The U.S. Labor Movement’s “Pearl Harbor Moment”. The Supreme Court’s Hearing of Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association
War can sneak up on you. And now unions are scrambling desperately for shelter, realizing they were in the crosshairs just as the Supreme Court was about to pull the trigger. After dreamily sleepwalking in denial, unions were shocked and awed awake by the Supreme Court’s hearing of “Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association.”
If unions lose Friedrichs, the nuclear fallout might ruin unions for a generation, or more. Some unions seem shell shocked by the existential threat posed by Friedrichs, paralyzed by the Court’s intention to declare total class war. But war demands either surrender or a fight.
A red alert should be broadcasted across every union hall in the country and to the broader public, since Friedrichs is an attack on all working people. Union memberships must be educated about the dire urgency of Friedrichs, and be engaged in creating and implementing the strategy to defeat the enemy. By directly engaging members and publicly mobilizing BEFORE the decision in June, Friedrichs can be defeated.
Staying quiet about Friedrichs is a form of surrender. Some union leaders have already publicly surrendered, such as SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, who told David Axelrod in an interview that “by next summer, we’re [the labor movement ] going to lose another 2 million [members] because of a Supreme Court case…that means another chunk of the movement will be gone.”
Ms. Henry surely knows the Supreme Court is a political institution that is affected by political pressure. And SEIU members deserve a leadership willing to apply massive pressure, by any means necessary. An anti union Friedrichs decision is not inevitable.
The AFL-CIO leadership seems equally frozen by inaction. The AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka, also went AWOL in the Friedrichs fight. Trumka released a short video of him denouncing Friedrichs and telling people that they could learn how to “fight back” by visiting the website “America Works Together” (apparently he didn’t have the time to explain the strategy in the video).
The America Works Together website is bare bones, and uninspiring. The only thing resembling “fighting back” is a petition, directed against the anti-union group The Center For Individual Rights, which is providing the legal support for the Friedrichs case against the unions.
Of course, petitioning your enemy to stop attacking you isn’t very effective. And If the AFL-CIO is only using this tactic in the face of an advancing Friedrichs, their petition will be as useful a weapon as a white flag.
On the other side of the fight is the plaintiff, Rebecca Friedrichs, who has been 100 times more vocal in publicly opposing unions than the unions have been in publicly defending themselves. Ms. Friedrichs is all over the TV blasting away at unions, who steadfastly refuse to return fire.
Sure, Ms. Friedrichs uses half truths and lies in her attacks on unions, and yes she is backed by large The U.S. Labor Movement’s “Pearl Harbor Moment”. The Supreme Court’s Hearing of Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization:
