Pushed by a bankruptcy judge eager to save thousands of jobs, Hostess Brands and one of its biggest unions agreed to mediation on Monday, in a last-ditch effort to avoid winding down Hostess, the bankrupt maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread.
At the behest of the judge, Hostess Brands and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union, which represents 5,600 Hostess workers, will meet with a mediator on Tuesday to try to narrow their differences toward a labor agreement.
If the mediation succeeds, it could prevent the liquidation of the company and save 18,500 jobs. Otherwise, Hostess is likely to auction off its well-known brands, leaving the fates of those workers in limbo.
How wonderful. I was having trouble imagining a Twinkie-less world. And I'm happy to see that the hoarding of Twinkies (and other Hostess products) by exploiters of nostalgia and internet selling profiteers may amount to zilch. Serves them right.
I haven't personally eaten a Twinkie in years. But I might eat one if they are saved just to get the inside, cream filled story. The story about whether they are still awful in a very delightful way.
I confess, however, to eating a Tastykake chocolate cupcake (actually 3) during a recent highway journey. And let me tell you this, just so your anticipation of nuevo or redesigned or restored Twinkies remains controlled, it was not anywhere near as good as the product of the same name I devoured as a kid. And there's this bad news: Tastykake is one of the companies who are ogling Hostess's products. Be forewarned.
Thousands of pro-labor protesters are circling the Capitol in Wisconsin with dozens more inside.
While Gov. Scott Walker has already signed a contentious collective bargaining bill into law, demonstrators insist the fight is not over.
For some, the focus has shifted from trying to stop passage of the bill to generating momentum for recall efforts against Republicans. Others are simply venting their frustration over the law taking away most of public workers' collective bargaining rights.
Well, not quite. How about this, if I can edit this last paragraph so it reflects events, rather than MSNBC's "analysis." Yes, the recall is important. Yes, some are frustrated. But, and this is the big but, this is the start of a movement. It's the start of a movement to resuscitate labor unions, to build a strong alliance among middle class citizens, and to oppose the concentration of political and economic power sought by the Oligarchy and their Teapublican supporters.
So of course, the demonstrations aren't over. They're not going to be over at any time soon. This is the beginning and not the end of a movement.
The AFL-CIO has called for another massive demonstration today in Madison, Wisconsin.
If you're too far away from Madison to participate in person, please stand in Solidarity with the demonstrators by doing something to show your support. Buying pizza is always good. Posting on a blog is good. Organizing your own demonstration is great. You get the idea. Let's do it.
Thank you for attending the demonstration near you yesterday on Solidarity Saturday. It's important to turn up in physical as opposed to digital form, to link arms, to carry signs, to speak out, to be counted on this important issue.
I've been on fire about Scott Walker's plan to abrogate public workers' collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, and the copy cat legislation introduced in other states in which the Teapublicans and as important, the Koch brothers have control. I've written about it here and elsewhere on the Port Writers' Alliance blogs. I've bought pizza for the demonstrators. I've talked to colleagues and friends about it. So pulling on the heavy boots getting out the lined boots and the thermal underwear and hitting the pavement in Albany, New York with others was a natural, positive next step to express my view that the termination of collective bargaining for public or private workers, in Wisconsin or elsewhere, is an unwarranted regression to Teapublican Nirvana, the Nineteenth Century. That and every other atavism that increases oppression and exploitation, however disguised, has to be fought.
My hotos of Albany's demonstration are here. A festive, large warm crowd in a park with snowy trees.
What is next? Will Wisconsin's unionized police follow the orders to remove demonstrators from the state capital at 5 pm ET today, or will they ask demonstrators please to go and do nothing more? If the demonstrators are evicted will they link arms and circle the Capitol? And for us who are not in Madison, what's next for us? We probably have to dream that up, beginning right now.
Well, here I go again, oversimplifying, being idealistic, possibly ranting. To all of these I plead guilty. In advance.
