EFCA and Wall Street Bonuses

The following was posted in the Comments section of the Washington Post re its article, "Wall Street Jacks Up Pay After Bailouts."
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Anybody out there still believe Wall Street cares about Main Street?

Anybody out there still believe America needs to be run by a small group of greed driven aristocrats?

Rep. Barney Frank is right, there should be government intervention when the pigs at the trough get too fat to move away. But here's a suggestion that would put a crimp in their greedy ways at the same time help Main Street.

All this money Wall Street and the corporations are making whoopee with come from the blood, sweat and tears of working people. The execs create nothing: they control. (Gordon Gekko in the movie: Icreate nothing. I own.)

Their power to control this wealth created by Main Street is proportionate to the power of Main Street to demand a fair share of that wealth.

Main Street gets that power from the unions they form and belong to. It is the ONLY way workers will be listened to by Wall Street and fat-cat corporate execs.

Go to them with alone, hat in hand asking for a raise or health care for your family and you don't get past the information desk.

The sound of thousands marching with hands joined and hats on heads gets their attention and they are forced by that power to listen.

It was the work of Main Streeters along with the power of their unions that gave America's working people the highest standard of living in the world after WWII.

Since the attacks on the unions that began under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, a Hollywood hero at best, and continued over the years, the union movement has been drastically reduced in size and, therefore, power to negotiate.

The greatest losses took place under Bush the elder and suffered the most under the two terms of the Bush/Cheney led American disaster.

The billions Wall Street and corporations played with that led to the current economic meltdown came from the drop in living standards of working people: either by there loss of power to defend their wage and/or benefit packages or by corporations moving work offshore seeking greater profit.

The workers lost and the rich got richer, the wealthy got wealthier and the greedy got greedier.

There is a push-back taking place today that would go a long way to restoring what America has lost over the Reagan/Bush/Bush-Cheney years.

It is a piece of legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). It would amend the National Labor Relations Act to give the employees of a company the right to choose how they want to join a union: either by secret ballot or majority sign-up.

Today's law gives the company the right to decide how the union will be recognized.

The companies argue they should decide because they have to live with the results.

Labor argues that workers should have the right to form and join unions and how and when to do so with no interference from the company. Labor counters companies argument that they do not allow workers into the boardrooms where decisions are made that workers will have to live with.

The passage of this bill will rebuild the labor movement in America which will rebuild America's economy and its infrastructure. A revitalized labor movement in America will reach out and join with workers in those offshore plants raising their living standards making it more costly for US companies to move offshore.

Progressive political leaders and legislation have a role to play in correcting the disaster Wall Street and the corporations have caused, but a healthy, working organized Main Street will bring change that helps hundreds of millions here and around the world. Change that will have meaning and will last.

Wall Street is spending millions to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act. If you need any more proof that this bill is good for Main Street you probably don't live on Main Street.

7/23/2009 1:51:52 PM