It's tempting to think that a disaster like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire couldn't happen today. And perhaps it couldn't, though with Teabag legislators in states like Missouri attempting to repeal child labor laws and trying to erase the history of organized labor in this country, the time may be coming when once again, workers grateful to have any kind of job at all find themselves locked in burning buildings.

When legislators cite outsourcing as being caused by labor unions demanding even basic worker protections, the working world they want to see is one that looks astonishingly like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. In fact, in the nations to which American corporations are outsourcing their manufacturing, it looks EXACTLY like the events of March 25, 1911:

Labels: organized labor, union-busting, worker protections

If you want to know why unions, however flawed they may be, are important...if you still believe that corporations and the wealthy will, left to their own devices, act in the public good, I give you the names of one hundred and forty-six people who died one hundred years ago today at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co.:

Julia Aberstein, age 30
Lizzie Adler, age 24
Anna Altman, age 16
Anna Ardito, age 25
Becky Astrowsky, age 20
Rosie Bassino, age 31
Vincenza Belatta, age 16
Ignazia Bellotta, age unknown
Vincenza Benanti, age 22
Essie Bernstein, age 19
Jacob Bernstein, age 28
Morris Bernstein, age 19
Moses Bernstein, age unknown
Gussie Bierman, age 22
Abraham Binevitz, age 20
Rosie Brenman, age unknown
Surkah (Sarah) Brenman, age unknown
Ida Brodsky, age 16
Sarah Brodsky, age 21
Ida Brooks, age 18
Laura Brunette, age 17
Caputta, age 17
Josep Carlisi, age 31
Albina Caruso, age 20
Frances Carutto, age 17
Josie Castello, age 21
Rosie Ciritto, age unknown
Anna Cohen, age 25
Antonia Colletti, age 30
Della Costello, age unknown
Rose Crepo, age 19
Grances (Frances?) Denent, age 20
Yetta Fichtenhultz, age 18
Clara Dochman, age 19
K. Dorman, age unknown
Kalman Downic, age 24
Celia Eisenberg, age 17
Rose Feibush, age unknown
Rebecca Feibish, age 17
[?] Feltzer, age 40
Dosie Lopez Fitze, age 24
May Forrester, age 25
Jennie Franco, age 16
Tina Frank, age 17
Mary Gallo, age 23
Bertha Geib, age 25
Molly Gernstein, age 17
Celina Gittlin, age 17
Esther Goldfield, age unknown
Esther Goldstein, age unknown
Lena Goldstein, age 22
Mary Goldstein, age 11
Yetta Goldstein, age 20
Esther Gorfield, age 22
Irene Grameattassio, age 20
Esther Harris, age 21
Mary Herman, age 40
Ida Jakobowski, age unknown
[?] Kaplan, age 20
Ida Kenowitch, age 18
[?] Keober, age 30
Becky Kessler, age unknown
Jacob Klein, age 23
Sara Kupla, age unknown
Fannie Launswold, age 24
Nettie Lefkowitz, age 28
Max Lehrer, age 19
Sam Lehrer, age unknown
Kate Leone, age 14<
Rosie D. Lermack, age 19
Mary Leventhal, age 22
Jennie Levin, age 19
Abe Levine, age unknown
Max Levine, age unknown
Pauline Levine, age 19
Catherine Maltese, age unknown
Lucia Maltese, age 20
Rosalie Maltese, age 14
Maria Manara, age 27
Rose Manofsky, age 22
Michela Marciano, age 25
Minnie Mayer, age unknown
Yetta Meyers, age 19
Bettina Miale, age 21
Gaetana Midolo, age 16
Becky Nebrerer, age 19
Annie Nicholas, age 18
Michelina Nicolose, age unknown
Annie Novobritsky, age 20
Sadie Nussbaum, age 18
Julia Oberstein, age 19
Rose Oringer, age unknown
Carrie Ozzo, age 22
Annie Pack, age 18
Providenza Panno, age 48
Antonietta Pasqualicca, age 16
Ida Pearl, age 20
Jennie Pildescu, age 18
Vincenza Pinello, age 30
Jennie Poliny, age 20
Millie Prato, age 21
Becky Reivers, age unknown
Emma Rootstein, age unknown
Abraham Robinowitz, age unknown
Israel Rosen, age 17
Julia Rosen, age 35
Mrs. Leob Rosen, age 38
Yetta Rosenbaum, age 22
Jennie Rosenberg, age 21
Gussie Rosenfeld, age 22
Nettie Rosenthal, age 21
R. Rother, age 25
Theodore Rother, age 22
Sarah Sabasowitz, age 17
Sophie Salemi, age 24
Sara Saracino, age unknown
Serafina Saracino, age 25
Tessie Saracino, age 20
Gussie Schiffman, age 16
Theresa Schmidt, age 32
Ethel Schneider, age unknown
Violet Schochep, age 21
Margaret Schwartz, age unknown
Jacob Selzer, age 33
Annie Semmilio, age 30
Rosie Shapiro, age 17
Catherine Shena, age 30
Bennie Sklawer, age 25
Rosie Sorkin, age 18
[?] Spear, age unknown
[?] Sprunt, age unknown
Gussie Spunt, age 19
Annie Starr, age 30
Jennie Stein, age 18
Jennie Stellino, age 16
Jennie Stiglitz, age 33
Samuel Tabick, age 18
Clotilde Terranova, age 22
Isabella Tortorella, age 17
Mary Ullo, age 20
Meyer Utal, age 23
Freida Velakowsky, age 20
Bessie Vivlania, age 15
Annie Vovobritsky, age 20
Sally Weinduff, age 17
Rose Weiner, age 23
Sally Weintraub, age 17
Celia Weintraub, age unknown
Dora Welfowitz, age 21
Joseph Wilson, age 21
Tessie Wisner, age 27
Sonia Wisotsky, age 17
Bertha Wondross, age unknown
[?] Zeltner, age 30

