Dec 2, 2008

Voting for anti-working Grinch of the Year has begun


The nominations are in and the voting has begun for the Ninth Annual “Grinch of the Year” contest sponsored by Jobs with Justice that identifies the greediest Grinch that has caused the most harm to working families.

After taking nominations from all over the country for almost a month, the nominees are anti-worker corporate lobbyist Richard Berman and Wall Street executives.

Berman is a notorious lobbyist and hired gun for the alcohol, tobacco and fast food industries, who will say or do anything for the right price. He’s mounted campaigns to relax drunken driving laws, downplay the public health impact of obesity and indoor tanning and prevent an increase in the minimum wage. But he is a nominee for his latest attacks on labor unions and their members.

Berman has waged a multi-million dollar PR campaign against unions and the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would level the playing field by making it easier for workers to join unions. His smear campaigns do the dirty work for corporate special interests who want to deny their employees a fair wage, health care benefits and safety on the job.

We have seen the Bush administration throw money at Wall Street with zero oversight, while requiring the Big 3 and the millions of blue collar workers they employee to jump through hoops. Over the past 30 years, conservatives successfully gutted regulation and preached 'smaller government' while millions of Americans lost good jobs and Wall Street and corporate America made record profits. Wall Street invented new, more complicated ways to make money off other people’s money

Now that the party’s over, Wall Street wants to plunder the rest of us to pay the bill for their greedy rampage.

For conservatives and financial elites, when working class people face a crisis, plants close or health care costs triple, the system is working. They take all the private profits, but when the bubble bursts, and they can no longer sustain their profiteering rampage... well, they're too big to fail. And who pays the bill? The CEOs are telling Congress to send the bill to working people – the very people who have been forced out of their housing, out of their jobs, out of their healthcare and out of their pensions by Wall Street’s greed.

You can also write in a candidate, and I nominate the U.S. Senate Republicans for using the auto bridge loan to try and break up the United Auto Workers (UAW).

Vote online now.

Jobs with Justice is a national organization that runs national campaign for workers' rights, with the vision of lifting up workers’ rights and struggles as part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. Jobs Local Jobs with Justice Coalitions unite labor, community, faith-based, and student organizations to build power for working people.

4 comments:

Dan said...

""Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would level the playing field by making it easier for workers to join unions."""

No, this bill eliminates the secret ballot and elections when voting to decide to join a union or not. What is bad about that?

It is because many union leadership officials are going to try and intimidate workers to organize. That is how the "solidarity" crowd operates in its attempt to get more money to give lip service to workers while the officials go to the democrat cocktail parties.

Communications guru said...

I agree, the Employee Free Choice Act, is a bill that would level the playing field by making it easier for workers to join unions.

This crap about eliminating the secret ballot is a bunch of bullshit. The secret ballot benefit’s the employer, and they have called for it when the workers sign enough pledge cards, and the employer calls for the election; and the union breakers then go to work intimidating employees by calling mandatory meetings where they can put out misinformation and threaten and fire workers.

I’ll agree to the “secret ballot” you love so much if you give organizers the same access to workers. If the company can hold a mandatory eight-hour meeting during work hours, then so can the organizers.

We saw the lengths Wal-Mart went through to stop workers from organizing.

Anonymous said...

Gosh...what a terrible thing it is for a company to think it has more rights than outsiders.

Why are you so afraid of a secret ballot? If the company is so horrible, all the workers have to do is listen to a speech and then go out and vote secretly for the union.

Why do people like you hold workers in such low regard? You obviously don't think they can make good decisions on their own...so folks like you are happy to make their decisions for them.

There are plenty of laws in place to counter inappropriate practices by management. The secret ballot is a cornerstone of democracy and you call it bullshit.

You don't want consumers to have free choice. You hate free speech. You disparage secret ballots. Is there any part of a democratic system that you don't disdain?

Communications guru said...

There still is a secret ballot. The only difference is the workers can call for a vote instead of management.