Organized Labor Gets a Heart Transplant

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.counterpunch.org/macaray05292008.html

A Union Fable

By DAVID MACARAY

Playing off Barack Obama’s inspiring book title, “The Audacity of Hope,” let’s take a moment to consider something that, for organized labor, which, seemingly, has lain dormant for decades, is not only audacious and hopeful, but wildly tantalizing.

Let’s consider the following scenario:

(1) Obama becomes president;

(2) the Democrats win an additional 20-30 seats in the House of Representatives;

(3) they secure a minimum of 60 seats in the Senate; and

(4) they have the moral courage to do something institutionally audacious to help working Americans.

For openers, Obama winning the presidency and the Democrats taking 20-30 additional seats in the House is not only reasonable, it’s quite plausible. In fact, by October, with all that Obama vs. Hillary hostility having long ago melted into the political landscape, such an outcome might even be likely, given how difficult it will be for John McCain to overcome the toxic legacy of the Bush administration.

Getting those 60 senate seats is another story. It will be a longshot, at best. The reason “60” is a magic number is because it’s the minimum number of senate votes required for cloture (the ability to break a filibuster), thereby giving the party in power an enormous advantage.

And even with 60 seats secured, there are those who would argue that getting the Democrats to go out on a limb for labor, despite all that congressional muscle and arithmetic to back them up, will be a miracle, that faced with a genuine opportunity to rejuvenate organized labor, the Democrats will ultimately chicken out.

But let’s remain optimistic, and speculate. Let’s say the Democrats win the White House, increase their majority in the House, get those 60 seats in the Senate, and then (stay with me) go off on a holy crusade to restore organized labor’s once substantial role in the American economy by repealing the Taft-Hartley Act and passing a law prohibiting the permanent replacement of striking workers. What would happen?

With Taft-Hartley repealed, the impediments removed, and a new “worker’s consciousness” in the air, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to expect organized labor’s national membership to rise from its current 12% to something closer to 30%, which would be fairly close to its all-time high of 35%.

FULL story at link.

[Eric J in MN]

1. I disagree with 60 as a magic number in the Senate.

Between 58 and 62 would be similar situations for the Senate Democrats.

When there is a vote to end a Repbulican filibuster, all the Democrats generally won't vote to do so.

So there is the issue of how many Democrats join the Republicans and vice versa on a cloture vote.

[Selatius]

3. Yeah, many of these scenarios are predicated upon party discipline. Dems don't have too much of that

If all the new senators who are elected are center-right or right wing Democrats, forget about repealing Taft-Hartley or the other bill I mentioned in my post. They would likely split off and vote with the Repubs to kill such moves.

[Selatius]

2. They should also seriously push to pass the Employee Free-Choice Act making it easier to unionize.

That bill has been sitting in committee because they know if they brought it to the floor, the Repubs would filibuster it, and if it survives that, it gets vetoed by Bush.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_free_choice_act

They almost succeeded in repealing the Taft-Hartley Act under both Carter and Clinton, but they failed in both cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft_Hartley_Act