But despite fears from sports columnists and right-wing blogs that the protesters would “ruin the Super Bowl,” the only visible advocacy for some of the game’s viewers came in the form of a misleading anti-union attack ad from a corporate front group. The Center For Union Facts, an organization that has run newspaper ads comparing unions to Kim Jong-il’s authoritarian North Korean regime and endorsed an editorial comparing unions to Nazis, produced and paid for the 40-second ad, which ran in the Washington DC television market just before halftime ended. Watch it:

The ad’s claim that just 10 percent of current union members voted to form the union may be true, but it is incredibly misleading. Federal law mandates that more than 50 percent of a company’s workforce must vote in favor of the formation of a union. Most current union members, however, join unions that were formed years before and know that the union exists when they take the job.

The ad’s implication that the Employee Rights Act would put money in workers’ pockets is also misleading. According to the Economic Policy Institute, right-to-work laws cost workers up to $1,500 a year and also lead to reduced pensions and health care coverage.

Super Bowl broadcasters have traditionally banned ads that advocate for political causes. Year after year, though, it seems that ban doesn’t extend to misleading anti-union ads paid for by corporate front-groups that don’t disclose their donors.

For the last two years, many of the dining hall workers had been organizing to form a union, but the efforts stalled amid negotiations with the administration. Many on campus believe that the administration began looking into the employees’ work authorizations as a way to thwart the union effort [...]

“We were here for a very long time and there was never a complaint,” said Christian Torres, 25, a cook who had worked at the college for six years. “But now all of the sudden we were suspect, and they didn’t want us to work here anymore.”

College President David W. Oxtoby has denied charges that the investigation into the legal status of dining hall employees was a form of union busting. If he’s not telling the truth, however, a decision by the pro-corporate Supreme Court makes it unlikely that Pomona will be held accountable — despite the fact that it is illegal to retaliate against workers seeking to form a union. A 2002 Supreme Court decision drastically reduced the consequences for companies that violate national labor laws in ways that impact immigrant workers, leaving millions of workers without a safe guard against exploitative employers.

The decision at Pomona College has sparked plenty of criticism and debate on the small, liberal arts campus known for its progressive ideals and quality education. Students and alumni are pushing back against the administration’s decision, and are questioning the real motives behind the firings.

Protesters march through Super Bowl Village in Indianapolis

In the days since more than 10,000 protesters marched through downtown Indianapolis, union officials and other organizers have grappled with how, and if, they should make their voices heard during Super Bowl festivities. Daniels has warned opponents of the new law that disrupting the Super Bowl would give the state a “black eye.” Nevertheless, with the National Football League’s Players Association officially opposing the law, labor leaders and organizers affiliated with local Occupy groups have vowed to press on.

“If it does pass, we’ll use this, the world stage that is the Super Bowl, to spread the message that Indiana is an inhospitable place for working men and women,” Jeff Harris, Communications and Outreach Coordinator for the Indiana AFL-CIO, told ThinkProgress before the law passed. “And that the very people that built the stadium in which the Super Bowl is going to be played and the very people who built the city that is enjoying the limelight — the very people who made this possible — are being disrespected.”

The AFL-CIO will have a “constant presence” at Super Bowl events, Harris said, but its actions will be informative rather than disruptive. The union, which encouraged workers to meet with their state representatives in the days before the law passed and organized rallies outside the statehouse Wednesday, will pass out leaflets and pamphlets around Super Bowl village and Lucas Oil Stadium, the site of the game, Harris said.

UNITE HERE, a hotel workers’ union, has organized its own protest of the Hyatt hotel Friday, where several hundred workers will picket to protest low wages, missed overtime pay, and the firing of contract workers. Though its protest isn’t specifically tied to the right-to-work law, UNITE officials say the law will make their ongoing attempts to organize hotel workers harder, and other unions’ protesters will join their picket.

According to a UNITE release, DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, will participate in the protest. Smith has issued a statement and written an editorial against the right-to-work law, and several NFL players, including Indiana native and Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, have also spoken out.

