Imagine Labor Day without Labor Law

In a message to local union presidents, CWA President Larry Cohen laid out the hard truth:

Unless we mobilize our members and millions of other Americans in the next three weeks to demand that the Senate rules change so that the President's nominees get an up or down vote as the Constitution provides, we're likely to celebrate Labor Day with no labor law for 80 million American workers.

There is a public conspiracy to destroy all labor law in this nation, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, virtually every corporate law firm, most management, the billionaires who fund the right-wing machine and their media outlets. The attacks on public workers in Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Jersey that spread across the nation and the current effort to destroy the NLRB are all orchestrated by the same machine.

Yet, too often, we wait saying it's not us.

Or some of our members or leaders say, 'Too much politics. I don't like my union involved.' Yet many of these same members complain about our contracts as if their contract was not part of these attacks, as if we can fix one employer or one contract in the face of unprecedented attacks on every front.

In the last three years, CWA bargaining committees and their respective vice presidents have filed 175 charges with the NLRB related solely to bargaining in bad faith or firing mobilizers during bargaining. The Board has prosecuted many of these charges and is a "floor" for our rights in bargaining and all our rights on the job.

The U.S. Constitution provides that the Senate, by a majority vote, makes its rules and that hundreds of key Presidential, Executive and Judicial branch nominees can serve once confirmed by a majority of senators.

As we approach the 4th of July celebrations, we have a very shaky 51 votes for the rule change that we need. But if it remains this shaky, we will likely lose and our bargaining will face collapse, as will nearly all private sector organizing and the rights of 75 million private sector workers who do not have unions but do have at least minimal protections under the National Labor Relations Act.

Sadly, the Republicans, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and their allies will celebrate this Labor Day with high fives and champagne if they have destroyed the NLRB or at least ensured that there is no democratic majority on the Board for the rest of this President's term.

No more business as usual in the U.S. Senate. It is time we take a stand, it is time we stand up, fight back and ask the Democratic Majority loudly, 'Which side are you on?' and 'what are you doing about it?'