Labels: corporatism, greed, union-busting

While I was driving home from work on Friday, I was listening to Thom Hartmann talking to someone who said that the police were going to be sent into the Madison, Wisconsin Capitol building and start arresting protesters one by one -- whatever it took to clear out the rotunda.

How's that working for ya, Gov. Walker? From Boing Boing:

Yesterday afternoon, hundreds of cops marched into the Wisconsin Capitol Building, where Wisconsinites have spent more than a week protesting their governor's plan to eliminate collective bargaining for most public employees. They were there to join the protest. Musician Ryan Harvey posted this report to Facebook:

"Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside."

"Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: 'We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what's right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!' Unreal."

Click over to see the video. Money quote:

"Mr. Walker, if you are listening to me, let me tell you something. we know pretty well now who you work for. Let me tell you who WE work for. We work for all of these people."

Labels: union-busting, Wisconsin 2011

The realities surrounding Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's true agenda are no longer the exclusive province of the blogs:

As Eric Lipton reported in The Times on Tuesday, the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who have long been staunch union opponents, were among the biggest contributors to Mr. Walker. (Americans for Prosperity, the conservative group financed by the Kochs, will begin running anti-union broadcast ads in Wisconsin in the next few days.)

Some public sector unions have contracts and benefits that are too rich for these times, but even when they have made concessions, Republican officials have kept up the attack. The Republicans’ claim to be acting on behalf of taxpayers is not believable.

In Wisconsin, union leaders agreed to concessions requested by Mr. Walker: to pay nearly 6 percent of their wages for pension costs, up from nearly zero, and double payments for health insurance. At that point, most governors would declare victory and move on. Instead, Mr. Walker has rejected union concessions and won’t even negotiate. His true priority is stripping workers of collective-bargaining rights and reducing their unions to a shell. The unions would no longer be able to raise money to oppose him, as they did in last year’s election, easing the way for future Republicans as well.

The game is up when unionized state workers demonstrate a sense of shared sacrifice but Republican lawmakers won’t even allow them a seat at the table. For unions and Democrats in the Midwest, this is an existential struggle, and it is one worth waging.

