Massey Coal, Bloombito, and American freedom of the press

 Bloomberg news today has an article highlighting the plight of a case pending against Massey Coal and its successor, and also providing a good explanation of how the recent Noel Canning decision allows employers a way to delay justice for workers in all sorts of cases.  For a silver lining, I want to add that I think it says something good about America that an article in a plutocrat's eponymous newspaper could have such a forceful headline and message: "Workers Die Awaiting U.S. Justice as Companies Make Limbo".
 

Inequality on the rise, and the Sisyphean task of a labor lawyer

In conenction with posting this incredible chart,

 

 

 

the Maddow Blog concludes,  "I don't imagine Republicans want to hear this, but slashing investments in 'Obamacare,' education, aid to the poor, and foreign aid may advance a far-right vision, but these aren't the policies that are responsible for the existing budget shortfall." The first commenter says that Republicans just don't "get it." Maybe, just maybe, it's no accident, no failure of political comprehension, that certain politicians are promoting policies that "advance a far-right vision" whilst claiming that they serve a different purpose. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think a lot of those folks know exactly what they're doing.  

You see, after watching this viral video, I can't help but look at everything - everything - as part of this larger picture.  (The video is so good I'm embedding it here:)

I  saw a few people, pages, movements post this to Facebook before I finally watched it.  You see, I thought I already knew enough about wealth inequality that this wouldn't show me anything new.  I was wrong.  Somehow, the presentation here blew my mind.  After seeing this, I can't help but see the driving forces behind this increasing inequality in everything.  EVERYTHING.   Congressional budget cuts?   Check. The "far right vision" promoting the cuts described above? Check.  The forces behind those Bush tax cuts?  Bailing out banks but not homeowners? No raise to minimum wage in decades? Student loan debt? Check, check, check. It's all leading to this sorry, shameful, devastating state of affairs.  Even less directly economic things...  Criminal justice system?  Check (privitized jails, prison labor, among others).  War?  Check (See Eisenhower on the military-industrial complex, or Rachel Maddow's Drift.) 

Its not so much a conspiracy theory, exactly.  In my mind, it goes more like this:  of course the wealthy and powerful want to hold onto their wealth and power, it's human nature, greed, something less deliberate than a "conspiracy."  This country used to have certain counter-balances to those forces.  We had government regulations on banks and stock trading, minimum wage laws and labor laws, we had unions that consolidated the power of workers to offset the power of companies.  Now, it seems that so many forces are coming together creating the situation you see in the video.  Laws are being taken off the books, regulators are being defunded, unions are weakening.  Companies are consolidating, too, and these larger companies (say, Walmart) and their power over their enormous supply chains and networks of subcontractors creates even greater power that is more difficult to fight against.  Citizens United.  More and more money in politics, and more need for politicians to fundraise, and more need to listen to lobbyists.  The minimum wage wasn't intended to keep up with inflation, and hasn't been raised in decades.  There are so many forces contributing to where we are now.

So then, the next thing that comes into my mind - as I'm sitting here in front of a computer because I'm supposed to be working, so work is on my mind - is that the the trajectory of my career has been to move from helping the powerful consolidate their power (as a Big Law lawyer) to having a job where I am fighting against this trend.  Co-workers in my federal labor law agency are constantly bemoaning our lack of power, the right's incessant assault on our agency despite that lack of power, the sad fact that our process and remedies so often fail to help the workers we are meant to protect.  I have taken a more optimistic view, but have struggled to articulate it in a way that doesn't sound purely naive in these conversations.  But I think this finally gives me a framework to understand the positives and the limitations of my job.  You see, in putting all my energy into enforcing the remnants of a law meant to protect workers' collective power, I am at least moving the right direction in the Sisyphean task of fighting against rising inequality.  (When I say this, I actually envision a little guy trying to keep a boulder from sliding down a hill, and he exerts all his effort just to hold the boulder in place, but at least it doesn't run over him and go crashing down the hill.) If your goal is provide quick and certain remedies for workers who are wronged by their employer, my agency will disappoint you.  But if you view federal labor law as a lucky anachronism, a law supporting a movement that both should have been erased years ago, but despite all odds, still exist, then your view will be different.  To me, it seems that just doing my job, and doing it well, is a step in the direction of supporting the New Deal-era notions of collective worker power against the increasing consolidation of power among the powerful. 

By looking at my job in these terms, I can take a step back and ask whether there is a place where I can fulfill this goal more effectively, or whether I'm contributing something where I am (or again, whether I'm being naive, or just trying to justify making a comfortable government salary instead of a less comfortable non-profit one). 

My father worked in a steel mill in upstate New York until the once-vibrant steel industry was finally put on its knees. He survived takeovers by Koreans, Spanish, and some other foreign-owned companies I'm forgetting, until he was one of the last employees remaining.  I'm a little afraid that this will be my fate as a labor lawyer: that I'll duke it out as Republicans and the Chamber of Commerce wage war on my little agency, until one day, the whole thing will finally be shut down and I'll go out with it.  And join my fellow 99-percenters, I suppose, who were rendered redundent by the changing forces of our economy.  But until then, there are some workers who need some justice, however delayed, and an employer that needs to answer to me, whatever that's worth, for the war it is waging against its employees.