UMWA’s Cecil Roberts Says Angry Workers Should Remember Who Brought Them Major Advances

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/Channels/Story.aspx?ID=1309178

11/9/2010
By Doug Cunningham

United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts says if right-wing groups like the Tea Party continue to successfully harness working class anger at the polls workers will suffer on a range of issues, including mine safety regulations, which Republicans continually try to block. Roberts says in this 75th anniversary year of the CIO it’s useful to remember where worker advancements over the years have come from.

: “It was the labor movement and the Democratic Party that gave us Social Security, that gave us Medicare, gave us a right to organize, gave us unemployment insurance, gave us the right to go on vacation, gave us a right to send our kids off to college like everyone else. It was the labor movement and the Democratic Party working in conjunction together that did those things. It was not the Republican Party and it certainly was not some far-right organization like the Tea Party.”

(Cecil Roberts audio courtesy of WBAI's Building Bridges)
By Doug Cunningham

United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts says if right-wing groups like the Tea Party continue to successfully harness working class anger at the polls workers will suffer on a range of issues, including mine safety regulations, which Republicans continually try to block. Roberts says in this 75th anniversary year of the CIO it’s useful to remember where worker advancements over the years have come from.

: “It was the labor movement and the Democratic Party that gave us Social Security, that gave us Medicare, gave us a right to organize, gave us unemployment insurance, gave us the right to go on vacation, gave us a right to send our kids off to college like everyone else. It was the labor movement and the Democratic Party working in conjunction together that did those things. It was not the Republican Party and it certainly was not some far-right organization like the Tea Party.”

(Cecil Roberts audio courtesy of WBAI's Building Bridges)