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Republican Double Standard for Labor Secretary |
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Senate Republicans are continuing the same partisan, roadblock political games that voters said they’d had enough of in November.
This time their stubborn gamesmanship threatens the working families across the country: They are trying to derail President Obama’s economic recovery plan and block his pick of Hilda Solis as secretary of labor.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says: “Enough is enough.”
We cannot continue to fiddle as the economy burns. It is urgent for the American people to have an aggressive, emergency economic recovery plan that will put people back to work and keep families in their homes, and a strong Department of Labor.
Today we learned the nation lost nearly jobs 600,000 last month—the worst job loss since 1974—bringing the total job loss since the recession began 14 months ago to 3.5 million. The unemployment rate worsened from 7.2 percent to 7.6 percent in January. Says Sweeney:
But even as the economy crumbles around us, Senate opponents are continuing to block the confirmation of the Secretary of Labor and trying to cut crucial aid—particularly the funds for state and local governments—from the economic recovery plan for partisan and ideological reasons.
Enough is enough. Senate Republicans can’t just oppose a Secretary of Labor because she supports working Americans and favors curbing excessive corporate power. They need to stop obstructing and confirm Rep. Solis now.
Yesterday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee postponed a scheduled confirmation vote the Solis nomination. Obama announced his choice of Solis in December, and the committee held a hearing on the nomination Jan. 9. On top of that, when Republican panel members weren’t satisfied, she answered 15 sets of their written questions.
Some Republican senators, and their echo chamber of right-wing talk radio and conservative blogs, are attacking Solis over the Employee Free Choice Act, which she co-sponsored in the House. Republican senators have even suggested that if confirmed Solis should be barred from advocating for the restoration of workers’ rights to form a union and bargain for a better life, as the bill provides.
Writing in American Prospect, Harold Meyerson says that when Republican senators ask that Solis recuse herself from discussions about the Employee Free Choice Act, it’s like
asking Robert Gates not to advocate for the armed forces, or Judd Gregg not to champion American business, or President Obama’s environmental picks not to support stricter fuel-efficiency standards. But then, Republicans’ opposition to unions is close to clinically pathological.
Solis’s support for [the Employee Free Choice Act] isn’t exactly a secret. She co-sponsored the bill when it passed the House in 2007. Nor is she deviating from administration policy in backing it, since Obama pledged to support the bill during his presidential campaign.
Ironically—actually hypocritically—the same Republican senators didn’t mind former President Bush’s labor secretary, Elaine Chao, shutting workers and their unions out of the Labor Department for eight years. They even cheered. She went so far as to write guest editorials against the bill
Now, these senators have their knockers knickers in a knot because a secretary of labor might actually listen to labor and support workers’ rights. How dare she!
Solis, says Sweeney,
understands that working men and women deserve the freedom to choose whether to form a union without employer interference….The core mission of the Department of Labor is to defend the basic rights of workers in our nation’s workplaces, and the essential qualification of any Secretary of Labor is a demonstrated commitment to that core mission.
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When the Democrats agreed to allow the appointment of Sen. Judd Gregg without demanding a 60th Democratic Senator, in the name of bipartisanship, they had to know that they were signaling surrender. Or maybe some private bipartisan deal was done behind the peoples back. Either way I expect the Democratic and AFL-CIO two-party system supporters will continue to snivel about how they are helpless because of those tough, give no quarter, Republicans - for the next two years. Bipartisanship, as opposed to deal making, is rarely in the voters interest.
When the Democrats agreed to allow the appointment of Sen. Judd Gregg without demanding a 60th Democratic Senator, in the name of bipartisanship, they had to know that they were signaling surrender. Or maybe some private bipartisan deal was done behind the peoples back. Either way, I expect the Democratic and AFL-CIO two-party system supporters will continue to snivel about how they are helpless because of those tough, give no quarter, Republicans for the next two years! Bipartisanship, as opposed to deal making, is rarely in the voters interest.
It’s turning out to be a real cabinet for Labor with people like Holder,Nepolitano,Gregg,Solis,Clinton, and a few tax evaders dropping out.I’m beginning to think maybe Labor has been lied to again.
I’m waiting to see where this will go on free trade,illegal aliens and your right to bear arms. It should be a really interesting year and so far it’s been politics as usual.
Do any of you see why we need a viable thrid party?Or are just content to keep re-electing the fools that are already killing the country?
Hilda Solis will be our Secretary of Labor. During the hearing chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy, Solis shown as a beacon of light. All Democrat and Independent congressmen verbally gave their support to Solis. One lonely republican, showing no concern for Pension, Education, and Health perseverated on Solis’ undying support for us and our jobs.
Solis will be confirmed and we will pressure Republican Senators to acquiesce.
Justice will roll down like thunder! And pity the ones slinking along the way. Write, e-mail, march, phone, forward the words: Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, 111th Congress, 2009.
Ya basta!
I can’t stand that screwed up Republican Party. They are a bunch of phonies who only care about themselves. And they call Democrats un-american! Unbelievable!
Oops! Rephrase that in the next to last paragraph of the article: they got their KNICKERS in a knot. Thanks for a good laugh.
Thanks for pointing out the typo, Granny! Gave us a big laugh too. We’ve um, knocked out the typo now…
The Republicans are so anti-union that I think they must break out in hives just hearing the word. They are so afraid of labor because they think they may lose some of their millions by protecting workers.They just can’t stand the fact that there are Americans who really don’t like them, don’t trust them, and voted to get them out of office. They, however, just can’t let go, and they think they could still run the show. DEMOCRATS IN OFFICE - ARE YOU LISTENING - DON’T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT. YOU’RE IN CHARGE - TAKE BACK AMERICA - YOUR CONSTITUENTS ALREADY DID.
That Republican Senators are fighting the Solis nomination comes as no surprise… anyone supporting labor is the enemy. They bounce so rapidly from Congress into highly paid corporate jobs, that there’s no doubt which side has the butter on it. What I can’t understand is the base. All of the millions of deluded Americans on the lower end of the economic spectrum that won’t vote in their own best interest (the most infamous being “Joe the Plumber”– or was it plumber’s helper?). Anyone believing that the Republican “philosophy” is anything but *&%# intended to placate the masses while the bosses get rich is deluded.