Who Is At The Table?

by: DaveJ

Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 12:33


This article was produced as part of Commonweal Institute's Progressive Op-Ed Program

Progressives believe in a "we're all in this together" philosophy while conservatives follow a "you are on your own" philosophy. The differences between these approaches can be clearly seen in the battle over how we share the benefits of our economy.

Conservatives encourage people to take "personal responsibility" rather than to rely on each other for support and guidance.  When it comes to things like negotiating for pay and benefits this approach limits each of us to the power and resources that we have alone as individuals.

But big companies are not "on their own."  They are legally allowed to concentrate resources and power that dwarf anything an individual could muster.  Companies might have thousands, even tens of thousands of employees who have to do what they are told.  They have top legal teams at the table across from you.  They can place advertisements and hire PR firms to spin false stories that turn the public against you.

A "you are on your own" approach puts each of us alone at the table with powerful the big companies. When we ask for higher pay, time off, benefits or better working conditions they can set us against each other by saying, "we'll just find someone else to do your job." Big companies seeking to lower or eliminate worker costs (you) and pocket the savings on one side of the table with regular individuals on the other side of the table is a one-sided negotiation.  The result is an increasingly one-sided economy, with the benefits of the economy going overwhelmingly to those who control these powerful companies.

The negotiating table is out of balance and the result is this terrible economic downturn.

DaveJ :: Who Is At The Table?
There is another approach.  We can create win-win solutions that work for companies and for each of us as individuals.  This will happen when there is balance between those at the table negotiating shares in the benefits of our economy. To achieve this we need to strengthen the unions.  We know this because there was a period in our history when we had a few strong unions which brought a better balance of power at the negotiating table. This balance didn't just help union members, it created the middle class.

Unions are the very essence of "we're all in this together".  People banded together and refused to work unless conditions improved.  This unity gave them the power to ask for better wages, benefits, time off, sick pay, health care, pensions and other benefits that we all came to expect and enjoy.  The resulting balance of power forced both sides to look for balanced, win-win approaches. It created an economy with a stable workforce that could afford to purchase consumer goods, so companies prospered as well.

But in recent decades the unions have been weakened.  The companies have created a stacked deck, forcing unions away from the bargaining table.  With only the big companies at the table, of course the outcome reflects their short-term interests.  Job security is non-existent. Raises are rare.  Benefits are cut.  Pensions and health insurance are ever harder to find.

The fact is, when unions are weakened the interests of all workers, unionized or not, are not represented.

The current state of the economy demonstrates how the conservative "you're on your own" approach has failed us. Our economy is terribly out of balance because the negotiating table has been out of balance for so long.

So it is time to restore balance.  A progressive "we are in this together" approach can restore our economy.  The Employee Free Choice Act, now before the Congress, is an example of the kind of progressive policy that would let workers join unions and again sit at the table without fear of being fired by their employers.

When working people are once again represented at the bargaining table, the big companies will be forced to accept win-win solutions.  The economy will be restored and can once again benefit all of us.  

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Who Is At The Table? | 11 comments
The odds of EFCA passing as is... (0.00 / 0)
don't look great. But there's been some good news recently. I like what the unions did in Little Rock last weekend. Making EFCA's passage important to important Democratic constituencies (in this case, African-Americans in the South) should give us more leverage to push wobbling senators like Blanche Lincoln into supporting the bill even in states with low union density, like Arkansas. Also, Mark Pryor is helping to craft a compromise that should give Lincoln the cover she needs to vote for cloture and she really seems like the toughest Democratic vote to get on this one. I'm hoping that with Al Franken now seated and even some conservatives like Ben Nelson saying they could support cloture on the bill, there's enough momentum for us to go into negotiations with the upper hand and craft a good compromise.
Given the obvious lack of political will to shrink "too big to fail"... (0.00 / 0)
financial institutions (see, e.g., Simon Johnson), may I take it that you view the Obama administration as, at best, "progressive in name only"?

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
Given his disappointing record so far... (0.00 / 0)
I wouldn't be surprised if Obama basically sat out the EFCA fight until the end.
[ Parent ]
I think (4.00 / 2)
I'm just looking from a distance but I think that Dems in office are surrounded by the continuing illusion of conservative power.  A lot of it is they are still reacting to decades of real conservative power.  (And, of course, the big corporations have all the money in the world that they can throw at things -- some of it provided by taxpayers...)  We are all still reacting to Bush, the RW noise machine, etc. as if they still matter, instead of looking ahead to what we can accomplish.  They, like so many of us, are still reacting and not getting ahead of things.  

I think there will come a day when they realize that they are in control AND that the public is behind them.  That is a key -- I don't think they feel that the public is behind them yet.

You saw them learn a lot when not a single Republican voted for the stimulus.  It's still sinking in.  Two lessons were learned.  1) Republicans are not going to support you even when you reach out, even when you give them what they pretend to ask for. and 2) It passed anyway.  And since then they even have the magic 60.