President Obama's made a few statements about the demonstrations in Wisconsin. The most widely disseminated one is this one, reported in TPM:
Well I'd say that I haven't followed exactly what's happening with the Wisconsin budget. I've got some budget problems here in Washington that I've had to focus on. I would say, as a general proposition, that everybody's gotta make some adjustments to new fiscal realities. And I think if we want to avoid layoffs -- which I want to avoid, I don't want to see layoffs of hard-working federal workers.
We had to impose, for example, a freeze on pay increases for federal workers for the next two years, as part of my overall budget freeze. You know, I think those kinds of adjustments are the right thing to do.
On the other other hand, some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin -- where you're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain, generally -- seems like more of an assault on unions.
And I think it's very important for us to understand that public employees, they're our neighbors, they're our friends. These are folks who are teachers, and they're firefighters, and they're social workers, and they're police officers. You know, they make a lot of sacrifices, and make a big contribution, and I think it's important not to vilify them, or to suggest that somehow all these budget problems are due to public employees.
So, I think everybody's gotta make some adjustments, but I think it's also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to the well being of our states and our cities.
Sounds, feels, smells and looks like a politician. It's balanced. It's cautious. It looks over his shoulder to wonder which side might ultimately win the Battle of Madison. It sounds like he'd like to be on the winning side for 2012. What it doesn't sound like by any means is leadership.
Leadership would be going to Madison and linking arms and standing in solidarity with the demonstrators and union members against the reactionaries and would-be union busters. It would be standing up to the Koch funded "movement." It would be explaining clearly to all who would listen that these unions are important to sustained high pay in Wisconsin and the nation, and that the antedeluvian effort to kill these unions must be defeated. The Wisconsin football stadium might be a good place to hold the rally.
The President, however, hasn't shown any signs that he's ready to lead a fight for labor, his largest supporter. It looks like he might still want to invoke politesse and refer to these union busters as "the right to work" advocates with whom he has a small disagreement.
These people don't deserve that kind of deference. They have ginned up a plan to destroy public unions and are inflexible about it. They will not modify it or back off from it. They plan to destroy public unions. Period. They have begun by trying drive a wedge between public workers' unions. The teachers and highway workers and bureaucrats are ok to beat up on and they won't be able to bargain, but those the cops and firefighters, which are more traditionally Republican, will.
Today's mock phone call with "David Koch" proved beyond all cavil that Scott Walker is the lead dog running a national union busting movement. He doesn't care at all about the state's budget. This is another item entirely. This for Walker is only about destroying public unions. Yes, it's happening through the state legislatures, but this is a manifestation of an organized, well funded, nationwide movement to emasculate public workers' unions.
That's why the unions can't afford to lose this battle. And it's why President Obama needs to organize an appearance in Wisconsin. The unions have already conceded on the economic issues in this confrontation by agreeing to pay more for their health insurance and to contribute more to their pensions. Those issues are not what's keeping 14 Wisconsin legislators under cover in Illinois (or elsewhere). No. They are outside the state solely to protect collective bargaining. It bears repeating. What makes the confrontation persist is only one thing: the governor's adamant refusal to drop his plan for withdrawal of collective bargaining rights for certain Wiaconsin public workers. Plain and simple: the Governor insists on destroying these unions.
That's why the national democratic leadership in Washington needs to go to Wisconsin. And they need to go now. This is a confrontation that can and should be won. Obama and the national leadership have to stop playing Bert Lahr. They have to show up in numbers, and they have to roar.
I haven’t forgotten. And I’m here to remind you about unions. And union members. Here’s Pete Seeger:
Yes, I know. I lament that union membership is now so small. And that union power is at an all time low. I regret that so few workers are organized in the US, and I am aggrieved by the constant libels unions endure: for example, that the auto industry needed to be bailed out because of its union workers, not because of an overpaid, greedy management as dumb as a sack of hammers. The dominant narrative is that the unions and not the capitalists have caused the problems in the economy. So the unions and not the bankers should make changes. And that the unions are unattractive. That they are fossils. What a joke. What utter nonsense.