And in a piece "below the fold" on the paper's web site's op-ed page, a reminder of why unions are important, and what happens when we rely on corporations to do what's right (whether our own employer is union or not):

In The Times’s grim, vivid account on March 26, 1911 — the day after the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire — these words appear: “The victims who are now lying at the Morgue waiting for some one to identify them by a tooth or the remains of a burned shoe were mostly girls from 16 to 23 years of age.” There were 146 victims in all, 129 of them women.

Nearly a century later, the names of the last unidentified victims have been discovered, thanks to the work of a historian named Michael Hirsch. They are Maria Giuseppa Lauletti, Max Florin, Concetta Prestifilippo, Josephine Cammarata, Dora Evans and Fannie Rosen, all buried together beneath a single monument in the Cemetery of the Evergreens on the border of Brooklyn and Queens. This completes the roll of the dead in one of the city’s worst and most important fires.

The fire started late on a Saturday, possibly in a waste bin, just before the Triangle shirtwaist factory closed for the day. The flames and smoke spread quickly, and there was no way to escape. The building was supposedly fireproof, the stairwell doors were locked and there was only one internal fire escape, which quickly buckled under the weight of bodies. Before the fire engines arrived, the terrified workers began leaping from the upper windows to their deaths.

The outer building did not burn; it still stands at 23-29 Washington Place. The horror there brought about sweeping changes in fire safety codes, workplace regulations and conditions for working women.

The owners of the factory had managed to fight off the International Ladies Garment Workers Union right through the 1909 and 1910 garment factory strikes (good information here).

Labels: government for sale, union-busting, Wisconsin 2011

For the state workers of Wisconsin:


Billy Bragg's version of this always reminds me of the OLD "Majority Report" show:

Labels: American workers, union-busting, Wisconsin 2011

Today's honoree: Richard Bey, writing about unions. Yes, it's THAT Richard Bey, he of the old Jerry Springer-type TV show. What's less known about Bey is that he was fired from his evening drive-time show on WABC in New York in 2003 for opposing the Iraq War -- and has worked only sporadically in broadcasting ever since.

What is getting lost in the drumbeat among right-wing radio and television talking heads (yes, including, apparently, Glenn Beck) is that most, if not all of them, are members of The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). And so comes today's money quote:

I recognize that some unions have been guilty of corruption. As I stated in previous posts on this site I also favor sensible caps on union pensions and rules that prevent egregious abuses on how those pensions are calculated. But for a movement that derided Rahm Emanuel’s suggestion to ‘Never let a crisis go to waste’ the radicals of the Tea Party are quick to embrace this philosophy. This is not about solving the problem of statewide deficits. From the beginning their rhetoric has been anti-worker, anti-union, strangely recognizing only ‘capital providers’ as ‘THE PRODUCERS’. Capital investment is surely a necessary, central element of the American economy but it is labor that actually accomplishes production so it is an odd way to label the components. FoxNews would have its viewers frame this issue as ‘the unions vs. the taxpayers’, not even acknowledging that union workers pay taxes themselves.

I support the concept that a crisis can provide an opportunity, to learn, to change, to readjust how things are done. But when there is corporate corruption or abuse we don’t attempt to abolish corporations. We attempt to remedy the corruption and abuse to prevent ongoing damage.

[snip]

I should reveal that I am a proud member of three unions. Throughout my years in broadcasting my unions have supported me when I needed support as an actor or a broadcaster. I am such an ardent union member that I have paid my dues to every union twice annually for forty years though I could have taken a leave of absence during those hard times when I was not working. That’s how strongly I feel an obligation to union membership. It’s also true that for many years I made so much money in my profession that I probably had more direct power as an individual negotiator than I did as a union member. But I did not forget how purposeful and important union membership was to my career and my life.

It is undeniable that there are 13 states that prohibit or restrict collective bargaining by teachers and other state employees. It is interesting to note that most of those states have budget SHORTFALLS. A handful of them have deficits of 20% to make up somehow EVEN WITHOUT UNION WORKERS. Its also an historical fact that Franklin Roosevelt, perhaps our most pro-labor president was extremely wary of allowing municipal workers to unionize. Teddy Roosevelt’s most succinct statement supporting labor organization is mute on the organization of public employees: “It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.”

