On the Eve of Labor Day…

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/08/31/on-the-eve-of-labor-day/

On the Eve of Labor Day…

by Tula Connell, Aug 31, 2007

On the eve of Labor Day, or any day, this is a great article by economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).



In “The Right to Unionize: Key to Democracy,” published on Truthout this week, Baker points out how Big Business has waged war against unions and their members, an anti-union drive that has clear support from the federal government. For instance:

Government policies have also supported anti-union practices in other ways. A main purpose of trade agreements like NAFTA was to make it as easy as possible to relocate factories overseas. The high dollar policy Robert Rubin initiated in the Clinton era also put U.S. manufacturing, and its unionized workers, at a huge disadvantage. A 30 percent over-valued dollar effectively imposes a 30 percent tariff on goods exported from the United States, while providing a subsidy of 30 percent on goods imported into the United States.

And as we near Labor Day 2007, Baker reminds us that the decline of unions has been a key factor in this nation’s worsening inequality.

Unions have also been essential to a wide range of political initiatives over the post-war period. Programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Head Start would not have been possible without the strong support of the labor movement. The same is true of the key civil rights legislation of the sixties. More recently, the labor movement was at the center of the effort to prevent President Bush from privatizing Social Security. It will be difficult to make much progress on a wide range of social and economic issues without the support of a strong labor movement.

Check out the full article here: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082707E.shtml

[midnight]

1. The issue that strikes me the most, is the lack of health care

for Americans..... It's is such a horrible way of life to be without good access to various medical treatments. The harassment of some medical director ,of an insurance co., that collects obscene amounts of money in exchange for making the masses miserable. Another good reason to have unions, they speak for the workers, and demand these rights that can be so easily dismissed via the great insurance co.