I don't know if anyone pays attention to the generic ballot for Congress, but things are looking up lately for Republicans. The aggregate on Pollster.com shows a generic Republican polling only two points behind a generic Democrat; at several polling outfits, notably Rasmussen Reports, Republicans are ahead substantially in the generic ballot. Coupled with the losses Democrats suffered in the New Jersey and Virginia governors' races this month, you could argue that 2010 is shaping up to be a bad year for the Democratic Party.

BarbMD declares "This is what is sounds like when someone representing the Democratic wing of the Party speaks" in reference to AFL-CIO president Trumka laying down markers for what health reform must have, including the so-called public option (It is unclear if Trumka is referring to Hacker's 2007 Medicare Plus, or the sliver public option being debated in Congress). Trumka's line in the sand is the public option, but where do member unions stand?

The Swamp's Mark Silva has a piece online -- complete with a picture of Joe Biden at President Obama's elbow carrying a caption mocking the President's introduction of Biden -- describing the first steps the new President is taking in an effort to undo the damage of the last eight years to our economy. Go read that first. I'll wait.

Don't miss the way Silva undermines the unions in the opening graf, either.

President Barack Obama, creating a "Task Force on the Middle Class'' today, also signed executive orders aimed at strengthening labor unions - this on a day when the nation's Gross Domestic Product suffered its worst slide in three decades.

Oh, hai. You're back early. The M$M, the Corporate Media, the shills for big money, the cheap-labor conservatives' mouthpieces, will harp on this meme -- unions bad, corporations good -- until the world looks level. They're lying. You'll need to remember that.

No doubt that's one of the more spinnable statements of the young administration. But.
What if that's really what the men mean? What if this administration really sees organized labor as part of the solution?
That's such a huge turnaround, right there on its face, from the Reaganomics BS we've been force-fed since 1980 -- 28 years of slops -- that I'm nearly in tears with joy.
Meanwhile, I'm making a statement here of my own and backing it up with some fair use quotes -- from Silva and other sources, below the fold.

Shikha Dalmia embarrasses herself in Forbes:

Detroit's Big Three need a bailout not because Big Labor has been too greedy but because American taxpayers haven't been generous enough.

At least, that's the argument that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm was making on Meet The Press and other shows last weekend. But Granholm ought to get her facts straight.

Supporters of ‘Medicare for All’ Prepare for Health Care Showdown

Union advocates of “Medicare for all” are organizing to make labor a united voice on health care reform—and to pressure Democrats to do the right thing.

Discussed in conference calls for months and officially launched in mid-November, the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Healthcare aims to mobilize a grassroots movement of union members that politicians (and union leaders) cannot ignore.

Organizers plan a January 10 founding conference in St. Louis to bring together supporters, especially those who can put the weight of their locals, central labor councils, and state federations behind the project.

All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care–HR 676

Washington, DC The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is the 20th international union to endorse HR 676, national single payer healthcare legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).

The endorsement came in a comprehensive resolution on national health care reform that was passed at CWA’s recent 70th Annual Convention in Las Vegas, June 23-25, 2008.

That's the phone company union. Can you hear us now?

Philadelphia Healthcare Union Endorses HR676

hiladelphia, PA The Delegates’ Assembly of District 1199C, Philadelphia Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees (AFSCME), voted unanimously October 8th to endorse HR 676, the national single payer health care bill introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D MI).

Following the vote 1199C President Henry Nicholas said: “No one has been more out front on single payer than our union. More than 77 million people will be without health care insurance as a result of the current economic collapse. We need HR 676 now more than ever.”

Utility Workers Union of America Endorses HR 676

Washington, DC. The Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA) became the 19th international union to endorse HR 676 after its Executive Board voted October 7th to endorse HR 676, single payer healthcare legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI). The UWUA represents over
50,000 members working in the electric, gas, water, and nuclear industries across the United States.

Gary Ruffner, UWUA Secretary Treasurer, said after the unanimous vote: “Single payer is the only way to consolidate administrative costs so that it cuts the cost of healthcare.”

Health care options debated at labor picnic

"What that means is you take Medicare and you expand and improve it in order to make it a national system," said Doug Bullock, an Albany County legislator and one of the organizers for the event. "We would keep the same doctors, but we would lose all of the insurance companies who have been wrongly making our medical decisions for us."

