Contracts Can’t Be Broken—Unless They Involve Union Workers
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Contracts can’t be broken. We learned that lesson well over the past few days when AIG honchos swore that despite being bailed out by $173 billion in taxpayer funds, they couldn’t break the sacrosanct contractual bond that guaranteed billions in bonuses to the same top executives who brought the insurance giant to its knees.
But we also were taught another lesson in these months of financial chaos: Contacts can’t be changed—unless they involve unionized autoworkers.
Tim Rutten at the Los Angeles Times really hits the mark today when he writes:
What we’re essentially being asked to believe is that employment contracts involving hardworking men and women on Detroit’s assembly lines are somehow less legally binding—less “sacred” in the current rhetorical argot—than those protecting a bunch of cowboy securities traders living in Connecticut. [snip]
For years, the smart guys on Wall Street have convinced a growing number of Americans that organized labor is an impediment to economic progress, an unacceptable “cost” in a globalized system of production, a quaint social fossil from the era of mills and smokestacks. If there’s a lesson to be gleaned from the current crisis, however, it’s that when the chips are down, organized labor is a far more responsible social actor than the snatch-and-run characters who fancy themselves financiers.
Beware of the Big Lie Bill
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Opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act in Congress made their Big Lie into a bill Wednesday, when Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) introduced the so-called Secret Ballot Protection Act.
Before we go further, let’s clear up the bill’s false implication right now:
The Employee Free Choice Act would not—repeat after me—would not, take away the secret ballot National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election process if workers seeking to form a union wanted to use it. The Employee Free Choice would ensure workers made the decision of whether to select a union via majority sign-up (card-check) or via ballot process. Choice is good. That’s one reason why we called it Employee Free Choice—because it would enable employees, not management, to make the decision of how to form a union.
The alleged goal of S. 478 is to:
amend the National Labor Relations Act to ensure the right of employees to a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.
Corker: Classless
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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.
Working America AND UAW Don’t ♥ Sen. Corker
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The hundreds of UAW members who rallied Friday were among the thousands who have written Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) letters protesting his anti-worker stance and attempts to require major concessions from the UAW.
Working America, the AFL-CIO community affiliate, recently sent a canvass team into Nashville and surrounding communities that collected more than 1,400 letters. Seven canvassers knocked on doors and greeted passers-by on busy streets and college campuses. Michigan State Working America Director Cara Alcantar, who helped with the canvass action in Tennessee, reported that
people are really supportive of what we’re doing, they’re supportive of the union, because they’re going through tough times. Most of the people we’ve spoken to do not believe that what Corker is doing is right.
UAW Members Don’t ♥ Sen. Corker
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, members of the UAW have sent a “love-note” to Sen. Bob Corker, a highly conservative Republican from Tennessee.
Corker, as you recall, introduced a pay-cut amendment to the auto rescue package last December that would have required the UAW to accept deep concessions. Far be it from Corker to try to save the jobs of thousands of autoworkers at a time when the nation’s jobless rate is worsening at an alarming rate.
Members signed a giant-sized card letting Corker know what they thought of his union-busting tactics and then delivered the valentine to Corker’s Nashville office.
Anti-Worker Republicans Pressure White House for Deep Pay Cuts in Automaker Loan
After a small group of Republican senators put the economy in jeopardy by blocking an emergency bridge loan for the nation’s Big Three automakers, the same minority is pressuring the White House to demand some significant pay cuts from the UAW as a condition of any short-term financial assistance.
Bryce Hoffman writes in yesterday’s Detroit News that the White House may press union workers to accept the terms of a pay-cut amendment introduced by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), which would have required the UAW to accept deep concessions that would have effectively neutered the union.