In a January interview with The Nation’s Dave Zirin, Smith, who sits on the AFL-CIO’s executive board, said that “if the issue is still percolating by the time of Super Bowl, I can promise you that the players of the National Football League and their union will be up front about what we think about this and why.” Though Smith is slated to appear at the UNITE protest, the NFLPA wouldn’t confirm if he or other officials would aide other union protests.

But Smith has made his opposition to the Indiana law clear. “We share all the same issues that the American people share,” he told Zirin. “We want decent wages. We want a fair pension. We want to be taken care of when we get hurt. We want a decent and safe working environment. So when you look at proposed legislation in a place like Indiana that wants to call it something like ‘Right to Work,’ I mean, let’s just put the hammer on the nail. It’s untrue.”

Various local Occupy groups will also take action, local organizers told ThinkProgress, to show their support for Indiana workers. And even though right-to-work is now law in Indiana, protesters have promised to keep fighting. “This is not a fight that is going to go away,” Tithi Bhattacharya, a Purdue professor and Occupy Purdue member, said of the right-to-work struggle. “In the coming days and weeks we are going to have to build this struggle on the street, in the workplace and in our communities. Super Bowl Sunday is another opportunity to make our voices heard.”

Workers protest outside Indiana's capitol today

If the GOP had studied the state’s history, however, it might feel differently. Indiana Republicans passed a similar right-to-work law in 1957 over the objections of Democrats, labor leaders, and workers, and the law proved so unpopular that it lasted only eight years, as the Evansville Courier Press noted in November:

However, the new law was so unpopular that many Republicans were turned out at the polls in 1958. By the 1960s, Democrats controlled both chambers of the General Assembly and the governor’s office. And in 1965, they repealed the right-to-work law.

The events surrounding Indiana’s previous attempt at right-to-work bear an eerie resemblance to Indiana’s current efforts. Time Magazine, in its March 11, 1957 issue, reported that “some 7,500 wrought-up Indianans marched into the Statehouse in Indianapolis last week to protest against a ‘right-to-work’ bill,” which then-Gov. Harold W. Hanley (R) allowed to become law even though he “disliked the bill himself.” Last week, more than 10,000 workers marched through Indianapolis, and thousands have rallied at the state capitol this week. Current Indiana Gov. Daniels will sign the law despite previously saying that he though such a law would spark a “civil war” in the state.

And just like Indiana Republicans were hammered at the polls in 1958, Republicans in other states have faced public rebuke for attacking unions. Wisconsin’s anti-union legislation passed in 2011 led to recall elections for six Republican state senators (two lost), and Gov. Scott Walker (R). And while Indiana’s right-to-work bill lasted eight years, anti-union legislation signed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) was defeated at the polls by Ohioans less than a year after it became law.

Indiana Democrats made a similar effort to put right-to-work up to a referendum, a decision that, according to the Teamsters union, was supported by 71 percent of state voters. But Republicans, perhaps realizing that such a plan might lead to an ugly repeat of history, blocked those attempts. With studies showing that right-to-work is bad for workers and won’t actually help Indiana, however, Hoosiers may be yearning for a repeat of 1965 sooner rather than later.

– Make it illegal for government bodies to collectively bargain with employee groups. Public safety unions would be included in the ban.

– End the practice of automatic payroll deductions for union dues.

– Ban compensation of public employees for union work.

Arizona’s state government already doesn’t bargain with unions, but local governments and school districts do, so the ban would ripple through every school, local police station, and firehouse. “The Republican majority has established themselves to be very much anti-employee,” said state Sen. David Lujan (D). “It’s just another strike at those who choose to be public service employees. Their voice is not valued.”

The legislation originated with the libertarian think tank the Goldwater Institute, which counts the Walton Foundation (the Waltons of the Walmart fortune) and the Charles Koch Foundation amongst its top donors.

