The more you watch politics and hear the cries for change from the Democrats, then watch closely how they operate, the more politics stay the same. Each party firmly backs age old policies and the American constituency never experiences any real change.
Consider the ongoing debate over the failed big three auto makers. Most folks feel Chapter 11 would allow the auto makers to restructure, produce vehicles more fitting to the times rather than the gas-guzzlers that have been rolling off the assembly lines, change their management and, most necessarily, re-negotiate the crippling labor agreements into which they were coerced.
Anytime wage costs for one sector of the industry average twenty-six dollars and hour more than the competition you are in a hole that is almost impossible to climb out of. The Democrat leadership (Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed) do not want to face that reality because the Unions provide too many votes and the congressional leadership can’t afford to jeopardize their standing with the Unions even though, in the long run, it will mean the loss of a great many jobs for the Union members.
This brings me to the subject of Union Brotherhood. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when timber workers were fighting the enviromentalists for our jobs, some of us had the bright idea to call on our Union Brothers and Sisters for help against the Democrats and the Enviro’s and we did so.
Because of our Local Union President’s clout in the Western Council of Industrial Workers and his friendship with the President of the Oregon AFL-CIO, I, and another lumber mill worker, were able to sit in the AFL-CIO office in Salem and try to persuade the Teachers Union, the AFSME, the Postal Workers and others, that they should come to our aid and not allow the enviro’s and Dem’s to take our jobs from us. Flash ahead to today……the Auto Workers and the Dem’s are chanting …we can’t allow these jobs to fail….its quite plain why, just comming off of their big victory over the horrid conservatives. Not so in the nineties. Meeting with our Union Brothers and Sisters was something akin to being thrown into a shark infested pond where the sharks haven’t had a meal for a week or two. No amount of reasoning could convince those people that if the Natural Resources based economy went away everyone would suffer, Oh no, they would laugh, hight tech will save us, we don’t need you guys anyway. Then high tech tanked.
Out of all the Unions in Oregon only two came to the aid of the Timber workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Steel Workers. The rest, along with Ron Wyden, Peter DeFazio and the Denocrat Protectors of the Working Class, stuck their knives as deeply as possible into our backs and then twisted.
Even the Union Bosses jumped ship and left their loyal membership to twist in the wind where what is left of them still hang. So much for Union Brotherhood.
It doesn’t take a mental giant to notice that this Country hardly produces anything any more. no timber, no mining for eg. If the enviro’s have their way, the American Rancher would go the same route as the loggers, mill workers and miners. About all America does anymore is to print bogus money by the ton, with nothing to back it up, and the politicians expect the constituency to feel good about the job of counterfitting that is taking place.
I belive it was Kruchev that said the Communists would take this country without firing a shot. With the help of the Enviromentalists and their Democrat allies in their attempts to destroy industry in this country, or to prolong industry killing labor contracts, such as the the ongoing Auto Workers contracts, the communists just may get that job done.
The sad thing is that the Auto Workers don’t seem to realize that by keeping their overblown contracts, they are hurrying along the time when they not only wont have a contact, they wont have a job to go to either.
Have you noticed how many Corporations have left the far left leaning City of Portland? Freightliner, whose workers cried to the Democrat Establishment to protect their jobs, without realizing that it was the union between the Dems and the Enviro’s that put in place rules and regulations that forced Freightliner to move to a more friendly atmosphere. Lousiana Pacific is gone and Columbia Sportswear has left and the Dems are trying hard to push Nike out. But take heart folks… you may now ride your bicycle absolutely unclothed (nude) anywhere in the City of Portland.
Paul Morehead
