Unions Protest Against Bush's Social Security Proposal

Glad they are still punching against this!!! It's funny cuz the Repugs think they are being unfair! I call taking public employees out for the privatization campaign trail UNFAIR cuz us taxpayers are paying for it!!!


April 1, 2005
The nation's labor unions stepped up their campaign yesterday to stop President Bush's Social Security plan, staging demonstrations in New York, Washington, San Francisco and 70 other cities.

The protests are part of a huge effort that labor has mounted, packing congressmen's town meetings with union members, pressuring investment firms to stop backing Mr. Bush's proposal and collecting tens of thousands of signatures to denounce his call for personal Social Security investment accounts.

"The White House is financing a giant propaganda campaign to convince voters to support privatization," John J. Sweeney, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, said at a rally yesterday in Washington. "But American voters know privatization is a flim-flam scheme - they already know that privatization means steep benefit cuts, an exploding deficit, huge bills for our children and grandchildren."

Labor's efforts have been focused on moderate Republicans, seeking to persuade them not to back Mr. Bush on the issue.

"I think we've probably kept a lot of members from publicly declaring their support for the president's plan," said Bill Samuel, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s legislative director. "I think Republicans are showing greater and greater caution about this issue."

The president's supporters are firing back by accusing unions of using unfair, and possibly illegal, tactics. Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, who is chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, has urged the Labor Department to investigate whether labor's tactics violated the ban on secondary boycotts - boycotts against any party not directly involved in a labor dispute - and other laws.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/01/politics/01labor.html?pagewanted=print&position=

from invading Iraq. It just might have.

We taxpayers are paying for Bush and public employees to be flown all over the country to speak to Bush supporters only (people are ejected if they have Dem T-shirts or even if their car has a Dem bumper sticker).

And yet

<<The president's supporters are firing back by accusing unions of using unfair, and possibly illegal, tactics. Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, who is chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, has urged the Labor Department to investigate whether labor's tactics violated the ban on secondary boycotts - boycotts against any party not directly involved in a labor dispute - and other laws. >>

If only ONE person showed up in each city, they'd have outnumbered the hospice gaggle.

The NYT is the only place I've seen it mentioned at all. PLEASE tell me some locals covered it somewhere!

Through the Texas Federation of Teachers! (Yep, there are union members here.)

:D