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If the Democrat"ic" Party were a party of the people, for the people..

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Union Yes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-05-09 05:31 PM
Original message
If the Democrat"ic" Party were a party of the people, for the people..
Employee Free Choice Act with a strong card check provision would have already been signed into law with strong congressional oversight.

Does Democratic leadership fear giving power to the people? It sure seems that way.

It seems like many Dems want the power structure to run through them. EFCA appears to threaten that power structure by giving freedom to the people.

Unions give power to the people to better and enrich their lives through work.

Unions reward work.

Rewarding work is a progressive value.

We unionized our way out of the first great depression. Once again we'll need our unions to lead us out of poverty and back to a strong middle class.

Unions created the middle class by fighting for wage and benefit standards.

American wages are stuck in stagnation or worse, in a state of freefall. Directly coincides with the downfall of unions.

EFCA could change that.

If only we elected a party of change.

Desperately seeking a party of change,
Union Yes

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Better Today Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-05-09 05:50 PM
Response to Original message
1. There is not and never has been, at least not in my lifetime, a party
"of the people" or "for the people". Naive much? Fear not, all us old-timers have been in your shoes, hopeful and naive. We've learned the hard way with wage stagnation, increased SOL through credit instead of legitimate increases in means, NAFTA and other trade agreements that essentially closed most of our manufacturing and sent it to third world slave countries and China, yeah. . . . sucks to grow up and see reality, don't it.
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Union Yes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-05-09 06:17 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. I never said they were a party of the people, just one that baits and switches us into..
believing that they are a party of the people during campaign time.

I too am tired of Dems preying on populist hopes at election time, then crushing our dreams once elected.
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demosincebirth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-05-09 05:52 PM
Response to Original message
2. I agree with you, but do you think the republicans would just sit on there hands?
to them and their cronies, EFCA, is life or death.
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Union Yes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-05-09 06:19 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. It's a fight we should relish and approach with Solidarity and courage.
If only we elected a party that knew what Solidarity and courage meant.
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C_Lawyer09 Donating Member (690 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-05-09 06:03 PM
Response to Original message
3. As much as I hate to say it much less acknowledge it
It seems the 70% or so reduction of union membership since the 1970's is here to stay, because of job outsourcing, an abundance of cheap labor, and many of our previously strong exports that have been undercut. I would like to know if greater union membership is still viable, and if not, why not. I have to say, I'm mortified, reading that the wage difference between worker and CEO has went from 40x twenty years ago to the current 571x. In other words, I wonder what constraints if any, are influencing current Democrats to ignore change that would benefit the worker. Aside from the obvious lobbying conflict of interest.
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demosincebirth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-05-09 06:33 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. The decline of the union membership started with Reagan firing of
the striking traffic controllers and replacing them. That gave the OK to business and corporation, that its OK to replace workers who were on strike or threatened to strike. It was like an unwritten law until then.
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harkadog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-05-09 07:19 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. It is trendy to say that the decline began with Reagan
But it is not factual. The highest percentage of union members was in 1953 and has declined ever since. The highest actual number of union members was in 1970 and has declined since.
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demosincebirth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-06-09 12:09 AM
Response to Reply #8
10. Maybe its trendy for you to say trendy, but I was in the union movement for 40 years and
it started exactly with the passage of deregulation of the trucking and airling industry and began to really drop with Mr. Reagan, firing the airline traffic controllers
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harkadog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-06-09 03:37 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. So you ignore the facts represented by the graph.
I know the steel industry which I was in started a rapid collapse in 1979 two years before Reagan took office.
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elehhhhna Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-05-09 06:41 PM
Response to Original message
7. This current group should be called the Democratish party.
Yanno. Sorta Democrat-y.
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JamesA1102 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-05-09 07:56 PM
Response to Original message
9. The logic escapes me.
The Employee Free Choice Act passed overwhelmingly in the House with Democratic votes. Forty Democratic Senators are sponsoring it in the Senate and in the last cloture vote over 50 Democratic Senators voted aye. Seems like you you should be blaming the GOP for being ostructionist. But of course that doesn't fit in with the prevailing DU narative that it's the Dems that are the problem and not the Republicans.
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