Watch this video and send it to anyone who has ever asked, "why do we need unions?"
The AFL-CIO and/or Change to Win should make a US version of this. It would help lay the groundwork for getting the Employee Free Choice Act passed after a Democrat wins the White House, and the Democratic majority grows in Congress, in November.
[One word in the video may require some explanation: "Superannuation" is a pension scheme in Australia. It has a compulsory element whereby employers are required by law to pay a proportion of an employee's salaries and wages (currently nine percent) into a superannuation fund, which can be accessed when the employee retires].
On his TV show Friday night, Bill Moyers included a brief (7 minute)
segment on the relationship of President Johnson and Martin Luther King
(and more broadly, the civil rights movement) that was eloquent,
inspiring, and mesmerizing. It is available on YouTube and I encourage
you to view it and spread the word to others. It really cuts through a lot of the recent tempest about the respective
roles of, and credit due to, MLK and LBJ around civil rights
legislation, honors the memory of Dr. King, puts LBJ's efforts in
proper perspective, and addresses the broader theme of the importance
of having both "outside agitators" and inside deal-makers to win
progressive legislation.
Grassroots organizing is the lifeblood of progressive politics. In the 1960s, many radicals looked at politics as working either "inside" or "outside" the "system." But the reality is more complicated than this either/or perspective. The recent tempest between the Obama and Clinton campaigns about whether Martin Luther King or President Lyndon Johnson deserved the most recent for the enactment of civil rights legislation provides an opportunity to examine the way things really work -- which is that all progressive reform requires both grassroots activists organizing from "outside" as well as liberal and progressive elected officials and lobbyists working from "inside" to push and then broker compromises to get things passed. This is the point of my article with Kelly Candaele in yesterday's HuffingtonPost.
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