Departures

ORGANIZED LABOR HAS been on the defensive in this country for a good long time now. The unionized percentage of the work force has shrunk steadily since the 1950s, it now numbers less than a quarter of the total. New union organizing drives flounder much more often than they succeed, usually through intimidation and high-pressure tactics by union-busting consultants. Even in traditionally unionized areas--coalmining, for instance--non-union production is on the rise, as owners learn to outlast and out-maneuver their workers. The partisan political power of unions has all but disappeared; Lane Kirkland, as AFL-CIO chief the most important unionist in the country, couldn't even win Democratic support for a tax cut plan genuinely helpful to the working class.

Underlying--and overshadowing--these trends is a simple truth: Big time capitalists and conservative ideologues are succeeding in their attempt to paint labor unions as greedy, unecessary, corrupt and bad for the economy. There are the glossy ads of the National Right to Work committee, which is gaining dangerous political clout, especially in the anti-union South. There was the next-to-needless baseball strike, with the slightly revolting sight of vastly overpaid and underworked players demanding more. And now there is the most popular president in recent memory taking to nationwide t.v. to infer that striking air traffic controllers are greedy traitors manipulated by union bosses.

And Reagan has done far more than call names. For the first time in recent memory, an American chief executive has enlisted all the powers of the government to break a strike. There are troops in the control towers; federal attorneys are falling over themselves in their obscene haste to jail or levy exhorbitant fines on union men and women; and most of all there are daily televised threats from the White House. The President knows how to play the crowds, and he's found an easy victim. Forty eight hours and you're out on your ass, he says, and a nation angered at having to take the train to New York stands and applauds. It is sad proof of the weakness of American labor that he would dare such a thing--even sadder proof that he is succeeding.

Reagan just shakes his head sagely and labels the controllers criminals. There's a law, you know, and they've broken it, and my hands are tied. I don't like to do it, but... It is true that the controllers all swore they would not strike. It is also true that they had to swear it in order to get their jobs, feed their families, heat their homes and all those other little niceties. It is also true that the strike--and, the threat of strike--are the only power the laborers have. Public sector strikes are far from uncommon; what is new is the stubborn obstinance of Reagan, or for that matter Providence mayor Buddy Cianci, who has fired his garbagemen. In most cases, a strike by public employees brings both sides to the bargaining table, and certainly the controllers have indicated their willingness to work with a mediator. But Reagan is going all out in his anti-union drive; such a move would therefore be a "concession," akin to negotiating with terrorists (or hostage-takers).

If one supports the proposition that policemen, nurses in public hospitals, garbagemen, and air traffic controllers have the right to eat well, to work in safe conditions, and to retain their dignity on the job, then one must also support their right to strike--without it, or without the mandatory arbitration used for public safety employees in this state--the right to unionize is meaningless. And though the air traffic controllers present an easy target, being well-paid if overworked and subjected to ulcer-inspiring stress, they will be just the start. Before long, all public employees will be facing pink slips should-they dare to ask for more money (money Reagan must use to bloat the defense budget and the safes of oil companies), and with that precedent, it will soon be private-sector employees accused of tampering with national security. Hello, 1890s.

THE CALCUATED GAME of men like Reagan is especially repelling when set against their calculated support for the people of Poland (invariably described as "brave"). In the past week, Solidarity has not only shut down the nation's airports for short stretches, it has also staged work stoppages in virtually every other industry, stopped traffic throughout their nation's largest city, openly defied a government warning about provoking conflict, and told the country's political leader that they will wait him out if he does not change his policies. This is, on a larger scale, exactly what the men and women of PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) are doing in America. Some of the Poles, the bus drivers, for instance, would even be striking against the government if they staged their protest in this country. So why is Reagan saluting them?

What he is doing, of course, is playing cold warrior. He cares little whether the men and women in Poland have enough meat to eat at night, whether or not they breathe dangerous chemicals on the job, whether or not they live with some measure of pride. Reagan does hope very much that they can beat down his rivals, the communists, for that would be good for Ronald Reagan, and good for business. But his support of capitalism and his opposition to communism are obviously not predicated on support for common people's happiness; that is something he and others of his ilk do not support anywhere, especially in this country, for it can be very, very bad for profits.

If the Polish example provides irony, it also provides instruction, in this case for American labor. The basics of the movement that has begun to free Poland are not too hard to understand, especially for anyone who has read of the International Workers of the World (the IWW, the Wobblies). Solidarity is what Big Bill Haywood meant when he talked about "one big industrial union," able to bring a repressive, exploitative government of the bosses to its feet by the threat of a massive work stoppage. The Poles want a free press, mass on television, a full ration of meat, new faces in the cabinet, and the government knows it has no choice but to give in, or face absolute, unrepressible chaos. And by the same token, the workers are disciplined enough to know they cannot ask for the sky, because, quite simply, it cannot be produced.

Unfortunately the American labor movement will not organize the rest of the workforce overnight and combine into one giant American chapter of Solidarity (a worthwhile goal, however). But there is much it can do, and no better time than the present to do it, when the nation's attention is focused on the controllers. Every other major union in the country--especially the AFL-CIO, which represents so many public sector employees--should back PATCO, and with more than words. If need be, a general walkout should be called, beginning with the unions nearest in occupation to the controllers--the pilots, the ticket clerks, the porters. And, if necessary, the rest of organized labor should follow.

Such tactics are not necessary every time there is a labor dispute; clearly, that would be ineffective. And this is a special case--the government has upped the stakes in this battle, declaring implicitly that it will battle the right to strike with every weapon in its arsenal. What's more, the controllers strike is so much in the news that the intervention of the whole labor movement would be a shot in the arm for American unions--and those trying to organize new industries. The notion of brotherhood implicit in trade unionism would be made reality, and the unselfish example would do wonders to improve labor's image, at least in the eyes of laborers.

The true colors--the true greed for money and control--of our President and his corporate sponsors shows more clearly each day. Yes, a lot of union members were suckered into voting for Reagan, but now there is abundant proof to convice them of their error. With his televised threats, Reagan has laid down the challenge, and from it labor must not shink.