One of the major speakers at last week’s “New Populism” conference was Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a labor union that represents online writers, reporters, editorial assistants, editorial artists, and correspondents at major news organizations.
Cohen gave his speech after returning from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) conference, where Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, was announced as winner of the title of “the world’s worst boss” for trying to keep prices low for consumers and opposing union control of his workplace.
Bezos, the new owner of The Washington Post, will have to negotiate with The Newspaper Guild, which merged with the CWA in 1995 and represents nearly 900 editorial and newsroom workers at the Post.
“Amazon has successfully fended off U.S. labor unions since its founding in 1994,” notes Time magazine.
Bezos has been described as a libertarian; but the Post was known as a liberal Democrat newspaper under its previous owners, the Grahams.
It will be interesting to see if he cuts this union down to size. The survival of the paper, with declining revenue and readers, may depend on it.
As the “populism” conference indicates, the progressives—once called liberals—are now calling themselves something else, in order to fool the electorate.
Don’t look for the media to blow the whistle on themselves.
Whatever they call themselves, they are in control of much of the news and editorial content of major news media organizations.
We look forward to the Post, under its new owner, telling the truth about how the CWA functions as a major component of the progressive movement, and how liberal bias is killing the appeal of the so-called mainstream media.
In addition to the Post, the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild represents employees at such news organizations as The Baltimore Sun and Bloomberg-BNA. Not surprisingly, CWA says thousands of its members also work for public broadcasting entities.
A partisan political operative who serves as a member of the Democratic National Committee and endorsed Obama in 2008, Cohen is a regular guest on the MSNBC cable channel.
Cohen’s tone last week was desperate, as the “progressives,” or “populists,” apparently understand that their President’s popularity is declining, and that their base is becoming increasingly demoralized and less likely to turn out to vote in November’s elections.
One member of the audience openly griped that she was being forced to liquidate her retirement fund in order to pay for her Obamacare plan.
The CWA’s “Education Department” has published a 38-page document entitled “Building a Movement for Economic Justice & Democracy,” which describes in detail how various components of the progressive movement are said to make up more than 71 million people, enough to create a working majority of the voting population and guarantee victory in national elections.
This might be news to the Republicans who think they will retain the House and take the Senate in this year’s national elections.
Holding up a copy of his “Building a Movement” booklet, Cohen told the “populism” conference that the political left needs to push a “common narrative” and “common collective action.” It is a message of “economic justice,” he said.