Walker’s union plan calls on us to forget

Someday, perhaps not too far into the future, some young person is going to look at his or her cup of Starbucks Coffee, read the warning about how it's a hot beverage and wonder, "Why is that necessary?"

It's because he or she doesn't know about the lawsuits filed by people who spilled hot coffee on themselves. As a result, most all coffee cups carry a warning to customers. But, over time, the origins of that warning are slowly forgotten, until we wonder why they were ever needed in the first place.

Perhaps Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker thinks voters have forgotten why so many people decided to form and join unions. Perhaps he thinks they'll take his slogan — "Power to the People: Not the Union Bosses" — at face value. Perhaps they won't recall that reclaiming some power for the vast majority of people was why we originally needed union bosses.

Walker chose Las Vegas' Xtreme Manufacturing on Monday to unveil his plan for organized labor. The highlights: Eliminate unions for federal government employees; make all workplaces right-to-work (unless state law says otherwise); eliminate the National Labor Relations Board; prohibit automatic withdrawal of union dues from worker paychecks if the money is to be used for political purposes; and mandate secret ballot elections to form unions (as opposed to simple card checks).

"Imagine what we can do in Washington," Walker told a crowd of about 135 people. "I've got a plan to wreak havoc on Washington."

He seems to mean it, too.

Walker invoked President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's views that public-sector employees shouldn't be able to join unions. Roosevelt believed strongly in private-sector collective bargaining, but felt it didn't translate to the public sector.

But if Walker intended the invocation of Roosevelt's name to imply the former president would harken to Walker's entire plan, he was attempting a mugging of historic proportions. FDR believed in the right of every American to hold a job with an adequate wage. He created the NLRB and believed in its mission. And FDR never saw a union boss (at least a private-sector union boss) as a bad thing.

That's probably because FDR knew something that Walker may not want the public to consider too deeply: the whys behind a Walker-style push for union reforms. Like many of his fellow Republicans, Walker seems to react with utter revulsion to anything that tends to aggregate political power away from those with money and means.

Lone workers — whether public- or private-sector — have almost no power on their own, despite those who say they should have the "freedom" to "negotiate directly" with their bosses. But as a group, organized to demand adequate wages and job protections, workers have proved to be as powerful as the corporations that employ them. This has never seemed right to the oligarchs who own or run businesses, or the politicians they support. But it has led to a decent middle-class living for millions of people, including people right here in Las Vegas.

Perhaps the greatest irony we heard Monday was when Walker claimed to act in defense of the very workers he proposes to strip of protections afforded by unionization. "I'm going to stand up for anybody who stands up for the hardworking people of this nation," he said at Monday's rally.

In that case, he should probably be found among the union organizers who struggled mightily to build the middle class that we now see slipping away ever so quickly, even as the financiers of Walker's campaign grow ever more wealthy.

When Walker tells "big government union bosses" that "we're taking a direct attack on your power," he's really talking to the millions of organized workers in America. They should listen and take Walker at his word.

Walker really does want to wreak havoc on Washington. But not in a good way.

— Steve Sebelius is a Las Vegas Review-Journal political columnist. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.