http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#40917627OLBERMANN: At the height of the auto industry crisis, this program obtained and reported on an internal Senate Republican memo which opposed the auto bailout.
The GOP hope? That the entire auto industry would die because, quote, Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor.
Fast forward two years -- and in our fourth story tonight -- while Mr. Issa and other Republicans in Washington tell America`s richest they can order off the menu, it turns out the richest are orchestrating a full-on assault on working class Americans at the state level.
New York Times reporting that in multiple states across the country, especially states where Republican governors and legislators are now in charge -- there is a growing movement to cripple and even destroy existing unions and the rights of working Americans to unionize. It is base on state-level budget crises. But as The Times reports, the movement extends far beyond just the unions for government workers. The Times does not explain who is behind this. We will.
And The Times does not mention that one of the states in the worst fiscal shape, Texas, is union-free. Republican Governor Rick Perry and his Texas Republicans dominated state legislator will find out some time next week just how far in the hole they are. It may be in the $20 billion range. Without unions to blame, they are planning on cutting health and education for Texas kids and Texas old people.
Nevertheless, even some Democrats have at least suggested that union workers are to blame for their budget problems. President Obama freezing pay for federal workers, incoming Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York expected to do the same for state workers. Recurring Democratic Governor Jerry Brown of California, in his latest inauguration speech, saying he will reexamine the pension system for state workers there.
And AFL-CIO memo obtained by The New York Times warns that Republicans in 16 states will go far further than that, that they will try to starve public sector unions by funding -- of funding by requiring the members to opt-in before their dues could be used to political purposes.
But the Republican assault goes even further than that. New Republican Governor John Kasich of Ohio wants to strip teachers of the right to go on strike and end the right of child care and home care workers paid by the state to even join a union.
The new Republican Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin also wants to strip government workers of the right to form unions or even to bargain as a group. We can no longer live, Walker says, in a society where the public employees are the haves and the taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots.
But then why are the Republicans in at least 10 states also trying to prevent private sector unions from using dues for political purposes? Quoting The Times, The American Legislative Exchange Council is quietly spreading these proposals from state to state. That group, ALEC is the acronym, it`s funded by big business, of course. It`s big pharma, big tobacco, big energy, big insurance, big banks, big automakers. That according to another website, ALEC Watch.
The ALEC Web site says it is down for maintenance. But a Google cache reveals that its early leadership included Kasich, among others. And a listing of board members includes executives from Wal-Mart, PhRMA and Koch Industries, which helped to bankroll the Tea Party.
And if you want to know how national Republicans view not just organized labor, but anybody`s labor, the House is changing the name of the Committee on Education and Labor to the Committee on Education and Workforce. No longer is it your labor. Now, it`s big business`s workforce.
On that note, let`s bring in Leo Gerard, international president of the United Steel Workers, who chairs the AFL-CIO`s public policy committee.
Welcome back to the program, sir.
LEO GERARD, UNITED STEEL WORKERS: Thank you. Good to be on, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Who`s behind this newest wave, number 13,000 in a series of union-busting efforts?
GERARD: This has been the Republican dream since the days of Reagan. And they embarked in those days a low-wage strategy, a low regulatory strategy, and an anti-union strategy. And this is them trying to exercise that strategy.
If we want to look at why the states are going broke, they`re going broke because we`ve lost tens of thousands, millions of jobs, 40,000 factories, Keith -- 40,000 factories closed during the Bush administration, left the country, went to China, went somewhere else. They don`t pay taxes. They gave huge tax breaks to the ultra rich, and they again reestablished those tax breaks.
It`s not the people who protect the quality of your food. It`s not the people who teach your kids. They`re not the people that have caused this economic mess. It`s been Wall Street and right-wing public policy that has destroyed the guts of America. We no longer make anything.
OLBERMANN: But if even Democrats are looking at public sector union wages and pensions -- does that not suggest the unions are part of the budget problems that are facing the states?
GERARD: No, absolutely not. We`ve got two Democratic governors that are said they`re going to look at this. And if we look at it in a rational way, we`ll find out that public sector workers aren`t the problem. There`s no public sector worker getting rich on their salary making $30,000 or $35,000 or $40,000 a year. Forty thousand dollars a year doesn`t make you rich if you`ve got three kids and you`re trying to put them through school.
If you got a decent pension -- let`s look at what happened to pensions since the deregulation of the financial community. How many billions were lost in the savings and loan scandal? How many billions were lost in Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco? And how many trillions of dollars of pension value were lost in this recent Wall Street economic meltdown?
Let`s look at who really caused the problem, not at the people who are the victims of that problem. This is scapegoating at its worst.
OLBERMANN: This Governor Walker in Wisconsin, and that remarkable quote -- what about that push to kind of portray union workers as the new welfare queens living large while real Americans are facing tough times out there?
GERARD: I guess what he`s saying is that everybody ought to live in the poverty level. Because what he`s saying is if there are people living above the poverty level because they`ve got a union, shame on them. They ought to come down to the level of whatever he calls the have-nots.
Again, we`ve got members in Wisconsin. None of our members have gotten rich working at Harley-Davidson, or none of them have gotten rich working in a factory. And I`m sure those public sector workers that teach our kids, clean our streets, pick up our garbage -- none of them are going to make their investments in Wall Street the way this governor has and probably will do.
OLBERMANN: Mr. Gerard, the argument that states have to bust even the private unions in order to bring investors into their states. Is there anything to that or is that just another smokescreen?
GERARD: Look, it certainly is another smokescreen. But what I think they`re trying to do is cripple unions from actually participating. How many people know that if you bring in right to work in a state, that that gives the worker a right to not pay dues, but it doesn`t preclude the union from having to represent that worker and bargain collectively for that worker? That would have been like giving me the opportunity during the Bush years to say, I didn`t vote for Bush so I shouldn`t pay taxes. You know?
This is another smokescreen designed to weaken unions. They see us as the last bulkhead against the complete control by the oligarchy and the corporate elite. And we`re going the fight like hell to make sure that doesn`t happen. We`re not going to fight alone.
OLBERMANN: Please do.
Leo Gerard, the international president of the United Steel Workers -- once again, great thanks for your time, sir.
GERARD: Thank you. Glad to be with you.
OLBERMANN: A measure designed to thwart the will of the majority currently used to suppress and support people in corporations is defended as free speech. The fight over reforming the filibuster -- ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OLBERMANN: The Senate majority leader is delaying filibuster reform? The Senate minority leader is opposing it on free speech grounds? Next.
First, the sanity break and the tweet of the day from Ricky Standard. Request: Let`s start calling Republicans the corporate Republicans in Frank Luntz fashion. LUNTZ.
Corporate Republicans? I like how that sounds. Corporate Republicans -- it works for me.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
