You are right. It is an up hill fight. But all arenas are rigged against labor. The items I proposed cannot be accomplished via direct bargaining, because employers use a race to the bottom competition strategy. So legislation is required to make all employers start from the same base. The proposal contains goals, which must be set high. Part of the purposes of high goals is to set awareness and provide rallying focus. Labor has more clout in election politics (still not enough) than in the financial arena (near zero). Its not a perfect proposal, but I hope others will add to it, criticize it and add to it. The Declaration of Independence sounded pretty utopian and unrealistic also. But it started people thinking. There is a very unhealthy passivity and despair among progressive forces today. There is a tendency to express this despair by infighting and mutual accusation of deviation among forces that should unite. It is difficult, otherwise it would not be described as a struggle.
Best to you,
Henry
Daniel wrote:
> Your advice is certainly progressive in its particulars. But, why advise
> labor to fight a battle in an arena (the legislative) that is rigged against
> it? Because they will learn something from their failure? This may be
> something like metaphysics wherein one strives to learn what one already
> knows. It seems to me that the established political process makes your
> advice somewhat abstract. But, I'll go for it anyway, because I can't think
> of anything better.
>
> Quincy