The Arizona GOP, predictably, is blaming public sector unions for the state’s budget woes, with the bill’s Republican sponsor claiming that “taxpayers’ costs from public employee contracts negotiated by unions for pay and benefits burden taxpayers.” However, the facts don’t support that theory. In fact, North Carolina (a state without collective bargaining) is projected to have a 10 percent budget deficit for the 2013 fiscal year, compared to 3.5 percent for New York (more densely unionized than any other).

And, of course, unions have the added benefits of alleviating income inequality and pushing for important worker protections. Arizona Republicans, in fact, might want to learn a lesson from Ohio, as the Ohio GOP saw its union-busting law repealed via referendum following a strong public outcry.

Tom Brady (left) and Osi Umenyiora

Over the next 10 days, the National Football League will have a similar chance to make a difference.

Just two weeks before Super Bowl XLVI kicks off at Lucas Oil Field in Indianapolis, more than 10,000 people marched through the city to protest right-to-work legislation that is being pushed through the state’s legislature. The legislation passed the state Senate this week and the state House today, and is backed by Gov. Mitch Daniels (R). Considering the NFL nearly lost its 2011 season, and Super Bowl XLVI with it, to a labor dispute, Indiana Republicans’ assault on workers is a cause the players should be familiar with.

Fortunately, there are signs that the NFL players aren’t going to repeat Major League Baseball’s mistake. Several players have spoken out against the legislation, and NFL Players Association President DeMaurice Smith said his organization is already taking action. “We’ve been on picket lines in Indianapolis already with hotel workers who were basically pushed to the point of breaking on the hotel rooms that they had to clean because they were not union workers,” Smith told the Nation. “We’ve been on picket lines in Boston and San Antonio. So, the idea of participating in a legal protest is something that we’ve done before.”

That’s a good first step. But it’s not enough. Indiana union officials are contemplating disrupting Super Bowl-related events to draw attention to their cause, clogging city streets and slowing down events around Lucas Oil Stadium (which was built and is maintained by union workers). Labor leaders are hesitant, though, fearing that such actions could give the city and their cause “a black eye” with people who think sports and politics don’t mix. If some of the league’s top players, particularly those participating in the Super Bowl, spoke in support of those efforts, however, that perception could change.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, one of the NFL’s most recognizable players, felt strongly enough about his own rights that he signed on as a plaintiff in the players’ antitrust lawsuit against the league last year. So did Logan Mankins, Brady’s teammate, and Osi Umenyiora, a prominent defensive end for the New York Giants. Those players were willing to risk backlash from the league, public scrutiny, and their own images to fight league owners for better benefits and wages. In the week leading up to the Super Bowl, they should do the same for workers who don’t have the luxury of multimillion-dollar contracts, rich endorsement deals, and the good fortune of playing a game for a living.

Sure, with Super Bowl week ahead of them, political causes may be the furthest thing from the minds of most players. But with thousands of reporters conducting hundreds of interviews before, during, and after the big game, the players will have the chance to stand up for the rights of people they should be fighting for. Unlike their counterparts in baseball, they shouldn’t blow it.

But things have not always been this way. In fact, 50 years ago this week, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, which allowed most federal workers to bargain collectively for the first time. As Prof. Joseph McCartin writes in the Los Angeles Times, the effects of Kennedy’s order were much more extensive than that, and, at the time, more popular:

At the time Kennedy acted, very few workers at any level of government had won the right to bargain collectively with their employers. Federal action helped inspire many states and localities to follow suit, allowing their own workers to organize. This triggered a huge wave of unionization in the public sector that saw firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers, social workers and many others form unions in the 1960s and ’70s.

For 20 years after Kennedy’s order, public sector union rights were not controversial. To the contrary, they enjoyed bipartisan support — even from conservatism’s leading light, Ronald Reagan. Reagan, as governor of California, presided over the extension of collective bargaining rights to state and local workers in 1968.

So how have we ended up here, with unions a favorite target of conservatives? McCartin argues that much of the decline in public support for bargaining came from Reagan breaking the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization strike in 1981. This event was cited by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) when he went on his union-busting rampage.

