Quid Est Veritas

Kim’s Birthday Cake
By Patrick Weadon
If you went to a decent high school, it is likely at some point you had to read John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” For those of you not familiar with the book, it tells the sorrowful tale of the Joads, a depression era American family that loses their Oklahoma farm and home to the dustbowl and the banks.

Prompted by a handbill promising work, they load what is left of their belongings into their truck and set out for the promised land of California. The hardship and horrors they encounter offer perhaps one of the very best critiques of the blatant shortcomings of capitalism.
To me, one part of the book that really hits home is in chapter 26 when the family is hired to work on a peach farm. As they approach the farm they notice people just like them on either side of the road urging them to turnaround, but the chance to make some money and avoid starvation overrides their suspicions that something is very wrong. They are led to a ramshackle hut and told they will be paid five cents for every box of peaches they pick. They spend the greater part of the day working and earn just enough (a dollar) to pay for a small meal.
A few days later, the family is surprised to learn they will now be paid only two and half cents per box and if they dare complain they will be removed from the farm. The Joads soon realize they were unwittingly hired as strike-breakers, and the greedy farmers, knowing the number of people who need work, have purposely played one set of workers against another in an effort to maintain their profits.
I thought about the Joads the other day when I read a New York Times editorial about the efforts of Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin, to destroy the union movement. He is right to address the fiscal challenges that have been brought on by the recession. Lost in all the shouting, however; the fact is the public employee unions never really fought him on his request to readjust their pension and health care benefits. They understand better than most that times are tough and state treasuries are in arrears.
Governor Walker was not satisfied with the union givebacks though. Like the California farmers in Steinbeck’s prescient novel, his goal is not just to reduce the workers’ wages, but rather to use the hard economic times as an excuse to eliminate the right of workers everywhere, be they public or private, to bargain in good faith on their own behalf.
Even today with the huge economic problems we face as a nation, the plight of the Joads in the peach fields of California seems like something from the distant past. It is important to remember, though, it was not that long ago in relative terms that the concept of the eight-hour workday and five-day workweek were seen as dangerous “socialist” ideas. There was no such thing as overtime or minimum wages. Moreover, at the time the aforementioned concepts were introduced, those who proposed such things were told if they were implemented they would ruin the economy.
I realize that unions, like all large organizations, have their problems. Yes, there are union leaders who are corrupt. Yes, there are myriad stories of unions who are out of touch with their workers and the economic realities of life. However, we should not forget, historically speaking, the union movement has acted as a check on the kind of heartless and unbridled capitalism that destroyed the Joad family and continues to tear away at the fabric of American society. Whether you like them or hate them the fact is that unions have played an indelible role in the creation of America’s middle class.
I read the other day that for her 29th birthday Kim Kardashian saw fit to give herself a million dollar birthday cake. That is not a misprint. Some say the cost of her birthday cake is her business, but I respectfully disagree. I think she would have done just as well with a 500,000 dollar cake. The other half million could have been used to help make life a little better for her fellow citizens.
For over a century, the union movement has made it possible to ensure everyone gets a piece of the economic pie (or in this case cake). So, Governor Walker, go ahead, cut the budget to the bone; you were sent to Madison to do just that. But please cease trying to destroy those institutions that speak not for the rich but for the people who do the real work in this country.