Labels: bloggers, union-busting

Paul Krugman today pulls the curtain aside from Scott Walker:

But Mr. Walker isn’t interested in making a deal. Partly that’s because he doesn’t want to share the sacrifice: even as he proclaims that Wisconsin faces a terrible fiscal crisis, he has been pushing through tax cuts that make the deficit worse. Mainly, however, he has made it clear that rather than bargaining with workers, he wants to end workers’ ability to bargain.

The bill that has inspired the demonstrations would strip away collective bargaining rights for many of the state’s workers, in effect busting public-employee unions. Tellingly, some workers — namely, those who tend to be Republican-leaning — are exempted from the ban; it’s as if Mr. Walker were flaunting the political nature of his actions.

Why bust the unions? As I said, it has nothing to do with helping Wisconsin deal with its current fiscal crisis. Nor is it likely to help the state’s budget prospects even in the long run: contrary to what you may have heard, public-sector workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere are paid somewhat less than private-sector workers with comparable qualifications, so there’s not much room for further pay squeezes.

So it’s not about the budget; it’s about the power.

In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.

Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions.

You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years — which it has — that’s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.

And now Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to get rid of public-sector unions, too.

There’s a bitter irony here. The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America’s oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence

What Krugman doesn't mention is the $43,000 in campaign donations that Walker accepted from the billionaire Koch brothers. Walker's marching orders from his billionaire benefactors from the day he took office were to bust the public sector unions. He's just doing the bidding of his masters.

Labels: government for sale, union-busting

Are you shocked and appalled? Surprised, even? I'm not

Neither is Southern Beale:

Glenn Beck and the rest of the Fox fools have been whipping up the fear, because liberal rallies are always bad things and full of terrorists and terrorist appeasers and verging on violence (as opposed to conservative rallies which are Patriotic and Free Speech and Constitutional and Freedom and Liberty and yada yada.)

Anyhoo, yesterday Beck told the protestors their unions “are anti-western way of life,” which is the kind of thing people like Beck say: it’s just an insult attached to a group they don’t like (Nazi, communist, terrorist, leech, etc. + liberals, Democrats, Muslims, the poor, etc.), then regurgitated without any thought whatsoever. It's intellectually lazy, but it gets the job done, and frankly with their audience, no more is required. “This group = bad thing.” Whatever. It’s boring.

I just want someone to ask Beck one thing: aren’t you a member of a union? AFTRA? American Federation of Television And Radio Artists? The same AFTRA campaigning to save Public Broadcasting? Beck’s name is listed on the Los Angeles chapter’s June 2010 ballot under “newsperson.” Maybe there’s another newsperson named Glenn Beck, to which I have to say: dude, I feel sorry for you.

Labels: assholes, Glenn Beck, hypocrisy, union-busting, You can't make this shit up

Dave Johnson over at the Campaign for America's future notes that no matter what the problem is, Republicans have a completely bogus "solution" that they say will fix it -- but it never does:

How often do you see the same solutions offered up for any given problem? Tax cuts for the rich, gut government, get rid of unions, privatize Social Security, etc. (And more tax cuts for the rich.) When something shocking happens the right always has ready-to-go, pre-packaged solution waiting in the wings that they offer to fix the problem.

Take Wisconsin for example. They ginned up the appearance of a budget crisis, got everyone worked up, and wham-o, introduce a bill to kill public-employee unions, gutting worker pay and pensions and their ability to do anything about it.

But in fact, like so many of their "solutions" this was something they already wanted to do, and were just waiting for the opportunity to push it through, or creating the crisis to bring about the opportunity to push it through.

These pre-packaged "free-market" "solutions" are not what the public wants, but are always forced through before anyone can react. They don't solve problems, just make the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us.

When the public is worried, stirred up, hopefully to the point of panic you put in your pre-arranged "solution" and start getting them stirred up about the next problem you will "solve." And those conservative solutions never seem to work out.

The deficits get worse, wages don't go up, retirement gets harder... This is because the real purpose of these "solutions" -- cut taxes, cut what government does for regular people, get rid of unions, privatize social security and for good measure cut taxes more -- are not to solve the problem they were offered up to fix. They have another purpose: make deficits worse, make wages stagnate, make retirement harder...

