Things are tough all over...unless, of course you're one of the elites.

Not one of those liberal elites Fox News is always grumbling about. But the true elites. You know, the ones who get bonuses bigger than the ones they received last year despite being bailed out by the Feds. Or who post record profits despite a soft economy and record gas prices. Or who complain that they can't possibly compete with a federal public option, despite having a literal cartel and a near monopoly. Those who tell you that the problems in this country can be blamed on labor unions, illegal immigrants, lazy people who won't try harder to get off unemployment rolls, or gay people who want to have their partnerships legally recognized.

What do those elites have in common?

Greed. Simple, all-American greed.

In the last thirty years, greed has over taken our society and economy, grabbing our politicians, our media and too many people for whom the benefits don't trickle down into their Chicago School of Economics/Friedmanesque/free market-worshipping grasp. We have gone from Gordon Gecko's "Greed is good" to the GOP's implicit mantra "Greed is patriotic" and that force to get the most for ourselves, the hell with everyone else has driven this country to the brink of a second great depression and all but killed our middle class.

Jonathan Tasini has chronicled the reasons and people responsible for the looting of America in his new book, The Audacity of Greed. The corporate executives who bust unions and lay off workers while jet-setting in their multi-million lifestyles; the politicians too beholden to corporate interests to regulate industries to protect Americans to the media that reinforces and celebrates the robbing of average Americans as something to which one should aspire.

From Jonathan's official bio:

Jonathan Tasini is executive director of the Labor Research Association. The longtime president of the National Writers Union, he was the lead plaintiff in Tasini vs. The New York Times, the landmark electronic rights case that took on the corporate media's assault on the rights of freelance authors. In 2006 he ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in New York. He has written about labor and economics for a variety of publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and has appeared on CNBC and Fox News. He is currently challenging Kirsten Gillibrand for the 2010 Democratic nomination for US Senate from New York.

Howie Klein has an autographed copy of The Audacity of Greed that we will be giving out to the C&Ler whom Jonathan has determined asked the best question.

So with that, please join me in welcoming Jonathan Tasini to C&L.

It's the death of an American icon, a working-class woman who stood up for her rights and unionized her workplace. And wouldn't you know it? She fought the mills, but she couldn't make her insurance company do the decent thing until it was too late:

The woman whose life inspired the 1979 film Norma Rae has died of cancer after struggling with her health insurance company, which had delayed her treatment.

Crystal Lee Sutton was 68. She had struggled for several years with meningioma, a form of brain cancer.

She became a hero to the labor movement in the 1970s, when she took on her employer, a North Carolina textile plant, and unionized the factory floor. Her story became famous nationwide in 1975 after New York Times reporter Hank Leiferman wrote Crystal Lee: A Woman of Inheritance.

In 1979, her story was turned into the movie Norma Rae, a thinly-veiled fictional adaptation of Sutton’s struggle to unionize the J.P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. Sally Field won an Oscar for her portrayal of the character inspired by Sutton.

As Daily Kos blogger hissyspit points out, last year Sutton gave an interview to the press where she described a struggle with her health insurer over treatment. The Times-News in Burlington, North Carolina, wrote in 2008:

[Sutton] went two months without possible life-saving medications because her insurance wouldn’t cover it, another example of abusing the working poor, she said.

“How in the world can it take so long to find out (whether they would cover the medicine or not) when it could be a matter of life or death,” she said. “It is almost like, in a way, committing murder.”

She eventually received the medication, but the cancer is taking a toll on her strong will and solid frame.

In 2008, the North Carolina branch of the AFL-CIO urged supporters to donate money to Sutton’s medical fund. On its Web site, the union had stated that “after initially being denied coverage by her insurance company for life saving treatment, Sutton is now on drug and chemo therapies and has undergone two surgeries.”

