Freedom of Association

Everyone has a membership organization. There's the American Egg Board. There's the United States Polka Association. There's the California Artichoke Advisory Board, and there's the United States Croquet Association. Some of the less esoteric causes have better known associations behind them. The National Rifle Association and the American Association for Retired Persons are household names.

With such a tradition of private advocacy built into our society's framework, something basic is curiously missing from the list. Where is the association for the American worker? Why isn't there an association for the working guy, making sure their workplace is safe from occupational hazards, fighting for paid time off for new moms, vocational education programs, or job placement? If the National Rifle Association is so powerful despite some rather extreme positions, an American Worker's Association should be about as controversial as an American Teddy Bear Association, or a National Council for the Advancement of Puppies and Kittens.

An American Worker's Association would not be a union. Membership wouldn't guarantee solidarity in an international brotherhood. There wouldn't be any shop stewards, and no collective bargaining. It is just an association that fights for rights and benefits for all workers. If retired people can fight tooth-and-nail for Medicare, why can't everyone else fight for their own decent health plan? Why can't we push for policies that help with job security and a little paid time off, like every other industrialized country seems to have? Who's looking out for the working guy?

None of this is radical. Nobody here is talking about workers of the world uniting to seize control over capital. It's simple advocacy for a constituent group. Americans have always been an atomized people, but the moment there is a threat to something we collectively value, we donate to the cause, call our congressmen, hire lobbyists, write legislation, develop position papers, and protect our rights.

Why is it that government programs are hard to cut? Associations. Why is it that we can't even begin to offer reasonable controls on health care costs, or know who owns what guns? Associations. Why are there artichokes in most grocery stores, even thousands of miles from California? Associations.

As workers, every day, we see our benefits eroding through underhanded human resources policies, like offering flexible paid time off that's indifferent to whether it's sick leave or vacation, even as the total number of days is fewer than under the old policy. We see people who don't dare take any leave for fear of being deemed a drag on productivity. We see mothers putting their infant children into day care so they can make rent. We see flat wages even as management takes home massive bonuses.

Nobody likes any of this, and yet nobody does anything about it. To even talk about it is to run a risk of being called extreme. When it comes to worker's rights, there is a subtle repression in the social order, a tacit understanding that our place is to take what we're given and be grateful. But rights aren't usually given to people. You have to take them. Profit and productivity can be found in places aside from our paychecks and free time. If workers should have a little paid time off and know that it's OK if they get sick, we have to demand that it be so. If the culture of management is to include any form of social responsibility to match its power and privilege, it must be made so. Laws can change, and so can attitudes.

America needs an association for all of us, the working guys. How do we do this?