Americans have the right to strike. But under a little known 1938 Supreme Court decision, corporations have the right to permanently replace those workers. Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman look at ‘a booklet that’s a joy to read’ – and where US workers’ rights begin…and end.

Since 1953, the percentage of unionized workers in the United States has declined from 26 percent to less than 14 percent. Yet, given the choice of joining a union or not, 48 percent of workers in this country say they would join. So, why isn't the number of unionized workers higher?

According to Peter Kellman, a member of the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD), getting a corporation to recognize a union is effectively neither a right nor a protected activity. If it were, then the 48 percent of the workforce would become union members, elect officers and start negotiating in a heartbeat, Kellman says.

Americans have the right to strike, true. But under a little known 1938 Supreme Court decision (NLRB v. Mackay), corporations have the right to permanently replace those workers. So, what right do workers have?

They have the right to quit.

The right to quit?

Well, remember slavery?

Slaves didn't have the right to quit. We do. So, it's a step up from slavery, Kellman says.

Americans have little understanding of labor history, about the Knights of Labor, about Norris-LaGuardia (labor's Magna Carta), about the "labor amendment to the Constitution" (the 13th), about how the 14th Amendment has been used to protect corporations as well as to protect African Americans, and about how Taft-Hartley literally undid the protections granted workers by Norris-LaGuardia. Hoping to bridge the labor history gap, Kellman and POCLAD have published a booklet- Building Unions, Past, Present and Future.

The booklet is only 37 pages long - short and sweet. Kellman puts labor history squarely in the context of the growing corporate power that has crushed unionism as a social force. "We've gone from a period where working class organizations dealt with broader issues, represented the community generally, to a situation where the union institution now just represents workers in the workplace," Kellman told us recently.

Kellman opens a window on the history of the Knights of Labor. We learn that the Knights of Labor was a union whose members believed that the society should be run by consumer and producer cooperatives. They believed that workers should exercise power through the ballot and
the boycott. They believed in equal pay for equal work. They were integrated -- black and white. They had about one million members in the United States in 1886. They were responsible for many changes, he reports.

They didn't organize just in the workplace. Anybody could belong as long as you weren't part of the what the Knights called the "non-producing class" -- people who obtained wealth through stock, for example. All others were members of the working class or producing class.

They had assembly halls all over the place. In the state of Maine, they had 120 assembly halls, Kellman says. The booklet is a joy to read, and should be widely distributed. As should a POCLAD poster titled "A Call to Defy Corporate Domination." For those of your who know the work of POCLAD, the 500-word poster is a neat summation of the group's work and beliefs.

Here are some nuggets:

Corporations are not persons.
They are not citizens.
They are legal fictions created in our names.
We the People have the authority to do more than beg their bosses to behave a little less badly.
We can challenge illegitimate corporate authority.
We can strip corporations of Bill of Rights powers and Constitutional protections.
We can oust public officials who enable corporations to trample human rights and govern the earth. But we can't stop there.
Millions of people before us learned to escape their cultures of oppression.
They helped one another decolonize their minds. They analyzed historical and constitutional barriers erected against democratic self-governance.
Then they built popular movements to contest the self-proclaimed divine rights of predatory corporate masters.
Democracy can contest corporate domination. But democracy must be much more than holding elections, or even redefining business.
Until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.
We suggest buying as many of the booklets and posters as you can afford and passing them around to friends and colleagues.

The poster and booklet can both be ordered from: POCLAD, Box 246, S. Yarmouth, Massachusetts 02664. web: www.poclad.org Building Unions booklet: Single copies $8. 10 or more, $5 each. Postage/handling: one copy, $2, 2-9 copies, 50 cents each, 10+ inquire for bulk rates. Defy Corporate Domination Poster -- 1-9 posters, $8 each plus $3 postage and handling. 10-24, $4 each plus $4 postage and handling. 25+, $2 each plus $6 postage and handling. Prices refer to US only. Check the website for how to contact POCLAD for overseas rates, or write to their box number and ask.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999).
(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
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