|
:smoke: :smoke: :smoke: ".....During a bloody period of the thirties Henry Ford greeted the effort of Walter and Victor Reuther to organize a United Auto Workers branch at his company. Ford hired goon squads to physically attack workers. A reformer named President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stepped up to the plate in that instance and protected the UAW and other labor organizers elsewhere from goon squads as federal troops were marched in to restore order and allow unions an opportunity to be accepted in the corporate workplace.
...So that brings us to current activities in Wisconsin. Governor Scott Walker, in the tradition of the Gilded Age, is a bought and paid for representative of the Koch Brothers. This ownership is so conspicuous that Walker might as well wear a Koch Brothers sweatshirt advertising his devotion to their cause. The Koch Brothers donated handsomely to Walker's campaign, but this is just the beginning. Among their holdings are six timber plants and a large network of pipelines in Wisconsin. They own a coal company with facilities in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan.
...At a time when Koch Industries owners David and Charles Koch awarded themselves an extra $11 billion of income from the company, they reportedly slashed jobs at their Green Bay plant. According to the website Think Progress, "Officials at Georgia-Pacific said the company is laying off 158 workers at its Day Street plant because out-of-date equipment at the facility is being replaced with newer, more-efficient equipment. The company said much of the new, papermaking equipment will be automated." These are reportedly not layoffs stemming from a normally accepted economic response resulting from a drop in demand. In fact, demand is said to remain high for the bath tissue and napkins manufactured at the plant.
There is more, significantly more, regarding Walker as loyal vassal to Koch Industries. Andrew Leonard reports in the February 22, 2011 issue of Salon.com that Wisconsin's Budget Repair Bill contains the following smoking gun provisions: "16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state-owned heating, cooling, and power plants. (1) Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b)."
cont'
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Koch-Brothers-Own-Scot-by-Bill-Hare-110311-576.html
.
|