Uppity Wisconsin

Mercury Marine (a division of Brunswick Corp.) wants to ditch Fond du Lac and the Fox Valley.

Merc says it needs to scrap its contract with the Machinists union, (IAM) Local 1947.

So how about Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac County, surrounding communities and Wisconsin pony up on a capital project paying Merc the difference in wages and benefits that Merc says it cannot afford on the existing contract?

Sounds reasonable to me.

Call it "economic protection fees" for the good of the neighborhood.

Update II: FDL Reporter: "Mercury union workers have voted down a contract proposal that company officials say would have kept Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac."

Update: See the Fond du Lac Reporter coverage for updates.

I come from down in the valley
where mister, when you’re young,
they bring you to do
as your daddy done.
- Bruce Springsteen, The River

The vote happens today. And an American corporation, Mercury Marine (a division of Brunswick Corp.) has made clear it is prepared to unleash an economic hurricane on Wisconsin communities with no regret.

Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, is the focus of press coverage universally stating the 1,000s of jobs and millions of dollars depend on the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) union vote today.

It's up to the union, they say with no mention of the deranged character of the Brunswick Corp.

What’s the worth of an American’s work?

If you believe that America ought to resemble feudalistic serfdom—not very much.

But since the later part of the ninetieth century when workers began organizing with fellow workers during the industrial revolution, the social and economic value of work, its worth, has been acclaimed as a valuable commodity.

Yet many through history, including the contemporary GOP, persist in believing that America's labor is not worth all that much and have endlessly fought, often violently, against the attempts of Americans to organize to sell their labor product at a reasonable price.

As the late Sidney Lens, the great labor activist and historian, pointed out: Thousands of corpses and cracked skulls litter the battle to organize and sell American labor.

The pro-labor view, held in today's Democratic Party and organized labor, is that labor is sacred and ought to command a price sufficient to raise a family.

The right to organize to sell the American labor product was enshrined in the Wagner Act of 1935, singed into law by FDR.

Wrote FDR in his statement signing the Wagner Act:

Paper mills dumping their employees has taken a toll on the lives of the type of people who are casual political voters and will make Wisconsin a landslide win for Obama.

From the Wisconsin Rapids area to Wausau to Green Bay-Appleton, 1,000s of millworkers are seeing how valued their labor and their lives are in 21st century America capitalism and world trade.

Jerks like McCain owning 13 cars and nine houses don't get it as he offers the option of buying health insurance fired workers cannot afford, and then slashing their unemployment benefits, while blasting the notion that Americans buy products produced by American labor.

I don't think McCain has any idea the destruction that losing one's job can cause, which is why I feel that Ohio and Pennsylvania will join Wisconsin in telling McCain and the Republicans to go to hell.

Walter Shapiro has an article in Salon reporting from Green Bay:

Update - Kimberly’s last remaining paper mill closing, taking 475 jobs (July 31, 2008)

Great two-part series by Barry Adams in the Wisconsin State Journal, Paper mill jobs disappearing; stunned workers look for alternatives, and in this morning’s Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, we read the news, Midwest Airlines to cut 1,200 jobs.

I grew up in Wisconsin Rapids and spent two summers at a mill working as a summer replacement employee (SRE), when I was a student at UW-Madison.

It was work, and a 20-something art history undergraduate woman was not always treated with immense kindness by long-time colleagues.

But Adams' articles capture well the devastation wrought far and wide. Few who grew up in the Rap don’t know at least one friend or family member who hasn’t lost a job in the last several years.