Posted on 11/09/2008 9:18:51 AM PST by Fred
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. labor unions, having helped Barack Obama win the presidency, entertain high hopes he will enact their agenda to bolster their negotiating power with employers and increase their numbers after decades of decline.
Unions have "an unprecedented amount of leverage" after turning out white middle-class voters for Obama in battleground industrial states like Pennsylvania and Ohio that he won in Tuesday's election but had lost in the Democratic nominating primaries, said University of Illinois-Chicago labor expert Robert Bruno.
"American workers won this election," said Anna Burger, chairman of the labor coalition "Change to Win" at a news conference this week in Washington. "The mandate has never been so overwhelming for a progressive economic agenda."
A cornerstone of labor's agenda is passage of the Employee Free Choice Act that unions argue restores balance to its negotiations with employers, but is described as "Armageddon" by a leading business group.
Burger said she expected the measure and other parts of the unions' agenda to be addressed in the first 100 days of the Obama administration, which takes office on January 20.
Other labor leaders sought to dampen the notion they were owed something by the incoming administration.
"That is not the way Obama works," said Bill Samuel, legislative director of the AFL-CIO, America's biggest labor organization.
"We are part of the conversation about the economy right now in a way that we weren't when the Republicans were in charge ... we see the world in the same way (as Democratic leaders)," Samuel said.
A battle is shaping up in the U.S. Senate over the Employee Free Choice Act. Its two major provisions would let prospective members sign union cards instead of waiting to hold secret ballot elections to unionize workers at a company,
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Big Labor’s Bill to End Secret Ballots Gains Momentum(UAW spend 400,000,000 to elect DIMS)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2128040/posts
This legislation may not fly with the southern blue dog dems. They have lots of non-union factories and auto plants. The foreign owned auto assembly plants will just close shop and move overseas. The unions have been able to hold the gun to American manufacturers but the foreigners will not tolerate it.
Lots of jobs and votes to be lost as a result.
Voting should be open, your choice should flash on a board when you vote, that way there's no possibility of fraud, brownshirts will be at least a hundred yards away, and your vote will be posted on the internet, using the bandwith saved by not disclosing the names of under $200 contributors.
Any government bailout will only have a temporary effect.
Remember Chrysler?
Mercedes Benz took over Chrysler, and pumped in billions of dollars into Chrysler for years. In the end they had to give in, say enough and walk away.
No amount of bailout is going to save the fundamentally flawed GM and Ford, especially if the Obambi unions come up with even more insane demands, even while the super efficient Toyota and Honda factories in the South continue to churn out better cars with their NON-unionized labor. A bailout will only postpone the inevitable.
I thought about that but I would view it as supporting our political system, not supporting candidates.
Boy is Burger going to be surprised if she really thinks American workers won the election. What American workers really won is the ‘right’ to pay the expenses for American non-workers.
The auto makers in the South should be a roll model for the TARDS in Michigan, but noooooooo, the plan is to force the successful auto makers in the South to unionize.
Also, the the southern states have done an excellent job in working with the automakers and have given them incentives to put their factories in their states, but noooooooooo, the TARDS in Michigan are calling this subsidies and think that the other states should subsides their corruption, greed, and overpaid wages.
At Obozo’s press conference, he had the HEAD TARD (governor of Michigan) standing right behind him drooling and looking forward to the latest gravytrain from the candy man DIMS and BHO.
But our political system is about candidates, and if I favor one more than another, why should the one I oppose get anything from me? Socialism for free speech is what public financing is - that’s how I see it. I would rather run the risk of a George Soros pumping millions toward his candidate than have government decide who gets the “free speech” money. Money talks and we have to come to grips with that reality, not curbing free speech on a “lets make everyone equal” policy.
If the union members don’t vote as the leaderships wants they will not have a job. This is especially true in the Longshoreman’s union where they choose daily what jobs you get, if any, and to “upset” the boss is bad.
With GM and Ford tanking, they’ll be lucky to have jobs. With the housing market tanking, they’ll be lucky to have jobs. I predict less production and more unemployment.
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