Our job is to drive an understanding that the public didn't vote for more corporate/conservative domination and is longing for progressive solutions.  Social Security and Medicare are the two most beloved government programs and I don't think either of them had any Republican support at all.

--

Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson

[ Parent ]
Can I take that as a Yes? (0.00 / 0)
I asked:

May I take it that you view the Obama administration as, at best, "progressive in name only"?

You anwered:

They, like so many of us, are still reacting and not getting ahead of things.  

I'll take that as a yes.

* * *

I like the metaphor of the Dems being surrounded by the continuing illusion of conservative power -- In their hearts, they'd really be progressive if only, doggone it, they realized it was safe to come out of hiding --  I just don't happen to think that it's true.

In at least two important areas, the Obama adminstration has rationalized and consolidated the policies of the Bush regime, which I would take to be the very opposite of being progressive:

1. Executive power. The tipoff was Obama's vote for FISA reform and retroactive immunity for the telcos; this has continued with the normalization of torture, the defense of the state secrets privilege, the continuing refusal to prosecute executive lawbreakers, and the various depredations chronicled by Glenn Greenwald.

2. Financial power. The tipoff was Obama's whipping for TARP; in general, the Bush policy of giving trillions to the banksters with no accountability and no transparency has been continued seamlessly under the Obama administraion; see Simon Johnson, above.

In neither of these two critical areas have the Democrats behaved as progressives might have been expected to; quite simply, neither rationalizing and consolidating the Bush administration's authoritarian gains, nor making financial behemoths that were already too big too fail even bigger are progressive policies.

And that's before we get to continuing to blur the lines between church and state, DADT, an entirely new war in Iraq, the slow bleed on health care "reform" (2013??) and so on.

The Dems simply aren't a progressive party; nor is Obama a progressive President.

Where's your evidence that this state of affairs has anything to do with an "understanding" that has not yet been "driven" -- rather than being a result of the values and interests of the Democratic Party having nothing whatever to do with the people they ostensibly represent?  

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

[ Parent ]
great post (0.00 / 0)
some nice talking points to think about to combat the conservative spin, when I think of unions i usually think of them negotiating with management, but you bring up another value they have, and that is negotiating with govnernment when regulation or any type of new bill is being discussed in congress-
thanks
ian

whatever you think people owe you, that is what you owe people
I don't think you meant it quite this way (0.00 / 0)
but this statement:

We can create win-win solutions that work for companies and for each of us as individuals.

Is classic progressivespeak.  In a broad social sense, yes it is win-win.  But they won't ever see it win-win.  And, in fact, from their individual standpoint it is not win-win.  They will need to lose for everyone to gain.  

Like I said, I think you meant it in this broader sense, but I think this desire for the happy "win-win" world is something that we need to confront among progressives, something that often disempowers us in conflicts with "above" us who know that there is no such thing.  

It is especially problematic for the middle-class's relationship with poor and working-class people. The belief that we can find a win-win too often becomes an excuse for refusing to give anything up in order to help those with less.  

The "win-win" is broad and vague and societal.  But on the ground, in individual cases, for someone to get, someone else is almost always going to have to give.

See http://www.openleft.com/showDi...

--Aaron Schutz (Core Dilemmas of Community Organizing)

Shorter (0.00 / 0)
If you're in a corporate meeting, and you hear an outside consultant making a win-win bullet point, you know the big wienie is coming.  

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  
[ Parent ]
win-win (0.00 / 0)
I thought "win-win" as used in this article refered to the short sighted corporate approach mandated by chasing the highest quarterly profit, to the detriment of all else. Collective barganing is effective at countering that and as such really saves companies from themselves. The fact that union agreements raise purchasing power of all workers is what created the market originally. And it is the only proven method of resurrecting them so companies can stay in business. The market is what is missing in the current situation, and the economy (70% consumer driven) will not return until purchasing power of the real producers of wealth is raised substantially. Only unions have ever been able to do that. Until this happens, more and more companies will fail.

Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob..... FDR
[ Parent ]
Right (0.00 / 0)
win-win in the big picture.  But not in the little picture.  Management has to give up power (a big loss from their perspective) money is given up by shareholders and others on the short run.  It doesn't look like "win-win" to those who have to give up stuff.  Framing it as win win is useful only from a broad long-term vision.  Short term, it is a fantasy.  

My point is not that we shouldn't use the "win-win" frame ever, but that we need to be careful about it.

--Aaron Schutz (Core Dilemmas of Community Organizing)

[ Parent ]
Well, so much for card check (0.00 / 0)
Izvestia.

As others have said, we've got two parties: The Crazy Party, and the Republicans (who used to be Democrats).

And the sooner the Democrats break up into the Finance Party and a party real progressives can actually vote for, the better.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

Who Is At The Table? | 11 comments
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