In its obituary the Greensboro News-Record describes her now-legendary struggle to unionize the J.P. Stevens plant:

In 1973, a 33-year-old Sutton was working at the J.P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, where she was making $2.65 an hour folding towels. The poor working conditions she and her fellow employees endured compelled her to join forces with Eli Zivkovich, a mill worker turned union organizer, and attempt to unionize the plant employees.

Sutton eventually lost her job, but the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) won the right to represent the workers at the plant and Sutton briefly became an organizer for the union.

In 1977, she was awarded back wages and her job was reinstated by court order, although she chose to return to work for just two days.

The AFL-CIO went to bat for President Obama during the 2008 election and now they are standing their ground when it comes to one of his biggest campaign promises -- health care reform that includes a public insurance option:

WASHINGTON -- The AFL-CIO, a key ally of the White House on healthcare reform, won't support legislation unless it includes a public insurance option.

"Let me be as clear as I can be -- it's an absolute must," Rich Trumka, the labor group's secretary-treasurer, and its next president, told reporters at a briefing Tuesday morning. "We won't support the bill if it doesn't have a public option."

That could add to the pressure on the White House and Senate Democrats to pull the plug on bipartisan talks aimed at bringing Republicans along with the plan. The GOP has more or less indicated opposition to just about everything Obama wants to do with healthcare, but especially the public option. Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, the lead negotiator for his party, wrote a fundraising letter to his constituents this week that asks for their "immediate support in helping me defeat 'Obama-care.'" His office later clarified -- Grassley only meant he was trying to defeat the public option. Read on...

In mid-August a group of 60 progressive Democrats stood their ground, collectively stating that they would not sign a health care reform bill that doesn't include a public option -- the chorus of support for the public option is getting louder and and louder and any Democrat who votes against their party and their constituents on this issue had better plan on a fight come reelection time.

The phrase gets used a lot, but it bears repeating: Elections have consequences, and the American people kicked the GOP to the curb in '06 and '08, choosing Democratic politicians and their platform. It's time for President Obama to follow suit, tell the Republicans to pound sand and give the American people what they want and more importantly, what they need.

Affordable, quality health care coverage for all Americans isn't just a Democratic talking point, it's an essential part of their official party platform.

From Campaign for America's Future, this stunning news. Notice how union workers are the only ones paying attention to safety issues?

In recent years, multinational corporations have become accustomed to saving money by exporting production to China without concern for labor issues, environmental standards, or product safety. In fact, China typically violates world trade laws through dumping, subsidies, and illegal currency manipulation in order to gain a cost benefit over U.S manufacturers. Unfortunately, this mercantilistic approach too often proves harmful to U.S. workers and consumers in the long-run.

One potentially alarming example of cost savings by following the “China price” is being reported by utility workers in Illinois.

Pat Dillon, an employee at People’s Energy of Illinois and a member of the Gas workers Local 18007/Utility Workers of America, says he has concerns about the gas meter bars he regularly installs as part of his job as a Senior Service specialist #1. People’s Energy recently switched from using American-made Model 6722 high-pressure gas inlet valves (which are manufactured in Iowa) to McDonald 6762 inlet valves made in China.

Click here for photos of both valves-- the American-made model #6722 and the Chinese-made model #6762.

Dillon says that the Chinese models, though similar in price to American models, lack critical O-ring washers. Based on his 30 years of experience with gas meter bars in People’s Energy’s service department, he also believes that the Chinese versions are inferior because the connection cones are not made of brass. He said, “The previous American made bars had brass cones. Anything less is not going to be as safe.”

Dillon reports that he became concerned when People’s Energy was bought by Wisconsin Power Services, which later evolved into a company called Integrys Energy Group. Shortly thereafter, People’s Energy switched to the Chinese-made valve bars, which caused concern among his co-workers.

Dillon said, “We all started to wonder why they’d switch to something that seemed less sturdy, less safe. Then I looked on the box and noticed that they were made in China. I realized that the company was probably trying to save a few pennies.”

