We stand together or fall alone - CWA Local 1180
We stand together or fall alone - CWA Local 1180
We stand together or fall alone - CWA Local 1180
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Let’s reclaim our country<br />
“ <strong>We</strong> must all hang <strong>together</strong>,<br />
<strong>or</strong> assuredly, we shall all<br />
hang separately,” Benjamin<br />
Franklin said at the signing of the<br />
Declaration of Independence.<br />
Those w<strong>or</strong>ds are just as relevant<br />
today as many of us wonder if our<br />
jobs are secure, wonder if pay raises<br />
will keep up with rising prices,<br />
wonder if our benefits and pensions<br />
will remain whole, w<strong>or</strong>ry about the<br />
prospects f<strong>or</strong> our children, many of<br />
whom will graduate but stay home,<br />
unable to find aff<strong>or</strong>dable housing<br />
and unlikely to find a job that<br />
offers benefits, a pension, and pays<br />
enough to move out.<br />
Most New Y<strong>or</strong>kers and Americans<br />
who carry these burdens look at<br />
them as private, personal issues<br />
rather than as the broad systemic<br />
problems they are. Millions of<br />
Americans were aggressively<br />
sold loans and investments filled<br />
with what Elizabeth Warren,<br />
President Obama’s choice to run<br />
the Consumer Affairs Agency—and<br />
Republicans’ nemesis—describes<br />
as “tricks and traps.” She pointed<br />
T<br />
he jobs numbers f<strong>or</strong> May are<br />
out, and but f<strong>or</strong> a min<strong>or</strong> blip<br />
in 2011, we have suffered<br />
through a steady unemployment<br />
rate exceeding 9% f<strong>or</strong> a solid two<br />
years. <strong>We</strong> can rail all we want about<br />
how President Barack Obama has<br />
not been bold enough, has not led<br />
f<strong>or</strong>cefully enough around a progressive<br />
agenda, has made needless<br />
compromises with the Republicans<br />
and the “Republican lights” in his<br />
own party on healthcare ref<strong>or</strong>m,<br />
the extension of the Bush tax cuts<br />
f<strong>or</strong> the rich, and stimulus.<br />
<strong>We</strong> can realize that this President<br />
was never the progressive that some<br />
hoped he would be and that his<br />
anti-Iraq war stance really meant<br />
a pro-Afghanistan war footing. <strong>We</strong><br />
can criticize him f<strong>or</strong> not using his<br />
political muscle to aggressively promote<br />
lab<strong>or</strong> law ref<strong>or</strong>m through the<br />
Employee Free Choice Act<br />
<strong>We</strong> can do all those things, sit on<br />
the sidelines and sulk about the<br />
great disappointment that has thus<br />
far been the hallmark of the Obama<br />
out that consumers have m<strong>or</strong>e legal<br />
protections when buying a toaster<br />
than they do a financial product<br />
like a student loan, credit card, <strong>or</strong><br />
m<strong>or</strong>tgage.<br />
<strong>We</strong> must <strong>or</strong>ganize<br />
How did this happen? Our c<strong>or</strong>p<strong>or</strong>ate<br />
masters have hijacked our<br />
political process and are dismantling<br />
our democracy. Over the last<br />
30 years, they told us to be good<br />
consumers. F<strong>or</strong>get about being<br />
good citizens. Business rules.<br />
What’s good f<strong>or</strong> us is good f<strong>or</strong> you.<br />
<strong>We</strong>’re rich and know what’s good<br />
f<strong>or</strong> you.<br />
They told us the freedom to shop<br />
is our most imp<strong>or</strong>tant freedom, that<br />
presidency and sit on our hands,<br />
undermining his chances f<strong>or</strong> a second<br />
term.<br />
But we would be wrong.<br />
Instead, we ought to be putting<br />
f<strong>or</strong>ward our own w<strong>or</strong>king-class<br />
agenda. <strong>Local</strong> <strong>1180</strong> has led among<br />
unions in the lab<strong>or</strong> movement<br />
advocating f<strong>or</strong> such things as peace<br />
and a Medicare-f<strong>or</strong>-all single payer<br />
health care system. And this is not<br />
to advocate that we should abandon<br />
those imp<strong>or</strong>tant principles. But<br />
if we cannot successfully push this<br />
president and the Democrats to<br />
do something meaningful and dramatic<br />
about the jobs crisis, we open<br />
the do<strong>or</strong>s f<strong>or</strong> m<strong>or</strong>e Scott Walkers,<br />
C o m m u n i q u e<br />
president’s column<br />
by Arthur cheliotes acheliotes@cwa<strong>1180</strong>.<strong>or</strong>g<br />
