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Working Families Still Squeezed
Mar 10, 2010
There were grumblings from all corners of the AFL-CIO at its winter
meeting in Orlando recently. "Disappointment", "disillusionment",
"unengaged", these words and worse peppered press reports describing
labor's view of President Obama and the Democrats.
Organized labor spent $200 million to help elect the president and
support of its 15 million members is considered absolutely critical for
Democrats to hold the line this November.
The president's failure to deliver on two key issues: labor law
reform and taxing Cadillac health plans, have enraged union members who
see cumbersome rules as an impediment to organizing new workplaces and
taxes on their hard-won health benefit packages as just plain wrong.
There are plenty of other places to get new tax revenue, as they see it.
While Wall Street continues to show signs of stability--in fact,
2009 was a very profitable year for America's financial community--Main
Street continues to hurt and hurt bad. Bailout money kept Wall Street
alive, say unionists, but little of it has made its way to American
working families. Many economists now project unemployment above 8% for
years to come, with growth in jobs centered in the low-paying service
sector, where unions have little presence.
President Obama's emphasis on renewable energy projects as a source
of job creation gets few cheers from labor, who see developments in
that sector as very slow-moving: get consumers to buy energy-saving
things and the work will follow. That could be years in the making.
What's to happen to American families in need this year?
We are fast approaching 100 million Americans--one third this
country's population--living at twice the poverty level or less,
according to the Brookings' Institution. That translates into take-home
pay of just three thousand dollars a month or less for a family of
four. Union Families expect more -- and top union officials are already
expressing strong concerns -- that if they don't get more, soon --
don't expect them to be able to deliver for Democrats in the fall.
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Laura Flanders
Laura Flanders interviews forward-thinking people about the key questions of our time on The Laura Flanders Show, a nationally syndicated radio and television program also available as a podcast. A contributing writer to The Nation, Flanders is also the author of six books, including "Bushwomen: How They Won the White House for Their Man" (2005). She is the recipient of a 2019 Izzy Award for excellence in independent journalism, the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing women's and girls' visibility in media, and a 2020 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship for her reporting and advocacy for public media. lauraflanders.org
There were grumblings from all corners of the AFL-CIO at its winter
meeting in Orlando recently. "Disappointment", "disillusionment",
"unengaged", these words and worse peppered press reports describing
labor's view of President Obama and the Democrats.
Organized labor spent $200 million to help elect the president and
support of its 15 million members is considered absolutely critical for
Democrats to hold the line this November.
The president's failure to deliver on two key issues: labor law
reform and taxing Cadillac health plans, have enraged union members who
see cumbersome rules as an impediment to organizing new workplaces and
taxes on their hard-won health benefit packages as just plain wrong.
There are plenty of other places to get new tax revenue, as they see it.
While Wall Street continues to show signs of stability--in fact,
2009 was a very profitable year for America's financial community--Main
Street continues to hurt and hurt bad. Bailout money kept Wall Street
alive, say unionists, but little of it has made its way to American
working families. Many economists now project unemployment above 8% for
years to come, with growth in jobs centered in the low-paying service
sector, where unions have little presence.
President Obama's emphasis on renewable energy projects as a source
of job creation gets few cheers from labor, who see developments in
that sector as very slow-moving: get consumers to buy energy-saving
things and the work will follow. That could be years in the making.
What's to happen to American families in need this year?
We are fast approaching 100 million Americans--one third this
country's population--living at twice the poverty level or less,
according to the Brookings' Institution. That translates into take-home
pay of just three thousand dollars a month or less for a family of
four. Union Families expect more -- and top union officials are already
expressing strong concerns -- that if they don't get more, soon --
don't expect them to be able to deliver for Democrats in the fall.
Laura Flanders
Laura Flanders interviews forward-thinking people about the key questions of our time on The Laura Flanders Show, a nationally syndicated radio and television program also available as a podcast. A contributing writer to The Nation, Flanders is also the author of six books, including "Bushwomen: How They Won the White House for Their Man" (2005). She is the recipient of a 2019 Izzy Award for excellence in independent journalism, the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing women's and girls' visibility in media, and a 2020 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship for her reporting and advocacy for public media. lauraflanders.org
There were grumblings from all corners of the AFL-CIO at its winter
meeting in Orlando recently. "Disappointment", "disillusionment",
"unengaged", these words and worse peppered press reports describing
labor's view of President Obama and the Democrats.
Organized labor spent $200 million to help elect the president and
support of its 15 million members is considered absolutely critical for
Democrats to hold the line this November.
The president's failure to deliver on two key issues: labor law
reform and taxing Cadillac health plans, have enraged union members who
see cumbersome rules as an impediment to organizing new workplaces and
taxes on their hard-won health benefit packages as just plain wrong.
There are plenty of other places to get new tax revenue, as they see it.
While Wall Street continues to show signs of stability--in fact,
2009 was a very profitable year for America's financial community--Main
Street continues to hurt and hurt bad. Bailout money kept Wall Street
alive, say unionists, but little of it has made its way to American
working families. Many economists now project unemployment above 8% for
years to come, with growth in jobs centered in the low-paying service
sector, where unions have little presence.
President Obama's emphasis on renewable energy projects as a source
of job creation gets few cheers from labor, who see developments in
that sector as very slow-moving: get consumers to buy energy-saving
things and the work will follow. That could be years in the making.
What's to happen to American families in need this year?
We are fast approaching 100 million Americans--one third this
country's population--living at twice the poverty level or less,
according to the Brookings' Institution. That translates into take-home
pay of just three thousand dollars a month or less for a family of
four. Union Families expect more -- and top union officials are already
expressing strong concerns -- that if they don't get more, soon --
don't expect them to be able to deliver for Democrats in the fall.
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