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Today's
Stories
September 6,
2004
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
Labor Day
September 6, 2004
The Cruel Legacy
of Taft-Hartley
A
Labor Day Call for Rights for Working People
By
RALPH NADER
The general rule of law for employees
is employment at will--this means an employee can be fired for
any reason, no reason or a bad reason without recourse. Workers
gained rights in the early Twentieth Century when the union
movement developed and workers joined together to bargain with
employers. But that movement was stalled by laws that put up
barriers to workers joining together in a union. The civil rights
movement for workers should seek a Bill or Rights for Workers,
including the right to organize a union and a living wage for
all full-time workers among other rights.
America's working men and women
have been abandoned by the corporate dominated two-party system.
Evidence is everywhere. The percentage of union members in the
private economy has dropped below ten percent, the lowest in
over sixty years. At the heart of this decline are labor laws
which throw insurmountable barriers before organizing efforts.
A professional class of public relations consultants and lawyers
has evolved to counsel employers on ways to take full advantage
of the Taft-Hartley Act to fend off organizing efforts. The
National Labor Relations Act gives employers plenty of ways
to prevent workers from exercising their supposed right of freedom
of association.
The Taft Hartley Act makes
it extremely difficult for employees to organize unions and
should be repealed. Among the key provisions of Taft-Hartley:
- Authorized states to enact
so-called right-to-work laws. These laws undermine the ability
to build effective unions by creating a free-rider problem--workers
can enjoy the benefits of union membership in a workplace without
actually joining the union or paying union dues. Right-to-work
laws increase employer leverage to resist unions by enabling
them to benefit from free riders. Vastly decreased union membership
follows, dramatically diminishing the unions bargaining power.
-Outlaws the closed shop which
required that persons join the union before being eligible for
employment with the unionized employer. (Still permitted are
provisions that require any member of a bargaining unit to pay
a portion of dues to that union.)
-Defined "employee"
for purposes of the act as excluding supervisors and independent
contractors. This diminished the pool of workers eligible to
be unionized. The exclusion of supervisors from union organizing
activity meant they would be used as management's "frontline"
in anti-organizing efforts.
-Permitted employers to petition
for a union certification election, thus undermining the ability
of workers and unions to control the timing of an election during
the sensitive organizing stage, forcing an election before the
union is ready.
-Required that election hearings
on matters of dispute be held before a union recognition election,
thus delaying the election. Delay generally benefits management,
giving the employer time to coerce workers.
-Established the "right"
of management to campaign against a union organizing drive,
thereby scuttling the principle of employer neutrality.
-Prohibited secondary boycotts--boycotts
directed to encourage neutral employers to pressure the employer
with which the union has a dispute. Secondary boycotts had been
one of organized labor's most potent tools for organizing, negotiating,
and dispute settlement.
The president needs to appoint
federal judges who are supportive of the rights of workers,
not judges who summarily dismiss employee claims, who narrowly
read the Americans with Disabilities Act or do not allow punitive
damages. Efforts to repeal the Taft Hartley Act, to create
explicit employer neutrality and even to make modest reforms
such as card check voting have been abandoned by the two-party
system with few exceptions among legilators. Systemic failures
to enforce labor rights allow for retaliatory firings of organizers
and even those who vote union in secret elections.
With the demise of union influence,
almost every aspect of workers' rights is given short shrift.
Minimum wage has been allowed to languish far behind inflation
as executive pay skyrockets. The gap between the wages of now
two-job (or more) working families and wealth of the privileged
widens even as worker productivity rises. The average worker
takes home takes home $517 per week, while the average CEO of
the largest companies takes home $155,769 per week. The gap
between workers and large companies is now greater than 300
to 1. In 1982 the gap was 42 to 1. Over 45 million workers--one
in three--do not make a living wag, i.e. under $10 per hour
gross. This is insufficient for an individual to live on and
certainly not enough for a family.
Nader-Camejo advocates immediately
increasing the minimum wage to $8 per hour, from its current
$5.25 per hour. Two years after that increase Nader-Camejo
advocates a $10 per hour living wage.
The battle for a living family
wage and battles to repair the workers compensation systems
to secure the rights of injured workers to treatment and retraining
are fought without the steadfast support of most unions or major
political parties. Universal health care, available in nearly
all democracies, languishes for lack of power by organized labor
within the American political system. Finally, the Enron scandal
showed the need for employees to be allowed to diversity stock
holdings in 401(k) accounts and the need for employees to sue
under ERISA for breach of fiduciary duty when employers deliberately
deceive employees in matters that will affect anticipated benefits.
