The Last Word

The arrogance of power: Union membership may be the last bastion of opposition

By Michael Silverberg, Stony Brook HSC

Around 2500 BC, Queen Shub-Ad, a member of the royal family of the Sumerian city of Ur, died and was buried in an elaborate tomb. When it was excavated in modern times, 28 other skeletons were also found including those of five guards, 10 handmaidens, a harpist and even two oxen. Perhaps you may think this is a fact of interest only to historians of the ancient world. But it tells us something about the enduring theme of human society; to my mind, the bodies in Queen Shub-Ad’s burial pit are a striking example of the arrogance of power.

To the aristocracy of a third millennium Sumerian city, the lives of their slaves were of such little consequence that they were expected to accompany their mistress even into the grave. Their own humanity — their hopes and dreams for their futures and their families — were irrelevant.

Of course, we know better in our enlightened times, don’t we?

Let’s consider the recent rash of giant corporate collapses. In each case, the “aristocracy” of the companies was able to amass enormous fortunes and then move on to a comfortable “afterlife.” Seemingly without conscience, the “nobility” left behind thousands of discarded employees without the ability to support their families and whose hopes for their own future “in the form of their retirement funds” were shattered. Alright, they are at least still alive, but did the former executives of Enron or WorldCom care any more about what happened to their employees than did Queen Shub-Ad care for the lives of her servants?

And what of us ordinary folk who are aristocrats neither in the old nor the new sense? Are we guilty too? Do we consider the lives and dreams of those who work for us?

We currently have administrations at both state and national levels which, faced with unprecedented demands on the public purse in the aftermath of last September’s devastation, refuse to delay tax cuts. The same administrations, especially at the national level, seem intent on using the terrorist threat to usher in a far more authoritarian society than the one we believe is described in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If we allow this to happen, in the name of “security,” then we will be enabling the arrogance of power.

When we tolerate the lack of affordable health care for millions of our citizens; when we watch universities turned into nothing more than producers of corporate fodder; when we sit back and allow companies to intimidate workers who try to assert their right to organize as a counterweight to the power of the boardroom, then we, too, participate in the arrogance of power.

Two years ago, I wrote an article for The Voice about a trip to Mexico as part of a delegation sent by the New York State Labor-Religion Coalition to the Maquilladoras clustered just across the Texas border. We found, for example, that the workers who produced a $60 pair of shorts received about 10 cents for their labor while living in abject poverty. Workers who try to question the system are fired as “troublemakers” and blacklisted so that they can no longer get any work at all.

When we buy products made in sweatshops, or made by children in near slave conditions, we are also indulging — at second hand perhaps — in the arrogance of power.

When we elect a president who refuses to recognize global problems of overpopulation, environmental degradation and climate change because it doesn’t suit his supporters in the boardrooms of America, then we, too, participate in the arrogance of power.

Can we change all this?

One thing we’ll be able to do will come on Election Day. When we walk into a voting booth, we can ask ourselves if we are voting for candidates who represent and promote a system that holds other human lives as being of no consequence. Or will we vote for candidates who believe that society is about all of us, not just the American aristocracy?

We can also join, support and work with our union — the best bastion we have against the local arrogance of power.

A couple of months after November’s election, we will once again be negotiating with the state for a new contract. It’s going to be tough. The state is already crying poormouth. But, unlike Germany, where a tax cut was deferred to help pay for the damage caused by devastating floods, New York would not even consider deferring any scheduled tax cuts that will benefit the richest the most. So we shall be asked to sacrifice instead.

In addition to issues of money at the table, I am sure that the University will attempt to pursue the depressingly familiar theme of bottom-line, management-knows-best administration that we call the corporatization of the University. We will be face-to-face with the arrogance of power at the bargaining table.

To those of you who are agency fee payers, I would say: Don’t stand aside. Don’t be like Queen Shub-Ad and don’t emulate one of her retainers either. Sign the card, join, have your say in our democratic process and stand up to the arrogance of power.

(Michael Silverberg is an associate professor of medical informatics at Stony Brook HSC. A union delegate, Silverberg is currently serving on his third Negotiations Team.)