The Final Firewall

It is in vogue these days, and for many days before these, to attack unions as money-grubbing commie-loving extortionists. It is a sad spectacle to see poor people turn on the very movement that has reduced the number of poor people more effectively than any other institution in this nation.

Union contracts are seen as greedy, grasping, and unworthy of sanctity, while the contracts of hedge-fund managers and stockbrokers are treated as utterly inviolable, as if they were written in the blood of the Christ.

As a person who has been a member of one union or another since I was 15, I can vouch for the fact that they are corrupt, overbearing, and special interests in the very truest and worst sense of the words. And in addition to all this, they are profoundly necessary.

The only reason to attack and undermine unions is if you make the perfect the enemy of the good, or if you weigh unions against the almighty rather than the alternative.

There are two groups that are organized and rich enough to influence national politics. These are the most special of our special interest groups. They are the unions and the corporations.

As unsavory as unions can be at times, let us not measure them against the almighty, but rather against the alternative. The alternative to unions are corporations. The most cursory assessment of how many people, and what kinds of people, each group represents should tell us that unions are the final firewall between us and a banana republic.

Unfortunately, there is no powerful special interest group that represents poor people. Instead, there are special interest groups that represent the middle class (unions) and there are special interest groups that represent the ultra-rich (corporations).

Since these are the only 2 choices available to us, we must pick one. And my choice is obvious. The unions are the only wealthy special interest that does not worship wealth as an end in and of itself. For unions, profits are produced by workers, so they should be shared by workers. For corporations, profits are produced by the owners and should therefore remain with them.

The choice is clear. Americans create wealth like no other people ever have. Our two major special interest groups each have a philosophy on who actually creates that wealth and on who deserves to share in that wealth.

Corporations feel that investors and entrepreneurs are the most important people in the world. Unions understand how important investors and entrepreneurs are, but they also understand that without the workers, all the money and ideas in the world would never get off the drawing board.

So consider what this country, and this country's politics, would look like if the unions are crushed. Right now, presidential elections are either bought by corporations or unions. The alternative is an election either bought by Bank of America or Citibank.

If you don't think unions are indispensable, think about the concept of the weekend. The weekend does not exist in nature, or in the "free market". It was made by men. Union men. What corporation would suggest that people should not have to work every day?

Corporations would never have invented the weekend. They serve a master that would not allow it. But unions serve us, even if we don't serve them.