President Obama on America's Workers in the Washington Post

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.seiu.org/2009/01/president-obama-on-americas-workers-in-the-washington-post.php

2:39 PM Eastern - January 21, 2009

By Michael Whitney

Just prior to taking office, President Barack Obama gave an in-depth interview with the editorial board of the Washington Post, in which he reiterated his strong support for America's workers and the Employee Free Choice Act.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_eR-b_n-Nc&eurl=http://www.seiu.org/2009/01/president-obama-on-americas-workers-in-the-washington-post.php

President Obama said that one of the reasons wages have flatlined in the last decade is because American workers have had "very little leverage" and "that larger and larger shares of our productivity to the top and not to the middle or the bottom." Here's what he said:

Here's my basic principal that wages and incomes have flatlined over the last decade. That part of that has to do with forces that are beyond everybody's control: globalization, technology and so forth. Part of it has to do with workers have very little leverage and that larger and larger shares of our productivity go to the top and not to the middle or the bottom. I think unions serve an important role in that.

The President knows that growing union membership will only help our economy recover. New research makes a solid case as to why the Employee Free Choice Act would be a recovery program that gets our economy back on track: the economic impact of the Employee Free Choice Act would be about four times as large as the recent federal minimum wage increase.

But business interests who say that having more workers in unions will somehow hurt the economy need a new argument. President Obama says that anyone advancing that angle "probably won't get far with me."

You know, now if the business community's argument against the Employee Free Choice Act is simply that it will make it easier for people to join unions and we think that is damaging to the economy then they probably won't get too far with me.

Fortunately for America's workers, that's exactly the argument being used by business interests opposed to Employee Free Choice.

FULL story at link.