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Two Union Guys: Save Our Middle Class, Vote for Obama |
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The current culture of corporate greed chops away at the American dreams of U.S. workers by many means. Big Business has kept wages massively low even as worker productivity soars. From 2001 to 2007, real wages were up 2.3 percent, compared with 18 percent for productivity.
One way corporations flatline wages is by refusing to negotiate contracts with their unionized employees. In a recent opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, two local union leaders, members of the United Steelworkers (USW), discuss their experiences from recent lockouts at Latrobe Specialty Steel Co. and Calgon Carbon Corp.
In “Save Our Middle Class,” Kevin Caruso, USW unit president at Latrobe Specialty Steel, and Jerry Morton, USW unit president at Calgon Carbon, write that:
The members of our United Steelworkers unions just went through two long, tough fights to hold onto benefits like family health care and regular pensions for retirees. It shouldn’t require this kind of sacrifice to get companies to do right by their workers.
This “silent assault” isn’t happening by accident.
This situation, where highly profitable companies refuse to come to terms with their employees and then use a lockout to try to starve them into submission, is happening more and more frequently in America today. The time it takes to resolve these disputes is also increasing, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Yet, the media is fixated on fluff.
The decline in the earning power of America’s working men and women and how it got that way is a story that needs to be told. Too much media time is spent on subjects like the lifestyle difficulties of the rich and famous. What about the lifestyles of the rest of us who are trying to earn an honest living and raise families in these times of soaring costs?
Caruso and Morton know it’s time something is done to reverse these trends. And they urge union members to cast a vote this November to save the middle class.
With an election coming up this fall and the presidency and control of Congress hanging in the balance, we hope the people of Pennsylvania will consider which candidates are serious about shaking things up in Washington and changing laws that have weakened the hand of working people.
Barack Obama has pledged to help pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would unchain the rights of millions of nonunion working people and give them a stronger voice to bargain for decent wages, hours and working conditions. It also would help workers in already-organized shops like our own. A rising tide lifts all boats. It’s too bad John McCain hasn’t seen fit to support this legislation, nor other measures that would help keep good-paying jobs in the United States.
Read the full article here.
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Yesterday I was passed by the first Mexican tractor trailer rig that I had seen in my home state of Missouri. It shocked me to see a foreign truck line trailer, a foreign tractor and a foreign driver as I came to the realization that not ONE CENT of profit would go to any American entity. Yet, everyone knows that big rigs do the most damage to highways and bridges.
We pay the taxes and foreign truck lines will tear up the roads. Some cash starved states have actually begun to sell off the roads and bridges to foreign interests because they can’t afford to repair them. An Australian group bought into them and now they have a $10 toll bridge. How can a state sell off a federal highway or bridge that was built with public tax dollars anyway?
In addition to the Employee Free Choice Act creating decent paying jobs in America, we better create laws to limit foreign investment to say 40% of U.S. companies while we still have any left!
Borrowing money by the trillions from Communist China to shore up our treasury is not going to improve our life styles or living conditions as we rapidly become foreign owned and move from owners to renters.