It always, always, always comes down to a simple formula: more (and more) to the rich at the expense of everyone else.

Right now there is a showdown in Wisconsin that as Rachel Maddow notes, has the future of everything we take for granted as workers in this country at stake -- days off in the form of weekends, the right to a safe workplace, a guarantee that at the end of the day we'll actually get paid what we're supposed to(unless we work for Huffington Post, but that's another story for another day):


There was a time when public sector workers were given generous benefits in order to offset the fact that salaries were lower in the public sector than in the private one. For decades, no one objected, because everyone understood that public sector compensation took a different form than that enjoyed by people employed in the private sector. That is because in the aftermath of World War II, a thriving middle class, built and encouraged by the G.I. Bill, flourished in this country, buying houses and cars and those newfangled color TVs and new GE ranges and refrigerators and Schwinn bicycles for the kids they were having. I'm not discussing the entrenched and persistent poverty that existed at the time and still exists today; not because I want to ignore it, but because what we're seeing in Wisconsin isn't about people who have been poor for decades, it's about people who will be poor tomorrow -- and how their own government (in the case of Wisconsin, their governor) will make them that way, because That Is What He Has Been Paid To Do.

I'll get to Scott Walker and the Koch brothers in a minute. But first, let's get back to those generous public sector benefits and the days when there was a middle class that believed in its own future. That middle class was fueled by a number of things, all of which would be derided as "socialist" today: a college education for returning veterans. Low-cost housing bought with VA loans. Defined benefit pension plans. Cost of living increases. A blue-collar component of that middle class could look forward to seeing its children grow up and get the college education they never had, because they were able to go to the plant every day and build cars that Americans bought and make a living wage doing it. The workers of the UAW have always been blamed for the decline of the automobile industry in this country, but it wasn't the guys on the assembly line who are to blame, it was the guys in the suits in Detroit who, when faced with a 200% jump in gasoline prices in 1973 and another jump in conjunction with a fuel shortage in 1977, were caught with their pants down and an inability to make the kind of reliable fuel-efficient cars that recession-conscious buyers wanted. While Honda was importing Civics and Toyota was importing Corollas, General Motors and Ford were putting out crap like the Vega and the Pinto. The UAW didn't cause the auto industry to be caught with its pants down, and neither did the guys who built these cars. It was bad corporate decisions, and over the last three decades we've seen not the guys at the top, but the guys on the assembly line take the blame.

But there's more to this middle class in which I was fortunate enough to grow up. This middle class had optimism about the future. It participated in a consumer-based economy that wasn't about a sense of entitlement to the same trappings of luxury as the rich, but about a country in which there was the opportunity for the children of that middle class to BECOME rich and to be able to afford those trappings. There's a reason why "Doctor Lawyer CPA" was a suburban mantra; those were professions in which one could buy a house with a pool and a luxury car and clothes from Saks.

But then something happened. Over time, the salary advantage enjoyed by private sector workers disappeared, as companies decided that what the American workforce needed was a race to the bottom -- competition from countries where workers made a dollar a day. Cost of living increases disappeared in the private sector, but not the public one. Private sector wages dropped and public sector wages stayed the same or grew. Unions lost their power in the private sector and kept it only in the public one.

And so we now are watching a hideous and sad irony of this spectacle take place in this country. It's one in which middle-class people with only a tenuous hold left on being middle class and those who have already left it due to executive suite decision-making and the wholesale purchasing of government by corporate titans like the Koch brothers, are defending the people who pulled the rug out from under them. They're defending the robber barons while regarding the members of the very unions to whom they owe much of the benefits enjoyed by the middle class while there was one as the enemy. Instead of wanting the kind of benefits still enjoyed by public sector, the kind they and their fathers and mothers USED to have, they want the members of public sector unions to get screwed over just as badly as they are.

