College Hosts Bob King for 21st Annual Blavatt Lecture

By Jake Gramanz, Staff Writer

(Poster provided)

(Poster provided)

On Tuesday, the Eisenhower Institute hosted Bob King to speak at the 21st annual Blavatt Lecture. King is a renowned activist for labor workers and served as president of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) for 44 years. He has continued giving seminars since his retirement in 2014. King is currently a Lecturer at the University of Michigan, where he teaches the importance of collective bargaining to gain greater economic equality for workers.

King’s lecture “Labor and Democracy: What’s at Stake?” centered around the importance of unions as an issue of social justice, which he believes is an issue that everyone should be concerned of. He argued that many social justice issues focus on power and how the populace builds power, and this is the most important aspect of labor unions.

“The amount of power we have determines the amount of justice we win. This is true for all our struggles for justice,” said King.

King shared the steps that he believes need to happen for people to win the broad social and economic justice they deserve.

“We must show those in power that it will cost them much more to fight us and refuse our just demands than to grant our just demands,” King said.

Much of his lecture emphasized how unions traditionally require a great amount of influence over those in power in order to make necessary changes, which he said is true for every social justice issue. King gave several examples as to how workers have power: union density, collective action, collective bargaining, political action (rules of game) and broad community support.

While King acknowledged that there are many ways in which workers can gain power over their bosses, he also recognized that those in power understand this as an attempt to take away their power and will rig the rules and limit laws for workers coordination accordingly. He specifically cited the Wagner Act of 1935 as a win for workers rights, but King noted that the Supreme Court ruled the bill unconstitutional many times before Franklin Roosevelt had to threaten to rework the court system in order to get the bill passed.

King then analyzed the law that interrupted workers coordination and restricted the power of labor unions: the Taft Hartley Act of 1947, which Truman described as the “Slave Labor Bill.” King’s greatest critique of the Taft Act was its allowance of corporations to file injunctions that ended government neutrality and further limited the power of workers.

“Workers should have the right to fight for things that protect their family,” King said.

King explained his perspective that the goal of the super wealthy and powerful is to keep workers poor.

“Policies make dramatic differences,” King said. “Unions have lost power because the rules have changed.”

He compared the United States to countries such as Sweden and Germany, where collective bargaining is much higher and leads to better working conditions and wages. King concluded his lecture by describing the benefits of unions.

“Unions are not only good for workers, they are also good for communities and for democracy… Unions have been called ‘schools for democracy’ because they are effective teaching grounds for working people to engage in,” King said.

After the lecture, King opened the floor for questions.

One of the questions was about the Supreme Court decision being decided this term: Glacier Northwest v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters. This case is regarding companies’ rights to sue unions for damages that are sustained during a strike. King said that this case is about attacking the power of unions and how people exhibit “cannibalistic capitalism.”

“I don’t want labor unions to have all the power. I want a balanced society,” King said.

Author: Gettysburgian Staff

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