"Will the Real Democrats Please Stand Up?"

Some things need said even if they are extremely unpopular opinions. Sometimes the emperor of thought has no clothes and needs to be exposed: In this case the subject is the legend of citizen government and the idealist concept of union democracy; dare I go forward?

I'll start with unions: When the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) was being fashioned to destroy the power of labor unions and debated, leaders of industry, corporate Board heads and their Republican lackeys fought to require union leadership elections to be held every year. Union interests wanted longer terms of office. A compromise was reached and three years was agreed upon. This was done in the name of union democracy. What a great Orwellian concept! After all, who could possibly speak out against democracy? The problem for workers and their labor unions then and now, was and is that anti-union forces couldn't care less about democracy for workers. Their long history of oppression of anything that even resembled worker's democracy is proof enough of their true sense of fair play. Their only interest in the term length of union officers was the potential for new, inexperienced, untested union leadership with whom to negotiate against their powerful law firms and highly educated and motivated corporate heads.

The government, the news media, anti-union forces and various bottom feeders have sold workers on the idea that every few years they should elect new leadership, "move it around," "give someone else a turn." The public was taught to distrust a union leadership that continues to get reelected. (They branded them "Union bosses" and referred to their subordinates as "union goons.") Those groups hold their breath during union elections and pray that the workers elect yet other inexperienced gladiator to send to the lions.

Members and other working men and women should reject such a bill-of-goods. The only people going to the table to negotiate the terms and conditions on behalf of workers should be those with the proven skills to do the job of negotiating contracts. Employers do not send the new supervisors and plant managers to the table; they send their attorneys, professional negotiators and their experienced top management. It is absurd and should be a violation of a union's fiduciary responsibility to their members to do otherwise.

Consider this: When is the last time you saw a crime in progress? Off duty police officers frequently spot such activity because they are trained and experienced at doing so. It takes just as much experience and training to recognize would be felons and to spot lawbreakers at the bargaining table. The reason it should matter is that whenever some inept bargaining team is abused and is in over their heads, they lower the standard for every other worker. The point in this case is that police officers should enforce the law and leave labor negotiations to those skilled at such tasks. The same goes for carpenters, plumbers, ship builders, truck drivers and every other unit of workers. The next time your union has an election, consider giving your leadership a chance to learn the trade.

In fact, the LMRDA should require that within a certain period of time after a union election, all elected union officials complete course work designed to teach them the skills needed in their various union positions. Failing to do so should require them to have to step down and leave the job to those who will take their responsibilities as serious as does the employer.

With the exception of betrayal, ineptitude or the unwillingness to learn, you should leave your leadership in place to learn. Your employer will not want you to do that; they will want new meat at the table. Workers need to know they are doing something wrong when they want the same thing their employers wants at negotiations.

Doing as I am suggesting is not throwing democracy out the window, it is to throw petty political differences out the window and putting a worker's skills to work at whatever they do best.

On that same theme, consider Bill Nemitz's column in the November 28, 2001 Portland Press Herald. Nemitz reasons that for the very reasons that former State Supreme Court justice Daniel Wathen dropped out of his ill conceived political career that "Quick, someone, elect that man."

Again, we are being asked to send to Augusta, Jimmy (Mister Smith Goes to Washington) Stuart. We are being told it might be a good idea to have an inexperienced, "naïve" perhaps well meaning person elected, because there is "…something oddly appealing about a man who thought, however briefly, that he could run for office on nobody's terms but his own." Therein lies the problem: Public service, just like union leadership has no business being done on an individual's terms. Dictators and other autocrats are the only ones who can achieve success on individual terms.

Those who have dared to point out the fallacy of Daniel Wathen's actions of the last month have been criticized for doing so. His actions and the results of them should be troubling to many. He sat as the final arbiter of serious issues of great magnitude, the results of which effected every Maine citizen every day. Whenever anyone in such a powerful position makes such misjudgments for all to see, it becomes not only proper, but essential to wonder aloud about such a person's ability to put broad-based life experiences to work in fashioning decisions affecting so many for so long.

We just love celebrities in this country, celebrities of any standing. (I have always felt that we should someday elect a king and queen. Just think how we could follow them around chronicling their every move. And imagine if they should have a little prince or princess: Son of Bush, son of Gore, son of Kennedy and the son of the other Kennedy.) There is nothing cute and fuzzy about a politically naïve person of renown, running for office when that person would not have even considered such a feat if they did not have a name to rely on.

To his great credit, Joe Brennen was always proud of being a politician. He knows the importance of experience in law making. He knows that the lobbyists do not change just because the elected officials do. A part-time citizen government is a great idea if all the citizens are Mr. Smiths and all the lobbyists are altruistic, unpaid advocates of noble causes.

Experience counts, experience teaches, experience levels the playing field and most importantly, experience prevails.

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