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MILWAUKEE — Rick Santorum took on the unions today, calling them “bullies” as he pledged solidarity with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in his fight to strip public employee unions of much of their bargaining power.
“Look, I come from southwestern Pennsylvania, I grew up in a steel town. I represented one of the most heavy labor districts in the entire country.
MILWAUKEE — Rick Santorum took on the unions today, calling them “bullies” as he pledged solidarity with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in his fight to strip public employee unions of much of their bargaining power.
“Look, I come from southwestern Pennsylvania, I grew up in a steel town. I represented one of the most heavy labor districts in the entire country.
In my opinion, unions in this country sabotaged themselves when they went all-in without condition for the Democratic Party.
IF they had been smart, they'd have stayed politically neutral and allowed their support to be drawn by whichever party did the right things to benefit their specific line of work. Instead, they quite slavishly sold themselves to the Democrats. The GOP cannot win them over no matter what and that will never change. So the unions have given the GOP a vested interest in weakening and destroying unions. In principal, the GOP is only really against them because the unions are unwavering supporters of the Democrats.
Case in point: If the teamsters union were to turn against Obama over high gas prices and support the GOP candidate, then the Democrats would learn a painful lesson from it -- they cannot take union support for granted.
If either party can win your support, your bargaining power is much stronger. If you blindly support one side without condition, that side doesn't have to work to maintain your support and the opposition has every reason to try to destroy you.
MILWAUKEE — Rick Santorum took on the unions today, calling them “bullies” as he pledged solidarity with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in his fight to strip public employee unions of much of their bargaining power.
“Look, I come from southwestern Pennsylvania, I grew up in a steel town. I represented one of the most heavy labor districts in the entire country.
That will come as a big surprise to the 14,000 members of the Greater Pittsburgh Regional Council of Carpenters Union, which endorsed Santorum in '06 in exchange for his support on a big tunnel project:
That will come as a big surprise to the 14,000 members of the Greater Pittsburgh Regional Council of Carpenters Union, which endorsed Santorum in '06 in exchange for his support on a big tunnel project:
In my opinion, unions in this country sabotaged themselves when they went all-in without condition for the Democratic Party.
IF they had been smart, they'd have stayed politically neutral and allowed their support to be drawn by whichever party did the right things to benefit their specific line of work. Instead, they quite slavishly sold themselves to the Democrats. The GOP cannot win them over no matter what and that will never change. So the unions have given the GOP a vested interest in weakening and destroying unions. In principal, the GOP is only really against them because the unions are unwavering supporters of the Democrats.
Case in point: If the teamsters union were to turn against Obama over high gas prices and support the GOP candidate, then the Democrats would learn a painful lesson from it -- they cannot take union support for granted.
If either party can win your support, your bargaining power is much stronger. If you blindly support one side without condition, that side doesn't have to work to maintain your support and the opposition has every reason to try to destroy you.
You have cause and effect confused.
The unions have always been "all in" for the Dems because they are the party of the working class. The GOP is and always has been the party of the investing class. The GOP is anti-labor, because unions force their their corporate contributors to provide good paying jobs at fair wages, in safe environments. All of which, of course, cuts into the almighty profit margin.
Some unions have occasionally supported the GOP, most famously in the Vietnam War era, when socially conservative hard-hats backed Nixon ( and later Reagan, until his anti-labor practices became apparent). Occassionally, Labor leaders will try to squeeze the Dems by flirting with their GOP opponents.
But unless we someday have a Labor Party in the US, union workers will always be at home in the Democratic Party.
That's another thing the Right hates about unions- they are democratic. The members ELECT the bosses, who then REPRESENT the members. If the members don't like what the bosses are doing, they vote them out.
I was a member, and sometimes officer, in a union for 30 years. Did I always agree with everything the union brass did? Of course not. But it was our job as members to keep the bosses honest and responsive.
It's just like being a citizen of the US. I don't always like what my government is doing, either, so I try to do what I can to influence its behavior. Primarily by voting.
The unions have always been "all in" for the Dems because they are the party of the working class. The GOP is and always has been the party of the investing class. The GOP is anti-labor, because unions force their their corporate contributors to provide good paying jobs at fair wages, in safe environments. All of which, of course, cuts into the almighty profit margin.
Some unions have occasionally supported the GOP, most famously in the Vietnam War era, when socially conservative hard-hats backed Nixon ( and later Reagan, until his anti-labor practices became apparent). Occassionally, Labor leaders will try to squeeze the Dems by flirting with their GOP opponents.
But unless we someday have a Labor Party in the US, union workers will always be at home in the Democratic Party.
The Teddy Roosevelt Republicans Party was very pro-worker. Teddy's own flavor of Republican, the Progressive Party, was vastly more pro-worker than Democrats or Republicans of his time.
Clearly, on those very rare occasions when unions flirt with the GOP, they need to flirt back more.
I think Romney has a couple of very smart ideas that are worth looking at. A Republican proposing to tie minimum wage with inflation? Blasphemy!! But it's good blasphemy and the kind that the GOP needs to warm up to. The more conservative GOP wants to abolish minimum wage entirely and that's just stupid. GOP needs to move towards the center if they want to survive.
MILWAUKEE — Rick Santorum took on the unions today, calling them “bullies” as he pledged solidarity with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in his fight to strip public employee unions of much of their bargaining power.
“Look, I come from southwestern Pennsylvania, I grew up in a steel town. I represented one of the most heavy labor districts in the entire country.
They can be bullies. My brother was physically not allowed to do his job by Union members and cover McCain for the local newspaper when he visited town.
I saw fellow teachers (Union Members) bully a teacher that didn't want to be a union member and went to court over it.
Why does Obama support Unions blocking private votes for certification and other important Union elections? The reason that they want public votes is so that they can intimidate (bully) people who vote against how the union wants you to vote.
That's another thing the Right hates about unions- they are democratic. The members ELECT the bosses, who then REPRESENT the members. If the members don't like what the bosses are doing, they vote them out.
I was a member, and sometimes officer, in a union for 30 years. Did I always agree with everything the union brass did? Of course not. But it was our job as members to keep the bosses honest and responsive.
It's just like being a citizen of the US. I don't always like what my government is doing, either, so I try to do what I can to influence its behavior. Primarily by voting.
Yes, my union is so democratic, we can't have private votes on any big issue, so we can get intimidated into voting certain ways. We really don't have a choice to be in the union, either we join or don't become a teacher for the standard public school. My union owns its health insurance provider and it has a monopoly through collective bargaining that allows it to charge over fair market price. That is less money for teachers and the school.
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