UPDATE, Dec. 7, 2008: Is this the revolution or what?
President-elect Barach Obama has expressed sympathy for the workers, and Chicago officials are moving to set up sanctions against Bank of America for withdrawing the employer's line of credit, the Chicago Tribune reports.
PEORIA -- Shades of the 1930s! Chicago workers have seized a factory and are holding it with a sit down strike.
The Chicago Tribune's account says they want vacation and other pay the employer owes them.
A story on National Public Radio said the company had to shut down because Bank of America refused to give it a loan, even though the bank received federal bailout funds.
Whatever the truth, these workers deserve our praise and support. The erosion of the middle class in the USA has occurred because of the erosion of unions, and the wages and benefits they bring to their members and to other workers whose employers fear they will also unionize.
Unions are not perfect, but the economic facts are indisputable.
And busting every worker down to the minimum wage destroys purchasing power, so workers cannot buy cars, houses and other items.
Is there any doubt that every unsold car and house in the USA would be sold immediately if the millions of minimum wage workers in the nation could only afford to buy them?
These workers in Chicago are fighting for everyone. Good for them!
-- Elaine Hopkins
Comments