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1008)

PLAYS: (2806)

You gotta love the mentality of Greta Van Susteren, reducing the whole union-hating, Ayn Rand-loving, universal health care-dismissing ravings of Whole Foods founder John Mackey to a question of whether he's a "bad man." She's using the same language I use with my 6 year old when talking about "stranger danger." Sheesh.

Even as a diehard foodie (My husband and I plan our weekends and vacations around meals and restaurants. Seriously.), I actually don't shop that often at Whole Foods. I find it...well, elitist and overpriced. I much prefer Trader Joe's and our local farmers' markets to Whole Foods, though many of my friends are major patrons. But now that I've read Mackey's diatribe in the WSJ in all its Randian glory, I have to wonder if he considered at all who shops in his stores. GastroNomalies.com's Ali Savino writes on Whole Foods' rotten core:

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey wrote a thunderous comment piece in which he derided the public option, Barack Obama's biggest campaign promise to progressives, and put forward a stridently conservative view of healthcare for America.

Does Mackey know who his customer base is? Did he really not foresee the backlash that has ensued – the howls across the blogosphere and Twitter, the Facebook petition to boycott Whole Foods?

Pundits argue that Mackey hasn't gotten a fair shake. He sells food after all, not health insurance. He's a successful businessman who has wisdom to share. But Whole Foods is more than a supermarket. From the cooking classes and wine tastings to the monthly event calendar on the wall, Whole Foods aims to be a way of life.

The brand Mackey created caters to a specific clientele. Customers are greeted with signage boasting of local farmers and grass-fed cattle. Whole Foods touts announcements of Green Prom projects and 100-best-companies-to-work-for accolades. The reusable shopping bags and shelves filled with yoga mats and all-natural beeswax lip balm aim to capture the same folks clicking "donate" on the MoveOn fundraising appeals.

These are the same people who pay large sums for a pint of organic strawberries, laughing off or even defending the "Whole Paycheque" label. They tell themselves: It's OK to pay double what those strawberries would cost elsewhere, because they're chemical-free, healthier, environmentally and ethically sound. Whole Foods customers want to feel good about their purchases and believe they are being better citizens for shopping there.

Now Mackey, the face of the company, is not only at odds with a central tenet of progressivism, but a supporter of free-market evangelism that has no space for the community-based, egalitarian solutions his customers support.

One of the site team wrote to Whole Foods after the op-ed was published and Whole Foods responded quickly with a somewhat disingenuous response, but also one which disavowed Mackey's stance (The exact phrasing was "Whole Foods Market has no official position on the issue"). If you're on Facebook, you can join the "Boycott Whole Foods" group now.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (620)

PLAYS: (1636)

Where to even begin with this segment from MSNBC's Morning Meeting. I've really got to wonder if a single one of these people has ever done a hard day of physical labor in their entire lives to be able to carry on trashing unions the way they did.

First, Dylan Ratigan asks if unions are against health-care reform because everyone having health-care benefits would mean union members' benefits are no longer better than other non-union members' benefits, and of course the only thing unions care about is getting bigger. Ratigan doesn't seem to understand that those benefits are bargained for and part of an overall compensation package, and that if we weren't having to bargain for the health-care benefits, that would likely play out in being able to negotiate for higher take-home pay or some other benefit instead.

He also ignores the fact that this would be good for unionized companies if the burden of paying health-care expenses were taken off of their backs, which would make them more competitive, thus also benefiting the workers at those companies. Bernard follows with this:

Absolutely, the labor unions right now simply exist for one reason. To self perpetuate receiving union dues and having political influence. I think it's absolutely amazing to watch that clip from The Rachel Maddow Show last night. This guy is, he's saying to President Obama, I'm strong-arming you buddy. And my answer to this would be they are showing themselves to be as ridiculous as many members of the American public think they are. What happened to pragmatism? What happened to competition, and what actually happened to winning?

Maybe it would be great for the Democratic Party to lose the support of labor unions because quite honestly a lot of labor unions are what holds America back and keeps us from being as good as we can be.