Blaming public sector workers for government’s fiscal woes may be popular, but the facts don’t support that thesis. As McCartin notes, North Carolina (a state without collective bargaining) is projected to have a 10 percent budget deficit for the 2013 fiscal year, compared to 3.5 percent for New York (more densely unionized than any other). In the case of the federal deficit, studies show that the lion’s share of the increase has come from Bush-era policies like the wars and tax cuts, as well as the effects of the recession. Pay for federal workers does not come close to registering.

One topic that rarely gets discussed is how much unions have actually done to benefit everyone — such as giving us the weekend and ending child labor. Nor do we hear much about the correlation between union membership rates and middle-class incomes, nor how a drop in union membership has exacerbated income inequality in the U.S.

– Zachary Bernstein

To win, we have to work together and look out for one another. Today, even as the city of Indianapolis is exemplifying that teamwork in preparing to host the Super Bowl, politicians are looking to destroy it trying to ram through so-called “right-to-work” legislation.

“Right-to-work” is a political ploy designed to destroy basic workers’ rights. It’s not about jobs or rights, and it’s the wrong priority for Indiana. [...]

As Indianapolis proudly prepares to host the Super Bowl it should be a time to shine in the national spotlight and highlight the hard working families that make Indiana run instead of launching political attacks on their basic rights. It is important to keep in mind the plight of the average Indiana worker and not let them get lost in the ceremony and spectacle of such a special event. This Super Bowl should be about celebrating the best of what Indianapolis has to offer, not about legislation that hurts the people of Indiana.

Conservatives love to claim that being “right to work” helps a state boost its economy. But according to the Economic Policy Institute, “right to work” laws, far from helping workers, actually:

– reduce wages by $1,500 a year, for both union and nonunion workers, after accounting for different costs of living in the states;

– lower the likelihood that employees get healthcare or pensions through their jobs—again, for both union and nonunion employees;

– have no impact whatsoever on job growth

Indiana Republicans have, so far, not backed down in their desire to move the bill through the legislature. But as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow put it, the GOP may want to rethink that strategy considering that “”America’s most celebrated union members (the NFL players) and a whole lot of national media are coming to town.”

Nevertheless, Gableman did not simply accept these services from a law firm that frequently appears before his court, he cast the key vote in two cases argued by that law firm — including the single most contentious case heard by the state supreme court this year:

State Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman in two cases cast the deciding vote in favor of parties represented by a law firm that gave him tens of thousands of dollars of free legal services, a review of state records shows.

One of those was a high-stakes case this June that allowed Gov. Scott Walker to implement a law that all but eliminates collective bargaining for most public workers. Gableman was in the 4-3 majority that allowed Walker to prevail. Michael Best & Friedrich – the firm that defended Gableman for free in an ethics case – worked for the state and Walker’s administration in the collective bargaining case. [...]

Since the firm started representing Gableman in the ethics case in July 2008, Gableman has participated in nine cases in which the court voted on substantive issues involving Michael Best clients. Gableman ruled in those clients’ favor in five of those cases – more than any other justice.

Gableman joined the state supreme court in 2008 after corporate lobbyists and other right-wing groups spent $1.3 million to elect him to his current job. Wisconsin voters are far from powerless against Gableman’s casual approach to judicial ethics, however. Because Gableman has served more than a year of his current term in elected office, Wisconsin election law allows him to be recalled.

2012 GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich called it “a victory for South Carolina and all right-to-work states,” while Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said it is “a victory for American manufacturers, workers and the cause of job creation.”

Ever since the NLRB first filed the complaint, the GOP has mischaracterized it as having something to do with so-called “right-to-work” states, states where workers are allowed to free-ride on union contracts. However, the actual complaint was about whether or not Boeing moved a production line from Washington to South Carolina in retaliation against workers for striking.

