Joan Walsh, Salon: What comes after Wisconsin?

[highplainsdem]

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2011/03/07/cowie_on_wisconsin

Monday, Mar 7, 2011 09:01 ET
What comes after Wisconsin?
A forward-looking movement is defending worker benefits from a bygone era. But it's a step in the right direction
By Joan Walsh


I've been open about my admiration for the Wisconsin movement to stop union-busting Gov. Scott Walker -- as well as my uncertainty about what it ultimately means for progressive politics. Like so much else going on right now -- Mike Huckabee's slurs against President Obama, Michele Bachmann's blithering performance on "Meet the Pres"s Sunday; Tea Party Nation leader Judson Phillips backing property requirements for voters, taking us back to the early 19th century -- the battle in Wisconsin is giving American voters crucial (and scary) information about the 21st century Republican Party. That's important in the wake of the voter panic that led to Republican gains in the 2010 midterms.

But if Wisconsin helps us define what we're against -- union-busting plus a big fat over-reach on behalf of plutocrats like the Koch Brothers by a governor who's clearly in over his head -- it isn't yet telling Americans what progressives, or Democrats, are for.

First, the good news: Walker's moves are backfiring with Wisconsin voters, badly. The latest Rasmussen poll, whose results typically favor Republicans, shows that almost 60 percent of voters disapprove of Walker's moves, and it had a few more highlights: 77 percent have a favorable opinion of Wisconsin teachers, and of voters with school-aged children, two-thirds disapprove of Walker's "reforms." There's no doubt it's given a morale boost to organized labor: Steven Greenhouse reports from the AFL-CIO convention on new optimism, and new organizing, in the wake of the anti-GOP, pro-worker backlash in Wisconsin.

It's also inspired a new recognition of the crucial role unions have played, and still play, as a political counterweight to the interests of corporations and the wealthy. Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, among others, have found an eerie parallel between the way the wealthiest Americans' share of income has risen as the percent of Americans protected by a union has fallen. Instead of denying that unions have a political agenda, union leaders and their defenders have proudly admitted to that agenda in the wake of Walker's attacks.

-snip-

Much more at the link, including her email exchange with Jefferson Cowie, author of Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class.

And please note that she uses the term "plutocrats" -- which, as I said in two topics yesterday, Democrats and progressives need to use more. It's the correct term, the one that defines the people we're fighting, and it's important to make sure all Americans hear the term and understand what it means and what the consequences of this fight really are.

*

[flamingdem]

1. good analysis in that interview:

It's cutting both ways here. Smart people are going to say that public sector workers are a model, a shining star, for the third-class private sector jobs to strive toward. That's how the public sector took off in the 60s and 70s. Ironically, they were trying to catch up with the unionized private sector. Now those situations are reversed. Unfortunately, there is another impulse in American political culture that seeks to tear down the other guy rather than try to raise everyone's standards.

Here's the problem: The Wisconsin teachers and public employees' rights should be defended in every way possible. But the long-term interest of social justice requires that we stop linking employment and social benefits. It hurts to say that. But the only hope is to move toward universal programs. Here I think Michael Lind got it right in Salon, (Liberalism and the post-union future). This system of employer-based benefits is the problem, not the solution. At the same time, however, we'll never get close to such social democratic dreams without a strong and flexible labor movement. It's a catch 22.

The flaw in the system goes all the way back to the 1940s when we accepted a privatized welfare state, connected directly to employment and unionization. As we've seen in recent decades, that means the system is vulnerable to piecemeal attack and long-term erosion until there is nothing left. We can turn the entire paradigm on its head: Do people with good benefits see that their future is tied to those who do not have, say, health insurance? Recall the "Cadillac" health care controversy , in which those with good policies, often achieved through collective bargaining, were hesitant to accept any constraints on their policies in order that others might get health care. We really need to shift the struggle toward universalism, which also might resonate with the American political tradition of pursuing the interests of "the people" rather than "the workers" as a class.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Plutocrats?

[highplainsdem]

3. kick