( – promoted by odum)
A great opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal, of all places:
The writer asks an important question – why does labor frequently get short shrift when unions have been steadfast supporters of the Democratic Party for many years? When times were tough, they’ve been there. When times were great, they’ve been there. And, yet, many left-leaning establishment elites continually act in ways that are unfriendly to workers.
For a current example, look no further than key Employee Free Choice Act defectors Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Dianne Feinstein, as well as the supposedly Democratic lobbyists steering Wal-Mart’s anti-EFCA onslaught.
Is a perfect example of how little attention the Democrats pay to working people and our issues. It burnt them in the last election. Many unions sat out the election and most of the few who did participate were behind Pollina. Now the Democrats are in Montpelier playing games again, not realizing I guess that working people are watching and waiting. The trustfunder mentality has got to be knocked down a few pegs and maybe that means finding more rank-and-file Vermonters to step up run against some of the elitists whose egos cloud their judgement daily. That or create a new party (not the Progs, but maybe a Labor Party) and increase the Pollina-effect ten-fold. It’s definately time to start exploring the idea.
I was at my bro’s house in NJ when his best friend came back from a teacher’s unions conference in Niagara Falls. He’s a liaison between the School Chancellor and his union. Hillary had spoken at every event over that conference. He said she’d be the next Senator, and a Presidential candidate by 08.
Just a story.
Unions sometimes support democrats blindy and stupidly. For example Bill Clinton who supported free trade and advocated for NAFTA and signed it into law, unions backed him 100 %. They campaigned for him and helped him get elected and re elected. Bill Clinton had anti union advisors and appointed anti union – pro business people to the National Labor Relations Board amoung other things. Obama is the first pro union president we have had since Jimmy Carter. Hilda Solice,our Secutairy of Labor, was a union organizer and worked with unions and labor groups all of her career. She is in favor of the EFCA and will advocate for organizer workers more than any Labor Secutairy we have had in many years or ever. Wages had decresed for working people and the gap between the rich and poor has grown over the past 3 decades becasuse we have stabbed each other in the back and no longer show solidarity. Working Americans are going to have to work togher in solidarity if we want to change this county and improve the working conditions,wages,vacation time,401k and other bread and butter issues. We forgot that we can acomplish much more together than we can as individuals. Unions are democracy in the work place and if we show solidarity we can improve our county for everyone.