(US) Labor secretary steps out in Wisconsin union fight

[steve2470]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/02/labor-secretary-steps-out-wisconsin-union-fight

By: Byron York 02/28/11 8:05 PM
Chief Political Correspondent

President Obama is staying mostly quiet about the union battle going on in Wisconsin. His labor secretary, Hilda Solis, is not.

"The fight is on!" Solis told a cheering crowd at the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting over the weekend in Washington. Giving her support to "our brothers and sisters in public employee unions," Solis pledged aid to unionized workers who are "under assault" in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

It's no surprise Solis sympathizes with the unions against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's budget reform proposal. After all, Solis often tells audiences how proud she is that her father was a Teamsters shop steward and her mother belonged to the United Steelworkers union. "Admittedly, I am a little biased," she told the DNC, "because ... I come from a union household."

But is it the role of the secretary of labor to take sides in a fight that pits public employee union members against workers and taxpayers who support Walker's reforms? After all, the Labor Department mission statement says its purpose is "to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States." It doesn't say anything about unionized wage earners, job seekers, and retirees.

[roody]

1. It is absolutely right!

[socialist_n_TN]

2. OK, this works too..............

I don't mind statements of support from national Dems for the PRINCIPLE of collective bargaining.

[suffragette]

3. I am sick and tired of the false media division of

"workers and taxpayers" and public employees.

Public employees are workers and tax payers as well.

Every time they purposefully use that phrase, they are attempting to drive a wedge further between workers who have much, much more in common with each other than they do with those who are employing this tactic.


Otherwise, glad to see Hilda Solis standing up for laborers.

[Jim__]

4. Good for Hilda Solis!

Fuck Byron York.

[ProSense]

5. Byron York

conservative hack

From the OP: "But is it the role of the secretary of labor to take sides in a fight that pits public employee union members against workers and taxpayers who support Walker's reforms? "

[steve2470]

6. I thought so, thanks for the link nt