"A Direct Hit to American Workers" -- James P. Hoffa in WP

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17038-2003Aug3.html

(I have no great love for Hoffa, who has seemed to throw alot support toward Bush and Republicans in the past, but he makes some great points in this article.)

There are both Democrats and Republicans who call themselves labor's friends. We maintain that friends must act like friends and not take working families for granted. Democrats especially run the risk of paying a high price for giving lip service to workers' concerns while voting to increase the wealth of corporations.

Recently Congress weighed in on bilateral trade agreements with Chile and Singapore. Yet in their rush to present another gift to multinational corporations and Wall Street investors, members missed an opportunity to pause and reflect on the political implications in their own states and districts.

Both agreements fail to include basic labor standards to protect workers' freedom of association, freedom to bargain collectively, freedom from child labor, freedom from forced labor and freedom from discrimination. Neither contains any labor law enforcement mechanisms. They raise the white flag of surrender over our national sovereignty by permitting foreign investors to challenge U.S. laws and regulations.

Further, American workers will suffer a direct hit at home when thousands of additional foreign workers take jobs here in the United States under a new program that permits visas to be renewed indefinitely. Moreover, the Singapore agreement would allow high-tech products made outside Singapore to be sent to the United States through Singapore duty-free. Free-trade zealots ignore the lesson of the North American Free Trade Agreement: that the failure to raise labor standards results in greater hardship for all workers, and greater wealth for the few in the corporate elite.

(more...)

sw

Jimmy Hoffa can eat me. He did more to get Bush & Co. selected than almost anyone, excepting Ralph Nader, that is.

so now he's pissed.

that any Democrat is better for labor than any Republican isn't worth listening to. His outrage about getting what he voted for is a bit thin. Sure some Democrats supported NAFTA, and more shame to them. But every Republican supported it. No Democrat voted for the loss of union rights for Federal workers, and few for the overtime betrayal. Hoffa supported Bush and now he's trying to hide from it.

sucked the republicans and what did they do? they stiffed him. i guess jimmie doesn`t understand these guys are worse than the mob that killed his dad.

Just which party currently controls both houses of Congress? He seems to be "laboring" under the misimpression that the Democrats dictate which bills and issues will get consideration or come up for a vote.

Is the Washington Post that hard up for guest columnists they have to scrape up this bottom feeder?

I hadn't intended to raise everyone's ire -- I assumed it was a given that Hoffa the lesser is a scumbag, and that the actual informational content of the piece would be of interest.

*I* thought it was interesting precisely because Hoffa wrote it. However despicable one may consider him to be, the fact is that he still holds a certain amount of power. If HE is starting to bitch about the Bush (mal)administration, that seems to me to have at least *some* significance.

Anyway, that's why I posted it. For those that may not have gone to the link to read the rest, here are some further excerpts:

Yet this appears to be just the opening salvo in a war waged against America's working families by the Bush administration and congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle. It appears that the White House intends to include similar language in its proposals for the Central American Free Trade Agreement and the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has 1.4 million members, largely concentrated in trades that many would describe as blue-collar -- and we have long opposed trade agreements that fail to ensure basic and enforceable worker rights. But today the ravages of flawed free trade pacts can no longer be marginalized as a solely blue-collar issue.

<snip>

American workers expect their representatives to stand with them on the important issues. On this issue there is no middle ground.

If there is a call to arms going out Labor, we'd be fools not to cheer it and support -- no matter who's issuing it, imho. I do not take the Teamsters lightly, and in Minnesota (my state), the Teamsters are STILL Democrats.

sw

I think Hoffa was saying that if neither party puts up a presidential candidate or people for Congress who will stand up for workers' rights, then his union will put its money and its efforts behind candidates at the local level.

Hoffa was stupid to be fooled by Bush's lies.

But the idea of starting to elect labor-friendly people at the local and state level is a good one.

It seems to me that we HAVE to act locally. Much as I'd like to see politics swept clean at the national level, realistically it's going to be a long-term task -- barring a revolution...

sw