From ILCA online

Deep in the winter of 1776-1777, when George Washington's troops were freezing and starving at Valley Forge, the great revolutionary pamphleteer Thomas Paine penned some immortal words at that same time, in Common Sense.

They are worth quoting now, because they sum up what the labor movement faces with four years of George W. Bush:

'These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country. But he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

'Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us: That the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. 'Tis dearness only that gives everything its value.'

Why do we quote Tom Paine in 2004, some 228 years after he wrote those immortal words? Because--politically--workers face what Washington's soldiers faced physically that bleak winter, and we must gird ourselves for it.

Yes, these are the times that try mens' and womens' and workers' souls. Bush, having apparently won legitimate election to the White House, will--with backing of his business puppeteers and his congressional majority--deliberately and with malice aforethought try to destroy, kill, obliterate and smash labor.

Bush and Co. will stop at nothing to literally attempt to eliminate unions. The record of the last four years proves that, and now that Bush cannot seek re-election, there is nothing to stop the tyrannical Texan from carrying his anti-union hate to every logical and illogical end.

Name an idea and don't be surprised if Bush and his acolytes try it: Repeal the family leave act, destroy the minimum wage, eliminate overtime pay, substitute unpaid comp time for overtime, and outlawing card-check recognition. There's more.

Bush's Radical Right agenda could well include: Repeal of the National Labor Relations Act; destruction of workers' rights to sue for damages when they're hurt on the job a.k.a. 'tort reform;' baseball-style 'arbitration' of labor disputes; more unilateral bans on unions in the name of 'national security;' and --last but not least--privatization of public services, thus killing unions where they are now growing.

Bush hasn't announced these policies. His plans so far--which are bad enough--are for 'tax reform' that could tax workers' wages but nothing else, and diversion of one-sixth of Social Security's revenues to Wall Street-managed private accounts. But his minions and backers trumpet the others.

Which is why 'these are times that try men's souls.' Labor will not be just fighting for specific causes. It'll be fighting to stay alive. Bush wants to destroy us. Kill us. Line us up and shoot us. The point cannot be underemphasized.

Does the AFL-CIO recognize this? Do individual unionists recognize this? Frankly, we're not sure. The federation's Executive Council, at its Nov. 10 meeting, offered no complete plan to battle Bush. It concentrated on specific individual battles, not the wider war.

Individual unionists, despite Bush's record the last four years, split their votes on Nov. 2. Depending on whose exit polls you read, 33 percent-39 percent voted for Bush. And 2001-2004 could be a walk in the park compared to 2005-2009.

So let's go back to Tom Paine. 'Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered,' he writes. That's what we battle now: Tyranny and hell. It will not be easily conquered.

But it will not be conquered at all--and we in the union movement will suffer, as will all workers--unless we realize that we face that tyranny and we face that hell. Otherwise, we lose, and lose big. And the country loses with us.

Because if we lose--and the union movement goes the way of the dodo bird, as Bush and his big business/Radical Right dicta-torial bullies desire--the U.S. is converted into a Third World nation, with a small, rich, Republican elite lording it over a large mass of poor. Not only unionists will suffer; we all will.

So get ready for the long haul. Get ready to battle tyrants. Get ready, as John F. Kennedy said, to engage in 'the long twilight struggle, year in and year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.' We'll be like those starving, freezing soldiers at Valley Forge.

But not battling the British. We'll be battling Bush.



PRESS ASSOCIATES UNION NEWS SERVICE E-mail: Mark Gruenberg, Editor 1000 VERMONT AVE NW #101 / WASHINGTON DC 20005 / 202-898-4825 / FAX 202-898-9004



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