The New York Times is fully aware of Hilda Solis' miserable voting record in support of the "Compacts" creating the Indian Gaming Industry which now employs well over two-million workers in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state, federal or tribal labor laws.
Any Congressperson who would support sending human beings to work under such Draconian conditions cannot be expected to champion the rights of working people.
It is shameful and disgraceful that the New York Times would publish such an Editorial while never having had the courage to write one single word about the "Compacts" creating the Indian Gaming Industry which is run by a bunch of mobsters.
Not one single slot machine in this country is owned by a Native American band or tribe... this is an industry created using Native American communities as a front for organized crime in the same way the mobsters ran Cuba for so many years until the historic Cuban Revolution put an end to this "relationship" fifty years ago as they chased Batista and Meyer Lansky from the country.
This New York Times "Editorial" is as self-serving and hypocritical as the outfit calling itself "Progressives for Obama" whose leader and founder, Tom Hayden, who travels about the country singing similar praises for his colleague from California, Hilda Solis, while he voted for and supported the very same "Compacts" denying casino workers their basic human rights, dignity and a voice at work.
Of course, it is difficult to blame this country's mouth-piece for big-business in not taking up the issue of casino workers when John Sweeney and organized labor working in cahoots with the corrupt Democratic Party have turned a blind eye towards this injustice in favor of Democrats receiving huge campaign contributions from the Indian Gaming Industry.
The New York Times knows no shame... so, what's new?
Ignoring the plight of two-million casino workers in the Indian Gaming Industry fits in nicely with Barack Obama's newly discovered and adopted "politics of pragmatism."
Surprise, surprise; The New York Times has been a proponent of the not-so-new "politics of pragmatism" for many years because it serves capitalism so well.
What is also not new is that the "Progressives for Obama" founders--- also the founders of the "New Left" who aim to become the new leaders of the "new" New Left" are also are practitioners of the "politics of pragmatism;" Tom Hayden has been a practitioner of such politics for many years as he made the transition from student radical to AIPAC poster boy to fervent supporter of Barrack Obama so easily. Together with Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Carl Davidson and a host of anti-communists they have formed "Progressives for Obama." Is it any wonder that these "Progressives for Obama" would now hail this Editorial from the preeminent mouth-piece of Wall Street... The New York Times and sing similar praises for Hilda Solis who just happens to be another cheerleader for Israel's carnage of the Palestinian people... anti-labor, imperialist sleaze really does stick together.
As for the Employee Free Choice Act... isn't it strange the New York Times does not advocate rescinding "at-will hiring, at-will firing" legislation on the books in some twenty-eight states which will render the Employee Free Choice Act useless... apparently The New York Times knows something about "at-will hiring, at-will firing" which it would like to see not discussed anymore than the "Compacts" creating the Indian Casino Industry where casino workers are treated much like the Palestinian people.
Capitalism certainly spins a deadly web upon which these parasites feed upon their trapped victims... of course, the capitalist soothsayers at The New York Times live pretty high on the hog, too, for spreading lies and confusion. And, when these capitalist soothsayers at The New York Times are not spinning their lies in the service of imperialism; they simply ignore any indignities, abuses and injustices inflicted on working people as the capitalists extend their drive for ever greater profits and control... from American Indian reservations to Gaza.
The New York Times has a lot of gall talking about workplace health and safety standards as not a word has ever been published about how working in smoke-filled casinos is destroying the health of millions of workers at some 450 casinos comprising the Indian Gaming and Hospitality Industry stretching from coast to coast like "right to work for less without any rights colonies." Gees, kind of like Puerto Rico and Gaza.
Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
New York Times Editorial - December 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/opinion/29mon1.html
There is no doubt that President-elect Barack Obama has
chosen a labor secretary who could be a transformative
force in a long-neglected arena. The question is
whether he will let her.
Hilda Solis, a United States representative from
Southern California, is the daughter of immigrant
parents with union jobs. She has been an unfailing
advocate of workers' rights during eight years in
Congress and before that, in California politics.
Ms. Solis has been a leader on traditional workplace
issues, like a higher minimum wage and an enhanced
right to form unions. She also has helped to expand the
labor agenda by sponsoring legislation to create jobs
in green technology, and in her support for community
health workers and immigration reform.
Her record in Congress dovetails with the mission of
the Labor Department, to protect and further the rights
and opportunities of working people. It also dovetails
with many of the promises Mr. Obama made during the
campaign, both in its specifics and in its focus on the
needs of America's working families.
The main issue is whether the Obama administration will
assert a forceful labor agenda in the face of certain
protests from business that now - during a recession
- is not the time to move forward.
The first and biggest test of Mr. Obama's commitment to
labor, and to Ms. Solis, will be his decision on
whether or not to push the Employee Free Choice Act in
2009. Corporate America is determined to derail the
bill, which would make it easier than it has been for
workers to form unions by requiring that employers
recognize a union if a majority of employees at a
workplace sign cards indicating they wish to organize.
Ms. Solis voted for the bill when it passed the House
in 2007. Senate Republicans prevented the bill from
coming to a vote that same year. Mr. Obama voted in
favor of bringing the bill to the Senate floor and
supported it during the campaign.
The measure is vital legislation and should not be
postponed. Even modest increases in the share of the
unionized labor force push wages upward, because
nonunion workplaces must keep up with unionized ones
that collectively bargain for increases. By giving
employees a bigger say in compensation issues, unions
also help to establish corporate norms, the absence of
which has contributed to unjustifiable disparities
between executive pay and rank-and-file pay.
The argument against unions - that they unduly burden
employers with unreasonable demands - is one that
corporate America makes in good times and bad, so the
recession by itself is not an excuse to avoid pushing
the bill next year. The real issue is whether enhanced
unionizing would worsen the recession, and there is no
evidence that it would.
There is a strong argument that the slack labor market
of a recession actually makes unions all the more
important. Without a united front, workers will have
even less bargaining power in the recession than they
had during the growth years of this decade, when they
largely failed to get raises even as productivity and
profits soared. If pay continues to lag, it will only
prolong the downturn by inhibiting spending.
Another question clouding the labor agenda is whether
Mr. Obama will give equal weight to worker concerns -
from reforming health care to raising the minimum wage
- while the financial crisis is still playing out.
Most members of his economic team are veterans of the
Clinton administration who tilt toward Wall Street. In
the Clinton era, financial issues routinely trumped
labor concerns. If Mr. Obama's campaign promises are to
be kept, that mindset cannot prevail again. Mr. Obama's
creation of a task force on middle-class issues, to be
led by Vice President-elect Joseph Biden and including
Ms. Solis and other high-ranking officials, is an
encouraging sign that labor issues will not be given
short shrift.
There are many nonlegislative issues on the agenda for
Ms. Solis. Safety standards must be updated: in the
last eight years, the Labor Department has issued only
one new safety rule of its own accord; it issued a few
others only after being compelled by Congress or the
courts. Overtime rules that were weakened in 2004 need
to be restored. To enforce labor standards, the Labor
Department will need more staff and more money, both of
which have been cut deeply by President Bush.
Only the president can give the new labor secretary the
clout she will need to do well at a job that has been
done so badly for so long, at such great cost to the
quality of Americans' lives.
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