kosher

Child-labor exploiting, illegal-immigrant hirint Agriprocessors has defaulted on a $35 million loan.

And, its troubles started before the May employment raid.

This is DEFINITELY not kosher

Child-labor exploiting, illegal-immigrant hiring Agriprocessors has defaulted on a $35 million loan.

And, its troubles started before the May employment raid.

The “Protestant work ethic” is dead, if it ever was alive

One of my new year’s resolutions in January was to start a new personal journaling project, in which I would either take a picture of some mundanity, or write a haiku, every day.

Well, I’ve not done it every day, but I have done so at least once a week. This is what I’m working on for today, about labor, employment and the old “Protestant work ethic.”

Is it possible?
Can jobs reward us that much?
Do we self-delude?

Similar cases:
Are jobs, like relationships,
Overburdened?

Is the modern job
Per Protestant ethic,
Masses' opiate?

"Left," "right" both say no;
Bourgeoise materialists
Steering labor blind.

But loss of job hope
Means loss of career rewards.
Blue, white collars both.

Neo-libs’ NAFTA,
CAFTA, WTO, kill hope,
Money and dreams.

Money is fobbed
With more and more made-in-China
Bread and circuses.

This cannot replace
Dreams shived for dollar stores
Nor the loss of hope.

Even the ideal job
Cannot reward every need;
This just fantasy.

Workaholic U.S.
Take note; live broader lives
At home and in play.