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Let’s make one thing clear. Corporations and their political dogs are not just attempting to stick it to union workers. They are after all of us just to keep more profit in their own coffers, hence the union busting and the Bush/Obama tax cuts.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:
America's economic fate depends on us coming together to educate our children, to invest in our infrastructure, to face the threat of climate change and to reverse the yawning economic inequality that threatens our future.
Let me be specific. Unemployment stands at 9%. Underemployment is at 16%. Housing prices are falling, and foreclosures remain at historic highs. Economic growth is hovering at around 2% annually—not enough to put a dent in unemployment, especially as tax cuts expire, as the Recovery Act winds down—and state and local governments gear up for more deep cuts.
Yet instead of having a national conversation about putting America back to work to build our future, the debate here in Washington is about how fast we can destroy the fabric of our country, about breaking the promises we made to our parents and grandparents....
Why is our national conversation in such a destructive place? Not because we are impoverished. We have never been richer. The American economy has never produced as much wealth as it does today. But we feel poor because the wealth in our society has flowed to a handful among us, and they and the politicians who pander to the worst instincts of the wealthy would rather break promises to our parents and grandparents and deny our children a future than pay their fair share of taxes.
Of course the Republican do not wish any oversight of illegal corporate practices, so they tried to gut the NLRB but only could manage a $50 million cut in operating budget.
One hundred and seventy-six House Republicans (75 percent of the caucus) voted to eliminate all funding for the NLRB, which would have prevented the enforcement of labor law for a year. The measure failed to pass the House, but H.R. 1, the continuing resolution passed by the House, included a $50 million reduction in the National Labor Relations Board’s budget, which if it had also passed the Senate would have forced NLRB staff members to be furloughed for 55 days, causing a backlog of cases to pile up.
Many congressional Republicans have also been trying to prevent union elections from being decided by a majority vote. Last year, the National Mediation Board did away with an absurd rule that, for union elections under the Railway Labor Act, counted workers who didn’t vote as having voted against unionization. House Republican leaders are now using legislation that reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration to try and reverse the board’s ruling, once again counting absent workers as votes against the union. Senate Republican leaders, during the debate over the Senate’s version of the FAA bill, attempted to attach an amendment that would have blocked workers at the Transportation Security Administration from unionizing.
And conservative members of Congress are apoplectic about the NLRB’s decision this week to sue the states of Arizona and South Dakota seeking to invalidate those states’ constitutional amendments that prohibit private-sector employees from choosing to unionize through a procedure known as card check. The lawsuit is unsurprising and it continues a long precedent of striking down state laws preempted by the National Labor Relations Act, which these same conservatives support when it is used to strike down laws increasing workers’ union rights.
The sad thing is that many wage earners will continue to vote for a Republican, cutting their own throats. Truly amazing.
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