Congressional candidate Paul Tonko spent the afternoon with his constituents to show his support for their hard work and for the idea of single-payer health care.

Lincoln the railsplitter.

My Labor Day post from last year is a rare good 'un, and I can't improve on it. I recommend it to anyone who wants a quick 'n' easy overview of the history of American labor.

Abraham Lincoln on labor (Emphasis mine):

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

As the Olympic Games started in Beijing, the question of human rights in China has been already well discussed. What was interesting to me was a Guardian op-ed by Brendan O'Neill on the journalistic and activist distortions and myth created regarding the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989.

"Many have accused the Chinese of trying to control international perceptions of Tiananmen Square – Beijing's "blackened heart", as one reporter describes it – and no doubt that is true. Disgracefully, the Communist party of China's official position on the 1989 massacre is that it wasn't a noteworthy event. Officials still refer to it as "the incident", a shocking label for the Chinese military's massacre of anywhere between 300 and 1,000 people on the hot, heady nights of June 3 and 4 1989.

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Scott Jaschik was at the ASA meeting (I had breakfast next to him on Saturday morning) and he has an interesting article in Inside Higher Ed regarding the relationship between sociology, criminology and criminal justice. These disciplines are usually considered to be "cousins". Sociology broadly provides most of the background that goes into criminology, understood as the study of the ins and out of the criminal justice system with a theoretical background. Criminal Justice often includes the more vocational aspects of the field, something often nicknamed the "cop shop" aspect of teaching. So what are the issues here?  Read more…

Another failure of employer-based health insurance

If you were negotiating an employment agreement, you might consider taking an outstanding benefits package in exchange for a lower starting salary or a wage freeze. How would you feel if many years later, in retirement, some of those benefits were taken away from you?

About 3,000 former Maytag workers and family members have received letters from Whirlpool this week informing them that they are about to get cheated.

The sad fact is that under our system there is an enormous incentive to cheat workers. Canadian companies don't have this problem.

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

This session by ASA President Arne Kalleberg (website) deserves a post of its own, because I thought it was so good and important. The title says it all: when it comes to the meaning of work, socio-economic forces have made work more insecure, unpredictable, and risky. In other words, in the brave new world of work, the French concept of précarité is the name of the game: work has become more precarious.

Kalleberg divided his presentation into four sections:

• The causes of growth of precarious work as global challenge
• The consequences
• Rethinking the employment relationship
• Challenges for public policy and sociology

Steelworkers Endorse Single Payer

Colorado State Building & Construction Trades Council Endorses HR 676

NJSIUC Position Paper For HR 676 One Plan, One Nation Campaign And regarding Health Care for America Now The Trojan Horse

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Progress!! I managed to get Japanese food AND utensils, which avoided my having to resort to the same creative, yet shameful, solution as I did yesterday.

Things that suck

Please, my fellow sociologists: do NOT bring a goddamn infant to a presentation... believe it or not, it'll end up crying (no way??!!)... and you may be used to your spawn wailing, but it annoys the rest of us (especially me, which is all that matters).

CLIQUES!! Star sociologists hang out together and with the few non-stars that managed to latch on to them and ignore the rest of the vulgum pecus.

Things that do NOT suck

Being reminded why sociology is great and important and why I majored in it in the first place.

Panel 1 - Public Sociology

Ok, so, on to business. The first panel I attended was a panel on public sociology regarding sociology and the media.

[Disclaimer: I'm a big supporter of public sociology, which is why I blog... duh.]

  Read more…

Unions Back Plan that Could Kill Off Real Health Care Reform

The AFL-CIO’s and SEIU’s endorsements of single payer appear to be window dressing. They are putting all their energies into “guaranteed affordable choice.” They do it in their own names, and as members of the Herndon Alliance and the Health Care for America Now coalition, which became public July 8. These coalitions criticize single payer as “not politically feasible.”

UMWA Joins Labor Groups Endorsing Single Payer National Health Care

The United Mine Workers of America has endorsed a single-payer universal national health care system for the U.S. The mine worker’s union has joined more than 440 other labor organizations in backing the bill sponsored by Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan. UMWA President Cecil Roberts.

