> As I have stated before, the most troubling
> aspect of this situation is that progressive
> advocacy has permitted Republic Windows and
> Doors to discard its workers, restart its
> operations in another state, and escape any
> bad press or liability. But the company is
> the most culpable (probably the only culpable)
> party involved in this scenario. If the
> company can afford to restart its operations
> in Iowa, then it could have delayed that
> move and paid its workers the wages and
> benefits to which state and federal law
> entitled them. By ignoring the employer,
> however, progressives helped direct public
> scrutiny away from the only party that
> violated the rights of workers.
Fair enough. But if the Progressive response is underwhelming, Michael Kazin may be teasing out the reason why:
Today's labor movement expects the new president and his majority in Congress to enact the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) which will, in theory, make it easier to organize new members. But it is one thing to side with laid-off workers demanding pay they deserve and quite another to help unions gain enhanced power that could threaten the control and profits of a company like Wal-Mart upon which thousands of communities depend.
To make that leap, labor needs to recover the kind of moral vision that once convinced thousands of workers to spend their winter next to cold machines, awaiting a military assault that, thankfully, never came. Their vision went under the name of "industrial democracy." Seven decades later, unions in the Obama era will need something better than "nothing left to lose."
<http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_sitdown_strike_returns_now_what>
Shane