A Different Kind Of Fairness Doctrine
As folks who stop by regularly know, I've been transfixed by the labor action taken by workers at Republic Door and Window in Chicago. Two hundred people occupied the plant when the owners unceremoniously shut the business down without any notice and attempted to deprive them of severance pay and earned vacation pay. The owners claimed it was necessary because the bank refused to extend the credit to make the payments. That bank, by the way, had just received billions in federal money to loosen up credit.
Well, those two hundred people sat in until their demands were met. They won. BofA capitulated (lots of bad press was beginning to bite), and the owners (who had all along planned to close the plant and open a new one where they wouldn't have to deal with organized workers) made the payments.
What I missed in all of the press coverage on this effective protest, embarrassingly enough, was President Elect Obama's response to the action. Fortunately, James Carroll of the Boston Globe didn't. His superb column of December 15, 2008, made my chest cold riddled day worth while:
...Don't expect so much. Power compromises; power corrupts; power is not so powerful; etcetera. Yesterday's "change" is today's utopianism.
Meanwhile, however, Obama was displaying something else. Within a day of the occupation of the window factory in Chicago, the president-elect was asked about it at a news conference. One imagines the reporters' pencils poised to write down the predictable reply, something along the lines of, "Whatever the workers' grievance, no good purpose is served by unauthorized take-over. . . violation of property rights. . . law and order must be first. . . etcetera." But that is not what Obama said. Instead, without hesitating, he declared, "The workers who are asking for the benefits and payments that they have earned - I think they're absolutely right. . ."
As if anticipating the failed rescue of automobile manufacturers, he added firmly, ". . .and understand that what's happening to them is reflective of what's happening across this economy."
Obama's unambiguous affirmation of the trespassers had an instant consequence. Now politicians and civic figures had cover, and a legion of them leapt to the defense of the laid-off workers. In the past, American society has drawn a bright line between acceptable protests launched in the name of civil rights and unacceptable demands made in the name of economic rights, but Obama blurred that line with a simple statement: Workers have a right to what they have earned. That transparent truth trumped the usually controlling categories of legality, procedure, and decorum.
Make no mistake: economic justice, which is no less than basic fairness, is ultimately the key domestic issue facing the new president. If he is true to his words, and if he acts accordingly and pressures Congress to do likewise, then I believe we can make it through these dreadful times. If he doesn't, then all of us who weren't born on third base are going to have to emulate those brave people of Republic Window and Door.
Well, those two hundred people sat in until their demands were met. They won. BofA capitulated (lots of bad press was beginning to bite), and the owners (who had all along planned to close the plant and open a new one where they wouldn't have to deal with organized workers) made the payments.
What I missed in all of the press coverage on this effective protest, embarrassingly enough, was President Elect Obama's response to the action. Fortunately, James Carroll of the Boston Globe didn't. His superb column of December 15, 2008, made my chest cold riddled day worth while:
...Don't expect so much. Power compromises; power corrupts; power is not so powerful; etcetera. Yesterday's "change" is today's utopianism.
Meanwhile, however, Obama was displaying something else. Within a day of the occupation of the window factory in Chicago, the president-elect was asked about it at a news conference. One imagines the reporters' pencils poised to write down the predictable reply, something along the lines of, "Whatever the workers' grievance, no good purpose is served by unauthorized take-over. . . violation of property rights. . . law and order must be first. . . etcetera." But that is not what Obama said. Instead, without hesitating, he declared, "The workers who are asking for the benefits and payments that they have earned - I think they're absolutely right. . ."
As if anticipating the failed rescue of automobile manufacturers, he added firmly, ". . .and understand that what's happening to them is reflective of what's happening across this economy."
Obama's unambiguous affirmation of the trespassers had an instant consequence. Now politicians and civic figures had cover, and a legion of them leapt to the defense of the laid-off workers. In the past, American society has drawn a bright line between acceptable protests launched in the name of civil rights and unacceptable demands made in the name of economic rights, but Obama blurred that line with a simple statement: Workers have a right to what they have earned. That transparent truth trumped the usually controlling categories of legality, procedure, and decorum.
Make no mistake: economic justice, which is no less than basic fairness, is ultimately the key domestic issue facing the new president. If he is true to his words, and if he acts accordingly and pressures Congress to do likewise, then I believe we can make it through these dreadful times. If he doesn't, then all of us who weren't born on third base are going to have to emulate those brave people of Republic Window and Door.
posted by Diane at 3:45 AM
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