And now, again, the Teapublicans have decided that the time is ripe to try to emasculate unions. This time the unions are those representing Wisconsin's public employees. This union busting is nothing new. The Teapublicans have been anti-labor and anti-union for more than a century. They’ve never seen a lockout or a goon or a scab or an injunction they couldn’t justify.
Wisconsin has become the epicenter of an overt, concerted, explicit Teapublican effort to regress to the era of employment at will, the 6 day work week, the 12 hour day, no vacations, no sick time, no overtime, no workers’ compensation, no unemployment insurance. Remember the Steel Barons and King Coal, garment sweatshops, and intimidation of workers? Remember goons and Pinkertons and scabs? Remember Haymarket Square, Big Bill Haywood, Eugene V. Debs, Mother Jones? Remember all of that history, all of that tradition? Do you remember what it means and what it feels like? When unions are destroyed, when the power of unions is taken away, what remains is the Teapublican nirvana, the Nineteenth Century.
The Teapublican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, has made no bones about his aspirations to be the new vanguard of a national, union busting movement.
Governor Walker, in an interview, said he hoped that by “pushing the envelope” and setting an aggressive example, Wisconsin might inspire more states to curb the power of unions. “In that regard, I hope I’m inspiration just as much as others are an inspiration to me,” he said.
FreedomWorks, a Washington group that helped cultivate the Tea Party movement, said it was trying to use its lists of activists to turn out supporters for a variety of bills aimed at cutting the power of unions — not just in Wisconsin, but in Tennessee, Indiana and Ohio as well.
And officials seeking to curtail labor’s power in other states said that by focusing attention on public-sector unions, the tense standoff in Wisconsin could give them momentum.
Put another way, Walker doesn’t give a hoot about the alleged financial crisis in Wisconsin or the state’s deficit and pension and health care issues. No. This is his time to try to smash the public workers’ unions, and he’s going for it. And the rest of the Teapublicans in Wisconsin’s legislature are going for it. The threat is so real that the Democrats have had to leave the state to thwart a quorum.
This makes my blood boil. I’ve been for the Union my entire life, and I always will be. Unions occupy an important corner in my heart and soul. My great grandmother was in the ILGWU. My parents were in the NEA. And I’ve been in unions, myself. I’ve pounded the pavement for six weeks in Winter, walking a picket line and subsisting on strike benefits, to demand a decent wage. I will not cross a picket line. Ever. I am furious about the events in Wisconsin.
And I think that if this is a showdown, between union busting Teapublicans and state workers, we all need to remember which side we’re on. And we need to begin to find ways to act in Solidarity with the Wisconsin unions and to support their struggle for survival.
Me? I’m sticking with the Union. I will do whatever I can to support the struggle of Wisconsin's Union Workers. And I invite you to join with me.
Solidarity forever, for the union makes us strong.
The Times Record Herald reports that the New York Prison Guards Union has managed to kill a performance of an inmate musical production. The prisoners, it seems, wrote a play, a musical to be exact, produced it, directed it, and act, sing and dance in it. They were going to show it to prisoners at another, nearby prison.
Why has the production been canceled? Because the guards' union is mad at the Governor because of closings of work release centers in which union member guards are employed, supposedly for budgetary reasons. Not content to fight the Governor directly, not content to picket the Governor, the Union has stepped in to stop the prisoners' showing their play to other prisoners by threatening to picket the performance:
State prison officials have lowered the curtain on an inmate theatrical performance.
A troupe of 18 convicted murderers, robbers and other felons at Woodbourne Correctional Facility had been scheduled to perform an original play Wednesday at Eastern Correctional Facility in Ellenville.
But the state Department of Correctional Services has canceled the show because union workers threatened to picket.
"The commissioner does not want to jeopardize the program or the people in it by putting them in the middle of a statewide labor issue," said DOCS spokesman Erik Kriss.
Great. The guards are angry, so, of course, the prisoners, who have nothing to do with the dispute whatsoever, have to suffer. Is this the guards' reflex, to increase the prisoners' suffering? And is it the state administration's reflex to cave to this kind of pressure? Why is this all so very unsurprising? And how, you might ask, do the Guards explain this, so that it doesn't appear that they're just being bullies and dashing prisoners' hopes for no obvious reason?
