Thursday, March 12, 2009

Editorial: Democracy hypocrisy

From: PWW

Author: PWW Editorial Board
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 03/12/09 16:00


The architects of the biggest job-killing operation in U.S. history — one that has chewed up and spit out the jobs of more than 1.8 million human beings during the last three months — are now emoting about job loss in this country.


The billionaire crowd and the CEOs whose greed and arrogance pushed our economy off the cliff, and their right-wing GOP backers, are using this ploy to try to kill the Employee Free Choice Act.

Masquerading as “EmployeeFreedom.org” and similar fronts, these folks, who claim that workers regaining their rights will cause job loss, are the same people who opposed a jobs/stimulus program.

They are the same people who are saying “no” to affordable universal health care, which would save billions of dollars and create many new jobs.

They are the same people who say “no” to caps on CEO salaries, which in one day amount to $10,000 more than the average worker makes in a year.

All the things they say “no” to would save jobs and boost the economy — including the Employee Free Choice Act.

Unions are a job-creator by giving working families more buying power.

Unions are a small business (and jobs) saver. A U.S. Small Business Administration report says small business bankruptcy rates are lower in states with high unionization rates.

The corporate bosses claim they are concerned about “democracy” and “preserving the secret ballot.”

The opposite is true. The Employee Free Choice Act would restore democratic rights put in place by the Wagner Act during the Great Depression. It removes from employers — and restores to workers — the choice of whether to form a union by majority sign-up or election.

Majority sign-up (also called card-check) was the law of the land under the Wagner Act. Corporate bosses gutted card-check via the Cold War Taft-Hartley law.

Free choice will help pull our economy out of the abyss by strengthening the labor movement and giving workers a bigger, fairer share of the wealth they produce. What could be more democratic than that?

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