Every job should be a "good" job with real living wages, good benefits and safe and healthy working environments.
In fact, the jobs you are pushing for--- green jobs and a green economy--- will amount to no more than the poverty wage jobs so... many working people in this country are already employed at.
You supported an extension of unemployment benefits legislation that included a cut in food stamps. Food stamps supplement the incomes of millions of working people employed at jobs paying less than minimum wages. More than two-thirds of the two-million workers employed in the smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws by the Indian Gaming Industry will have their food stamp benefits cut as a result of this legislation... there wasn't a peep of protest against this cut in food stamps from the AFL-CIO nor its Democratic Party coalition partners or other of its partners like the Campaign for America's Future.
The AFL-CIO supported the "compacts" creating this Indian Gaming Industry knowing full well that these "compacts" would result in poverty wage jobs simply because the rights of working people were not included in these "compacts."
Now, we see the same thing happening with your call for a green economy and green jobs where you claim you are for "good jobs" when the facts bear out just the opposite... most of the "green jobs" to date have been poverty wage jobs with no effort expended by the AFL-CIO to assure these "green jobs" in a "green economy" will be "good jobs" paying real living wages with good benefits in safe and healthy working environments.
Here in Minnesota, without a peep of protest from the state or national AFL-CIO, these "green jobs" have been subsidized to the hilt in a joint venture with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe where workers are employed in an old dilapidated roller-skating rink building in McGregor, Minnesota without any rights or protections under state or federal labor laws while being paid poverty wages.
You and the AFL-CIO are serving as a cover to protect Barack Obama and the Democrats from criticism for the Wall Street stooges they are.
I would remind you, that while you claim all responsibility lies with the Republicans for the destruction of jobs in the United States, it was one of Barack Obama's biggest campaign contributors who is responsible for thousands of washing machine manufacturing jobs being lost in a "green industry" producing "green products."
Democrats, just like the Republicans, are every bit as responsible for the loss of jobs in this country and have abetted the low wage "entrepreneurs" and "investors" (Wall Street parasites all) in creating this "green economy" with "green jobs."
You rightly rail against Wall Street out of one side of your mouth while the lips on the other side of your mouth fail to disclose that Democrats are an integral part of this "mechanism" known to most working people as "the two-party trap."
We are getting "more of the same" with Obama and the Democrats--- a lot more, in fact. Democrats are doing a very good job all on their own in allowing Wall Street to destroy union jobs while replacing these union jobs with poverty-wage paying jobs. I don't call this "getting America back to work."
What has become of the idea that "every worker should become part of a united movement as warriors for peace and social and economic justice?" Does not the concept of "warriors for justice" extend into the electoral arena? And does this not require working people and their unions to look to building an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans just as Canadian workers and their unions have very successfully done and just as the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party did back in the 1930's? In fact, it was from the success of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party that Canadians got their idea for what is today their party of labour, the New Democratic Party--- ironically, and sadly--- American workers and their unions have yet to learn this lesson from our own history.
Richard, rather than fronting for Barack Obama and the Democrats always claiming their programs and legislation to be labor friendly when in fact this legislation always turns out to be just the opposite... maybe you should spend a little time exploring the possibility of the need for a real labor based people's party.
By the way; you sure post a lot on here to FaceBook but you never respond to the views, questions and suggestions of others... to me, this appears to be very snobbish and arrogant... kind of like the lack of response working people receive when contacting Barack Obama and most Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate.
What has happened to what is supposed to be the very basic and fundamental cornerstone and building block of modern democracy: The right to participate in the decision-making process of society in a way enabling people to solve their problems?
And, in conclusion; what labor leader would share the podium with a crooked and corrupt anti-labor creep like Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa? Did you know that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gets millions of dollars from the Indian Gaming Industry without standing up for the rights of casino workers and those employed in this "hospitality" industry at poverty wages and without any rights on the job... and you know as well as I do that workers who have no rights protected under state or federal labor laws have no rights in the communities where they live... heaven forbid what will happen to anyone employed in the Indian Gaming Industry for suggesting that the "compacts" devised by Democrats creating this industry should include the rights of its employees fully articulated and spelled out.
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