I’m heartened by the title of the The Human Dignity Act - legislation to extend at least some Federal labor law to the U.S. territory of the Marianas. While The Human Dignity Act is a specific response to Tom DeLay and K Street corruption, I think it implicitly affirms that respect for labor is still an American value.

We all need to hear that affirmation in light of BushCo’s ongoing quest to turn the clock back to the good old days of slave labor. While relentlessly exhorting the masses to the Protestant Work Ethic, what the Bush Crony Class really has in mind is the other American history of the quasi-feudal plantation system - where people flocked to the Colonies for the opportunity to become a gentile landowner, relieved manual labor by cheap, docile dependents.

In the U.S., fueling economic expansion has become an end in itself. Human beings are mere fodder for this process. While weasel-eyed Bush cronies proclaim the moral uplift of tough competition, no one really dwells on what happens to the losers in this process. People are just expected to “keep trying” until they are institutionalized either through the prison system or the mental health system. According to these rules, you either do what you have to do to win or you’re subjected to chronic indignity.

It’s time to refocus the shame where it belongs: on the people who are advocating and upholding this system of top predator exploitation and plunder. Government and corporate employers need to go beyond giving lip service to policies that respect and defend labor - they should get serious about enforcing them.

Take this case of sexual harrassment: the managers elected to look the other way and left their vulnerable subordinate to deal with the ranky panky on her own.

Today the Supreme Court did the right thing by reducing the personal risk involved in filing a sexual harassment complaint and, moreover, making it easier to enforce all anti-discrimination law. By upholding Sheila White’s claim of retaliation:

…the justices defined retaliation as any action taken by an employer that would intimidate “a reasonable employee” into backing off from a discrimination complaint.

The next step is for workers to rise up and demand justice wherever this intimidation occurs. This would be a significant step toward asserting the dignity of our labor and finding the common ground to repel the predations of the Crony Class.