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**APRIL 15, 2021**

Meyerson on TAP

The Corporate Good Guys Who Are Really Bad Guys (Just About All of Them)

Yesterday, there appeared in

**The New York Times**,

**The Washington Post**, and

**The Wall Street Journal** (and for all I know, perhaps other
newspapers as well) a two-page ad headlined "We Stand for Democracy,"
which laid out the signatories' support for voting rights and their
opposition to "measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from
having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot." That is, to the
torrent of voter suppression bills that Republicans have introduced in
nearly every state legislature and enacted in Georgia.

The very long list of signatories, which fills up the two pages in small
type, begins with corporations, and goes on to include individuals, then
law firms, and finally nonprofit organizations. Among the corporations
are Airbnb, Alphabet (the fancy name for Google), Amazon, Apple, Bank of
America, Berkshire, BlackRock, Facebook, Ford and GM, Goldman Sachs,
Lyft (but not Uber), Starbucks, Target (but not Walmart), Twitter, Wells
Fargo, and perhaps 100 more.

The only corporations on this very long list that are unionized, so far
as I can figure, are its two auto companies and its two airlines,
American and United-all four of which went union a long time ago.
Signatory Levi Strauss was unionized at various times in its long
history, but today, virtually all of its product is produced offshore.

So, one thing that's clear from this very long list is that corporate
America's commitment to democracy certainly doesn't extend to its
own businesses (and if GM, Ford, and the airlines had been founded
during the past 40 years, they'd almost surely be non-union, too). By
avoiding, evading, or just plain squashing any and all worker attempts
to gain a voice in their companies' affairs by forming a union,
virtually all our major businesses have made clear that they'll run
themselves on the traditionally autocratic principles they've long
exercised. As you doubtless know, Amazon just defeated an effort by its
employees in Alabama to form a union, and last fall, Lyft funded a
successful ballot measure in California that enabled the company to
disclaim any responsibility for the wages and working conditions of its
drivers and to thwart any attempt on their part to form a union.

But the most egregious inclusion on the list came under the category of
law firms. There, among virtually every single prominent firm in the
country-a list that included Gibson Dunn, Covington & Burling, Davis
Polk, Paul, Weiss, Sidley Austin, etc. etc.-was the firm of Morgan,
Lewis & Bockius. Within the legal profession, that firm may be known for
any number of things, but to the broader public, or at least that part
of the broader public that roots for workers, Morgan Lewis is known as
the go-to firm for companies that want to bust a union or keep one from
being born. Morgan Lewis provides instructions and instructors in all
the legal ways an employer can intimidate workers and spells out which
ways are illegal as well (and surely also spells out how negligible are
the penalties for those illegalities).

So two cheers for the nation's economic powers' support for
democracy and voting rights, and a big Bronx cheer for their ferocious
opposition to any form of democracy within their own house.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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