Timidity Breeds Doom

Trey Smith

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has called on working people “to fight like hell” to resist cuts to Social Security and Medicare. But these are just words. To this date, the unions have failed to mobilize their members to stage massive demonstrations across the country against cuts to these popular social programs – demonstrations that could culminate in hundreds of thousands of working people descending on Washington, D.C. to make their demands clear to the Obama administration and the rest of the politicians. Without the unions taking the lead in this struggle, there is little individual workers will be able to accomplish.

~ from Krugman Discovers Marx…and Misses the Point by Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer ~

The crux of this article concerns how Karl Marx predicted the crisis we face today in the capitalist system (the rich growing richer, while the ever increasing poor are marched toward oblivion). Too view the argument for this analysis, I encourage you to read the entire article.  What I have chosen to focus on for this post is the short snippet above. 

I steadfastly believe in the theory of organized labor, it's just that I am increasingly growing disenchanted with its application in today's world. Union leaders fancy themselves as members of the oligarchy and, consequently, they work to muzzle and disempower their own members -- they sell them out! -- so that these union leaders don't lose this perceived standing with the bosses. Time and time again, they direct their unions to support Democrats, while the Democrats do little to curry such support.

Though union membership continues to dwindle, unions COULD exert a lot of pressure on Congress and the President. As the authors mention above, unions could serve as the fulcrum of massive demonstrations against the austerity measures the oligarchy plans to shove down our throats. But the unions won't serve as the needed catalyst because their leaders are so timid. They've already been bought off and the last thing they want is to have their apple carts upset.

And so they will mouth a lot of words in the coming days that amount to nothing. They will do everything in their power to insure that the barn door is locked so that the horses (union members) won't stampede. They will make this pivotal moment -- a time when unions could flex their muscles -- a very NON-pivotal one.

Joe Hill must be rolling over in his grave...and puking!