I'd like to see these clowns try to have this conversation with someone like Leo Gerard at the table. He'd have eaten them for lunch. Heaven forbid someone who represents labor might have a seat at this table.

Continue reading »

The Service Employers International Union has vowed to help stand up against the GOP backed Astrobirthers who are being sent in to disrupt the town hall meetings of Democratic members of Congress. Since the union announced it's intentions, well-funded right wing groups and media outlets (see Fox News) have orchestrated call in campaigns accusing them of plotting violence against them -- one of the calls (audio and transcript in the video above) contained a not-so-veiled threat of armed violence:

One of the country's largest unions has been hit by a wave of hostile calls and even death threats from people upset with its involvement in town-hall health care debates.

The Service Employers International Union was, as one aide put it, "deluged" with calls on Friday after several conservative media outlets accused the organization of trying to assault demonstrators who had showed up to protest Obama's health care agenda. Making it even scarier for union employees, the address of the union's St. Louis headquarters was mentioned on air by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Callers who reached both the front desk and the communications department compared the union officials to Nazis, union aides say. On Twitter, organizers of the town hall protest urged people to take pictures and write down the license plate numbers of attending SEIU officials. More alarming than anything else, angry callers and protesters pledged to take up arms against the union. Read on...

I believe the time has come for Attorney General Eric Holder to get involved. Right wing violence is on the rise in America and the threat of bloodshed at the hands of a Fox News/GOP inspired extremist at one of these town hall meetings is real possibility.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (95)

PLAYS: (208)

David Shuster and Tamryn Hall bring in J.P. Freire and Matthew Slutsky to "debate" whether the stimulus package is working or not. While I like David Shuster and think he does as good of a job as he's allowed to on MSNBC, this entire exercise struck me as just another example of why more people need to watch programs like Democracy Now and Bill Moyers Journal.

How the hell do you have an honest debate on this topic in five minutes? And cut the guests off at the end for some B.S. not important "breaking news" at the end of the segment to boot?

If MSNBC really cared about this topic, one, they'd be bringing in actual, respected economists to debate it from all sides of the aisle. Two, they'd not be limiting the debate to a few minutes. And three, they'd not be using the latest Republican talking point du jour as their guiding light for their "news" stories. Just because the Republicans decided to throw their latest hissy fit for the day doesn't mean they need to be taken seriously.

It's really tiresome to watch our "news" cycle being driven off the RNC fax machines talking points memo day after day.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (736)

PLAYS: (2558)

Hours after he was seated, Sen. Al Franken, D-MN, let it be known that he would be sign on as a co-sponsor to the Employee Free Choice Act, the labor-backed provision that would allow unions to more easily organize, as his first legislative activity.

"I just became a cosponsor of my first bill in the Senate, the Employee Free Choice Act," the Minnesota Democrat declared at a gathering at the AFL-CIO on Tuesday evening.

Despite taking a backseat in terms of media attention, EFCA remains very much a hotly-debated measure within the halls of Congress. And while Franken's vote will likely boost Democratic efforts on health care and judicial nominations (he is poised to sit on the HELP and Judiciary Committees) it could be on labor matters where his voice is most felt. Certainly the union community, which is pushing for a vote on EFCA sometime this year, feels relieved that it is one senator closer to preventing a Republican filibuster on the measure.

Franken, who was officially sworn into office on Tuesday after an eight-month recount, told the AFL-CIO crowd that he shared common interests with them. According to Eddie Vale, a spokesman for the union group, Franken described the long tradition that exist in Minnesota of "having two Senators who are very pro workers and working families." "He said it was an honor to be sworn in today and walk through the aisles with Mondale and to be sworn in on Paul Wellstone's Bible," Vale recounted. "He stressed that both men were champions of the labor movement."

Paul Wellstone would be proud.

(In the above video, Capt. Richard Phillips was interviewed by Matt Lauer yesterday about his capture by Somalian pirates.)

