Joe Biden remarked the other day that union members should vote for Democrats or "You're on your own, Jack!"
Doug Powers calls it an empty threat, and he's probably right. Unions and elected Democrats have a mutual dependency, so where else would they go? But never mind that, why did Biden use those words, especially the name "Jack?"
I think he was remembering one of the best union movies ever made. No, not Hoffa. It's I'm All Right Jack, the 1959 British comedy starring Peter Sellers as Fred Kite, a dictatorial union shop steward and chief of the Work Committee at the Missiles Factory.
From the IMDB quotes page -- Fred Kite: "We do not and cannot accept the principle that incompetence justifies dismissal. That is victimization."
Seems that the bosses were always trying to find ways to increase productivity, the b'stards. Well, work rules couldn't be changed unless management could demonstrate that the change would actually work, but there could be no experimenting without the union's OK. Consequently, the workers functioned at a snail's pace until the lunch whistle blew, then pity anyone who got in their way.
But one day when the union loyalists were distracted, one of those tricky bosses conned a new guy into demonstrating that a fork lift could carry four boxes at a time instead of just one.
Oh boy, look out. That didn't sit well with the Work Committee, and they called a strike. Strike fever spread like wildfire as union solidarity brought industrial production in Britain to a standstill. Millions of workers were out on strike.
One funny sequence involved a class of workers called "Redundants." The company wanted to sack them, it was explained to the new guy. But the Work Committee had threatened a strike, so the company kept them on in "no work" jobs -- they punched in each morning, sat around in some secluded place all day playing cards, then punched out.
But the Redundants didn't learn of the strike until long after the entire factory lot was vacated. And they were outraged -- they had been working all that time for nothing.
The movie presented a certain view of unions, and fast forward to the scene in Wisconsin a few weeks ago, and there's that view again. In the back of Joe Biden's mind he's remembering that movie and realizing that unions benefit the few at the expense of many. But he's using them, and they are using him.