Dear Auntie Pinko,

It seems like everyone wanted to ignore Labor Day this year except stores running sales and candidates pimping Union votes. Almost nothing in the mass media and not even a nod from our distinguished Chimp-in-Chief, not that I expected anything from him. The Republicans have spent the last seventy years trying to roll back the gains labor made in the 20th Century and it looks like they are succeeding. I don’t see anyone in the Democratic Party exactly elbowing each other out of the way to help the working people in America either. If I vote Democratic in the next elections what will the Democrats do to help working people?

Mike
Decatur, AL


Dear Mike,

It has been a tough few decades for workers, indeed. But while you may feel disenchanted with the current lot of Democratic leadership, keep in mind that the Democratic Party as a whole still values labor and has a long history of helping working people and standing with labor. The Party’s 2004 platform includes ending tax breaks for companies that ship American jobs overseas, tax incentives for job creation here at home, investing in small and medium-size businesses (who create the most jobs,) requirements for labor and environmental standards in international trade agreements, protecting the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively, and prohibiting the permanent replacement of workers striking legally.

Unfortunately, since the Democratic Party controls no part of the Federal government, none of these priorities have been enacted. Since they’re in the minority, it’s very easy for Democratic legislators to make excuses for not taking action to help workers. If you know that your vote opposing some GOP initiative that will harm workers is pointless anyway, why not trade it away for leverage on some question where the GOP doesn’t necessarily have a solid majority? Many Democrats have made such pragmatic trade-offs, and it is discouraging for workers who feel effectively abandoned.

If working people get out to vote for Democrats, though, Democrats will know it, and will have a good reason to guard the interests of the working people who voted for them. How much they can actually do, and how fast, in the face of many urgent economic and national security priorities, is still questionable, though. It’s easy to forget that the terrible economic crash of 1929 dragged into nearly three years of Depression before Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office and found enough support (or maybe it was desperation) to make profound changes very quickly.

There are too many varying opinions about what is good for labor and workers, and who should benefit and who should pay for it, to allow any Democrats elected in 2006 or 2008 to make similar dramatic changes to Roosevelt’s. It would take something as dramatic and prolonged as the Depression to build enough unity and political will for (as an example) a single-payer National Health program, laws requiring responsible employee retirement program administration, a moratorium on tax breaks and subsidies for big corporations, or a major investment in forcing employers to keep from exploiting undocumented workers. All of those measures would make a very dramatic difference for workers, but none of them is likely to happen quickly.

Nevertheless, unless Democrats are elected, not only will they not happen at all, but those gains of the early 20th Century will continue to slip away, creating a corporate management class of wealthy elite and everyone else: underpaid, overworked, exploited and denied their rights to organize and bargain for safe workplaces and decent treatment.

Thanks for asking Auntie Pinko, Mike, and don’t forget to vote Democratic on November 7th!