The leadership of organized labor from the local levels right on up to the very top offices of the AFL-CIO and Change To Win have obediently and loyally served the Democratic Party, which is nothing but a Wall Street party of war and corruption; but, unlike the corrupt big-business and big-money people who thoroughly dominate the Democratic Party, working people have nothing to show for their years of support.
We have heard about "high-road" capitalists and "low-road" capitalists from outfits like "Progressives for Obama," the Nation Magazine, and even the Lovestone grouping which has, again, come to dominate the leadership of the Communist Party USA with a class collaborationist betrayal of the working class under the guise of being part of the "historic" coalition that elected Barack Obama. From the AFL-CIO's "think-tank," the Campaign for America's Future, we have heard all about how they have spear-headed all these "grassroots" efforts for reforms their heroes in the Democratic Party are going to implement... instead, these dirty birds like Robert Borosage and his sidekick Roger Hickey, acting upon instructions from John Sweeney, have sown divisions in the movement for health care reform dealing single-payer universal health care the exact same fate as Card Check.
As for the contention of the Wall Street Journal that the right is pouting over its defeat, here again, we have the Wall Street Journal peddling this crap in order to deceive and disorient.
The right has nothing to pout about, Wall Street's candidates won the election. Barack Obama is no socialist; Obama is no progressive; President Barack Obama isn't even a liberal... from day one Barack Obama has been Wall Street's president.
Now organized labor's leaders will sit and pout until John Sweeney's retirement takes place.
And we can be sure some other big-mouth looking for a nice big fat paycheck compliments of workers' dues will step forward talking real tough while doing nothing.
John Sweeney and Andy Stern set this defeat up for Card Check when they divided the labor movement--- first by backing down on single-payer universal health care, then in their silence as Israel slaughtered Palestinian children in Gaza.
These labor fakers have no intent of turning organized labor loose in fighting capital; they understand their roles very well. They play a role as important in this capitalist system every bit as important as the Wall Street bankers and the industrialists. The role of these labor leaders is to create a docile working class. No matter how tough the talk we hear from the big blowhards like Leo Gerard of the USW... we can rely on them for one thing in the end when all is said and done: These labor fakers will never show up for a fight.
Most likely working people are going to end up with labor legislation reform in the name of the Employee Free Choice Act which will further restrict the rights of working people to organize into unions and John Sweeney and his slobbering Obama supporters and boosters will try to put on a happy face claiming it was the best compromise they could get.
This is the longest running circus in the world.
The sad fact is, the Wall Street Journal has run an op/ed piece more truthful than any opinion pieces in the People's Weekly World for the last nine years.
And, now, for the next act under the Big Top: Ladies and Gentleman, introducing the newest act to the show, straight from Barack Obama's transition team, please give a warm round of applause to David Bonior who the Wall Street Democrats have selected as their choice to mislead organized labor as he enters the center ring.
We have the "Tea Party" protesters with their three cornered newspaper hats and we have the three-ring circus where the Democrats in one ring, the Republicans in the other ring take turns showcasing their best new acts in the center ring.
The only question remaining is: How much longer are people going to continue purchasing tickets to the show--- perhaps when their credit cards fed into the ATM machine come back with the message: transaction not allowed.
Alan L. Maki
Some Democrats only care about labor's money.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124035645604940949.html
It has been three hard months of political exile for those on the right, a time for them to count their grievances and dress their outrage in the trappings of centuries past. Some have donned colonial outfits to stage tea parties. Others have found the 1860s more to their taste, reviving the fiery language of secession fever.
But they can all take heart from one development in the nation's capital. Good old K Street, where the big tea party never stopped, has all but halted organized labor's effort to make it easier for workers to unionize.
After massive lobbying both by labor and by business, it appears that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which, as it now stands, would allow workers to organize in many cases merely by signing cards instead of holding elections, will not have the 60 votes required to get past a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Now, to be pro-labor is to resign yourself to years of failures and defeats, with few tea parties along the way for consolation. Even so, the setback on EFCA has to be a bitter one. Union members worked hard to elect Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress, as they did to put Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton in the White House. And now, just as in those previous two periods of Democratic governance, labor's friends are having trouble enacting basic labor-law reforms.
To understand why we need new rules governing unionization, look no further than yesterday's New York Times, where Steven Greenhouse told the story of a Louisville, Ky., hospital whose nurses tried to form a union but failed after they were reportedly threatened with losing their benefits among other things.
Such practices are commonplace and well-documented by Human Rights Watch and others. But labor's case never seemed to hit home. Instead, conservatives have carried the day, playing on lurid stereotypes to hint that intimidation by unions is the real worry and that EFCA spells the end of secret ballots in the workplace and hence of democracy itself.
Before I go on, I should acknowledge that this whole thing might be a clever bit of jiu-jitsu by the unions. After all, the mere threat of EFCA has turned business almost Soviet in its feigned concern for the proletariat. The Chamber of Commerce is now exhorting the public to "stand up for workers' rights," running a "workforce freedom airlift," and, along with other trade associations, supporting groups with names like "Coalition for a Democratic Workplace" and "Workforce Fairness Institute."
EFCA's supporters may simply drop their bill's most controversial provisions, get some compromise measure passed, and spend the next 20 years reminding corporate America of the days when it was touchingly committed to "workers' rights" and a "democratic workplace."
If only. The sole clever reversal we have seen so far has been the familiar one where Democrats torpedo the most trustworthy member of their coalition.
Why does labor always get it in the neck?
First, there are those Democrats who don't care much for labor to begin with. Then there is the wide spectrum of Democratic donors and supporters who simply don't understand the problems of blue-collar life. They might dislike the religious right, but they didn't give money to Democratic political campaigns to increase union membership.
Or maybe it's just the money. Consider the lineup of lobbyists that retail giant Wal-Mart has assembled to make its case against EFCA. According to lobbying disclosure forms filed with the House and Senate we find that Wal-Mart's lobbyists include Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti (which employs former presidential candidate John Kerry's liaison to Congress during the 2004 campaign), a former legislative director for Rahm Emanuel, and a former assistant to Arkansas Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln.
Wal-Mart has also secured, according lobbying disclosure forms filed with Congress, the services of Tony Podesta, of the Podesta Group, one of the hottest lobby shops in Democratic D.C. Mr. Podesta is joined in pushing Wal-Mart's views on EFCA by a former assistant to Democrat Mark Pryor, the other senator from Arkansas.
The real standout on Wal-Mart's labor-issues roster, though, is D+P Creative Strategies, which wears its liberalism as proudly as last week's tax protestors did their three-cornered hats. According to its Web site, D+P "highlights partnership, shared benefits, and a commitment to advancing social justice goals." The disclosure form for its Wal-Mart EFCA activities lists a former assistant to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. The bio of its principal, Ingrid Duran, who is also listed as a Wal-Mart lobbyist, declares that the firm's mission is "to increase the role of corporate, legislative and philanthropic efforts in addressing the concerns of Latinos, women, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) communities."
Maybe the day will come when those communities are correctly addressed by corporations and the rest. But when their "concerns" turn in the direction of bargaining with their employers, they're on their own.
Write to thomas@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A13
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