My father was in the Merchant Marines in WWII. He won a medal almost 50 years later and that is something he's very proud of. Capt. Phillips makes sure to give big props to all the union members. This is via a press release form the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations:

I want to thank the management of Maersk and Waterman Steamship Corp. who handled the situation, the crew and our families with great care and concern. And equally important, I want to publicly commend all the officers and crew aboard the Maersk Alabama who responded with their typical professionalism in response to this incident.

The Licensed Deck Officers who are members of the Masters, Mates & Pilots Union, the Licensed Deck Officer and Licensed Engineers who are members of the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association, and the unlicensed crew who belong to the Seafarers International Union are dedicated merchant mariners, typical of America’s merchant seamen who are well-trained and who are ready and able to respond when necessary to protect the interests of our country. I am honored to come before this Committee today to discuss my views on making commercial shipping safer, and worldwide sea lanes more secure from the threat of piracy

.
When you listen to the Fox freak shows, all you hear is union bashing. So that may explain why Phillips hasn't appeared on Fox yet ...

Just like with the miracle flight landing by America's No. 1 hero, Chesley B. Sullenberger, union workers helped save the day on that incredible experience, the crew of the Maersk Alabama are also proud union workers, as they describe the ordeal on the high seas.

The American crew members of the Maersk Alabama - a ship recently hijacked by Somali pirates - regained control of the ship. The seamen specifically cite their union membership as a reason for how they were able to beat the pirates.

In an interview with NBC, the ship's Third Engineer, John Cronan, said this about their efforts:

"We are American seamen. We are union members. We stuck together, we did our jobs. And that's how we did it."

Isn't it interesting how only the CNBC/FOX new crowd continually bash unions? Big business has their mouthpieces all lined up in a row -- but heaven forfend we should hear from working men and women.

DOWNLOAD (140)

PLAY (131)

Unlike David Gregory, I have never held a job that benefited from union representation. And in some of those jobs (real estate development comes to mind), I've felt that lack of collective bargaining, when it became patently obvious that my employers had little regard for equal pay, fair work hours (one job I had felt it was okay to make me work seven days a week, as long as my total weekly hours totaled 40) and even job safety.

But David Gregory has presumably been a member of at least one union as a television "journalist" for the last ten+ years. Apparently, it's a "great for me, but not for thee" kind of thing for Gregory, because as he speaks to new GM CEO Fritz Henderson. Gregory wants desperately for Henderson to buy into the Media Establishment™ meme that the failure of the auto industry is all about those pesky unions. According to Stretch, the problem with the auto industy does not have to do with their reluctance to adapt to the changing marketplace and get more fuel-efficient cars to the market or being a forerunner (instead of following behind Honda and Toyota) in alternative fuel cars, but because of those stinkin', leechy unions demanding they live up to their contracts and provide pensions for retirees.

Luckily, Henderson ain't gonna play that. When Gregory tries to get Henderson to concede that there are union-mandated jobs in auto factories that have nothing to do with actually making cars, Henderson has to remind Gregory that safety officers are kinda important to industrial manufacturers.

GREGORY: Well, let's talk about how you can do more. How many union jobs are there in a typical factory for General Motors that have nothing to do with producing automobiles?

HENDERSON: Well, actually every job we have in the factory has something to do with producing an automobile. Whether it's obviously putting the actual car together or supplying materials to the line or maintaining the equipment that’s in the plant. So we have worked very hard and if you look at external surveys, for example, like a Harbor Report, we have closed the gap in terms of competiveness, in terms of the manpower. We have within our operation. We need to do more. Every person in the plant has something to do with putting together a car or truck.

GREGORY: But in some factories, you have a shop steward who's responsible for appointing--whether it's a civil rights chief or an education person, these are all union jobs that don’t have anything to do with producing the cars.

HENDERSON: Well, we have -- the union has key jobs, as you identified, but let's take an example. Let’s take health and safety-- we work together with the union health and safety in our plants. We have the safest plants in the United States, in fact, around the globe. And I think providing, for example, a safe work place is very much in the best interests of the company as well as the union.

