Progressive Ponderings: On the Ground in Madison, Part 2

“We all do better…”

by Joe Mayer, Feb. 22, 2011

A few years ago I was invited back to the school at which I had taught for nearly 27 years to explain why I was a Democrat to a class of senior students. A State Representative was invited to explain why he was a Republican. I graciously suggested that he go first. He proceeded to explain that Republicans believe in individual responsibility and that people succeeded or failed based on their own initiative and hard work, and government had no place in helping them.

He failed to mention that he had graduated from a state college, that he arrived at the school on state roads, that he enjoyed police and fire protection provided by the city, that the court system enforced “law and order,” that his wife and children enjoyed the public library and public parks. He didn’t mention that the company he worked for thrived because of thousands of patents and copyrights granted by the government. He finished his self-made pontification by asking, “How will you like it when you start working and the government takes your money and gives it to someone else?”

Then it was my turn. I told these students that when I began teaching at their school there were no athletics for girls. They looked incredulous. They had never lived in a period of time in which females had zero opportunity to participate in sports. I explained that a civil rights law known as Title IX, initiated and passed by Democrats, mandated that schools provide equal opportunity in extra curricular activities. I then mentioned other Democratic initiatives, passed by Democrats, that made life more equitable and enjoyable. Nearly all the students’ questions were directed to me.

Just as these students had never experienced such discrimination in their lives and took girls athletics as normal, so too do the majority of our citizens take for granted their many employee benefits. Unions and Democrats are responsible for nearly all of these benefits – the forty hour work week, time and one-half for extra hours, child labor laws, paid holidays and vacations, safety rules in the workplace, arbitration for workplace differences, employer-paid or partially-paid benefits such as pensions, life insurance, and health insurance.

Unions and the State Government of Wisconsin were the first to provide two state benefits paid for by employers – workman’s compensation and unemployment insurance. Now is a great time for unions and Democrats to remind Wisconsinites and our nation that ALL workers, not just union workers, enjoy the benefits listed above.

School principals and superintendents, nursing superintendents, law enforcement superiors, and many workplace bosses who came up through the ranks all reap higher salaries because union workers set the base.

Conservatives have a hissy fit when citizens are educated about the struggles that laborers have endured to improve the workplace. Most came through negotiation – negotiation from a position of “strength in numbers” provided by union representation, but other advancements came with putting their lives on the line – and they sometimes lost.

Employers organize through the Chamber of Commerce and trade associations. They use their “strength in numbers” to deny employees THEIR “strength in numbers.” Conservative Corporate/Statists do everything possible to divide citizen/employees, causing them to fight among themselves. Citizen/employees, public and private, union and non-union, need to remember “WE ALL DO BETTER WHEN WE ALL DO BETTER.”

(Part 1 is here.)

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