The Wall Street Journal's editorial today yet again blasted the public sector and public sector Unions."The agenda for American political reform needs to include the breaking of public unionism's power to capture an ever larger share of private income.", the Journal tells its readers, the CEO's and heads of the world's corporations and finance houses. This is straight from the horses mouth. The two capitalist parties will participate in this. There will be the usual Democratic whining about the cuts being too severe as the two parties of the billionaires play the good cop bad cop role. But in then end both parties agree (and so do the leaders of organized labor) that public services need to be slashed and the wages and benefits of public sector workers have to to be brought down more in line with the rest of the working class in this country; the market demands it---profit demands it.
Public sector workers cannot bury our heads in the sand. We cannot continue to sit back while entrenched leaders of our international Unions cooperate with our employers to drive us all down to the lowest rung on the ladder. Many of us sat idly by as workers in auto, steel and other industries have had their wages and benefits stripped, sometimes in half. We have done nothing as private sector pensions that were earned over generations and agreed to contractually were shredded through the use of the bankruptcy courts.
37% of public sector workers are in Unions. The bosses want to change that. They have driven, with the aid of a passive Union bureaucracy, the private sector workforce to 7.2% of all jobs; "only one in 13 US workers in the private economy pays Union dues" says the Journal. Total Union membership at one worker in 8 is due solely to the inclusion of the public sector. There is no doubt a public sector environment is on the whole more humane, our pensions somewhat better, and our benefits, it is this that the employers must eliminate. Their propaganda blames us for high taxes, pits us against private sector workers or all the workers whose living standards have been savaged by the so-called free market as private equity lords earned billions of dollars in profits. But now they are coming after the public sector with a vengeance. Cities and municipalities are declaring bankruptcy and reneging on contractual obligations just like Delphi, the auto parts maker did.
Public services must be cut and everything privatized. Public jobs and the relative security we have when compared to the private sector must be eliminated. "Flexibility" is the name of the game. This means that a worker can be "let go" on a whim. This is freedom for the capitalist class, the right to dispose of a commodity whenever market forces demand it.
The public sector can be a beacon for all workers. Despite the setbacks over the past period due primarily to the failure of the heads of organized Labor to mount a serious challenge to the attacks on workers, we still have tremendous power, we have numbers. And any serious struggle mounted by organized workers would draw in other sections of the working and middle classes. Unemployment, foreclosures, attacks on education and the racist prison industrial complex are all sources of anger and hatred of the system that lies beneath the surface of US society. The trillions spent in Afghanistan and Iraq and the building of bases in some 60 countries around the world is money that can be diverted for social needs. As unemployment hovers around 10% nationally and as high as 30% in some areas among youth and particularly youth of color, profits have been stellar. The historic vote to tax the rich and the corporations in Oregon reflects the change in mood that has accompanied the historical crisis of capitalism that we are going though. It has been the working public that saved the system from the edge of the abyss.
In California, the student movement has called for a one day strike March 4th as a first step in reversing this assault by the billionaires. The heads of the state's Labor movement has refused to join this call and build for a joint student/worker unity strike that day preferring to organize a rally instead. The Union leaders are afraid they will be in trouble with the law if they call for a strike. Well we might as well give up then. They have, as is the usual case, capitulated before the fight began. They have assured the bosses that nothing will be done that will hurt them, that will challenge their racist or anti-union laws. They will be "good boys". With a deficit of more than $20 billion expected already in for the 2010-11 fiscal year more cuts are on the way: "Addressing this large shortfall will require painful choices—on top of the difficult choices the Legislature made earlier this year" says the state of California's legislative analysts office. It is obvious that a rally (or coming to work in pink to protest layoffs as the leadership of one Union advised its members to do) will not work. They mean business and are feeling confident as the Union leaders have offered no resistance to their agenda. The heads of organized Labor should take the lead, throw their contractual obligations out, and mobilize the two million or so workers affiliated to organized Labor in California to fight on our own behalf and in our own interests. The failed policy of relying on Democrats to help us must be abandoned. Where we can we must push the officials to do this and where we can lead without them we must do that.
By refusing to mobilize an offensive of workers and students against the attacks by the corporations and their politicians, the Union officials are equally responsible for the decline in living standards and the further concessions that are on the horizon; leadership has certain responsibilities.
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