A hearty welcome to TPM Cafe's new blog, House of Labor. Josh explains the rationale of the new site by reaffirming the connection between a weak labor movement and a weak progressive movement:
whether it's on health care or stagnant wages or retirement security or anything else, the sorts of changes that many of us would like to see made in this country are never going to be made unless ordinary working men and women have a seat at the table along with corporate America. At the moment they hardly do.
There's no mystery in this. There's no way we'll come to equitable solutions to the challenges that we all face in this new economy if all the muscle is on one side. And that's close to how it is today. Organized money doesn't so much have a seat at the table as it has the throne.
Worse, Labor's kid's stool is in danger of being kicked away. All over the country, even in progressive bastions like California, initiatives are being proposed that'd bar Labor from using union dues for political ends without the express permission of the dues-payer. That means every union member would have to sign a permission slip each time the union wanted to influence an election or work on a legislative project.
That sounds, on its face, fairly reasonable. Why shouldn't union-members have control of their dues? But that's the right's great innovation on this, you can sell something wholly unprecedented by phrasing it as something completely sensible. Do you think Republicans would line up behind an initiative mandating that every shareholder has to give his consent before companies could use funds for political advocacy? After all, union members don't own the union, but shareholders own the company. Won't Republicans offer them the same consideration?
Of course they won't. Not because the rationale doesn't work, it's as forceful for the one as the other. But because it'd be an infringement on free speech. Because it'd be politically motivated. Because companies have viable electoral interests to push. And most of all, because it'd be bad for Republicans.