Oops...don't you hate it when facts get in the way of a nice little union-busting rant, David? And of course, you miss the forest for the trees on the healthcare costs of pensioners. If the US actually had single-payer health care coverage for its citizens--like every other western country--then the auto industry could actually be relieved of those expenses.

But David, it would make FAR too much sense to propagandize FOR something that benefits the country instead of propagandizing AGAINST unions, wouldn't it?

Transcripts below the fold

Continue reading »

h/t The Political Carnival and The Plum Line

Joe the Plumber gets called out for being the clueless shill he is. He hasn't read the bill and can't answer questions about it, but he's more than happy to take someone's money to go out there and campaign against it. There's the face of the Republican Party, folks. Doesn't have a friggin' clue and willing to say anything for money.

From The Plum Line, whose title I stole for this post and could not have stated any better:

Oof. Looks like Joe the Plumber’s campaigning against the Employee Free Choice Act in Pennsylvania didn’t go so well.

Mr. Plumber, whose appearances were organized by the anti-EFCA group Americans for Prosperity, admitted he knew “little” about the legislation after being confronted with questions at one of the events yesterday in Harrisburg by a Pennsylvania progressive group. He was also heckled by dozens of Pennsylvania union workers, according to a local report.

And after his rough time in Harrisburg, he skipped a subsequent rally in Philadelphia, according to union officials who were there.

Here’s some video of the grilling Mr. Plumber took from the group, Keystone Progress, which prompted the irritated plumber to respond: “I know a little about a lot of things. But I don’t know a lot about everything.”

Pressed on the specifics of the law, Mr. Plumber repeatedly refused to answer, and finally lost his cool, telling his questioner: “Drop it, brother, drop it. I never said I was an expert, man.”

Not an expert indeed.

DOWNLOAD (51)

PLAY (89)

Good to see. Sam "Joe the fake Plumber" Wurzelbacher was met by some real plumbers in Pittsburgh. His latest gig is attacking the Employee Free Choice Act for the anti-labor group Americans for Prosperity. Hopefully Mr. Wurzelbacher is continued to be greeted as warmly on the rest of his stops.

Think Progress has more. The report is from local affilitate KDKA. At the end of the segment they claim that Wurzelbacher supports union members but just not their leadership. Anyone who would say something like that obviously doesn't understand anything about unions because you cannot separate the two.

This is not a joke. Americans for Prosperity, an anti-Employee Free Choice Act group, is hiring Joe the Plumber to speak at rallies against the average working class in America.

Joe the Plumber is hitting the campaign trail again! He’s been pressed into service to do a series of events throughout Pennsylvania rallying opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act, the organizer of the events confirms.

Mr. Plumber will speak at rallies against the measure in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia on March 30th and 31st, according to a spokesperson for the anti-EFCA group Americans for Prosperity.

“The public loves Joe the Plumber,” the spokesperson, Mary Ellen Burke, claimed to me. “They see him as a role model.”

Asked whether Joe the Plumber had any particular knowledge or expertise about EFCA that might explain the decision to enlist him, Burke said that he was being enlisted to provide a “grassroots perspective” and “the working perspective” on the measure.

Pressed on whether Joe the Plumber has any particular claim to being a spokesperson on the issue, Burke replied that “he represents the American worker.” Burke couldn’t immediately say whether Joe the Plumber was being paid for his appearances.

Wonder if he'll tell the anti-EFCA crowds they make him horny, too. Sounds like a sure recipe for success.

The public doesn't love Joe the Plumber, insane conservatives do. This only makes things look so much worse for Republicans in this country. How weak and foolish Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe must feel seeing that Joe the Plumber is being billed as a celebrity in the GOP. It's so pathetic.

I guarantee you that after his run dies -- well, OK, it may never die, because they are a leaderless party, and he's about as qualified as any of them -- but when it does and if a union job opens up for him, he'll take it in a second.