Biden: Strong Unions Needed to Build Middle Class
The nation cannot rebuild its middle class without strong unions, Vice President Joe Biden said today. Biden said he and President Obama believe it is impossible to grow the middle class without growing unions.
Biden, who chairs the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families, met with a panel of scholars assembled by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Economic Policy Institute (EPI) to discuss the challenges facing America’s middle class in the 21st century economy.
At the live webcast event, EPI President Lawrence Mishel said unions set standards in the workplace. Decent standards help ensure “employers are not competing to see who can make the jobs worst, but who can make the products better,” Mishel said.
AFL-CIO Delegates: Making America Work for Working People
Delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention have been heading to Pittsburgh all weekend. In talking with them, it becomes clear that while they seek to accomplish many different things, they are united in one goal: Making America work for working people. Here are some of their voices. (For video clips of each of the delegates below, visit the AFL-CIO Convention online video page.)
AFL-CIO Convention delegate Petee Talley, secretary-treasurer of the Ohio AFL-CIO and proud AFSCME member, is excited to be in Pittsburgh for the convention.
We have lots of issues that the labor movement is looking at, we certainly know that we need to get health care reform passed and then right after that we will be working for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. I’m going to be attending several conferences while I’m here, state and local strategies, which is where we know the heart and soul of the labor movement is—working on the ground in our cities and in states across the country to try to implement our activism and get our activists involved so that we can see really good legislation that’s going to impact working families.
Generations Must Stand United for Employee Free Choice Act
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Barbara J. Easterling was elected president of the Alliance for Retired Americans in February. She was previously the secretary-treasurer of the Communications Workers of America. For more information, visit www.retiredamericans.org or call 1-888-633-4435.
Our nation’s economic crisis is affecting nearly everyone. Unless you are getting one of those big Wall Street bonuses, you are probably struggling to pay your bills, keep your home, or afford to see a doctor or fill a prescription. There is no longer any doubt that the fundamentals of our economy are broken.
One way out of this mess—and a way to help both current and future retirees—is for Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
The Employee Free Choice Act recognizes that our middle class is in trouble because more and more, big corporations hold all the cards. As they lavish their CEOs with bonuses and golden parachutes, they slash jobs and cut all the wrong corners on customer service and safety. They break their promises to workers and retirees, leaving millions without health care and retirement plans.
Obama Reverses Bush Executive Orders, Creates Middle Class Task Force
President Barack Obama today reversed three Bush-era anti-worker executive orders and created a Cabinet-level task force to rebuild the nation’s middle class. In a White House ceremony this morning attended by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and other union leaders, Obama signed three executive orders that reverse a series of orders by then-President George W. Bush, which govern the way federal contractors deal with unionized workers.
The three new executive orders:
- Require federal service contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.
- Reverse a Bush order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.
- Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.
America’s Real Patriot Act: The Employee Free Choice Act
When America’s founders crafted the Constitution, they knew more was needed to ensure the survival of democracy. So they created the Bill of Rights. They made sure that at the top of the list, the First Amendment included such rights as the freedom of assembly. That is, the freedom of all of us to gather together in groups of our choosing. Like, say, unions.
Some opponents of workers’ freedom to form unions seem to have forgotten that forming groups outside government—and corporate—purview is critical to a free nation. In Big Brother-speak, these corporate hacks are attacking the proposed Employee Free Choice Act—which would enable more employees and workers to have the freedom to form unions—as unconstitutional.
Here’s what’s really outrageous:
- Managers following employees and workers to the bathroom and around the workplace to harass them for seeking to form a union.
- Workers so intimidated by employers, they become scared of voting in a ballot for a union so they vote against the union or don’t vote at all, fearing that if they do, they’ll lose their job.
Bailout Billionaires, Kill the Middle Class
We know how the bridge loan to automakers is being spent because the Bush administration made sure they only got aid after agreeing to tough stipulations.
So that accounts for $14.5 billion of our taxpayer money. But what about the rest of the $335.5 billion that went to Wall Street financial firms?
On “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough pointed out today that we do know how Wall Street spent $1.6 billion: on chauffeurs, company jets, home security, country club memberships and stock options.
