Robert Lafollette, Jr. and Joseph McCarthy. Russ Feingold and Scott Walker. How could one state–Wisconsin–elect politicians with such divergent views?

No state east of New York has had such a strong tradition of progressive views in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Despite the strength that Senator Robert Lafollette, Jr. and his father brought to the progressive wing of the Republican Party in Wisconsin, it seemed to have little staying power. In what must be one of the greatest political turnarounds in American history, Lafollette was defeated in 1946 in the Republican primary by conservative witch-hunter Joseph McCarthy. Did the people of Wisconsin fall for McCarthy’s criticism of Lafollette not joining the military in World War II, even though Lafollette was 46-years old at the time of Pearl Harbor and was a sitting U.S. senator? What caused the citizens to take a quantum leap to the right?

In Wisconsin, the state capital and the state university are both in the same town, Madison. The university has traditionally been a hotbed of progressive thinking and action, and at times that has flowed into the halls of the Capitol. This trend has continued into the current decade, but not because progressives at the university and in state government have been strengthening one another. Rather, it is students and faculty at the University, joined by thousands of state public employees demonstrating under the Rotunda in Governor Scott Walker’s office building.

Scott Walker has gone from being an embattled governor to a presidential contender. He was elected governor in 2010. The Wisconsin state legislature was also part of the red wave that covered the United States that year. Walker and the legislature collaborated in 2011 to pass the “Wisconsin budget repair bill,” which significantly changed the collective bargaining process for most public employees. The goal of the bill was to eliminate the deficit in the state budget. But the means of doing so was a punch in the gut to tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens, who had fought to bring a healthy equilibrium to the management-worker struggle, which has been with us since the first cave person hired another to do some work.

Public employees in Wisconsin and elsewhere are among the most under-paid workers in our economy. They often have jobs that are dangerous, tedious, and in the case of teachers, require far more than 40 hours a week with no overtime pay. Nonetheless, they were the target of Walker and the legislature. The law has survived a variety of challenges, including a recall election of Governor Walker. He defeated the recall in 2012 and then won reelection in 2014. His reelection only emboldened him to try to take the once union-strong state into a “right to work [for less]” state. Removing the confusing slogans, Walker wants to weaken labor unions in Wisconsin by not requiring workers to pay union dues, even if the employees of a company are represented in bargaining by a union.

Walker’s efforts to weaken unions in the private and the public sector has now drawn the ire of the National Football League. The NFL is certainly not  a bastion of liberalism, but players in the league have been organized and protected by the NFL Players Association since 1970. Players in the NFL may be well-compensated, but their working conditions have been terrible, with their health always at risk. Only with the Players Association has their pension been protected.

The one NFL team in Wisconsin is the storied Green Bay Packers. There is no billionaire owner of the team, just a bunch of interested citizens in the town of Green Bay and elsewhere in Wisconsin. Players on the Packers have always been enthusiastic union supporters.

Moving beyond the field of football, the NFL Players Association Is now playing politics in Wisconsin.

The union released a strongly worded statement on February 25 denouncing the state’s proposed right-to-work legislation — which would prohibit businesses and unions from requiring workers to pay union dues — and reaffirming its solidarity “with the working families of Wisconsin and organized labor in their fight against current attacks against their right to stand together as a team.”

The statement, written by executive director DeMaurice Smith, pointed to the various support staff employed at the Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Field who “will have their well being and livelihood jeopardized” by the law. It also acknowledged the “generations of skilled workers” who contribute to the state’s various industries and pointed to the law’s potentially devastating effects on wages and safety. Smith took direct shots at Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who may be looking to boost his presidential aspirations at the expense of the state’s workers: “Governor Scott Walker may not value these vital employees, but as union members, we do.”

It would be a stretch to say that Scott Walker has been a demagogue of the ilk of Joe McCarthy. But Walker has successfully rallied Wisconsin citizens to undermine legislation that has protected them since the beginning of the progressive era in the late 19^th century. What’s happening in Wisconsin is similar to “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” in which citizens allow religiously formed social values to undermine their best economic interests. Yes, apparently this can happen too in Wisconsin, even with its strong university system and its proud progressive heritage.

This phenomenon stands as further evidence that the American body electorate is often more tuned into the politics of mythology and fear than to reason and their economic self-interest and that of their families and their neighbors. As I have said before, progressive education may be the best way to enlighten our citizenry.

The post Wisconsin shows how difficult it is to hold on to progressive gains appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Before you fire up the grill this Labor Day or check out the discounts at the stores, how about taking a moment to consider the real meaning of the day?

Labor Day. The words used to mean something.

The words used to have muscle and sweat behind them. They used to honor the labor of workers who built the industrial might of this country.  They defined a day set aside to give workers a well-earned day off but also to celebrate how workers risked their livelihoods (and sometimes their lives) to fight for the right to organize, for decent wages, reasonable hours, and safe working conditions. The concept was born out of the desire to acknowledge the struggle for a more economically and socially just society.

Labor Day should be the one day in the year when we recall how workplace reforms we now take for granted came about.  Shouldn’t we acknowledge on this day how it was organized labor—not the goodwill nor social conscience of employers —that forced an end to child labor, secured health and retirement benefits, and demanded compensation for those injured on the job?

How many of us think about those achievements this Labor Day?  In truth, the name is meaningless.  Labor Day is a joke. So why not drop the pretense and find a new moniker, like Bargain Day or End of Summer Day?  How about Barbeque Day or Must I Go Back to School Day?

Before we abandon the word labor altogether let’s recall some history

Labor Day as originally conceived was the brainchild of organized labor. The historical record is uncertain about who came up with the idea first. Still, it’s clear that the concept of a workingmen’s holiday was proposed either by Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, or Matthew Maguire, a machinist and later secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, New Jersey.

Whichever of the two men proposed the idea, New York’s Central Labor Union ran with it, and the first labor day parade was celebrated in New York City on September 5, 1882.   At the time, the Central Labor Union urged other labor organizations to follow its lead in highlighting the contributions of working people. And the idea caught on. By 1885 with the rapid growth of labor unions, the holiday spread across the industrial core of the country. In 1887 Oregon became the first state to legalize the holiday.

Federalization of the holiday was born out of violence that erupted in 1894 when railway workers in Illinois went on strike to protest wage cuts.  Two strikers were killed when President Grover Cleveland sent in 12,000 federal troops to quell what became known as the Pullman Strike.  Public opinion ran hot against Cleveland’s actions.  In order to appease workers and hoping to gain their votes (he lost his re-election bid anyway), Cleveland declared Labor Day, as we now know it, a national holiday.

There’s more than history to think about this Labor Day

We should also take time this holiday to take stock of where workers and the middle class stand today.  Unfortunately, the balance sheet looks none too pretty (unless, of course, you’re a member of the 1% crowd).  Here are some astounding numbers you might want to think about while you’re waiting for the grill to fire up:

•   Workers’ salaries are at the lowest percentage of G.D.P. since 1929, which amounts to 42.6 percent, the lowest since historical data has been kept.  American corporations, on the other side, are more profitable than ever.
• Incomes of the bottom 90% of Americans grew on average by about $59 in the last 40 years, while incomes of the top 10% of Americans rose on average by $116,071.
• The increase in the real value of the minimum wage since 1990 is 21%, while the increase in the cost of living since 1990 is 67%.

Those depressing (and depressed) numbers are a reflection of a struggling and diminished middle class.  But don’t be fooled by the self-serving rhetoric of the conservative/business class.  This state of affairs—this diminishment of the American Dream—is not about invisible, inevitable market forces. Rather, there is a direct correlation between the union-busting politics that gained ground in the 1980s—and are pursued with even greater zealotry today—and the decline of middle-class wages and benefits.

Jared Bernstein, economist and senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, explains:

 The fact is that union density is much more a national policy decision than an act of nature. Unions are an institution that an advanced economy can or cannot decide to foster or suppress. More so than other advanced nations, we have taken the suppression route in recent decades. And that’s one of the reasons why American working families, despite their relatively high productivity levels, benefit significantly less from the fruits of their labor.

Bernstein concludes:

There’s no question that de-unionization is related to the decline in job quality and increase in inequality faced by many in today’s workforce.

Happy Labor Day, indeed.

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