Unions Look to Labor Day to Fight ‘Gloves-Off’ Economy

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/4848/unions_look_to_labor_day_to_relaunch_reform_drives_fight_gloves-off_economy/

Thursday September 3 11:09 pm

Labor Day this year comes at a turning point for the progressive movement, with redoubled efforts to push for health reform and the right to organize workers under the proposed Employee Free Choice Act.

In both cases, the union movement and Democrats have had to spend time and resources pushing back against misinformation, bullying tactics and the lies of the GOP and its corporate allies, so that winning both key reforms now present unions with tough political obstacles to overcome--even as the labor movement is taking a tougher stance against members of Congress who won't back genuine reforms.

The AFL-CIO's organizing director, Stewart Acuff, remains confident of success, in part because of grassroots organizing efforts: "We're going to get both done this year."

And he summed up what's at stake in both fights: "We're battling to turn around America and create an economy that works for all."

But what the country is facing instead is what a new book written by the National Employment Law Project and other advocacy groups call the "gloves-off economy." The report is a companion to a new study by NELP and other groups on the widespread broken labor laws for low-income workers.

In this economy, as described by a New York Daily News columnist Errol Louis:

Behind the financial woes afflicting millions of Americans - unemployment, lousy wages, bankruptcy and foreclosure - lies a phenomenon some scholars are calling "the gloves-off economy."

The term, used as the title of a new book and a pair of studies released this week, describes a bareknuckled attack on basic employment laws in one industry after another...

Right now, employers violate the laws with near-impunity.

The Obama administration shows every sign of taking the matter seriously. But enforcement is only part of the battle.

The buying public also must demand an end to the gloves-off economy. Restaurants, retailers and other companies that steal from their employees end up undermining the entire economy.

We cannot build a healthy economy if millions are working for wages that leave them in perpetual poverty, unable to afford a car, a home or a decent education for their children.

Left unchecked, the widespread use of gloves-off tactics will creep up the wage scale, putting clerks and middle managers at ever-greater risk of being downsized, outsourced or just plain ripped off.

That's no way to run an economy. Or a democracy.

FULL story at link.

[ThomWV]

1. The President speaks today, AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic in Cincinnati.

[Edweird]

2. So are they going to work on getting NAFTA repealed?

H1-B's reigned in and better regulated? Immigration reform? The EFCA is good and important, but what good will it do if these bigger issues are not addressed?