This comes from a true champion of the people:
At a perilous period for both working and unemployed Americans, facing deep recession, corporate abandonment to China and other repressive regimes, and the Republicans’ virulent assault on livelihoods and labor rights, Kelber believes that AFL-CIO should be on the ramparts. Instead, he sees it as moribund, hunkering down, with control of the power and purse concentrated in the hands of the silent and Sphinx-like Federation officers and the tiny clique of bureaucrats who run the show.
“In the AFL-CIO, the rank-and-file have no voice in electing their officials, because only the candidates of the Old Guard can be on the ballot,” he writes.
Certainly, the AFL-CIO is not reflecting the old adage that when “the going gets tough, the tough get going.” They recoil from any public criticism of Barack Obama, who disregards or and humiliates them by his actions.
Mr. Obama promised labor in 2008 to press for a $9.50 federal minimum wage by 2011, and the Employee Free Choice Act, especially “card check,” and then forgot about both commitments. He has not spoken out and vigorously fought for an adequate OSHA inspection and enforcement budget to diminish the tens of thousands of workplace related fatalities every year. He’s been too busy managing drones, Kandahar and outlying regions of the quagmire of our undeclared wars.
Nothing Obama does seems to publically rile the AFL-CIO. In February, he crossed Lafayette Square from the White House with great fanfare to visit his pro-Republican opponents at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yet declined to go around the corner and visit the AFL-CIO headquarters. Where was the public objection from the House of Labor?
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Ralph Nader: Revitalizing the AFL-CIO
via powor.org
1 in 10 Soldiers Have Lost Limbs in Current Wars
1 in 4 of those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are unemployed, suffer depression or substance abuse.
- source: CNN
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
White House Dilemma: What to Do With Elizabeth Warren
White House Dilemma: What to Do With Elizabeth Warren
- She's become a threat to corporate interests. Question is whether the administration will abandon her like they've done with labor.
Sarkozy backs Lagarde for IMF, China urges open race
Sarkozy backs Lagarde for IMF, China urges open race
- Only a matter of time before the Chinese start dictating terms.
Consumers hold back growth, rebound seen muted
Consumers hold back growth, rebound seen muted
- Recovery?! What recovery?
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