Mar 3, 2011

Americans do not support Republican union busting


Another day, another poll that shows Americans do not support Republican attempts to steal the civil right of collective bargaining from public employees.

A poll from NBC and the conservative Wall Street Journal discovered that Americans strongly oppose efforts to strip unionized government workers of their rights to collectively bargain. In fact, 62 percent of those surveyed said stealing those rights would be either “mostly unacceptable” or “totally unacceptable.”

That’s not to say the constant lies and attacks on teachers and public employees from Republicans have not been effective, and the poll also showed 68 percent of the respondents would like public employees to contribute more for their retirement benefits and 63 percent want these workers to pay more for their health care. This despite the fact that, for example, Wisconsin teachers have taken pay cuts for the past six years to keep their benefits, and they still are paying more for health care.

In Wisconsin, for example, a contract was made with public employees that is being broken, but they are still willing to make concessions.

It’s sad that Republicans are trying to bust unions and blame public workers for a recession created by Wall Street and made worse by tax giveaways to corporations already sitting on record profits, like in Wisconsin.

There is a good reason the growing inequality between the rich and the rest of us is turning the U.S. into a banana republic, and the richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976.

If Republicans are successful in breaking unions it will be even larger.

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