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Canvass for Change with the Tufts Democrats!
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TBA and Labor
Andrea and I are home from Washington, DC and our Part II of the proud Tufts Dems tradition of Tufts Dems Go to Washington and Don’t Really Do Anything. In between trips to the zoo, eating lots of good food, and general tooling around with DC-area friends, we went to the Campaign for America’s Future annual Take Back America Conference at the Omni Shoreham.
Much of the conference looked at one of the stalwart Democratic issues, questions of middle class jobs and unions. Here are two quick thoughts:
1. Progressivism does not have to equal populism. Unfortunately, though, progressivism is misconceived and progressives seem to be fighting yesterday’s battles. Corporate greed exploits the working man and it’s wrong that CEOs make over 218 times more than their average employee but blaming NAFTA and advocating a retreat from the potentially positive benefits of globalization is not the answer. Instead, as the AFL-CIO seems to be beginning to understand, new tactics should be employed. The AFL-CIO is currently working on campaigns to encourage shareholder activism and stack boards of directors with individuals sympathetic to workers, not to the pocketbooks of other white men in suits. With the direction in which big business is going, shareholder activism looks to be a much better tool for labor than card check.
2. At this point, only seven percent of the American workforce is unionized. And as “good jobs” in factories ship overseas, labor will shift from the factories to low-paying service sector jobs. These can be good jobs – and they’re not going anywhere. It’s the prerogative of the SEIU, UNITE HERE, etc. and Congress to make these good jobs. Home health care workers, if given more opportunities to become RNs, could help fix our nursing shortage. Janitors, with help, could become employees. The solution isn’t green collar jobs – which will be a boon, don’t get me wrong – the solution is working with labor to unionize more of the service sector and laying the foundation to transform those into the good jobs of tomorrow.
The middle class is any liberal society's backbone. We must make sure labor is keeping up with the times. That's the only way that it will continue to benefit the workers -- and in doing so, all of us too.
For the 304 days that remain of George Bush's presidency, the fact of the matter is that he's really the only one in a position to "take action" on anything. Barring a bipartisan super-majority in congress, no action can be taken without his consent. To refute your alleged dearth of debate and action on the part of Dems, I would just point you to the sundry proposals for economic revival, Iraq troop reductions, and immigration compromises that have been proposed, only to meet an untimely end because they failed to achieve a bipartisan consensus.
Democrats this primary season are free to bicker about the wonkier aspects of policy proposals because they all agree on the basics. Up until McCain won the nomination, Republicans were bickering about such inane ideas as how to disassemble the IRS, and wasted time when each argued that they were, in fact, the reanimated corpse of Ronald Reagan.
I utterly fail to comprehend any straight-faced argument that starting a war in Iraq was something that needed to be "acted on" in the first place. The justification for such was so detached from reality that those who considered the invasion an issue worthy of discussion wore their sheer incompetence on their sleeves. Likewise, Texas isn't analogous to your crotchety old next-door neighbor's front yard -- you can't just go "I got it -- Let's build a fence! That'll solve things!" Get real.