Posted on 09/04/2011 9:37:04 AM PDT by mdittmar
President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters James P. Hoffa criticized the patriotism of American corporations who are sitting on assets and holding back from employing more American workers.
Hoffa called American businesses "unpatriotic" for opening factories and stores overseas instead of helping boost employment at home on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. He singled out Apple Inc., saying “every time they do something, they do it in China, they do it somewhere else.”
Hoffa suggested that too much attention has been paid to what the president and lawmakers can do to boost the economy and called for increased pressure on business to contribute to the effort.
“What obligation does American business have?” he asked. He called on corporations to “start spending some of that money here in America.”
“We’ve lost 8 million jobs since ‘08 and we need to challenge them to get in the game,” said Hoffa.
Hoffa also said he expected the president to present a “bold plan” to boost employment when he addresses a joint session of Congress Thursday.
“We want a bold plan. Labor wants a bold program,” said Hoffa.
So far what we’ve done hasn’t worked; we’re still at 9 percent,” he said of the unemployment rate. “He needs to challenge business. Labor needs everybody to be in the game.”
Labor unions have indicated they are growing frustrated with their traditional allies in Washington over worries the president and congressional Democrats are more concerned with cutting the national deficit than with boosting the still-struggling economy.
Hoffa though suggested that the Teamsters were still behind the president in his reelection bid. “He took over the worst economy in 80 years,” said Hoffa. “He’s going to have a very difficult time turning this around.”
He dismissed the Republican 2012 presidential field and said Obama was the easy choice. “When the alternatives are Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, it makes it easy to make this decision,” he said. He said the GOP candidates were “anti-union, anti-worker.”
Amidst concern that Democratic leaders are not pushing back against Republicans, labor unions are gearing up for the 2012 election.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Wednesday that a super PAC is being set up by the labor federation to help unions earn their independence from political parties.
Trumka said labor unions would continue to push both parties to do more to boost employment. Voters are “going to check and see who’s pushing for jobs right now, see whose main purpose and focus is jobs,” said Trumka Wednesday.
There is a distinct probability that Ubama’s Politboro will be voted out of office in 14 months...
(I’ll leave the rest of that thought for you to complete, independently)
Just saying.
Translation: Bring back featherbedding.
With all due respect, all I need is union assembly and then my Apple stuff (lots and lots of it) will then be reduced to Microsoft reliability.
No thanks.
Shove it up your smelly Obamas, unions.
I don’t like the fact that China manes the electronics, but I like your unions even less. (The Chinese are far, far less corrupt.)
Unions don’t have nukes.
Maybe when unions admit they’ve cost hundreds of thousands of people jobs by not making concessions, and spend some of their hundreds of millions to put people back to work,
will I ever give two sh1ts about what some union president, who makes millions of dollars off his ‘brothers’, has to say about ANYTHING.
Yes, because stores in DEE-troit would certainly result in a lot of sales in China.
“He said the GOP candidates were “anti-union, anti-worker.”
Actually, the GOP candidates are as pro-worker as you can get. They are in favor of a legal/regulatory environment that encourages private enterprise to create more jobs through growth in business. That requires profits—something Big Labor is against. If there are profits, Big Labor is supposed to get it all.
Let’s see the logic...
Hiring more Americans is patriotic because, more people would be working and earning a living and we wouldn’t be sending our factories and jobs overseas.
Then...
Producing our goods and services with more union labor and even non-union labor that is more expensive, would make our products and services more expensive to buy, and with less consumer spending because of those higher prices, businesses would be forced to lay off workers in order to stay in business, because, the demand for high-priced goods and services is just not there, and companies have to reduce the supply of those high-priced items.
So, logic on the union side is just one half of the equation. The business side of logic says that, the union side is totally bonkers.
So if they were made here by union labor, what would an IPhone or IPad cost?
Doesn't matter what few functional ones they would make each would cost much more than anyone could afford.
Just one! To make a profit for it's shareholders...
It is only secondarily that solid profits generally lead to continued or growing employment, new investment, stable wage income, and new products.
You're a fool.
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