Imagine the possibilities of what could happen if everyone who has been hurt by the Republican mantra that if we just shovel enough cash into the pockets of the Koch brothers then happy days would be here again joined together with the public sector workers in Wisconsin. Imagine if the aggrieved Tea Partiers who are driven by the loss of economic opportunity in this country stopped pointing their fingers down the ladder while largely, but not exclusively, Republican politicians and their corporate masters steal the few bucks left in the wallet in their back pocket. Imagine if the worried moms who are believing what they hear on the morning news while they're packing the kids' lunchboxes -- that what's happening in Wisconsin is all about a refusal to accept benefit cuts rather than about the end of collective bargaining by gubernatorial fiat actually listened to what is going on and realized that this is about them too. Imagine if they were joined by people who have been unemployed for 99 weeks despite having education and skills because they're regarded as "overqualified" (read: too old) or because there are too many people chasing too few jobs. Imagine if they were joined by the tech workers and people in other fields whose jobs have been outsourced. Imagine how big the crowds would be in Madison, Wisconsin and elsewhere.

But alas, that's not what's happening. It's not happening because these people are having the message pounded into their heads every day by Republicans and by corporate-owned media that has itself purchased a sizable chunk of government, that it's all about greedy teachers and firemen, that Scott Walker is just a responsible adult who is trying to impose discipline on a bunch of id-driven two-year-olds. The problem is that this is not what Scott Walker is at all. In reality, he's a bought-and-paid-for lackey of the aforementioned Koch brothers, who architected a deficit in Wisconsin for the express purpose of union busting.

Brian Beutler at TPM reported on Thursday that Wisconsin's "budget crisis" was created by, you guessed it, Scott Walker:

Unlike true austerity measures -- service rollbacks, furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money -- rolling back worker's bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker's doing it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits immediately.

Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state's fiscal bureau -- the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office -- concluded that Wisconsin isn't even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.

"Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond he control," says Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future -- a public interest think tank. "He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax cuts... so he could rush through these other changes."

THAT is why public sector workers in Wisconsin are protesting. It isn't because of a resistance to givebacks, or an unwillingness to make concessions. It's about eliminating in perpetuity the ability to collectively bargain. It's about union-busting.

And at whose behest is Walker working? It isn't for the benefit of "the taxpayers of Wisconsin", no matter what he said yesterday. It's for the benefit if his masters, the Koch brothers:

According to Wisconsin campaign finance filings, Walker's gubernatorial campaign received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC during the 2010 election. That donation was his campaign's second-highest, behind $43,125 in contributions from housing and realtor groups in Wisconsin. The Koch's PAC also helped Walker via a familiar and much-used politicial maneuver designed to allow donors to skirt campaign finance limits. The PAC gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn spent $65,000 on independent expenditures to support Walker. The RGA also spent a whopping $3.4 million on TV ads and mailers attacking Walker's opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Walker ended up beating Barrett by 5 points. The Koch money, no doubt, helped greatly.

The Kochs also assisted Walker's current GOP allies in the fight against the public-sector unions. Last year, Republicans took control of the both houses of the Wisconsin state legislature, which has made Walker's assault on these unions possible. And according to data from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the Koch Industries PAC spent $6,500 in support of 16 Wisconsin Republican state legislative candidates, who each won his or her election.

Walker's plan to eviscerate collective bargaining rights for public employees is right out of the Koch brothers' playbook. Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions. Several of these groups have urged the eradication of these unions. The Kochs also invited (PDF) Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an anti-union outfit, to a June 2010 confab in Aspen, Colorado; Mix said in a recent interview that he supports Governor Walker's collective-bargaining bill. In Wisconsin, this conservative, anti-union view is being placed into action by lawmakers in sync with the deep-pocketed donors who helped them obtain power.(Walker also opposes the state's Clean Energy Job Act, which would compel the state to increase its use of alternative energy.) At this moment—even with the Wisconsin uprising unresolved—the Koch brothers' investment in Walker appears to be paying off.

And here, via The Political Carnival, are the Koch brothers' talking points. Scott Walker is a good little lackey, isn't he?

