PHOTO/DEDICATED TEACHERS/FACEBOOK
CHICAGO — The Supreme Court decision overturning mandatory union fees for government workers was a major blow to unions, organizations and movements supported by unions. It was a loss for the members of those unions.
In the historical context of democracy in the United States, this decision further consolidates the power of the corporations and their control over the working class.
It is part of a systematic deconstruction of institutions and laws that were designed to control (or at least limit) the capitalist system in the political and economic interests of the working class. For some in the country (and world), that place as part of the system was never achieved; whole communities and sectors of the working class never had access to the benefits of the system offered and delivered to some.
Elected governors and state legislators have been doing what the federal legislators have been unable to do with labor law. These battles have been going on for some time as we see with the beginning of and expansion of right to work laws.
The governors and state legislators were democratically elected by their state constituents. The unions won democratically run (National Labor Relations Board) elections. However, the Supreme Court determined that process unconstitutional.
The consequences of this decision along with many others such as Citizens United (that decision changed a historical practice of controlling the amount of money in elections) have altered the process in favor of the corporations, their representatives and individual rights over the collective needs of the country and its communities. The leadership of the capitalist class has become an oligarchy (which the dictionary says is a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes) regardless of what we thought the government was at different points or how we defined the principles of the United States.
Many are calling on the unions to become more militant, or for more “grassroots” organizing to replace needed monies to support “progressive” causes or candidates. Clearly, we must do everything we can and no form of defense should be ruled out. However, we must recognize at this time the game is rigged, as with “gerrymandering” in the electoral arena. Many say we need to think outside the box. Nice cliché, but not a strategy unless we think in terms of understanding the message. This class (oligarchy) is doing everything within their power to control all the forms of government and social institutions (and those they cannot they will destroy). We cannot simply call for fairness or even humanity, or to sympathize with the victims. We must fight for the reconstruction of the United States beginning with control of the corporations and the democratic process. We cannot rely solely on gimmicks or accept the divisions historically imposed upon us, whether based on race, gender, age, rural or urban and all the others.
We need planning, organization and strategic orientation. This can only take place outside of the traditional institutional forms of struggle and in a class context. Otherwise these decisions and setbacks will allow the oligarchy to continue to shift the power toward a corporate set of values and morals in all of our institutions of democracy, and toward control by use of the police and a military state.
