An Agenda For Labor (where the candidates stand on an Agenda for Labor)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/05/21/an_agenda_for_labor.php

An Agenda For Labor
Dmitri Iglitzin
May 21, 2007

Dmitri Iglitzin is a labor law attorney in Seattle with the firm of Schwerin Campbell Barnard & Iglitzin, LLP, and is an Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington School of Law. This article appeared in a slightly different version on The American Prospect website.

The recent (May 20, 2007) assertion in the New York Times that Hillary Clinton, while on Wal-Mart's board of directors, was "largely silent" on the topic of that notorious company's "vehement anti-unionism" highlights the
information deficit facing progressive voters who are trying to figure out which of the Democratic presidential candidates would actually be best for the labor movement. While all of the major candidates seek labor support,
it is almost impossible, with some notable exceptions, to find out precisely where they stand on the major issues and challenges currently facing working people and unions. Yet the recent past provides little reason to assume that just any Democratic president will inevitably provide strong support for pro-labor policies.

It is true that in 1993, as one of his first acts as president, President Clinton issued an Executive Order prohibiting federal agencies from doing business with employers that permanently replace striking workers. That order, however, was overturned by the federal courts and never heard from again.

The Clinton-Gore Administration also supported legislation that would have prohibited companies from permanently replacing striking workers, but it didn't push hard for the law. Instead, the Clinton Administration expended its political capital on pushing for NAFTA and GATT, so-called "free-trade" deals that had a negative, not positive, impact on the rights and prosperity of workers in the United States.

Before that, in 1977 and 1978, President Carter used his political capital to push through the Panama Canal Treaty, rather than to support much-needed reforms of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

FULL story at link.