How Nevada Caucuses Killed Myth of Union Intimidation

So rightwingers are taking great glee in Bill Clinton's taking up the cugel of allegations of "union intimidation" during the Nevada caucuses. See this editorial by Reaganite Lawrence Lindsey to use Clinton to more generally go after pro-labor laws:

Now that Bill Clinton has seen for himself that union leaders can and do intimidate employees over whom to vote for in a party caucus, he might want to think about whether union leaders might do the same things when something even more relevant to them is at stake--such as whether their union can win an organizing battle and begin forcing workers to pay dues.

Of course, the irony is that Nevada showed exactly the opposite, since Hillary actually won in the union strip hotel caucuses, reflecting that members felt quite comfortable publicly voting against their union leadership, as this Politico story outlined:

Sen. Hillary Clinton won seven of the nine at-large caucus sites on the Strip, sites her husband had derided as giving disproportionate influence to the 60,000-strong union...the stresses of a divided union membership carried into caucus rooms Saturday, as Clinton supporters openly taunted Obama supporters, waving noisemakers in the air at one site...No Clinton supporters within the union, however, complained to Sun reporters Saturday of any intimidation.

Rightwingers with ideological blinkers might try to see the Nevada caucus as an example of union intimidation, but for anyone with their eyes open, it actually put a lie to their propaganda. What the caucuses showed was vibrant union democracy. Yes, leadership elected by the majority sought to vigourously promote one position on the election and others in the union vigorously counterorganized. That's democracy and it's the essence of what makes unions great.

Conservatives whine about union intimidation but the reality is that it's the employers who fire and otherwise intimidate workers, not union leaders. Yes, in a union movement of millions of people, someone can drag up an example, but its the employers who have over 20,000 legally recognized acts of intimidation each year. This is why new laws are needed to make it easier for workers to organize unions outside that intimidation.

What scares those rightwingers is that while those Vegas workers raucously organized against each other in the primary, they are likely going to combine their organizing efforts in the general election. The rightwing doesn't want workers to be able to freely vote and organize-- they want them disorganized and as powerless as possible.

Everything is else is the same kind of lie Lindsey tried to tell about the Nevada caucuses.




Comments (16)

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Nathan:

Thank you for this post and I hope that you keep posting about the free and democratc labor movement in this country. I wish that so many of our liberal and progressive brothers and sisters would not have to be reminded that the union intimidation prevailing assumptions are largely a product of effective and long-term right-wing stereotyping. I am afraid that such stereotypes are accepted by too many well-meaning folks and, accordingly, what you have written here is critical.

I would love to invite Mr. Lindsey and other perpetuators of the union intimidation myth to the membership meeting I will be attending on Monday. The fly on the wall at that meeting will quickly learn of the mythical proportions of the notion that there is not a free and democratic labor movement in this country.

Well done Nathan.

Bruce

I wish that so many of our liberal and progressive brothers and sisters would not have to be reminded that  .  .  .  .

And I wish that you'd stop promoting groundless slurs aimed at liberals and progressives.  

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.

!

Does that imply that Bruce's response showed a missing period?
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

~

"The" Lawrence Lindsey?

I would love to invite Mr. Lindsey and other perpetuators of the union intimidation myth to the membership meeting I will be attending on Monday.

I would also love to see him show up there. Then you could ask him why he was dumped like an old pair fo shoes by the Bush Gang after Mr. Lindsey stated that it would cost the US in the neighborhood of 100 to 200 billion for the fiasco in Iraq.

Quick wiki:

He left the White House in December 2002 and was replaced by Stephen Friedman after he estimated the cost of the Iraq war could reach $200 billion.
----
On September 15, 2002 in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Lindsey estimated the high limit on the cost of the Bush administration's plan in 2002 of invasion and regime change in Iraq to be 1-2% of GNP, or about $100-$200 billion.[1] This lower figure was endorsed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mitch Daniels, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, subsequently discounted this estimate as "very, very high" and stated that the costs would be between $50-$60 billion.


With economists like that, who needs enemies?

Just another damn AEI Tanker-head . . .

~OGD~

Good post. I still wish a union hadn't been the lead in opposing more open caucuses. The labor movement is needed, just as it was in Europe, if we're to get radical change in America. But then it's going to have to act more like it did in Europe, as an agent of change. Praising the grass roots for ignoring the leadership will take us only so far.

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

Not sure which union you mean here?   Do you mean the teachers who brought the lawsuit against the special strip caucuses or the Culinary for supporting them?

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I would mean both.

Jack

"I would mean both." Me, too. We already have a party of "I want mine." It's the GOP. The labor movement can do better.

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

J. McCutchen

First the Clintons Machine created Tsunami Tuesday hoping to bury insurgent candidacies before the first vote was cast.

Then, when that didn't work, the Clintons machine moved up the Michigan and Florida primaries for 2/5 Disaster Insurance

Then, when that didn't work......

The Clinton's Michigan/Florida Scam
Mrs. Clinton Calls for State Delegations to be Seated


I thought she'd have the decency to wait until at least March before she sprung the fraud

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I thought she'd have the decency to wait until at least March before she sprung the fraud

Be very happy the lady has no decency.

No liberal should object to any lady of low morals. :-)

What is most unpleasant is the union backing for the Clintons. They are notable for their union-busting. It is as if Exxon and Big Pharma were heavy backers of John Edwards.

Best, Terry

"No liberal should object to any lady of low morals"? This kind of comment makes me tire of the insincere tone of

"Best. Terry"

Too many easy and empty phrases.

Center for Economic and Policy Research has union membership slightly up, at 12.1% nationally.

Nice news to hear--first increase in 25 years.

~

Thanks for the link Tom.

From that same link:

Among women, union membership rose from 10.9 percent of women workers in 2006 to 11.1 percent last year. Rates for men remained unchanged at 13.0 percent. This modest narrowing of the gender gap in union membership was primarily driven by gains among white women, whose unionization rate increased from 10.5 percent to 10.8 percent in 2007. African-American men saw their membership rate grow from 15.6 percent to 15.8 percent, but rates for black women fell to 13.0 percent in 2007 from 13.7 percent in 2006.

~OGD~

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Interesting.

We know that business operates on an autocratic model and has great power to muscle employees. Now we have the Nevada caucuses to demonstrate clearly that unions operate on the democratic model and in fact, even when union leaders want to muscle members, they are inherently ineffective. As far as their members go, they operate inherently in Libertarian or anarchic ways. Each member chooses to join and chooses to cooperate without effective coercion. Cooperation is voluntary.

Sure puts unions in a better light than business, doesn't it?

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