HEALTH BENEFITS LOST

Since the recession began in March 2001, over 911,000 laid-off workers have lost health coverage. Only one in five workers eligible to continue coverage at their own expense can afford to. Who needs a better argument to eliminate employer specific negotiated health packages and concentrate on establishing a universal health plan/single payer system, something that is basically recession proof? Obviously, the former should be merged into the latter so no one loses benefits whether employed or unemployed.

Patrick Pizzalla, who spent the past four years as a lobbyist for the Saipan sweatshop industry, is the second most powerful individual in the US Department of Labor. He worked for the Reagan campaign in 1976 and was subsequently appointed to posts at the Department of Education and the Small Business Administration. For the past four years, however, he worked as the key lobbyist for the firm of Preston Gates on that company�s account with the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). The company billed CNMI $8 million over a five year period to conduct junkets for congressmen, staffers and conservative journalists to fend off labor�s attempts to enact labor protections for garment workers in Saipan. Pizzella�s current position with the DoL, as Under Secretary for Administration and Management, gives him control over staffing and resources for virtually every agency in the Labor Department. (from IFPTE)

PATRIOTISM

I�m confused about this thing called patriotism. Early last month, the front page headlines on The Oregonian (Jan 7, 2002) gave this conflicting view: �Pentagon seeks budget boost of $20 billion� and �Dental care for needy may be victim of state cutback.� Seems to me that the patriotic thing to feel about headlines like that, within inches of each other, would be bloody outrage at such strange values. In case you�re confused, I think putting $20 billion additional into health and dental care would give me, at least, a whole lot more about which to be patriotic!

HUMOR AND BUSH

A recent article I read, and seem to have lost, indicated that, once again, we are faced with an emperor with no clothes and that what will help much, if not most, to bring the emperor to human scale is humor, used much by the US through the two plus centuries of our national existence. Even bringing a laugh, such as I did the other evening in the UW-Tacoma bookstore when I took a copy of Investor�s Daily up to the desk and told the woman behind the desk, �I�m not going to buy this paper but this guy really does look like Alfred Newman.� She, being old enough to remember the MAD magazine cover, laughed healthily in agreement. I�m also reminded of the words, paraphrased here, of one of my favorite 20th century musical satirists, Tom Lehrer, who said, when asked in the 1980s why he no longer wrote musical humor like his material from the 1960s, �These things are no longer funny.� If we DON�T find our times funny, we will only solidify the deification going on.

UNIONS GO REPUBLICAN

Several months ago John Sweeney signaled that the AFL-CIO was no longer in the pocket of the Democratic Party. This declaration was both a sign that Organized Labor was dissatisfied with the Democrats and that it was bowing to the reality of Republican rule of the White House, Congress and most states. Recent events have shown that the latter has gripped even some traditionally identified with labor�s progressive wing.

Reports that 1199, the nation�s largest health care union, is leaning toward supporting the re-election of New York Republican Governor George Pataki reflect the prevailing attitude among some top union leaders that in these times of budget austerity and recession unions have to take what they can get. Education, public health, mass transit and affordable housing have gone nowhere in New York. Unions have not taken to the streets to demand that the Governor defer a planned tax cut for the wealthy, or to progressivize the tax system; they prefer backdoor negotiations to mass action. In these efforts they have been largely unsuccessful.

But 1199�s president Dennis Rivera got a big chunk of the New York State budget: $1.8 billion to pay for wage increases for the union�s members and a hefty subsidy for struggling non-profit hospitals with which his union bargains. It�s a straight deal: money for political support, worthy of Samuel Gompers�s political philosophy. And the NYC Central Labor Council has shamed itself by supporting the Republican candidate for state senate on the Upper East Side to replace Roy Goodman who is joining the Bloomberg Administration. That they have snubbed Liz Kruger, a long time activist in the hunger movement and a formidable fighter for the working poor, reveals the degree to which the one million member New York City Labor Council, the largest municipal body in the country, has adopted the opportunistic politics of despair.

But what about the left? We must admit that progressives have hesitated to criticize top union leaders for the past half century on the argument that, however egregious the acts of some, anti-labor forces take comfort at internal dissension. I would like to suggest these are times for dissent. If the left means anything in the labor movement it stands for democracy, militancy and class unity. When our leaders stray or sell us out we must raise our voices.

-Stanley Aronowitz, executive council, Professional Staff Congress, AFT, AAUP (for identification purposes only). Aronowitz was a speaker at the PNLHA 2000 conference in Tacoma.