Sirotablog
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.
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October 22, 2007 9:30 AM
Labor's Untold Story Starting to Get Told
In researching my upcoming book, The Uprising, I was taken aback by how buried the history of the labor movement is in American culture. It is almost a lost history at this point. We are led to believe that the history of America is a history of Carnegies and Rockefellers and Gateses. But, as this In These Times piece shows, there are signs that labor history is coming back.
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About David Sirota
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover. He lives in Denver, Colorado. His daily blog can be found at CREDO Action. He contributes regularly to the Denver Post's Web site, is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and is working on his second book. He has been profiled in Newsweek and the Rocky Mountain News and is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties. Sirota serves as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that supports state legislators and that is a partner of CREDO.
You can subscribe to Sirota's e-mail newsletter by going to davidsirota.com and signing up in the lefthand corner. To find out more about Sirota, download his official biography or see his recent media appearances. You can e-mail him at sirota@credoaction.com.
The views expressed on this blog are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Working Assets (publisher of CREDO Action) or the institutions Sirota works for.
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Discussion
And here's more:
Calderon can't have it both ways. He cannot fail his citizens at home and then act as the Great Imperialist Protector of his citizens who are driven by poverty and corruption to enter the United States illegally. The United States provides Mexico with an annual surplus of $65 billion in trade, an estimated $25 billion in remittances from Mexican citizens living and working here illegally, and at least another $25 billion generated by the illegal drug trade across our southern border.
But it is President Bush and this Congress who should be most embarrassed, because they are failing to assert rights for Americans in their own country, rights far short of those demanded by Calderon for his citizens living illegally in our nation.
- Lou Dobbs
P.S.: That's pittance compared to ILLEGAL flooding of Cubans day after day into Florida. Because they automatically get "legal" status, it's hard to tell an illegal from a legal here in Florida. A Haitian, on the other hand, gets deported back regardless of their legal status unless the Haitian is hired for a SLAVERY-WAGE "job".
As if Calderon is not bad enough. India is now demanding that the US support GATSs implementation of "MODE 4". Under "Mode 4" workers themselves are to be little differently than any other trade good or service. It would spell the end of US economic sovereignty and make our immigration and labor laws virtually irrelevant.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/16/162510/204
http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=27999
As if Calderon is not bad enough. India is now demanding that the US support GATSs implementation of "MODE 4". Under "Mode 4" workers themselves are to be little differently than any other trade good or service. It would spell the end of US economic sovereignty and make our immigration and labor laws virtually irrelevant.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/16/162510/204
http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=27999
Calderon? What does he have to do with a resurgence of unions?
Granted, that the Mexican government isn't all that interested in protecting the rights of their own workers, but let's clean up our own act first.
Without unions, American workers are going to be divided, and conquered.
We need unions to speak up for American workers, and to provide lobbying blocs that can help counter the money and lies of K-street and their Republican, and Republi-lite minions.
We need more people like Joe Hill, Frank Littl, Mother Jones, Samuel Gompers, and Cesar Chaves to lead the American workers in a struggle with unfair labor practices, and working against the destruction of not only our economy, but other countries' economies by "free" trade agreements.
Bitching about immigrants is no solution, attacking them is unfair. We need to attack the underlying causes for this influx of economic refugees, and our own eroding wages.
Fair trade agreements and a resurgence of unions, no only here, but world wide is the only way to correct the tyranny of the rich and greedy oligarchs.
Corporations should not matter more than people!
Not ever!
Butte
Our unions are not experiencing any sort of rebirth just because they are included in some HS textbooks that students don't read anyways. In reality For the most part the working and middle-class are being gutted like fish.
And the Democrats are enabling this slaughter as well by supporting Trade policies and opening up guest worker programs along with keeping our borders wide open to allow even more illegal aliens in.
And what GreenPajamas and Llamajockey have posted are quite relevant labor wise. It shows how bad the attack on American workers is. Depsite Democratic agitprop to the contrary.
And unions aren't helping anyone least of all American citizens. Unions like SEIU and AFL-CIO are at forefront of supporting illegal immigrants and shitting on American workers. They are silent on the guest worker programs like H1-B, H-2 and L-1 and those companies who employ illegals.
No, unions are no friends of American workers anymore. These are not the same outfits that got Americans good wages and benefits. Today they are more likey to support policies and politicians that destroy American workers rather than enabeling them.
And unions aren't helping anyone least of all American citizens. Unions like SEIU and AFL-CIO are at forefront of supporting illegal immigrants and shitting on American workers. They are silent on the guest worker programs like H1-B, H-2 and L-1 and those companies who employ illegals.
Amen brother
However I make one critical distinction. Many Union locals of the SEIU and AFL-CIO have yet to be led astray by their corrupted or out of touch permanent beltway lobbyist organizations. Also far too many wannabee labor activists are really mushheaded Neo-Wobbly virtual ANSWER loons. Joe Hill please give me a break, next you will be trying to sell me on the practical political wisdom of Emma Goldman.
The brutal honest truth that too many liberals tend to ignore is that the Labor movement slowly took off and grew during a period between 1924 and 1965 when the US had strict immigration quotas and relatively tough border enforcement under the 1924 Immigration Act. All the truly effective major nationalist labor leaders like Samuel Gompers, John L. Lewis and Black civil rights activists A Phillip Randolph, Booker T Washington and Du Bois understood the importance of a link between sustainable levels of immigration, the coordinated support of effective and enforced Dept of Labor and Customs and Naturalization policies.
Let me also say there is a huge difference between the more moderate Taft/Eisenhower Republicanism of many local Chambers of Commerce and the wildly corrupt "World is Flat" corporatist globalist agenda of the National Chambers of Commerce.
Last please spare me the we are a nation of immigrants tripe. The slogan of the Statue of Liberty is Liberty Enlightening the World. The US can never solve the developing worlds problems through immigration or globalization.
My wife once tried to join a union but once she started to question the leadership on its unethical practices which basically amounted to copycating the corporatists, she faced harassment from both her boss and the other labor union members. She left and tried to stop me from letting my temper get out of hand but my stupid self back then put me to give those people a violent confrontation only to land me in jail for 1 year ! Luckily, her mother was a great psychologist and I was let go of for mental reasons. Frankly, Corporate America and today's pro-corporatist "unions" filled with IGNORANT members no different from anti-union people ought to be sent to the hurtlockers ! I can't believe how much of a crime it is to question the labor union leadership !
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