It is illegal to shift production in order to retaliate against workers, and Boeing executives, on-tape, pretty clearly said that their motive for moving to South Carolina was to do just that. As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick wrote, “there is ample precedent for the argument that threatening to move facilities because of strikes is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. And certainly the NLRB might reasonably have taken a Boeing executive at his word when he told the Seattle Times (on video!) that this was precisely what motivated the relocation.”

However, Boeing and its workers this week completed a new contract, in which the company agreed to build a new line of airplanes in Washington:

About 74 percent supported the contract on Wednesday in a ballot among 31,000 union members, mostly in the Seattle area, who accepted the surprise proposal unveiled last week.

Boeing plans to increase output by 60 percent after four union walkouts since 1989 delayed hundreds of deliveries. Workers were promised that a revamped 737 jet would be built at a current factory near Seattle, and the union requested that the N.L.R.B. retract the complaint filed over a new 787 plant in South Carolina.

The moral of the story is that collective bargaining worked and the workers in Washington will not be unfairly punished by Boeing for exercising their rights. “Both sides were faced with uncertainty and real losses, and the nature of collective bargaining is seizing the moment,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “The agreement reached between Boeing and workers in Washington demonstrates that the law that protects workers’ rights is vital to our economy and necessary to enforce,” Rep. George Miller (D-CA) added.

NLRB’s dropping of the complaint doesn’t mean that the initial charge was without merit or that union-busting is any less of a concern. It signals that the workers were able to work through their differences with the company, rendering the complaint unnecessary. Contrary to everything Republicans, at both the federal and state level have been saying for the last two years, collective bargaining is a critical tool to ensure a fair deal for workers, and the case with Boeing reflects that reality.

Over the holiday season the workers “struggle to survive,” Dayton said, and “the lockout has devastated families, communities, and the economy in Northwestern Minnesota.” Desperate to get back to work but determined to stand by their principles, the workers have had prayer vigils with faith leaders in the community.

But Crystal Sugar President and CEO Dave Berg apparently has absolutely no sympathy for his workers’ plight. In fact, at a recent meeting with shareholders, he compared them to a cancerous tumor:

In a meeting of company shareholders on November 7 in Grafton, ND, Berg likened the workers to a 21-pound cancerous tumor. According to an audio recording of the meeting, Berg told the story of a sick friend who was diagnosed with cancer and had a massive tumor removed. “That’s a scary deal. He was sick for a long time,” said Berg. “We can’t let a labor contract make us sick forever and ever and ever. We have to treat the disease and that’s what we’re doing here.”

Workers have responded with disappointment and outrage. Sarah Gust, who has worked at ACSC for 40 years remarked, “The fact that Dave Berg would refer to our union, our contract as a cancerous tumor is deeply offensive to me and many of my co-workers. Some of us have had cancer or have lost loved ones to cancer. It’s a tragic, devastating disease. And that’s how Crystal Sugar management sees our union. I tell you, this just shows how much respect Dave Berg and the management have for us workers.”

Listen to the audio here.

Discussing his strategy for dealing with the union workers, Berg again used the analogy: “At some point that tumor’s got to come out. That’s what we’re doing.” Sadly, comparing unionized labor to cancer is nothing new amongst conservatives, who evidently believe workers shouldn’t be able to bargain for fair wages, benefits, and working conditions.

Another locked out worker who has been with the company for 16 years said, “Our contract represents years of struggle to protect good jobs at Crystal and build a mutually respectful relationship with management. Now, Dave Berg is throwing all of that away for greed.”

Gov. Dayton has made it clear that it’s ASC’s recalcitrance and attempt to squash labor for profit that’s preventing a solution. “It is time for American Crystal’s management to reach a fair agreement with its workers, who have contributed so much to the company’s current profitability,” he observed.

A beleaguered Target employee mobbed by crowds on Black Friday.

It’s no secret that to boost profits during a down economy, many retailers have put the squeeze on their employees to work longer and harder for less and less. That pressure only increases during the holiday season, when stores try to woo consumers with marathon sales and midnight openings. Workers are often forced to choose between being with their families or working long hours on holidays to keep their jobs.

