April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

particular. Yet, you’ve got these labor leaders who helped get Obama
elected and who helped get Andy Cuomo elected, and they’re not yet
making the stand in a strong enough way to mobilize people against these
policies.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. There has been a huge
attack against private sector unions. Actually, that’s been going on since
the Second World War. After the Second World War, business was terrified
about the radicalization of the country during the Depression and then the
war, and it started right off—Taft-Hartley was 1947—huge propaganda
campaigns to demonize unions. It really—and it continued until you get to
the Reagan administration.
Reagan was extreme. Beginning of his administration, one of the first things
was to call in scabs—hadn’t been done for a long time, and it’s illegal in
most countries—in the air controller strike. Reagan essentially—by "Reagan,"
I mean his administration; I don’t know what he knew—but they basically
told the business world that they’re not going to apply the labor laws. So,
that means you can break unions any way you like. And in fact, the number
of firing of union organizers, illegal firing, I think probably tripled during
the Reagan years.
Then, in fact, by the early '90s, Caterpillar Corporation, first major
industrial corporation, called in scabs to break a strike of industrial
workers, UAW. That's—I think the only country that allowed that was South
Africa. And then it spread.
When Clinton came along, he had another way of destroying unions. It’s
called NAFTA. One of the predicted consequences of NAFTA, which in fact
worked out, was it would be used as a way to undermine unions—illegally,
of course. But when you have a criminal state, it doesn’t matter. So, there
was actually a study, under NAFTA rules, that investigated illegal strike
breaking organizing efforts by threats, illegal threats, to transfer to Mexico.
So, if union organizers are trying to organize, you put up a sign saying, you
know, "Transfer operation Mexico." In other words, you shut up, or you’re
going to lose your jobs. That’s illegal. But again, if you have a criminal
state, it doesn’t matter.
Well, by measures like this, private sector unions have been reduced to, I
think, maybe seven percent of the workforce. Now, it’s not that workers
don’t want to join unions. In fact, many studies of this, there’s a huge pool
of workers who want to join unions, but they can’t. And they’re getting no
support from the political system. And part of the reason, not all of it, is
these $2 billion campaigns. Now, this really took off in the late '70s and the
’80s. You want to run for office, then you're going to have to dig into very
deep pockets. And as the income distribution gets more and more skewed,
that means you’re going to have to go after Jeffrey Immelt and Lloyd
Blankfein, and so on and so forth, if you want to even be in office. Take a
look at the 2008 campaign spending. Obama way outspent McCain. He was
funded—his main source of funding was the financial institutions.
AMY GOODMAN: Now they’re saying he’s going to raise, Obama is going to
raise $1 billion for the next campaign.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, and it’ll probably be more than that, because
they’re predicting $2 billion for the whole campaign, and the incumbent
usually has advantages.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam, we have to break. We’re going to come right back.