The War on Labor

Before the Republican Party absorbed, and then was consumed by the Dixiecrats, Republicans hated workers.

Before Republicans became the Party of God (the White Protestants God only), they despised those children of creations who toiled in the fields and factories.

Before Republicans conflated intelligence and reason with treachery and treason, they believed that laborers were seditious plotters.

Before Republicans ever thought to attack them as communists, they denounced workers who tried to organize into labor unions as unwashed bomb throwing foreigners and anarchists.

The very same people who content that "corporations are people" believe that real people should not have a right to organize unions to counterbalance the power of corporations. Michigan is the latest battleground in the war on workers where an aggressively anti-union Republican legislative majority and governor are working to reduce the rights of laborers in the state to the menial status they hold in Alabama and Mississippi.

Republicans hope Democrats and unions don't fight back because for labor such a fight will be long, hard, and success uncertain. They hope workers will meekly accept being reduced to a lower social class. Republicans also hope if they can suppress labor rights in Michigan, one of the homes of organized labor, they will be able to beat workers into submission across the country.

Such battles are not new in Michigan. In 1932 unemployed workers peaceably marched on the Ford plant in Dearborn. Police and private security fired on the marchers killing four and wounding dozens others. The wounded were handcuffed to their hospital beds.

Workers flee police violence, Dearborn, MI, March 7, 1932