Twenty-five reasons to vote for Obama: #7--Look for the Union Label

There is now a battle going on that makes David vs. Goliath look like a powder puff football game--workers are striking at the most anti-employee corporation in the history of America:  Wal-Mart.  I have my doubts that they will ultimately succeed, but I do know that every journey begins with a single step and anyone who thinks this could have happened with a republican at the helm of our nation is living a fantasy that existed only in the head of LSD-addled Timothy Leary.

Like many labor union supporters, I am disappointed that the President didn't put the full force of his office behind the Employee Free Choice Act.  Had he, though, it is doubtful it would have ever gotten past a republican filibuster in the Senate.

It is a fact that since the start of the Great Recession, 60% of the job losses have come in mid-level wage jobs; only 22% of the jobs created since have been the same.  Twenty-one percent of the job losses were in low-level wage jobs--58% of the jobs created have been low paying jobs.  It is a fact that as labor union membership has declined, so have wages.  It is a fact that 83% of union members have health care and pensions versus only 62% of those who do not belong to a union.

The poor and the middle class are under siege right now, and it's not from too many regulations or Obamacare.  It's not because the President is a Socialist or that the budget deficit is reaching unprecedented heights.  It's because greedy U.S. corporations, who are reaping the largest profit margins in history, are unwilling to share the wealth.  They'd like nothing more than to return to the ways exposed in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle where people slaved for next to nothing, lived in poverty, and shopped at the company store.

Unions--which are responsible for better wages for everyone, better benefits for everyone, and better job security for everyone--are our best hope.  President Obama cannot single-handedly resurrect unions, but four more years will give the labor movement more time to continue recruiting new members and pushing the agenda that has membership moving in a positive direction again.

Look for the union label, indeed.

Peace,
emaycee