Thomas Geoghegan - Only One Thing Can Save Us: Why America Needs a New Kind of Labor Movement

Only One Thing Can Save Us

ALSO BY THOMAS GEOGHEGAN

Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?

How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life

See You in Court: How the Right Made America a Lawsuit Nation

The Law in Shambles

In Americas Court: How a Civil Lawyer Who Likes to Settle

Stumbled into a Criminal Trial

The Secret Lives of Citizens: Pursuing the Promise of American Life

Which Side Are You On?

Trying to Be for Labor When Its Flat on Its Back

2014 by Thomas Geoghegan

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Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2014

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Geoghegan, Thomas, 1949

Only one thing can save us :

why America needs a new kind of labor movement / Thomas Geoghegan.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-59558-865-4 (e-book)

1. Labor unionsUnited States. 2. Industrial relationsUnited States. 3. United StatesSocial conditions1980 I. Title.

HD6508.G374 2014

331.880973dc23 2014020463

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Composition by dix!

This book was set in Fairfield LH

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Contents

I owe such an enormous debt to the late Andr Schiffrin, co-founder of The New Press, for inspiring and shaping this book. He died in December 2013. I hope the final product justifies the support he gave me.

And I thank again Sarah Fan, my editor at The New Press. She makes me seem like a much better writer than I am. Once again she has been painstaking and patientand somehow got this book over the finish line.

My friend Jim McNeil read drafts and gave very helpful feedback. Other friends read parts or all of the bookincluding Len Rubenstein, Ed James, and Brian Cook. Please dont blame them for any errors or woolly thinking.

Thanks to The Nation for letting me write about Keynes.

I am grateful to everyone in our law firm: Mike Persoon, Sean Morales Doyle, Carol Nguyen, Hanna Dworkin, and Emma OConnor.

Finally, I am dedicating this book to all five of my brothers (and yes, thats right, I dont have any sisters). Its amazing that they turned out to be some of the best people I have ever met.

So, do you think labor will ever come back?

As a union-side lawyer I hate when people ask that question as if its my problem and not theirs. Youd think with tears in our eyes wed embrace each other and say: My God, what should we do?

Its a question now not of bringing back labor but of bringing back the middle class. And neither you nor I have done enough on that.

In forty years as a labor lawyer, Ive yet to figure it outand now?

You and I are done, said Ed, whos my age. Its up to younger people to figure it out.

Well, Im not done. With my 401(k), I have to keep going.

The other day I spoke to the guy at T. Rowe Price: What do you think? Should I be in bonds? Maybe I should preserve capital?

He seemed astonished. Youpreserve capital? You still need growth.

Im sixty-five and I still need growth. Thats why at this point in my life the collapse of labor is something personal. When I was younger, I thought of it as a problem for other people. But as I get older, I realize: I should have either saved more or made sure there was a labor movement to protect me. As it is, even Barack Obama seems ready to cut my Social Security.

It scares me how many of my friends are scrambling harder than ever. Heres what one told me: I thought when the kids were gone, my wife and I would have it easy. But somehow both of us seem to be working harder than ever. Those violin lessons I imagined Id be taking in the morning? Forget it. Its as if someone shows up and shouts in your ear: Fine, your kids are gone, theyre all through college, greatNOW GET TO WORK!

With no labor movement, no pension, whats to become of us? And were, relatively, well off!

At Starbucks I wince when the little old white-haired lady behind the counter says, Can I start something for you?

Start an IRA, for both of us. Only she and I know its too late.

At least shes working. I have friends my age who have no pension, nothing, and know they will never work again. They hope so, but...

There should be a March on Washington, said my friend Tony, for all us guys, over sixty, who know well never find a real job again.

Its the last act for us: old guys, marching, like the Bonus Army in the Depression. Perhaps, as in the 1930s, General MacArthur will send in horse soldiers to sweep us awayall of us tottering baby boomers who were never in a war.

Of course its for the young I feel sorry: after all, it was on our watch that a labor movement disappeared. Am I wrong or do they seem intimidated? So far as I can tell, at least on the El, they seem to shrink from one another. They stare pitifully down at their iPhones, which stare up pitilessly at them. Their own gadgetry sits in judgment of them.

But why pick on them? Everyone seems demoralized. In my practice, I long ago came to accept that when labor disappeared, Id stop seeing union members. But now they are not even employees. More and more I have clients who have signed away their rights to be considered employees at allwhich means theres no minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, no Social Security, nothing. Years ago they should have said something when the HR people said: Youre no longer employees herebut cheer up, youll go on working for us as independent contractors. In one case we have, the boss even made the guys set up their own personal corporations, as in John Smith, Incorporated. Then HR says: We dont pay you, John Smith, but John Smith, Incorporated. My friends ask: How can people live on the minimum wage? But as an independent contractor, John Smith, Incorporated, doesnt even make the minimum wage. Sometimes I think: one day, every American worker will be a John Smith, Incorporated, every cleaning lady, every janitor, every one of usit will be a nation of CEOs in chains. How did I let this happen?

At some point, maybe 2034, it wont even occur to us to wonder. Well just be too beat.

Im thinking of the road dispatchers we representthe guys who come out and jump your car if youre in an auto club. They used to be employees; now theyre independent contractors, and after they pay for the lease of the truck and the gas, they typically dont clear the minimum wage.

Or we may all end up like the cabdrivers. Right now we have a suit against the city of Chicago, which sets their fares. Were trying to get a ruling that after driving forty or fifty hours per week the cabbies should at least be clearing the minimum wage. They drive, and drive, and drive, up to twelve hours a day, but after paying for the lease and gas many end up under $7 or even $6 an hour, and some go in the hole.

What about tips?

Yes, thats with tips.