Now, thousands of employees are standing up to the retail giant Target to protest the long hours they’re being required to work on Thanksigiving:

Anthony Hardwick says he resents working at Target Corp. (TGT) on Thanksgiving and has garnered more than 37,000 signatures on an online protest petition.

Target, Macy’s Inc. (M), Gap Inc. (GPS), Kohl’s Corp. (KSS), Toys “R” Us Inc. and Best Buy Co. all plan to open at midnight or earlier on Thanksgiving in an attempt to goose sales that the National Retail Federation says may rise just 2.8 percent this holiday season, or about half as much as last year.

Hardwick, 29…began the petition two weeks ago on the website Change.org after learning that he and his coworkers would be required to start at 11 p.m. Nov. 24 for a 10-hour shift. [...] “Everyone at work was resigned because the economy is bad and so our employer has us over a barrel.”

Black Friday, or the day after Thanksgiving, is typically retailers’ most lucrative day of the year, and some stores have begun to extend their hours to Thanksgiving day itself to give themselves an edge. Hardwick says he fears losing his job for starting the protest and speaking to the media. Target has yet to respond to the petition. But as Hardwick pointed out, because of the tough job market companies know that their workers have little choice but to comply with their demands or be fired.

Target in particular has a bad track record when it comes to respecting workers’ rights. It has repeatedly tried to discourage employees from unionizing, and the National Labor Relations Board has opened a case alleging that Target illegally intimidated workers before a union vote.

Already, Ohioans have begun to see the ill-effects of Kasich’s union-busting law, and its widespread unpopularity has even led the bill’s backers to deceive voters into believing its repeal would negatively affect police officers, firefighters, teachers, and veterans. Of course, the opposite is true, with some estimates saying 51,000 public employees would lose their jobs under the law. And with polls open and less than 12 hours until the fate of SB5 will ultimately be decided, ThinkProgress compiled examples of how Issue 2 — the ballot name for SB5 — will negatively affect different groups of public employees if it isn’t repealed today:

FIREFIGHTERS: Two-thirds of those 51,000 public employees would be safety workers, like firefighters. “When you reduce staffing you reduce the availability of people to be able to respond to emergencies,” said Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters Jim Carney. “Without the ability to negotiate for staffing levels, we lose firefighters.” Even Republican Mayor David Smith of Lancaster, OH said Senate Bill 5 misses the point. After Smith laid off 16 firefighters, he noted that it was Kasich’s budget cuts, not collective bargaining units, that forced his hand. In one ad, an Ohio grandmother noted that firefighters who saved her granddaughter deserved the rights to negotiate staff levels because “fewer firefighters can mean the difference between life or death.”

POLICE OFFICERS: Thomas Bell, chief of police in Marion, wrote an op-ed against Issue 2 last week, saying his officers had already begun paying 20 percent of their health costs and given back nearly a half-million dollars. His department, he said, couldn’t continue at the current rate without tragic results: “The employees at our department have done their part, giving up more than $480,000 this year alone. That comes in the form of give-backs, furlough days, higher health care contributions and concessions. Our police department is supposed to have 69 officers, and we have only 57. We cannot continue to do more with less without tragic results.”

TEACHERS: Teachers, including a former Ohio Teacher of the Year, lined up in opposition to Kasich’s law. Chillicothe teacher Portia Boulger decried Kasich’s law at a rally in March, saying his assertions that he respected teachers were absurd: “When he says he respects us, it’s a lie. He doesn’t respect me I’m 58 years old. I’ve been working since I was 13 and he wants to take my retirement away from me. Is that respect? Is that respect? No it’s not. He cares nothing about me. He cares about the Koch brothers and the money they put in his pocket. And I’m extremely angry and upset. And I’m not greedy. I am a hard worker and he doesn’t care about me or any of my kind.”

