Corker: Classless

by Tula Connell, Feb 26, 2009

America’s economy is in a tailspin and millions of the nation’s autoworkers could lose family-supporting jobs if the industry tanks, but Republican Sen. Bob Corker knows what he’s concerned about: the “Valentine’s” Day cards autoworkers and their allies delivered to his Tennessee office. 

I think delivering 4,200 incredibly tacky Valentine’s to my office was a classless thing to do.

Classless. The gall! The gall of workers who, if Corker had his way, would lose their jobs or get such severe cuts in pay they would become more casualties of the lingering Bush war on the middle class. Corker fought against assistance to the auto industry in December and voted against the economic recovery package that would save or create 3.5 million U.S. jobs.

Corker told workers they were classless in a meeting last week with UAW members who, with the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America, collected more than 1,400 letters from the Nashville community objecting to Corker’s attacks on family-supporting jobs. 

Among those who wrote a letter to Corker was a woman who told Working America canvass director Rachel Colyer her father is a UAW retiree and her other family members work at a Ford plant in Michigan. Her father, whose health is poor, is at risk of losing retirement pay and health care coverage for himself and his wife of 40 years. The woman’s brothers worry every day that they will be next in the layoffs hitting Michigan auto plants. 

Corker’s outburst continues a growing pattern of Republican whining—House Minority Leader John Boehner staged a tantrum on the House floor over the economic recovery package.

There’s a pattern here: It’s not about classlessness. It’s about class: The rich Corkers and Boehners against America’s workers.

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