Labor & Employment Law

Paul Krugman: Walker?s Power Play

By Tula Connell

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s attacks on working families are not about shoring up state finances, economist Paul Krugman correctly points out today.

…what?s happening in Wisconsin isn?t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker?s pretense that he?s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin ? and eventually, America ? less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that?s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators? side.

Wall Street CEOs and their politican puppets like Walker recognize that the strongest and most effective counterweight to unbridled greed is unions. And crippling workers’ ability to speak with a strong voice through their unions is what Walker’s power play is really all about.

There?s a bitter irony here. The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America?s oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence.

Krugman further points out that anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that attacks on unions. Because ultimately, it’s not about unions. It’s about all people who work for a living and about maintaining an effective counterweight to the .

You don?t have to love unions, you don?t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they?re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years ? which it has ? that?s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 21, 2011 (boomark / email).