VETERANS: Senate Bill 5 eliminates a long-standing Ohio provision that ensured veterans who became teachers could count their active duty service towards tenure so they don’t fall behind their civilian colleagues while on active duty. That elimination could cost some veterans up to $2,000 in annual salary. In addition to teachers, more than 1,000 Ohio firefighters and paramedics are serving in the military and now face restricted rights upon their return. “We didn’t expect this kind of homecoming when we came back,” said firefighter David Jarvis who served in Operation Desert Storm and the Afghanistan War. Another veteran firefighter John Szymkowiak said, “I never expected to have to fight our own government…to have a voice in my own safety and work conditions.”

These Ohioans are the predominant reason voices on both sides of the aisle have come forth to denounce Kasich’s attack on these workers’ rights and urge a no vote on Issue 2. As retired Republican Ohio Supreme Court Judge Andy Douglas said, “Senate Bill 5 must be rejected” to stop “politicians who would turn back the clock on public safety and on those who protect and serve us.”

Oakland's 1946 General Strike

Other than building up the activist momentum to actually carry out the strike, there are also legal and logistical issues with general strikes. Under the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act, “a general strike in support of other workers is illegal,” making general strikes effectively barred. In addition to these possible legal hurdles, organizing a general strike would require collective action that is difficult under current organizing rules.

However, it is worthwhile to note that Oakland was the site of America’s last great general strike. Over the course of two days in December 1946, 130,000 workers in Oakland refused to work out of solidarity with a strike by 400 mostly female retail clerks in which police were intervening. Union officials called the massive strike a “worker’s holiday.” All stores but pharmacies and food markets were shut down. After two days, the general strike ended when the city government pledged police neutrality in future strikes. The retail strike continued for another five months before being resolved.

Keith Carson, a member of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, made a short video in 2009 about the Oakland General Strike (part 2 is here). Watch part one:

That year, there were six general strikes, “setting the all time record for strikes and work stoppages in the U.S.” The hundreds of thousands of workers who went on strike that year won major concessions and served as fighters for the most robust middle class America had ever seen. Despite the laws barring solidarity strikes, a general strike in Oakland may set the path for more militant labor action that, like in the past, would once again help rebuild this middle class.

Retired Ohio Supreme Court Judge Andy Douglas

In eight days, Ohio voters will go to the polls to decide whether GOP Gov. John Kasich’s deeply unpopular anti-labor law, Senate Bill 5, should remain on the books. Thousands of Ohioans, including right-wing radio host Bill Cunningham, have urged Ohioans to stand behind teachers, police officers, and firefighters and repeal the law by voting no on Issue 2.

Now, former Republican Ohio Supreme Court Justice Andy Douglas is lending his voice to the repeal effort, noting that before the state passed its 1984 collective bargaining law, it led the nation in safety forces work stoppages. Since collective bargaining became the law of the land, however, there have been no work stoppages. “It would be tragic for our communities to return to those dark days,” he said. “That is what Senate Bill 5 — if it becomes law — would do”:

DOUGLAS: In the decade before the enactment of Ohio’s collective bargaining law in 1984, Ohio, for four years, led the nation in safety forces work stoppages. The reason was clear. When a city and its safety forces had a dispute concerning wages, working conditions, and adequate staffing, there was no way to resolve the dispute. That is why we passed the collective bargaining law. The law has worked. There has been no safety forces work stoppages in Ohio since the law was passed. It would be tragic for our communities to return to those dark days. That is what Senate Bill 5 — if it becomes law — would do. To fully protect our citizens and police officers and firefighters, Senate Bill 5 must be rejected.

Watch it:

Douglas added, “I’m a Republican and I’ve been working side by side with independents and Democrats to see that this bad bill does not become law.” He told Ohioans that “Senate Bill 5 must be rejected” to stop “politicians who would turn back the clock on public safety and on those who protect and serve us.”

KEYES: There’s been a push, particularly among the leading presidential contenders of the Republican Party, in favor of a national right to work law. [...] Where do you come down on the issue?

LINGLE: I think I’d put that in the category that it’s up to the individual state. It’s not something I supported at home and wouldn’t feel as important part of a platform for a candidate such as myself.