It is foolish to think that we<br />
can all engage in our individual<br />
fights and survive f<strong>or</strong> long.<br />
shopping is patriotic. So get government<br />
off our backs! Liberate the<br />
banks and Wall Street so they are<br />
free to make m<strong>or</strong>e loans. Cut taxes<br />
and government spending; private<br />
industry can do it cheaper.<br />
After 2008 most of us now under<strong>stand</strong><br />
that they are frauds and<br />
criminals. The freedom to shop<br />
is servitude to impulse and selfishness.<br />
Yet we remain a divided<br />
nation unable to under<strong>stand</strong> the<br />
common struggles we all face<br />
because we are manipulated by the<br />
media they control, which creates<br />
phony issues that diverts our attention<br />
from the tremendous burden<br />
the elite rich have placed on our<br />
nation and society.<br />
Let’s make Barack Obama all that he can be<br />
2 nd vice president’s column<br />
by Bill Henning bhenning@cwa<strong>1180</strong>.<strong>or</strong>g<br />
Putting people to w<strong>or</strong>k should<br />
be lawmakers’ top pri<strong>or</strong>ity.<br />
John Boehners, and Chris Christies<br />
to dominate the political discourse<br />
in 2012 and beyond.<br />
Protecting the already dangerously<br />
fraying safety nets of Social Security,<br />
Medicare, and Medicaid looms as<br />
our immediate pri<strong>or</strong>ity. F<strong>or</strong>tunately,<br />
the Democrats got a view of how<br />
winning a strategy that can be with<br />
the upset by their candidate Kathy<br />
Hochul in the special election in the<br />
seemingly safe Republican enclave<br />
of the 26th Congressional District in<br />
upstate New Y<strong>or</strong>k. Fighting cuts and<br />
crippling privatization of these most<br />
successful and popular government<br />
programs can launch the defense of a<br />
new New Deal.<br />
J u l y /Au g u s t ’11 9<br />
<strong>We</strong> cannot fight the rich as individuals.<br />
<strong>We</strong> must <strong>or</strong>ganize. N<strong>or</strong><br />
can individual unions fight <strong>alone</strong>.<br />
<strong>We</strong> must come <strong>together</strong> as a lab<strong>or</strong><br />
movement to rebuild our nation,<br />
to rebuild the middle class, and<br />
reclaim our democracy. <strong>We</strong> are not<br />
servile consumers. <strong>We</strong> are citizens<br />
who can shape the course of our<br />
city, state, and nation when we<br />
<strong>stand</strong> <strong>together</strong>. Like Ben Franklin<br />
and the signers of the Declaration<br />
of Independence understood in<br />
1776 and the people of Wisconsin<br />
under<strong>stand</strong> now, when w<strong>or</strong>king<br />
people are <strong>or</strong>ganized, we have<br />
power. When private sect<strong>or</strong> w<strong>or</strong>kers<br />
locked arms with public sect<strong>or</strong><br />
w<strong>or</strong>kers to fight f<strong>or</strong> collective bargaining<br />
in Wisconsin, the journey<br />
back to government by and f<strong>or</strong> the<br />
people started once again.<br />
The lab<strong>or</strong> movement in New Y<strong>or</strong>k<br />
must do the same. It is foolish to<br />
think that we can all engage in our<br />
individual fights and survive f<strong>or</strong><br />
long. It is not just about our wages,<br />
benefits, and pensions. It is about<br />
our democracy.<br />
How much m<strong>or</strong>e effective might<br />
it be if we prod these lawmakers<br />
to make putting people to w<strong>or</strong>k<br />
their top pri<strong>or</strong>ity. Not only will it<br />
be a welcome relief to those unemployed,<br />
many of whom have been<br />
jobless f<strong>or</strong> m<strong>or</strong>e than six months,<br />
but the spending generated would<br />
further stimulate the private sect<strong>or</strong><br />
jobs activity.<br />
The federal deficit be damned.<br />
It is not imp<strong>or</strong>tant. <strong>We</strong> need an<br />
immediate jump start from the<br />
federal government to states and<br />
localities that are lashed to budgets<br />
which cannot legally be in deficit<br />
(unlike the federal government).<br />
Preventing further job erosion in<br />
the government sect<strong>or</strong> will go a<br />
long way toward turning this jobless<br />
ship around.<br />
And maybe—just maybe—we can<br />
see if our movement can be galvanized<br />
to make Obama the leader of<br />
hope and change in 2012 that we<br />
hoped would surface earlier.<br />
But we’ll never do it as spectat<strong>or</strong>s<br />
<strong>or</strong> armchair critics.