I found a story, posted at Politico, about some disgruntled North Carolina business owners who were whining about how the DNC is favoring union labor for the preparations needed in the lead up to the Democratic National Convention next year in Charlotte. If so many of my fellow North Carolinians weren’t already suffering in the wake of decades of financial deregulation and anti-union rhetoric across this state the whole situation would be comical.
John Montieth, an executive at Heritage Printing and Graphics in Charlotte, said he spent, by his calculation, twenty hours a week for three months working to get convention-related signage jobs he figure(d) could amount to as much as $250,000 in business. “I went through all the hoops, went to the DNC meetings, Charlotte meetings, shook hands, and kissed babies,” he said.
Then, he said, one of the three top executives with the convention — he wouldn’t say which one — told him he wouldn’t be getting the work “unless you are a union printer. This is getting sent to union printers.”
There’s only one union printer in the area, he claimed, which wouldn’t have the capacity to do large signs.
Why aren’t there any more union printers in the state, much less the Charlotte area? Could it have anything at all to our state’s historic hatred of anything remotely resembling organized labor and worker’s rights?
Sherwood Webb, owner of the Webb & Partners project management firm in Charlotte, N.C., told a similar story to my colleague Emily Schultheis. Webb went before a committee of Democratic Convention staffers hoping to get a contract for the convention.
He was told the Convention was looking to use local contractors to run the project, but union labor to staff it — and then, he said, he was told he would have to sign an agreement stating he would use union labor for the project.
“We asked the question, how do you want to use local when no one local is unionized?” Webb told POLITICO.
It’s a bit late in the game to realize that screwing the little people in favor of the big boys all these years will eventually come back to bite you on the ass. You won’t find much union labor around these parts and there’s a lesson to be learned from the experience: union labor can be a strong selling point when dealing with progressive minded folk who stand behind their convictions.
Democrats “are trying their best to set North Carolina up to unionize it, but it will fail because unions are a dying establishment,” Webb complained. “Unions are nothing more than a social experiment.”
No Mr. Webb, unions are the living embodiment of what can be done when working people get tired of getting raped by capitalist serial rapists. The only reason unions appear (and often really are) so toothless and inept today is that some lawmakers since before the end of World War II have done everything in their power to strip workers of their human rights to organize and strike back against the tyranny of the dirty, rotten, filthy, sinking rich sons-of-bitches who refuse to play fair.
Neither businessperson suggested that the DNC should be forced to use local companies; indeed, “right to work” seems also to imply the convention’s right to use whatever labor it wants, which Montieth acknowledged.
“If they want to pick some left-wing staunch Democrat that’s fine,” he said. “I put three months into this. That’s where I get the chafed backside.”
Perhaps, Mr. Webb and Mr. Montieth, you should have gone in with your eyes open and accepted the fact that you live in a state which has never respected the rights of working people to organize and collectively bargain for better conditions at work; that has actively participated in the race to the bottom, lowering wages and cutting benefits to continue enriching the wealthy few at the top generation after generation. If you don’t like it, then stop supporting the conservative douche bags that perpetuate the problem and start demanding a better working environment for all of North Carolina’s citizens.
After so much capitulation we’ve seen from Democrats in recent years, it’s good to finally see members of the DNC doing the right thing and supporting union labor in the run up to next year’s convention. The fact that they would bring such a money making enterprise, not only a state where labor rights are all but non-existent, but to a city that is home to many malignant financial institutions like Bank of America, was insulting to most progressives in North Carolina and the surrounding region. It’s good to see them refusing to add insult to that injury.
Groovy stuff Thurman. Labor rights are being attacked all over the country, Wisconsin, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, etc. The attacks are mostly coming from newly minted Republican states who hold the governorship as well as the House and Senate; with their large business donars in tow.
The Republicans “claim” that empirical evidence demonstrates that states with “right to work” laws (meaning unions cannot require covered employees to pay dues even though they benefit from representation) have higher gross incomes than non right to work states.
I don’t know if these studies are accurate, but other studies show that wages and benefits are also “lower” in right
to work states precisely because union membership goes down–unions are squeezed for financing and lose representation and organization ability.
This is just what Republicans and their business backers want–to put unions out of business. The truth is that these moves by Republicans to attack unions have little to do with “economic performance” of states. Income and wealth distribution in the country is hugely unequal, with most of the wealth going to the top 1/10 or 1% of the richest segment of the population. Unions have the ability to negotiate pay and benefits for their members, they broaden and distribute more wealth to the middle and working classes in this country. That is precisely what we need.
Republicans anti-union policies keep wealth at the top and income distribution highly unequal. The real purpose of these policies is to kill organized labor, because labor votes mostly for democrats. It is intended as a political policy to knock out their opponents. (I must say I’m none to happy with Democrats either–it seems the national Democratic party is AWOL while these state attacks on labor go on.)
George DeMarse
Wake Forest, NC
I know Thurman writes a lot about North Carolina politics, today I’ve selected Republican Congressional candidate George Holding to hold to the fire.
I don’t know much about George Holding’s candidacy other than ads where he sounds like a “law and order” conservative like a Rudy Guiliani, whom I did not like either.
Conservatives banter on about “big government this–big spending that” with a lot of hot air. But they end up identifying the wrong problem with the wrong solution. The problem is not government spending, it’s a failing global capitalist system. It is not generating enough profit for consumption to energize spending by the middle class–yet the very rich are doing very well because they don’t need to generate additional profit–they can sit on what they have. Thus the skewing of income for the past 30 years to the very wealthy under Reaganomics. Government is spending to pick up the slack of a failing global economic system–without the spending, there would be even “less” economic activity and more job loss.
Your “cut spending” mantra is not a solution to our current troubles. A new social order is. OWS is right–although their message is muddled. I note conservatives aren’t chomping at the bit to cut defense and homeland security budgets–but those are the biggest budget items in the federal budget. So tell people what it is you’re really going to cut–social security and medicare–and of course the biggest conservative straw man–the Affordable Health Care Act. I don’t think the electorate will want their meagre benefits cut nor will it address the high price and average performance of health care in this country. As the economy goes down, you’ll pray for Obamacare, as you do for rain in a drought.
Conservatives like George Holding have a “clear” message–but it’s the “wrong” message.
George DeMarse
Wake Forest
I couldn’t have said it better myself, sir. Thanks for holding the fort while I had a bit of down time today.