In his first State of the Union message, Abraham Lincoln our
16th President of the United States, said, “Labor is prior to, and
independent of, Capital. Capital is the only fruit of Labor, and could
never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior
of Capital, and deserves the much higher consideration.” The date was 3 December 1861.
Here in Chattanooga
and Hamilton County the past year, we have been inundated with so many
carpetbagging opponents of the card-holding majority of workers at the
Volkswagen plant here that is makes Tropical Storm Sandy which hit Chris
Christie’s State of New Jersey seem rather tame by comparison. Notice I said “card-holding majority”. Yes, a majority of workers at the VW plant
here in Chattanooga already have cards with the union.
The carpet-baggers
to whom I referred have as their aim the subversion of that already established
result. Some of the more prominent
outsiders have been from well-known Koch-affiliates, such as the National Right
to Work Committee. Don’t be fooled by
the name; the phrase “right-to-work” is an Orwellian term of Stalinesque
proportions. The NRTWC’s legal team
vigorously works to prevent labor from pursuing its right to work. “Right-to-work” laws favor Lincoln’s Capital
rather than his Labor.
Another
carpet-bagging group is Grover Norquist’s “Center for Workers Freedom”, which
has as much to do with the rights and interests of workers as the
anti-abolition Knights of the Golden Circle had to do with freeing slaves in
the ante-bellum years. As Deep Throat advised
Woodward and Bernstein in “All the President’s Men”, follow the money.
Naturally our business-oriented Governor, Bill Haslam, and
our equally corporate-friendly U.S. Senator, Bob Corker, weighed in on what
might seem the side of the poor, poor, pitiful underdog multibillion dollar
conglomerate. Tennessee House Majority
Leader and former Southern Democrat Gerald McCormick agreed.
It is a bit odd, though, that not only have they taken a
stance directly opposite that of the expressed will of the majority of workers
at the plant (remember the card-holders), but these supposedly pro-business
politicos also opposed the expressed will of the management and board of
directors of the business in whose name they pontificate.
Perhaps the most insidious of the organizations standing in
opposition to labor democracy is the one called Southern Momentum. Though other members have been quoted in the
media, its spokesperson is Maury Nicely, invariably called a “labor lawyer” in
the media. Since Mr. Nicely’s career has
been built upon defending business against labor, that’s a bit like calling
Vladimir Putin a gay rights activist.
Follow the money.
Please don’t get me wrong; I fully support the right of
defendants, corporate or criminal and even criminal corporate, to utilize
counsel in the forum of legal proceedings, and I understand Mr. Nicely is good
at his job. But what Mr. Nicely and his
group advocate is the same as demanding his court opponents come to court
unassisted by counsel of their own.
Denying workers their own representatives is the same as advocating
defendants be denied access to an attorney, which would put Mr. Nicely out of a
job.
One of the goals of detectives and agents of law enforcement
agencies in interrogations is to bully, intimidate, trick, or otherwise dupe
suspects into giving up their guaranteed constitutional rights. For some reason, our legal system holds that
this descent into the gutter doesn’t make our LEO’s any dirtier than those they
target; in the UK, suspects cannot waive their rights until they have consulted
an attorney.
The onslaught taking place with Norquist’s 13 billboards and
the rest of what I mentioned above is the attempt to do the same to the workers
at the Chattanooga facility of Volkswagen Motors. I urge you all to vote Yes, not only for
yourselves and your families, but for all of the rest of us and for all those
who have been the target of bullies. After all, he who represents himself has a fool for a client.
It is quite fitting that the vote for representation of the
workers at VW by the United Auto Workers begins on 12 February, the 205th
birthday of the president who ended slavery in our country, and ironic too,
considering his party has become what it is today.
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