Today's Stories

July 19 / 20, 2008

Dave Lindorff
I Was a Victim of the TSA

July 18, 2008

Corey D. B. Walker
A Kinder, Gentler Imperialism?

Mike Whitney
Swan Song for Fanny Mae

Robert Bryce
Iran Rising

Mike Roselle
Ed's Chicken: Fighting King Coal in Appalachia

Bouthaina Shaaban
U. S. to Mandela: Happy 90th and You're No Longer a Terrorist

Eve Spangler
The Deaths of Children

Website of the Day
Lowbagger Needs Your Help

July 17, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Airport Gestapo

James G. Abourezk
Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

Ralph Nader
D.C. Socialists Save Crashing Capitalists

Allan J. Lichtman
Conservative Denial

Andy Worthington "Screwed Up" and "Abused": Omar Khadr's Interrogations at Gitmo

Ronnie Cummins
Move Over MoveOn

July 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Star Whores: How John McCain Doomed Mt. Graham

Paul Craig Roberts
War Crimes Paradox

Conn Hallinan
To the Edge in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Torture for Torturers?

William S. Lind
Running the Narrows in Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Sweepstakes Politics

Website of the Day
History of Iraqi Art

July 15, 2008

Michael Hudson
Why the Bail Out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is Bad Economic Policy

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Missile Tests

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Militia May Live to Fight Another Day

John Ross
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil

Howard Lisnoff
When Torture Was Practiced on U.S. Soil

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament

July 14, 2008

Uri Avnery
Will Israel and / or the US Attack Iran?

Paul Craig Roberts
Enabling Tyranny

Trish Schuh
Talking to Iran's Only Jewish Member of Parliament: an Interview with Morris Motamed

Patrick Cockburn
Immunity in Iraq

Mike Whitney
Betancourt Unbound

Alan Farago
Will Miami's Cubans Vote Blue?

Seth Sandronsky
Taxing U.S. Stocks and Bonds

Phyllis Pollack
Stones Paint It Black

Website of the Day
Our Pal in Butte, Jackie Corr, RIP

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Origins of the Western Greens

James Abourezk
Talking World War III Blues: From Dylan to Iran

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Ron Jacobs
They Call Me the Seeker

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Kim Nicolini
Angelina Jolie's Wanted: Taking the M-Fers Down with Guns and Exploding Rats

Poets' Basement
Wright, Fleming, Solomon and Birnbaum

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be "Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U.S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N.D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on "Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

Weekend Edition
July 19 / 20, 2008

How the Norris /LaGuardia Act Changed the Gam

Labor Unions and the Courts

By DAVID MACARAY

Many will recall the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) lockout of 2002, which shut down the west coast ports for 10 days and idled approximately 10,500 union workers, before President Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act and forced the parties back to the table. 

Even for the relatively short time the docks were shut down, given the enormous volume of cargo the west coast handles (tens of thousands of tons a day), there were hundreds of ships stacked up for miles out into the Pacific Ocean, with hundreds more still moored at home ports around the globe awaiting word as to when the docks would reopen—all dressed up with no place to go.

Of course, during all this, the PMA (Pacific Maritime Association), the business organization that represents the shipping companies and terminal operators, was having a spaz attack.  Millions of dollars an hour were being lost.  The parties eventually settled their dispute and the ILWU proudly walked away with what was characterized by independent observers as a “victory for labor.”

The ILWU and PMA are currently locked into another round of contract negotiations.  And even though the union’s contract has long since expired and both parties have complained publicly about the lack of movement from the other side, no one believes that another strike or lockout is imminent.  The precarious state of the nation’s economy, plus the fact that the union and PMA have already settled the health care issue. more or less precludes a strike as an option.

Still, recalling Bush’s injunction, in 2002, it’s interesting to note the government’s role in labor relations.  While it’s accurate to say that the U.S. government, once upon a time, supported and assisted organized labor, it’s also accurate to say that, for the last 60 years or so (certainly going back to the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947) the government and courts have systematically sought to thwart if not undermine the labor movement.  Indeed, to that hackneyed question of What have you done for me lately? the government’s answer to labor would be “Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.”

Okay, maybe “nothing” is too strong a verdict.  Because there have been a few half-hearted attempts to assist labor, perhaps “precious little” would be the more accurate description.  For example, in regard to the ILWU itself, it’s been the pro-labor Democrats in congress who have successfully held off several attempts to remove the Longshoremen from the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act) and place them under the auspices of the Railway Labor Act, a move that would essentially prohibit the dockworkers from going on strike.

But, in truth, since the end of World War II, on those occasions when labor hasn’t been pointedly ignored by the government, it’s been harassed and attacked by it.  Taft-Hartley, right to work laws, prohibitions against strikes, rulings against labor PACs, the Landrum-Griffin Act (1959), and a multitude of missed opportunities where the NLRB failed to uphold workers’ rights—these have all combined to put unions in the position they find themselves.  The grim truth is that it’s not only American corporations who fear a strong, organized labor force, it’s the U.S. government as well.

It’s been said that the passage, in 1935, of the Wagner Act was, for labor, analogous to what the Declaration of Independence was for the colonies.  Although unions had been flourishing (growing in size and influence, negotiating contracts) for a full century before the New Deal, it was Wagner that energized, stimulated and, most importantly, legitimized the labor movement. 

However, even though the Wagner Act gets all the credit and glory for launching the modern labor movement, it was, arguably, the lesser known Norris-La Guardia Act, passed three years earlier (1932), that truly “liberated” the unions.  Named for its congressional sponsors—Nebraska Senator George Norris and New York Representative Fiorello La Guardia—the Act was important for two reasons. 

First, Norris-La Guardia made it illegal for employers to use so-called “yellow dog” contracts (where companies hired new employees only after they agreed, in writing, never to join a union); and, second, it drastically limited the authority of federal courts to prevent strikes by issuing blanket injunctions against them. 

Prior to the Norris-La Guardia Act, pro-business judges were notorious for cutting the legs off union members by taking away their right to strike, using the old “general welfare of the public” as their catch-all grounds for forcing the rank-and-file back to work.  Strikes are tough enough to use as leverage against management, even with a level playing field; but when a judge can step in on behalf of the business community and arbitrarily end one, labor doesn’t stand a chance.

Injunctions are tricky propositions.  Knowing when to step in can’t be easy.  While the courts have an obligation to protect citizens from undue hardship, when is a strike a genuine “threat” to the welfare of public, and when is it merely a monumental inconvenience? 

Obviously, the loss of revenue to a business or industry can’t be the determining factor, even if that loss is staggering.  After all, inflicting financial punishment on the bosses via economic self-sacrifice by the workers is the whole point, isn’t it?  Take that right away, and you’re left with nothing. 

David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and writer, was a former labor union rep.  He can be reached at dmacaray@earthlink.net
 

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