Let’s Be Watchdogs, Not Lapdogs
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There’s plenty of pressure to bite your tongue and keep quiet about your criticisms till after the election. Unions fear losing “access” or, of course, seeing the Republican waltz in.
It’s a familiar dilemma for union leaders, but a few unions turned the conventional wisdom on its head this year, piping up instead of quieting down during campaign season.
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FEET TO THE FIRE
The Western Pulp and Paper Workers have been vocal opponents of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a secretive trade deal being negotiated between the United States and at least eight Pacific Rim countries.
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BAD PENNY
In Chicago, the hotel union UNITE HERE has not shied away from going after the chair of Obama’s 2008 fundraising committee, major donor Penny Pritzker. The union has conducted a three-year campaign to pressure the billionaire heiress of Hyatt Hotels, whose management refuses to negotiate decent contracts with workers. Pritzker also sits on the Chicago board of education.
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WON’T BACK DOWN
The sharpest example this election season, of course, is the high-stakes September strike waged by the Chicago Teachers Union (see page 12). President Obama’s close ally Mayor Rahm Emanuel came into office last year looking to implement all the administration’s favorite education “reforms”: closing dozens of schools in favor of charters and using student test scores to fire teachers.
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http://labornotes.org/2012/10/election-season-let%E2%80%99s-be-watchdogs-not-lapdogs
