Assault on Workers Extends to Entire Middle Class

Although union members are the most visible targets of the attacks on working people, this anti-worker crusade extends way beyond unions to an assault on the broader American middle class, says Laura Clawson.
Writing on Daily Kos, Clawson, senior writer at Working America, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s speech at the National Press Club last week provides an important message to which every American should pay attention. In the speech, Trumka says the nation’s leaders are not having a national conversation about putting America back to work to build our future but instead are debating “how fast we can destroy the fabric of our country, about breaking the promises we made to our parents and grandparents.”

 …the politicians who pander to the worst instincts of the wealthy would rather break promises to our parents and grandparents and deny our children a future than pay their fair share of taxes.

Clawson points out that the war on workers is:

massive and comprehensive, stretching from education, school lunches, and child labor law to the Ryan plan to gut Medicare and Social Security, and hitting people of every age in between. Except, of course, the very (very) rich.

She cites several examples of how the fight has spread beyond just public employee bargaining rights:

• Republicans are “wailing and gnashing their teeth” because the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) enforced the law and filed a complaint against Boeing for punishing workers who exercised their legal rights.
• Former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee is joining forces with anti-education governors like Scott Walker and John Kasich. These appearances are all about privatizing public education, reducing transparency and accountability in education and driving down working conditions for teachers and support staff, Clawson says.

You can read Clawson’s full article, “This week in the war on workers,” here and Trumka’s speech here.