In January 2008, inmates began writing and rehearsing their own Broadway-style show about the difficulty of living behind bars and keeping a family. The play, "Starting Over," was funded and supervised by Rehabilitation Through the Arts, a nonprofit group that seeks to reduce recidivism through arts enrichment programs. The group declined comment on the cancellation, but it forged ahead with a production of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" last week at Sing Sing.
Kevin Walker, regional vice president for the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, said prison farms, annexes and print shops have been useful because they teach skills that can be applied toward a job on the outside. The union saw no value in theater work.
"How many of these medium-security convicts do you think will go to Broadway and get a job?" Walker said. "We believe it's a blatant waste of manpower and funding."
Kriss rebutted that, noting that inmates experienced a range of new emotions and kept busy by learning how to act.
What a joke. And what a disgraceful reason to cancel the prisoners' play. Walker may be an ace union guy (not), but he's a terrible economist, a bad psychologist, and an even worse humanitarian. Is it impossible for prisoners' to do anything just to have a small token of happiness in their day? Apparently not. Not if the guards' union has anything to say about it.
The prisoners, of course, are up a creek on this without a paddle. They don't have an alumni association to stand up for them. And they have virtually no community support-- look what they did before being incarcerated. So they are the ideal targets for the bullies in the Guards Union and the weaklings in the administration.
If there were any justice, the show would go on. Citizens like me and you would insist on it. I'm not holding my breath.
Trance Politics: Are We Completely Distracted Yet?
Maybe the Rethuglicans think that no one in America will think about any serious issues until after November if they continue to provide tons of distraction, both intentional and unintentional. If that's their strategy, it's working unbelievably well in both Left and Right Blogistan and the traditional media.
Two quick, recent, simple examples of the phenomenon:
Example 1. There has been lots of blogging about Sarah Palin's not being the mother of her youngest child, the claim being that her daughter was actually the mother. And now, today, the refutation of the story. Not that photo of an obviously pregnant Palin. Oh no. Nothing like that. Instead, a story that her daughter is pregnant now, that she'll marry the baby's father, and so on. This is worth at least a week more of distraction, during which we're not supposed to look at Iraq, the economy, energy or health care. Instead, we're supposed to debate and/or scream at each other about whether or not Sarah Palin's daughter did or did not have access to contraception and compare Sarah Palin to Hillary Britney's mother.
Example 2. Hurricane Gustav takes aim at New Orleans. Embarrassed about Katrina, the Rethuglican's decide it would be unbecoming to have arch villains Bush and Cheney in public a coronation celebration while a natural disaster strikes America. They say that on this occasion they should act like Americans rather than Rethuglicans. Great. So we turn attention to how that will change their planned convention, and how they're getting briefed in Mississippi and Tejas. But why is it, if it's not ok to celebrate a coronation when there's a natural disaster, that it is ok to celebrate it while there's a continuing man-made disaster in Iraq, which has left thousands of US troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead and tens of thousands more maimed or seriously wounded. It's ok to celebrate when thousands of nation's youth are dying, but the mere chance of deaths or injuries or loss of property from a storm makes the celebration inappropriate. Does this make any sense? Only if you care about providing innocuous material to discuss instead of real issues.
Enough, I say. Enough.
Now I'm going to an American barbecue. I'm going to drink lots of globalized beer. I'm going to celebrate what labor in America has brought the nation. Things like the 8 hour day and the weekend. I'm going especially to celebrate the triumphs of the UFW and Cesar Chavez. And the IWW. I'm going to think about Big Bill Haywood and Woody Guthrie. I'm gonna hum labor songs. I'm taking a break.
While I'm gone, I hope folks will start to figure out how to break the trance.
David's new novel Tulum was just released. You can purchase it online at the usual sites as a soft cover or eBook. For details and to talk about this book, "like" its Facebook page and leave a comment.
