Union Diversity: A Late Labor Day Observation (with a comment on Kavanaugh)

Ladies Garment Workers Union celebrates 60th anniversary
in a 1960 Labor Day Parade

You'd need to have been born no later than the 1950s to remember a thriving labor movement.  Industrial labor unions were potent political forces as well as engaging in high stakes negotiations that made American workers pretty much the best paid in the world.

Those gains were hard fought from the 19th century onwards, and strikes were a part of ordinary life.  I think as kids in 1950s western Pennsylvania, a long steel strike was almost as scary a prospect as an atomic bomb attack.  But those strikes and negotiations provided middle class incomes to the industrial working class, and everybody in the community benefited.

By the 1970s industries were choosing profits over community and began closing plants and relocating outside the country when foreign steelmakers became more competitive. Also wounded by internal corruption, labor unions dwindled until they became a lesser if not negligible factor in economic and political life.

With one exception: public sector unions continued to grow.  There were two crucial decisions that made this possible, both made by President John F. Kennedy.  Public sector unions were growing by the early 1960s, but JFK's executive order in 1962 institutionalized them within the federal government. This legitimized them at state and city levels as well.  By 2009, membership in public sector unions exceeded membership in private sector unions.

But the other and less appreciated decision actually came earlier.  In one of the first acts of his presidency, Kennedy ordered that no racial discrimination would be permitted in federal government employment, nor in contractors and subcontractors to the government, nor in labor unions working on these contracts. He created a mechanism to follow up to ensure compliance.  This was crucial: FDR had created a non-discrimination policy at the start of World War II but without enforcement.

The federal government at the time of Kennedy's order directly or indirectly employed nearly a quarter of the workforce.  This set a powerful precedent, and was instituted thereafter by states and cities.  Eventually anti-discrimination laws and policies would broaden beyond race, and government would be the most diverse employer.

This also meant that public sector union membership would be diverse.  In the 1960s, the large labor unions were advocates for civil rights (the AFL-CIO and Autoworkers were sponsors of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom--and members were participants.)  But unions struggled to build diverse membership, and after the issue of Vietnam splintered the big unions politically, that expansion of diversity slowed.  This by and large was not the case in public sector unions, where diversity was built into their growth.

Now we come to an intriguing political moment.  Public sector unions can help create a Blue Wave in the 2018 elections, but in particular, they can help make that a more diverse wave. This is a particular possibility this year, with many more women as well as more racially and culturally diverse candidates running.

 They in turn can represent a more diverse workforce and citizenry, fighting against the oppression now underway in Washington and many states, as well as championing both the public sector and a diverse America.  This last bastion of the labor movement can be key to saving the country from the rule of its worst instincts and worst people, those now in apparent power, who are creating an insidious internal threat that could turn out to be mortal.

                                       *                  *                 *

I can't even bear to make a separate post of this, I am just too sickened by it to comment at length,  but I can't ignore it either.  The nomination of the abomination called Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is the climax of the evil that is the Senate majority leader and Senate Republicans, and the entire R administration.  Its importance could well be profound, and for a long time. So far it seems that Senate Democrats are too weak and dithery, and Democrats in general too distracted, to offer much more than phantom resistance to the morally bankrupt Republicans of the Senate. Right now it looks like a tragic farce.  But we shall see.