Where employee rights are at the pleasure of management, management
takes care of its own.
The marginalization of organized
labor and its agenda for working people within our corporate
dominated political process is in sharp contrast to Western
Europe. There unionization is industry -wide and not within a
single company. The political support enjoyed by labor results
in statutory rights available to union member and non union
member alike. A month's paid vacation, longer sick, maternity
and family leave and of course health care that is entirely
portable are benefits taken for granted in other Western capitalist
economic systems. Landmark legislation in 2000 prohibited companies
within the European Union from discriminating against workers
based on their age, disability, sexual orientation, religion
in addition to racial and sex discrimination.
With every election, unions
are pressed to donate and get out the vote to protect the political
status quo. Yet the same candidates whom unions seek to reelect
stand by passively (or actively support), trade agreements which
allow vast outsourcing of skilled jobs to third world countries
where labor laws are much less protective if they exist at all.
How then can working Americans
transform the landscape? Or Islands of Exploitation contained
in every Wal-Mart Store and every Shopping Mall the future for
our children and grandchildren?
One idea is to view labor rights
as civil rights. Suppose workers enjoyed the same rights to
form or join a union as they have to for other forms of discrimination?
If workers seeking to unionize could sue under the Civil Rights
Act of 1991 (instead of depending on existing unions to press
for remedies before toothless federal agencies) they could secure:
-Compensatory damages, not
just back pay, but damages for serious humiliation or grave
emotional distress.
-Punitive damages, to send
a message to outlaw employers that behave contemptuously, whether
it is Microsoft or a big city sweatshop.
-Injunctive relief, including
temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions so
that employers can be in court defending themselves, or at least
in depositions, within days or weeks of an unlawful firing.
-Legal fees, not only to give
employers an incentive to settle but to empower individuals
to bring their own law suits, even start their own organizing
drive, and to enlist the private bar as a new army of organizers.
For the first time every citizen
would be empowered to go out and push the cause of dignity and
fair pay at work.
A Worker's Bill of Rights is
needed because the rights of worker's have been on the decline.
It is time to reverse that trend and begin to give workers--the
backbone of the US economy--the rights they deserve. Among the
items that should be included in a Worker's Bill of Rights are:
- Workers need to be given
a living wage--not a minimum wage.
- Access to health care and
unilateral reductions in medical benefits should not be allowed.
- A pension plan should be
included for employees and pensions for current employees and
retirees should not be allowed to be reduced unilaterally.
- Employers should not be able
to avoid these benefits by hiring "temporary workers"
or "independent contractors."
- The privacy of employees
need to be protected, e.g. the monitoring of employee email.
- When downsizing of a company
is necessary, employees need to be given adequate notice and
sufficient severance pay.
- The pernicious dominant employment
law of "employment at will" that allows for an employee
to be fired for any reason, no reason or a bad reason needs
to be replaced with an employee's bill of rights.
When it struck down Alabama's
debt peonage law in Bailey v. Alabama, 219 U.S. 219 (1911),
the United States Supreme Court wrote that the purpose of the
Thirteenth Amendment was not simply to eliminate slavery, but
"to make labor free by prohibiting that control by which
the personal service of one man is disposed of or coerced for
another's benefit without the rights to organize, strike, boycott,
and picket." (at 241) Early labor law, notably, the Norris-LaGuardia
Act, was grounded in this Constitutional imperative and the
guarantees of speech and association flowing from the First
Amendment. During the New Deal worker freedoms under the Thirteenth
Amendment diminished when the U.S. Supreme Court made the Commerce
Clause dominant. This interpretation even turned the pro-worker
Wagner Act into a law that gave the government power to eliminate
strikes. The Commerce Clause put the needs of business first
--asking whether labor organizing encumbers the free flow of
business-- and led to the federal government having the power
to intrude into union organizing, as well as in disputes between
labor and business on the side of business to keep commerce
moving. An entirely new initiative must be undertaken to ground
freedoms of speech, association and an effective freedom of
labor on firm constitutional grounds.
The restoration and expansion
of the rights of workers are timeless principles about basic
human rights, fairness and justice.
Sources for more information:
Workplace Fairness, www.nerinet.org,
The National Employee Rights Institute publishes its journal,
the Employee Rights Quarterly. Workplace Fairness draws on the
expertise of employment rights attorneys. It presents clearly
written articles on employee remedies under state and federal
laws and analyzes thoroughly needed reforms.
-U.S. Labor Party, www.thelaborparty.org,
advocates for employee rights and organizes for a comprehensive,
progressive labor agenda.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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