Labels: government for sale, scumbaggery, Teabag America, union-busting

The workers at Republic Window Factory may have won the severance and vacation pay due them by their scummy management and Bank of America, but we shouldn't be fooled by the Capra-esque finale for these workers. Because there's more to the story, as Meg White (presumably not the White Stripes' Meg White) writes at Buzzflash:

As BuzzFlash reported at the time, after finding out they'd be out of work in three days at the beginning of December, workers at Republic Windows & Doors Inc. staged a sit-in at the factory to secure the benefits the company said it couldn't pay. Politicians all over the state threatened to stop doing business with Bank of America and its subsidiaries until they paid out a loan to Republic so management could comply with its legal obligations to its former workers.

Negotiations have been ongoing, as has the sit-in, since the plant shut down. According to The New York Times, Republic CEO Rich Gillman demanded that any settlement with the bank also include money to pay for the leases on his BMW and Mercedes, as well as eight weeks worth of his salary. The final deal, announced last Wednesday, did not include such additions. Republic filed for bankruptcy that Friday.

Gillman was widely quoted to have blamed Republic's collapse on the broader economy and the credit freeze, calling the situation "a microcosm of what is happening to many large and small businesses" during the sit-in. But now it seems that Republic's story isn't all that representative.

There were signs that the company had been planning on leaving Chicago well before they broke the news to workers. During Gillman's brief tenure as CEO of Republic, the workforce was nearly halved by layoffs. The New York Times reported that union leaders noticed management had been making off with equipment weeks before the announcement.

Complaining about the high production costs in Chicago, Gillman had previously tried to purchase another plant in Ohio, but Bank of America turned him down for the loan. According to Republic's own statements, the company approached Bank of America back on October 16 about an "orderly wind down" culminating in its closing the factory in January.

The most obvious clue of Republic's intentions was carried out very quietly. Weeks before Republic's closing, Echo Windows & Doors LLC was incorporated in Illinois. Chitown Daily News reported that Echo was incorporated in Iowa about one week later. Neither list Rich Gillman as the head of the business, but the Iowa incorporation is under his wife's name. Echo then proceeded to buy a window and door manufacturing plant in Red Oak, IA, previously owned by a faltering company called Traco.

It seems that, despite fears of the Illinois Attorney General, Republic's customers aren't much affected by the shutdown of the Chicago factory. A glass trade publication article cites industry dealers as saying they've simply moved their orders from Republic to Echo. Another industry publication is reporting that the former vice president of sales at Republic is now the main contact for www.echowindows.com.

With such a sequence of events, it's natural to wonder whether Republic was run into the ground in order to set up elsewhere for cheaper. Leah Fried, an organizer with UE that is working with the former Republic workers, said it's impossible for her to say what the former owners of Republic have been planning, since the union has always had a tough time getting the truth from them.

"The management -- especially Rich Gillman -- have been very dishonest," Fried said in a telephone interview with BuzzFlash. Of Gillman, she said "he's never straight with us."

Local news reports quote city organizers and other Iowans as nervous about labor problems at the former Traco plant, now that the Gillmans are relocating to Red Oak. According to an article from Midlands News Service, the Iowa workers hired after the buyout of Traco had to sign confidentiality agreements and have already seen an increased workload since the takeover. The article goes on to say the workers are not unionized, and are paid $10 to $12 an hour.

Fried said she couldn't be sure if Iowa could count on Echo to be a positive factor in the manufacturing landscape in Red Oak.

"With Rich Gillman, anything is possible," she said wryly.

She also noted that, while there are UE members in Iowa, it is a "Right to Work" state, and Illinois is not. The Right to Work law makes organizing a union more difficult, often resulting in lower pay.

Unionized workers everywhere, as well as non-unionized workers who are making good wages because of their unionized counterparts, ought to pay close attention to this story. Because the story of Republic Window and Door represents in vivid color the race to the compensation bottom that American manufacturing workers face whether they are unionized or not. And if the workers at Toyota, Nissan, and Mercedes plants in the south think they'll continue to make money that's close to what their UAW compatriots make once the UAW is busted, they ought to guess again. Because no one is buying cars right now, and once the UAW isn't propping up their compensation, they are next in the management and Republican politician crosshairs.

Labels: corporatism, greed, union-busting