Montana AFL-CIO Endorses HR 676

Delegates to the 52nd Annual Montana AFL-CIO State Convention have approved a resolution endorsing HR 676, single payer healthcare legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), reports Jim McGarvey, Executive Secretary of the Montana AFL-CIO.

Montana is the 35th state AFL-CIO to endorse HR 676. The endorsement resolution was submitted by the Montana Education Association/Montana Federation of Teachers, a joint state affiliate of the NEA and AFT

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Via Context Crawler, thanks to a new article in the American Sociological Review, we should revisit the zombie meme of Opt-Out, the already-debunked idea that women are leaving the workforce to return to homemaking responsibilities. It is a meme that won't die (hence, the zombie part) because it seems to validate the social conservative and "family values" crowd that women REALLY belong at home with their children and if everyone understood and abide by that, the entire society would be better off.

The correlated belief is that the family is the base institutional structure of society, which has not been true in several centuries, as Stephanie Coontz has aptly demonstrated. But then, social conservatives and "family values experts" are never really bothered by facts and truth. After all, they still maintain that abstinence-only program and virginity pledges work, despite the evidence.

But back to the Opt-Out myth.  Read more…

The problem with health insurance

Representative John Conyers has a bill in the House of Representatives to expand the Medicare system to provide affordable, quality coverage for all Americans. H.R. 676 has 86 cosponsors in the House, and has already been endorsed by 30 state labor federations, 94 Central Labor Councils, and 348 union locals and other labor organizations in 48 states.

Zack raises a lot of interesting points in history and ask some good questions. I enjoyed this part:

Organizers these days tend to fall into one of two camps. The first are followers of Saul Alinsky, who is being remembered in this TPMCafe thread. They believe their job is not to lead, but to teach The People how to lead themselves (by practicing “leadership development” and “consciousness raising”). The other camp believes their job is to steamroller The People into doing what’s best for them (because they are not capable of leading themselves).

Please notice what these camps have in common: Both see themselves as separate from The People. Both see The People an object that must be treated by organizers in certain ways to achieve desired outcomes. One camp fancies itself more democratic; the other more realistic and results-oriented. They are unified in their belief that they each possess a special status apart from The People. To both, “We, The People” could only be a bit of good PR, not a sincere sentiment.

Bonddad and Tula explain the hard stuff so I don't have to. Bottom line: the investor class is whining like a bunch of skeer'd little bitches, and that's a good thing.

The U.S. House passed legislation last week that would level the playing field for employees trying to form a union—but judging by the reaction in the business community, you’d think the bill is the end of corporate freedom as we know it.

On March 1, the House voted 241–185 for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations. It also would allow employees to form unions through a majority verification process, in which workers sign cards to indicate their support for a union.

In attacking the bill, Big Business has misleadingly insisted it would take away the secret ballot election process by which workers now form unions. But that argument is a red herring. First of all, Employee Free Choice Act doesn’t take away the secret ballot process. Workers will have a choice between the ballot process and majority verification.

Tula, Mike and the gang run a great blog, and I need to link to it more often. As the minimum wage bill works its way through the halls of Congress, this post reminded me of a couple of points we need to talk about more:

Opponents of a clean bill to the raise the minimum wage—which is at its lowest buying power in more than 50 years—claim that without a multibillion dollar tax break lifeline, the nation’s business community faces economic disaster. We are not the only ones who say that is balderdash.

I'll confess: I like John Edwards. He's not perfect, and he's very much a 'slick politician,' but I've heard he's very dedicated to his wife and actually cares about the poor from people who know him, and thus I'm perfectly willing to get behind him over Obama "make nice with the fundies" and Hillary "Rupert Murdoch is my BFF." Steve says that Edwards has "the tightest hold" on Big Labor of any candidate including Hillary and Obama, and this WaPo piece has some details supporting that. This is good news to me, both because I think labor issues are key to the 2008 race, and because as a blogger, I believe labor is and should continue to be some of our best friends and allies in the emerging progressive caucus.

There are several reasons why I think bloggers need to pay more attention to labor. Honestly, we've kind of sucked when it comes to giving them the attention they deserve; I count myself in the number of bloggers who'd rather blog about the more titillating issues like Foley or Delay instead of giving props to the hard workers and organizers in the labor movement for the "little things" they do every day. But labor deserves more of our attention, for the most practical of reasons.