Rose Ann DeMoro of the Huffington Post comes out swinging at the Senate Republicans, specifically their leader Mitch McConnell, in the matter of helping the auto industry. Funny title for an article: The Mitch Who Stole Christmas — just in time for the holidays. Too bad she lacks the holiday spirit, calling Sen. McConnell “mean-spirited,” “vilifying unions,” and “cynical”…
Or helping employers, as well as the people who work for them, by shifting healthcare coverage costs from employers to a national system like Medicare. It’s one major reason why car producers have lower costs in other industrial countries which have national healthcare systems. It would also guarantee healthcare coverage for the millions of Americans who have lost, or are losing their jobs or employer-coverage in this recession, or were already uninsured.
During the last major Depression, we experienced a wave of union growth. A direct result was the full flowering of economic prosperity for American families and an unprecedented economic boom in the 1950s and ’60s. The erosion of that dream and the shocking wealth chasm in our nation has coincided directly with the decline in union membership and the relentless attack on unions during the Bush-McConnell reign.
But let’s just say that the unions of today is very different than those of the last Depression. There’s nothing wrong with labor unions. In fact, it is indeed a good way for workers to organize and protect each other against injustices in the work place. However, mega-unions like the UAW, National Education Association, and American Federation of Teachers, have morphed into something sinister, something resembling political parties. And that stems from union leaders cozying up to Washington, particularly the Democrats, to stay in power and further their own agendas.
