As usual, Democratic stalwarts are shamelessly running around with Big Labor, acting as if only Democrats know how to create jobs
Meanwhile, Big Labor is threatening the Democrats with mass picketing that I would challenge as both violative of state law and as unlawful secondary boycott activity under the National Labor Relations Act.
From the Herald-Standard (Fayette County, PA): “Jackson, labor leaders push for economic growth” (by Josh Krysak)
About 400 area residents, mostly members of the United Mine Workers of America, turned out Monday morning to rally for political change as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and labor leaders visited the district on the second leg of a four-day bus tour to promote economic growth.
The excursion, entitled “Reinvest in America: Put America Back to Work,” which is focused on jobs, education and health care in the tri-state region, began Sunday with a rally in Pittsburgh and will conclude Wednesday in Ohio. . .
“There is something spiritual about this journey [gag me],” Jackson said. “We want to see walls come down. We need people who are working to vote their economic interest, not their racial fears.” . . .
Jackson, dressed in navy blue worker-style clothes, said that the recent job growth across the country, about 275,000 in the last month alone, is not the jobs the tour hopes to bring back to America’s working class. [check out the picture showing him literally wearing a blue collar, looking almost as foolish as George Bush in a military uniform] He said the new jobs created over the last year are primarily in low-paying labor jobs like restaurants and department store chains [as some of the items in this post indicate, this assertion is just plain wrong]. . .
At times the tour seemed more like a rally for Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry . . .
At one point, Ed Yankovich, local president of the UMWA, compared the bus tour to the storming of the beaches at Normandy and noted that one of the reasons the soldiers fought in that epic battle 60 years ago was to secure health care for future generations [see the reader comments at the bottom of the article on this outrageously absurd analogy]. . . . Read more
Meanwhile,in Boston, Big Labor is using the upcoming Democratic convention to flex their muscles and play hardball.
The Boston Globe reported yesterday: “No-strike deal rejected by council; Preparations for convention may be affected” (by Rick Klein)
The Greater Boston Labor Council last night rejected a project labor agreement with organizers of the Democratic National Convention, meaning that convention construction will begin at the FleetCenter today without a no-strike guarantee from the influential consortium of local unions.
The vote could convince more construction workers to honor the picket line planned for this morning at the FleetCenter, where more than 100 Boston police officers and their union allies are expected. . . .
Last night’s labor council meeting pitted the public-employee unions, which are angry over the fact that they are still working without contracts, against several of the largest private-sector building trade unions, which are eager for convention business. A project labor agreement would have guaranteed that trade unions would not strike, but in a sign of solidarity with the public unions the pact was defeated on a voice vote . . . described as “overwhelming.”
Meanwhile, in a sign of growing uneasiness in the Democratic Party, the chair of the Maine Democratic Party said that her state’s 36 convention delegates would probably not cross a union picket line at the convention. . . . “We’re a party that supports labor all the way,” . . .
[C]ity negotiators said they deem an 11.9 percent wage increase over four years to be “appropriate and reasonable” . . . Read more
Apparently a few hours later yesterday, this article came out from the Associated Press (via Boston Herald.com): “Union protests lead to convention project delays”
Union pickets prevented construction from getting started Tuesday at the site of next month’s Democratic National Convention, as hundreds of demonstrators surrounded the FleetCenter and North Station in a show of solidarity with the city’s police union.
Faced with crossing the picket line, many subcontractors who were scheduled to report to work for day one of the FleetCenter’s $14 million pre-convention overhaul turned back instead, including a fleet of moving trucks driven by Teamsters. . .
The Democratic mayor . . . said he’s not going to cave in to the union’s demands just to get work started on the convention site. . .
The delay in the FleetCenter’s conversion from a sports arena to a convention center presents problems for DNC organizers, who may now be forced to hire nonunion workers - an unthinkable prospect for a Democratic Party built on a foundation of organized labor. . .
“It’s an easy position,” Jerry Leary, vice president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2222. “This is what unionism is all about. Hopefully, it will show them that we’re serious.” . . . Read more
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
If you “support labor all the way” does that mean you give them whenever they want when they put a gun to your head in this fashion?
What would Ronald Reagan have done? (I am thinking about writing a post revisiting the PATCO strike in Reagan’s memory)
If the project goes on with nonunion workers, as it should, the cozy relationship between organized labor and the Democratic Party may be irreparably damaged.
Who will suffer more if this occurs? I say Big Labor. I mean how many union members really vote the way they do because they’re told to do so by union bosses? How many will start voting Republican if Democrats are perceived as union busters — they already know Republicans are union busters?
Come on, DNC, tell ‘em where to go . . . You have nothing to lose but your chains. . .
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Thank God for my labor union IBEW Local 102, I can earn a living and have benefits ….Reading your thoughts is scary….Obviously you are for having a few really rich people