Hilda Solis speaks up for union rights. Let's thank her.

With 10,000 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) on the line, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis earlier this week pledged her support for public employees struggling to save their right to bargain for good middle class jobs.

In a phone call to CWA members this week, Solis, who comes from a union family, said she is inspired and proud of the hundreds of thousands of union and non-union workers nationwide who are taking on the states’ aggressive anti-worker agendas. She said

Budget sacrifices are one thing but demanding that workers give up their voice is another. The governors aren’t just asking us to tighten our belts, they’re demanding we give up our uniquely American rights as workers.

. . . . more

http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/03/04/solis-stands-with-public-workers-in-struggle-for-rights/

Better late than never. I'm really happy to see Hilda Solis taking a stand on this.

I'm sorry but the DU narrative is that Obama and his Admin are evil rightie right repubs who hate the unions and want us all to fail so their corpo-facist big time fat cat bosses can keep the American ppl in the dark.

Please spin this accordingly!

:sarcasm::eyes:

When they don't act correctly, I am the first to come to DU and criticize them. When they do something right, I am among the first if not the first to commend them.

There is nothing wrong with Obama as a person. There is a lot wrong with Obama as a president and especially, there is a lot wrong with some of the people with whom he surrounds himself and some of the decisions Obama makes when he follows their advice.

As a person, Obama is considerate, quiet and thoughtful from what I can tell. But as a president, Obama is not bold enough. He is not confident enough in doing the right thing. He is unwilling to pay the political price for doing the right thing. He is fearful.

I would like to see a challenge to Obama in 2012.

I would rather that the Obama administration would be far more supportive of the union movement than he is. But I will congratulate him and his administration when they finally get up the courage to move in the right direction.

I have heard that Obama made the point that federal employees cannot strike. That may be true, but one of the keystones of the Progressive movement after the crash of 1893 was the formation of the civil service. The wave of outsourcing at the federal level has returned us to the era of Tammany Hall and the old-style corrupt politics of the Gilded Age which permitted politicians to build political machines by bestowing their loyalists with good government jobs.

Lyndon B. Johnson began the privatization game with his rewards of cement contracts to his supporters, the company that is now merged with Halliburton. Sometime after LBJ, Halliburton became the beneficiary of the no-bid military support services contracts. I learned those facts from a book on Halliburton.

Scott Walker and other Republican governors wants to reestablish that system which had its hay-day in the Gilded Age. We Democrats have to fight this. The survival of the last remnant of our democracy is at stake. We cannot allow the Republicans to reintroduce the Tammany-Hall style of government into our nation. We will have nothing but corruption if we do.

Unions representing public employees fight political bosses. They protect citizens from corruption. You do not have to be a loyal member of a political party to belong to a public employees union. You just have to be qualified to do your public service job well.

Republicans complain that some public employees who are not competent can keep their jobs due to the support of the unions. Just wait till they see what happens when there are not unions for public employees. Keeping your job will require total political obedience, silence in the face of corruption, and our country will be unlivable.

Sid

just so everyone here who want's to claim that Obama and his administration aren't doing anything have something to read....

for working people. Secretary Solis' timely conference call has my back.

Especially when it's a conference call with With 10,000 members of the Communications Workers of America

Would you prefer it if she went to the capital building in Madison, tore her hair and screamed at Scott Walker? Cause next to usurping the rights of the States, not sure what else there is....

Or was it like a webinar in which they were in a big gigantic conference room with a big screen and her talking to them? 10,000 members probably couldn't do much of a Q&A.

Obama gives big speeches now and then to the base too. Just not lately.

So what exactly is Madam Secretary going to DO? besides talk? Where is the transcript?

Sid

:thumbsup: K and R

no action.

She has been a longtime supporter of unions, collective bargaining, and worker rights.