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Waging War on American Workers

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On January 3, New York Times writer Steven Greenhouse headlined, "Strained States Turning to Laws to Curb Labor Unions," saying:

"Faced with growing budget deficits and restive taxpayers, elected officials from Maine to Alabama, Ohio to Arizona, are pushing new legislation to limit the power of labor unions, particularly those representing government workers, in collective bargaining and politics." 

Though largely weak and ineffective, private ones are also being attacked. For example, lawmakers in Indiana, Maine, Missouri and at least seven other states plan legislation to bar private sector unions from requiring rank and file members to pay dues or fees, reducing union treasury funds. Ohio's new Republican governor, like others, wants public school teacher strikes prohibited, and in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker is targeting the right of state employees to form unions and bargain collectively.

The "bottom line" isn't putting "balance more on the side of taxpayers" as Walker claims. It crushing organized labor entirely, public and private, driving it back to 19th century impotence. According to Stewart Acuff, Utility Workers Union of America chief of staff:

"This is a very serious effort by the radical right wing to cripple the American labor movement and remove it as a serious force in American life. They want unfettered, unrestricted corporate power, and the only thing standing in the way of absolute corporate domination of our society and what's left of our democracy is the American labor movement."

Not the way it's been run for years as a result of corrupted union bosses on the take, siding with business, getting big salaries and fancy perks, and being more concerned about their own welfare than rank and file members. Labor historian Paul Buhle sees organized labor in a state of collapse. In the March/April 2010 Against the Current issue, his article titled, "Labor at War or in the Tank," explained "the shrinking world of US organized labor," saying:

"....a paucity of anything like solidarity, let alone a strategy for a repowered, reorganized, 21st-century labor movement" haunts American worker struggles going forward. Moreover, (r)ecent reports suggest" possible bankruptcy for "any number of the international unions as well as the AFL-CIO at large, a situation made only worse by infighting. This is a bleak irony, indeed, following so much enthusiasm" over Obama's election. All the more reason for new leadership, information and insight to "be brought to rank-and-file working people within the unions and outside." In addition, add strong political support at a time it's totally absent with Democrats as anti-labor as Republicans.

On January 6 on the Progressive Radio News Hour, James Petras explained. In 2008, Big Labor contributed over $400 million to Democrat candidates and tens of millions more in 2010. In return, Obama and congressional Democrats waged war on working Americans, endorsing layoffs, wage and benefit cuts, gutted work rules, lost pensions, and promised hope from the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The Democrat-controlled Congress rejected it. 

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VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.  My two Wall Street books are timely reading: "How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government (more...)
 

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