Going through Labor pains (Pro-union bill the most significant since 1935)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20081214-OPINION-812140314

By Michael Mccord
December 14, 2008 6:00 AM

Some headline weeks are so weird and interconnected that it can take your breath away with just a cursory inspection. Tuesday's federal indictment of sleazily stupid Illinois' Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich on a charge of attempting to sell to the highest bidder the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama was a cross between Groucho Marx and late-19th century politics as usual when Senate seats were auctioned off as a matter of economic development.

Blagojevich's schoolyard delusions of corruptive grandeur should put the recent remarks of former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (not to confused with Sununu's son, the soon-to-be former Sen. John E. Sununu) into proper context. Calling current Gov. John Lynch the worst governor in state history (due to the budget crisis) showed shrewd judgment. Worst is truly a matter of perspective in the political universe, but Sununu did give himself an opening salvo to launch his latest career move as chairman of the state GOP.

With Chicago being the epicenter of Blagojevich's sleaze machine and where Obama's presidential transition is preparing for inauguration D-Day, it's worth noting another development in the Windy City that briefly made headlines as the latest economic canary in the coal mine sign.

It seems that Bank of America, the country's largest bank and the recipient of some $25 billion or more of government bailout blessing, cut off a multimillion dollar line of credit to a medium-sized business called Republic Windows and Doors. The company promptly closed its doors and left its 200 employees without the vacation pay and severance pay they had earned.

Hey no big deal, right? After all, businesses come and go and 200 employees heading for the unemployment line is an accounting blip compared to the millions already in line. Ah, but the twist this time was pure old school, union style. The employees, members of the United Electrical Workers union, decided not to leave and peacefully occupied the factory floor of Republic Windows and Doors. It wasn't quite the bloody and headline-seizing sit-down strikes by auto workers in the 1930s, but it did strike a chord amid all the sanctimonious political chatter about whether to financially bail out the Big Three automakers.

Obama didn't wait long to offer support for the workers at Republic Window and Doors, which in itself was an earthquake change of sensibility. For the past eight years, President Bush would have rather publicly chewed off his own arm than say anything remotely favorable about union members. But the hope is that the times they are a changing, to borrow from Bob Dylan.

FULL story at link.