What's a union guy to do...
... when major Democratic party leaders, including Knucklehead's Representative, the dean of the NY caucus, make trade deals in secret with the Bush administration that pro business groups love and unions don't have a chance to have any imput in before the press conference goes on?
I can't even begin to talk about how furious I am with this right now. We can't a minimum wage increase, but we can get the same NAFTA garbage from the early 90s? We get trade agreements without decent labor and environmental standards? This is the majority I busted my ass to put in office? What the fuck is this?!!! Tell us, David Sirota:
Thursday, May 10th was a whirlwind day on the political frontlines in the War on the Middle Class, as a handful of senior congressional Democrats and the White House - cheered on by K Street lobbyists - joined forces today to announce a "deal" on a package of trade agreements that could impact millions of American workers and potentially calls into question the entire election mandate of 2006 (I say potentially because the full details are still being concealed by both Democrats and the White House). You'll notice the irony of the deal with just a glance at the front of the New York Times business section (screen captured here) - the deal was agreed to (though its details have still not been made public) on the very same day the U.S. government reported another widening of America's job-destroying trade deficit.
davidsirota's diary :: ::
Because so much transpired yesterday, I'm going to summarize it here chronologically in bullet points to make it easier to digest.
I've been covering it live all day, but figured for brevity it would be best to put it in one place. For context, remember that, as Public Citizen has documented and as business publications like Forbes Magazine has confirmed, Democrats won their congressional majority in 2006 thanks to scores of challenger candidates specifically running against lobbyist-written trade policy. This 2006 lesson is particularly important to Democrats who, in the early 1990s experienced their own President campaign for office opposing unfair trade deals, then ram NAFTA through Congress "over the dead bodies" of workers, then watch the Democratic majority get decimated in the following election. I want to stress, we still don't know the details of the deal, but we do have some critically important information to analyze.
Check the timeine out.
This, of course, was also the same day that I found a blogad for Screw That Bulb, a CWA campaign against GE, who's making up for the good it's doing in producing CFLs by making them in China.
GE is asking consumers and its employees to sign a pledge to “go green” and start purchasing the CFL light bulbs, which are imported from China. The problem is that each pledge leads to the loss of jobs in U.S. lighting plants. GE is actually asking workers in its lighting plants to pledge to put themselves out of a job!
It's times like this that make me glad shabbas is in a few hours.
I can't even begin to talk about how furious I am with this right now. We can't a minimum wage increase, but we can get the same NAFTA garbage from the early 90s? We get trade agreements without decent labor and environmental standards? This is the majority I busted my ass to put in office? What the fuck is this?!!! Tell us, David Sirota:
Thursday, May 10th was a whirlwind day on the political frontlines in the War on the Middle Class, as a handful of senior congressional Democrats and the White House - cheered on by K Street lobbyists - joined forces today to announce a "deal" on a package of trade agreements that could impact millions of American workers and potentially calls into question the entire election mandate of 2006 (I say potentially because the full details are still being concealed by both Democrats and the White House). You'll notice the irony of the deal with just a glance at the front of the New York Times business section (screen captured here) - the deal was agreed to (though its details have still not been made public) on the very same day the U.S. government reported another widening of America's job-destroying trade deficit.
davidsirota's diary :: ::
Because so much transpired yesterday, I'm going to summarize it here chronologically in bullet points to make it easier to digest.
I've been covering it live all day, but figured for brevity it would be best to put it in one place. For context, remember that, as Public Citizen has documented and as business publications like Forbes Magazine has confirmed, Democrats won their congressional majority in 2006 thanks to scores of challenger candidates specifically running against lobbyist-written trade policy. This 2006 lesson is particularly important to Democrats who, in the early 1990s experienced their own President campaign for office opposing unfair trade deals, then ram NAFTA through Congress "over the dead bodies" of workers, then watch the Democratic majority get decimated in the following election. I want to stress, we still don't know the details of the deal, but we do have some critically important information to analyze.
Check the timeine out.
This, of course, was also the same day that I found a blogad for Screw That Bulb, a CWA campaign against GE, who's making up for the good it's doing in producing CFLs by making them in China.
GE is asking consumers and its employees to sign a pledge to “go green” and start purchasing the CFL light bulbs, which are imported from China. The problem is that each pledge leads to the loss of jobs in U.S. lighting plants. GE is actually asking workers in its lighting plants to pledge to put themselves out of a job!
It's times like this that make me glad shabbas is in a few hours.
Labels: CFLs, Charles Rangel, fair trade, labor
posted by Ruby K at 1:55 PM
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