Listen to it:

Lingle is right to oppose right to work laws, both at the national level and for states as well. Studies have shown that while right to work laws provide no discernible boost to economic growth, they do act as a punitive measure towards unions. Also known as “right to work for less,” such laws would drive down wages, union membership, and erode health and safety regulations.

Lingle’s bid to become just the second Republican senator from Hawaii (and first since 1977) will no doubt continue to be complicated by the Republican Party’s hard right shift over the past few years. Though Lingle distanced herself from GOP support for right to work laws, she embraced her party’s orthodoxy on protecting the wealthy, telling ThinkProgress that she could “never” support a tax on millionaires.

In The Westing Game — in which, for the unfamiliar, Samuel Westing, a millionaire immigrant industrialist, fakes his own death in order to play out a complex game with his friends and family — said millionaire immigrant industrialist disguises himself, for part of the game, as a union organizer fired by Westing. The character is far and away the most congenial persona Westing takes on during the course of his charade: the others are an obsequious property manager and a chilly corporate whiz, and we never get much of a sense of what Westing himself must have been like. As a millionaire, he’s secretive, isolated, and disconnected from everyone but the doctor who helps him pull off the masquerade. We know, from a character who knew him when she was a child, that he can be mercilessly critical but generous to people he believes will succeed if they’re given a proper leg up. But as a working-class doorman, he’s allowed to be accessible, a metaphorical organizer in a way that he couldn’t be as an actual organizer. And of course, that character is a fiction, mooting the entire question of whether we’re supposed to think that Westing was wrong to bust the union, whether Westing regrets busting the union, and whether he was a good head of a company as well as a good man, which several characters later decide he was in the course of the game. The book leaves us with the very adult possibility that Westing was many people to many different people — readers have to decide what the sum of Westing’s parts means.

There’s also the question of diversity and affirmative action. The book is written in 1979, but it prefigures in some kinder, gentler ways, the anxieties that seem to have plagued Clarence Thomas’ tenure on the Supreme Court and his fear as a whole. One of the novel’s characters is a judge named J.J. Ford, who sort of seems like what Anita Hill might have turned out to be if the right-wing hadn’t decided to systematically decide to destroy her life: she’s black, single, and extremely accomplished. In the book, she’s paired up with Westing’s union organizer persona as part of the game that Westing’s set up. And without being aware of it, that pairing lets her work out her sense that Westing only mentored her and financed her education because he wanted a black female judge in his pocket, and her anxiety that she was never able to pay him back, freeing herself of her perceived debt to him. In disguise, Westing finds a way to tell her that he genuinely did like her and think she was deserving. It’s a rebuke to the idea that seems to fuel Thomas, that getting a little help along the way (though in this case, it’s financial aid rather than affirmative action) should be considered demeaning.

If the politics in The Westing Game are emotionally convoluted but sincere, they’re much clearer, and much funnier, in The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel). There’s one sequence in that novel where, after their mother has been accidentally arrested, an adopted set of twins hooks up with some Cesar Chavez-style grape boycotters and convince them to march on the women’s prison where she’s being held. It’s simultaneously a brutal satire of the tendency to cause-hop without much investigation or the attention span to cause real change, and an indictment of an unjust arrest. The novel’s set in a world where radicals and deeply establishment types can all coexist. It’s a secure sort of liberalism, one that isn’t afraid to make fun of itself when necessary, and that makes the novel worth reading even if the puzzle isn’t as fascinating or rewarding as The Westing Game‘s.

What’s refreshing about Raskin’s novels, though I wouldn’t have thought about it at the time, is that they acknowledge that children live in a political world — and that they know it. Policy isn’t something that mysteriously begins to affect you only when you turn 18 or 21. Children feel its effects, whether it’s a loss of parents to the criminal justice system or the sting of discrimination. And they don’t only experience it when they’re in explicitly political stories. Recognizing that shows children and young adults a respect they’re rarely accorded in fiction. Not everything has to be as big as myth for kids to see it, and understand.