Anti-Union Campaigns from the Right

by Dollars and Sense

We received this from former D&S editor Abby Scher. Abby is currently editor of The Public Eye, a publication of Political Research Associates. Scroll down for the press release about the Making Contact program Abby produced on right-wing anit-union campaigns.

I've been tracking anti-union campaigns from the Right and did a short radio documentary for Making Contact being broadcast this week about the Right's misinformation campaign to stop labor law reform this year They are going all out. Unions are a potent reality check. People in unions don't tend to fall for a lot of the free market mythology about how the world works. And of course, the GOP hates unions because white men in unions voted for Obama by 18 points—while those outside of unions voted for McCain by 16 points (which I wrote about in the summer Public Eye, the quarterly I edit for Political Research Associates). My economists friends will be happy to hear I interviewed Rick Wolff. My historian/sociologist friends will be happy I included Kim Phillips-Fein. And my labor friends will be thrilled to hear Angel Warner of the Rite Aid campaign. Here is the press release with links to the radio show. I hope it is useful.

Berlet and Scher Track Anti-Union Organizing on the Right

Antilabor campaigns by corporate interests are nothing new, and are frequently masked by rhetoric about freedom of choice for employees and union leaders as thugs eager to take away your rights. Like most Big Lie campaigns, the truth emerges when we shine the light of history and research on the issue.

We are hearing these Big Lies in the first major battle to reform labor law since the 1970s. Then the reform failed by one vote. Now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Right to Work Committee and patriotic sounding front groups like the Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs are working to ensure that the Employee Free Choice Act suffers the same fate.

In a special Labor Day collaboration with syndicated radio program Making Contact, PRA Editorial Director Abby Scher uncovers the truth behind the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s multimillion dollar misinformation campaign to defeat the bill in the name of saving small businesses. Listen to her documentary, Still Looking for the Union Label, here. Or listen on Monday to Heidi Boghosian’s Labor Day interview with Abby on the show Law and Disorder at 10am on WBAI. Click here.

In a series of articles, PRA Senior Analyst Chip Berlet outlines the history of anti-union campaigns dating back to the 1930s, showing how the National Right to Work Committee and U.S. Chamber of Commerce have tried to “flip the script” so it appears that corporate repression of workers aren’t the problem, unions are! Visit our new page on anti-labor activities on the Right here.

With union membership dipping to dangerous lows, and 40 percent of union organizing drives stopped by corporate intimidation even before workers have a chance to vote, labor law is in dire need of reform. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the nation’s biggest lobby, spending an average of $400,000 a day in a single legislative session (according to the Center for Responsive Politics). It is spending tens of millions more spreading its anti-union message on the airwaves to shape the fall battle. Can the light of truth and the heat of organizing stop them this time?

Labels: anti-union campaigns, Making Contact, Political Research Associates, Public Eye, the Right, unions

 

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9/08/2009 01:22:00 PM