Ira Grupper irag@iglou.com
July - August, 2010
LABOR PAEANS— July - August, 2010
Ira Grupper
(published by FORsooth, newspaper of Louisville, Kentucky chapter of F.O.R. [Fellowship of Reconciliation] )
Despoilment of Eco Systems, & Loss of Jobs
Two major current tragedies confront the U.S. working class. The first is the degradation of our waters, and our livelihoods, by greedy oil magnates who sacrifice safety and the environment in the pursuit of profit. The second is the general high unemployment crisis, which seems to be deepening and upending so many workers’ lives.
In 1990, one year after the oil ship Exxon Valdez ran aground, spewing torrents of oil into pristine Alaskan waters, the U.S. Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act, so there would be rapid response to any future spills. The oil giant BP was a major part of the cleanup effort of the Exxon ship. Unfortunately, it took 20 years of litigation before Exxon paid up.
Now, over two decades later and despite this law, there is an even worse oil spill, with BP at its center. Yet nobody in government or in private industry can tell us just how much oil is gushing from the broken pipeline of BP’s ship Deepwater Horizon. Nor can they tell us what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of poor and working class people suddenly without work, not able to tend the oyster beds, shrimp grounds and crab habitats, or sell their labor power to the tourist hotels and restaurants of the Gulf Coast. Not to mention carpenters, electricians and so many others now jobless.
The despoilment of fragile ecosystems and marshes by the unbridled quest for oil profit is unconscionable, inhumane and barbaric. A June 17 AP dispatch reports: “Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water off Florida beaches, like forest animals fleeing a fire. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again…Fish and other wildlife seem to be fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast in a trend that some researchers see as a potentially troubling sign.”
Just as troubling was the testimony before Congress of the oil barons, and the outrage--despite their not pushing for past enforcement--of so many in the U.S. Congress, beholden as they are to the deep pockets of Big Oil.
Louisiana’s governor, Bobby Jindal, now wants Big Government and Big Business to provide massive government assistance. Don’t tell the Tea Party.
What are Mr. Jindal and company to do? Allow drilling and risk more spills, or prevent drilling and multiply the number of unemployed? Further complicating the lives of the proletariat: union and other pension funds, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, are heavily invested in BP.
On the state’s website, the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana reports: “The Chambers of Commerce, business organizations and local elected officials in coastal Louisiana are banding together to urge President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to modify the six-month offshore drilling moratorium in an effort to save over 20,000 jobs in the region.
“ The Gulf Economic Survival Team (GEST) has been formed under the leadership of Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Scott Angelle at the request of Governor Bobby Jindal. The team’s message is simple: The Administration's May 28 order, suspending all existing offshore drilling in depths greater than 500 feet for a minimum of six months, will cause irreparable harm to Louisiana’s energy service industry and drive a stake through the heart of coastal communities already suffering tremendously from the environmental and economic impacts of the BP oil spill.”
Yet the AP reported in early June that “…conservative politicians throughout the Gulf are suddenly warming to government solutions. All along the Gulf Coast, where the Tea Party thrives and 'socialism' is a common description for any government program, conservatives who usually denounce federal activism suddenly are clamoring for it."
As this column is being put to bed, President Obama just finished his address to the nation, from the Oval Office, on the Gulf Coast oil crisis. BP has agreed to set up a $20 billion fund, with more coming, to compensate those who’ve lost their livelihoods. What about the eleven workers who lost their lives? Will there really be enough money to pay for all the lost jobs and income?
Why was there all that chaos and jurisdictional disputation between the Coast Guard and BP? Can we trust either of them?
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Turning to the national unemployment picture, a fightback is beginning to take shape. The NAACP, headed by Ben Jealous, and the Service Employees Intl. Union (SEIU) are planning a massive demonstration in Washington DC on October 10. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other labor and liberal groups have been approached about co-sponsoring the rally.
The NY Times (May 10) quotes George Gresham, president of 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East, which is based in New York and with 300,000 members is the service employees' largest local: "It is annoying that some people treat the Tea Party as the only voice out there trying to speak out about the economic downturn…It's very annoying to see the Tea Party folks on television all the time as if they're speaking for working people, while all they're doing is divid(ing) working people and push(ing) our agenda back…”. Brother Gresham is also quoted as saying, “. I remember what Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the labor movement about reforms: `Go out and make me do it.' "
It is encouraging to see organized labor move from its seeming lock-step with the White House to criticism of moderate and conservative Democrats. Labor took a principled stand in opposition to Democratic Party right-winger Blanche Lincoln, even though President Obama campaigned for her, and despite her opposition to healthcare reform and Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
There were rumors and anonymous quotes from high-up Democrats, according to the Huffington Post (June 9), about organized labor’s opposition to Blanche Lincoln. “It was a remarkably blunt dumping on the unions (by the Obama administration). And, in the process, it provided one of the most telling revelations as to how frayed the relationship between Obama and the modern labor movement truly is. Up until now the two parties have generally aired their disagreements over policy and politics in private, with scant public acknowledgment that friction was building below the surface.”
Also quite telling was a statement from AFL-CIO spokesperson, Eddie Vale: "We are not an arm of the White House or the DNC or a political party. We work on issues. And if we feel like someone is standing up for working families, we support them, and if they don't, we won't support it. In the past, people would have assumed that was talk, but now we have backed that up with action."
A colleague of mine reminds us: “President Obama was able to split the Black vote between the progressive majority and the corporate candidate. The implications are serious and must be examined closely.” President Clinton aided and abetted, along with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).
In fairness to President Obama, his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have been pro-labor. Yet, the Democrats who stripped COBRA and other important support for laid off workers were being supported by Obama when they were challenged in the primary elections.
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We close with the news, as reported in the NY Times (June 13):“The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.
“ The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.”
A colleague used the exact language that I used on learning this: “Why am I not surprised?”
Contact Ira Grupper: irag@iglou.com