The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

On the final day of 2011 as I sit here sipping my coffee trying to remember, perusing the other top story lists and trying to figure out a way to sum it all up from here, one thing occurs to me. While the protesters in the Arab world and the Occupy protests are making all the lists, I can’t find one single mention of the protesters in Wisconsin or the reenergized efforts of organized labor across the U.S. on any of the lists.

Could it be that the American news media’s anti-union bias is at work here?

Obviously.

While the uprisings in Egypt started the year off on a protest note, the reaction in Wisconsin that rippled across this country seems far more important in the long-run for American politics and our way of life.

Recognizing what was happening in February, I wrote a column under the headline: Long Live Organized Labor in America.

At that time I was already in talks with labor unions in Alabama about turning to the Web to re-engage in the fight against corporate America, a battle that the unions had largely conceded in the public relations battle for the hearts and minds of this country’s citizens for the previous 30 years. But a significant Supreme Court ruling in 2010 already had union leaders talking. Citizens United v. FEC got people asking serious questions about the future of working people and the middle class in this country, and they began to ask themselves: Why do working class people vote against their economic self interest?

Even down in Alabama, a right-to-work state but with a long history of organized labor, more than 1,000 union workers showed up at a rally in downtown Birmingham to show solidarity with the protesters in Wisconsin and the teachers around Alabama who had been attacked by the new Republican governor and Republican majority in the Legislature in Montgomery.

To me, this was a significant event in these parts that was largely ignored by the local news media. Of course it does not make the local top story lists dominated by sports events and tornadoes beyond anyone’s control.

When the United Mine Workers shut down coal production across the entire state on Monday, April 5, so coal miners could join the other unions in a rally at Boutwell Auditorium, it was as if the battle between workers and management had come to a new crossroads.

Then, when the Republican Super Majority in the state Legislature passed a draconian law to try to run all undocumented Latino workers out of the state for good, a story that surprisingly also fails to make any of the mainstream media’s lists of top stories, even major national labor leaders got interested in the situation on the ground in Alabama.

This, to me, was also a significant event that will have long-lasting effects on politics and life in this state, and therefore deserves a mention somewhere in the press in this state, even if the local newspapers and television news stations are too afraid of their corporate advertisers to bring it up.

Those are the top stories of the year as far as we are concerned here at The Locust Fork News-Journal.

As for the top people of 2011? For our purposes, I would like to acknowledge two great men who I have had the honor of getting to know personally this year. Al Henley of Montgomery was selected as the new head of the AFL-CIO of Alabama. Here is a video interview with him at the group’s convention this fall.

Then, I would also like to acknowledge John E. Eaves, the business manager of UA Local 91 in Birmingham. Without his vision and recognition of the potential power of the Web to change the world, there is no telling if the potential of the Web Press in this state could ever be rallied. You can hear what he has to say about his union, his community and his views on the political situation in this video, along with his right-hand man, organizer Harrison “Whiz” Whisenant.

And in a story not told anywhere else, you can see the role played by this union and the other building trade unions when the devastating tornadoes hit Central Alabama last spring. In spite of a total lack of coverage or credit by any news organization in these parts save The Locust Fork News-Journal, these workers came to the aid of tornado victims just as much as any church or other non-profit organization.

Here at this budding online news organization, we salute labor unions and their role in American life and the life of this state. And we say again on this New Year’s Eve: Long Live Organized Labor in America. What would we do without them? Probably starve to death as paupers, slaves to the corporate masters and the Wall Street Bankers who would have us all eating fish heads and rice like the Chinese if they had their way.

Here’s to changing the world even more in 2012. We have only begun to fight. Maybe we will see other unions, the trial lawyers and even some of the non-profit environmental groups join this coalition for change next year.

Cheers to you all. Here’s to an even Happier New Year in 2012.

Tags: Al Henley, Alabama, Citizens United v. FEC, John E. Eaves, Locust Fork News-Journal, Top Stories and People of 2011

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 31st, 2011 at 9:26 am and is filed under Labor News, LocustFork.Net, Opinion, Organized Labor, Politics and Government, The Big Picture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.