GOP's War on Unions Already Underway

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/12/gops_war_on_unions_already_und.html

December 16, 2008
GOP's War on Unions Already Underway
By Marie Cocco

WASHINGTON -- I must admit that when the danger of a global financial implosion became apparent in March with the taxpayer-backed takeover of Bear Stearns by banking giant JP Morgan Chase, I did not understand how all those worthless Wall Street credit swaps really could be the fault of an overpaid union welder at an auto plant somewhere in Michigan.

Heck. Despite having once listened as Republican leader Tom DeLay gave a House speech blaming the 1999 Columbine High School shootings on mothers who use birth control and the teaching of evolution in schools, I still underestimate the peculiar genius conservative Republicans show in exploiting dire, even tragic, situations to wield a partisan cudgel.

Senate Republicans' effort to break the United Auto Workers union as the pound of flesh they wanted in exchange for loans to teetering automakers -- companies that are on the brink because of a credit crisis they did not cause -- was over the top, even drawing objections from the Bush White House. The administration is now rushing to find money for Detroit somewhere in the huge pot of financial-industry bailouts, lest the automakers go down and take what's left of the economy with them.

Understand that the conservative assault on the UAW is just a warm-up act.

The main event for these contemporary Pinkertons is coming after Barack Obama is sworn in as president, and Democrats seek to pass a measure that would make it easier for workers to organize unions. It is the Employee Free Choice Act, and its intent is to push back -- at least a bit -- on the multimillion-dollar union-busting business that has become institutionalized since the political assault on labor was juiced up with President Ronald Reagan's 1981 mass firing of air traffic controllers. When Reagan supplanted the striking controllers with "replacement workers" (previously known as strikebreakers or scabs), business got the message: It was perfectly acceptable, if not advantageous, to bust unions or to keep them from being organized. From there, it was a small step toward the widespread use of unethical, and sometimes illegal, tactics.\

FULL story at link.

[louis c]

1. Bravo

I think that the Republican Senators, Corker (R.Tenn), Bunning (R.Kentucky), Chambliss (R.Georgia), Vitter (R. La.) who tried to kill an American industry in favor of foreign companies in their home state, should be tried for treason.

That's not hyperbole. I really believe that.

[DainBramaged]

7. I agree, but it will come back to bite them in the ass come election time

[NashVegas]

2. Actually, You Know What the Real Fight's About?

Union organizers have recognized for some time that if they can't stop the march to global capitalism, led by multinational corps, the next best thing is to internationalize the unions. This is what Repukes want stopped.

But this shit with Corker? That's just a junior senator trying to make a name for himself.

[malaise]

3. The ILO needs to be strengthened again

http://www.ilo.org/global/lang--en/index.htm

http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Origins_and_history/lang--en/index.htm

[liberal N proud]

4. This war is 30 years old - what we are seeing is the Surge.

Think back, way back, all the way back to Ronnie Regan and his union busting with Air Traffic Controllers.
Then came the meat packing industry. They have had a long war on the unions and this is just the surge.

[navarth]

6. correct. it started, in it's current form, with Reagan. that bastard

[DainBramaged]

8. Too many Unions to list, it will not stop till these assholes are out of office.

[ColbertWatcher]

5. The Guardians of Privilege are not just attacking unions ...

... they're also going after basic labor law http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7984308&mesg_id=7984308