On the Road for Bernie in Iowa (Larry Cohen explains why the union is picketing there.)
Article from the Democracy Daily section on BernieSanders.com.
On the Road for Bernie in Iowa
SEPTEMBER 9, 2015| BY LARRY COHEN
Larry Cohen reports from Iowa:
On a hot Iowa Labor Day weekend, everyone was feeling the Bern!
Bernie himself set the pace on Friday and Saturday, meeting with Native Americans and walking a picket line in Cedar Rapids. It has been widely reported that he is the first major presidential candidate to walk a picket line while campaigning since Robert Kennedy in 1968. For Democratic candidates since then, that can be taken as a commentary on the gap between their walk and their talk.
Workers were picketing Ingredion (emphasis on “greed”). Formerly Penford Products, Ingredion produces starch for food products.
When the new owners bought Penford they pledged to keep up employment and work with the union. But, as is often the case, after they took over they demanded massive wage and benefit cuts. Now, faced with continuing management ultimatums, the workers are picketing while they negotiate and are asking for community support.
The CEO is paid $7 million a year and has a golden parachute of $28 million. The struggle of Ingredion’s 160 workers and their families against management’s greed is now gaining notice and media coverage across Iowa and beyond.
Bernie’s Labor Day talk to the New Hampshire AFL-CIO underlined the difference between himself and other candidates. He emphasized his support for the $15 minimum wage, restated his opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership and, most importantly, connected his support for the expansion of collective bargaining rights to sustainable economic growth.
My own Iowa journey took me to seven Labor Day weekend stops in eastern Iowa in two days. In manufacturing towns like Cedar Rapids and Clinton, Davenport and Dubuque, the consequences of decades of failed trade policies were apparent in the factories that were closed and the cutbacks in those still operating. Union members and nonmembers, active and retired – working people almost universally opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Most were in disbelief that our government could continue to pursue foreign policy objectives that devastate communities, by cutting jobs and forcing our incomes to compete with unthinkably low wage levels.
A John Deere employee described his eight years on layoff as production shifted out of the country; a retired electronics worker described the size of his plant’s workforce before and after NAFTA and our failed trade policy with China. Public sector workers well understood the connection between cuts in manufacturing and the pressure to close schools and cut public services...
Full article:
https://berniesanders.com/on-the-road-for-bernie-in-iowa/
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