Labor's New Public Role

The Labor Day holiday has come and gone, but the particular problems and opportunities for labor unions and for workers in America remain.

As American corporations hollow themselves into illusory vessels designed to game banks and fool the stock market, fewer jobs remain. Whether manufacturing's dive to the bottom can continue short of open slavery in some ninth world nation is a continuing question, but clearly a United States which makes nothing but buys everything is gambling with perishing from this earth. A nation of consumers with dwindling incomes can't be masked forever by phony numbers and deceptive averages pulled up by a few obscenely wealthy folks who can't buy fast enough to support an entire economy.

Americans are increasingly left with servant sector jobs, and they face fights and their own prejudices when they have to compete for even those. But as bad as the labor market is, there's a glimmer of hope in organized labor.

E.J. Dionne had an interesting column on this. He offers the same gloomy facts that after a unionization rate of 26% of the workforce in 1974 (around the time the steel mills started to close in Pittsburgh), the 2006 figure is but 12%. But he also points out that while unionization in the public and private sectors was roughly equal in the 70s, now it's just 7% in the private sector, and a whopping 36% in the public sector.

Dionne also notes that organized labor had a lot to do with the Democratic victories in the 2006 congressional elections, and the Democrats know it. If 2008 is really going to be a Democratic year, the unions will be a big part of it. But what especially interests me is that their new-found power is more clearly identified with issues affecting the public sector--with teachers, firefighters, municipal employees--and with the public sector itself.

If this country is going to undergo renewal and revival of its politics, its economy and its soul, then it's going to involve the renewal and revival of public institutions and serving the public good.

The neocon call for government and public institutions to disappear has resulted in disaster and a weakened country, just when we need so much common effort to meet the very serious challenges of our immediate common future. Privatization has done little but enrich a few and enfeeble everything else, and it has failed at virtually everything except creating suffering and tragedy. The health insurance system, which in any other civilized country would be considered a criminal enterprise, is the most conspicuous case in point.

When unions back universal health care, they do so for the public good, the common good, as well as their workers. When unions partner with public and private institutions to promote the Apollo Alliance for sustainable and renewable energy, they do so for the country's good, the world's survival. They don't stop at self-interest, because the common good is the bedrock of all our self-interests, and our ability to pursue happiness as individuals and families. The same is true of education, public health and safety, infrastructure, and justice.

It's time as well to understand that despite their excesses, unions have contributed to prosperity as much as businesses have. And for that matter, so have non-profit and public institutions. Anyone with common sense can see this in their daily lives, if they just look around for themselves. Let's return a sane balance to the enterprise we share.