Thursday, December 18, 2008

Employee Free Choice V. Right To Work

In the near term, the desire of most working Americans is to rebuild the middle class, which has witnessed spectacular reversals in the past eight years. Actually, this incremental demise has been creeping among us for decades. One of the primary legislative components of the elimination of the middle class is the Taft-Hartley Act. This allows states to make closed union shops illegal.

I remember when this came up for a vote in Oklahoma. Proponents said all states around us were "right-to-work" states and if we did not join them then businesses would not locate here.

This is the pitch used to sell our middle class out. We must give massive corporate welfare, subjugate our workforce to a sub-par wage or starve.This has been the centerpiece of the American automotive loan denial.

The Senators of the lower wage slave labor states, also known as "right-to-work" states and foreign manufacturers opposed the aide package the states who pay hard fought union wages for American manufactured autos.I applaud all of the effort to enact the Employee Free Choice act, but understand in the big picture it is not a stitch to bind us together. It is merely a tool to generate a lopsided strength. It is a salve to aide but not a cure for the ailment.

I do not pretend to know how to suggest the repeal of a law. This is the beauty of the internet and the activists that people them. If it is the desire of the progressive movement to rebuild the middle class, then I ask them to push for the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act as well as endorsing Employee Free Choice.Do progressives agree and how do we do this?

No comments: