Some GOP Senators Still Believe They Are Right On Labor. Solis Must Be Confirmed
Labor Secretary Designate Solis must be confirmed. The fact that the Secretary of Labor Designate is in the crosshairs of a couple of GOP Senators should not give us pause or come as a surprise.
The GOP has made economic policies its main platform plank for at least the last 40 years. While their results have been disastrous some Republicans are not ready to cut and run from the trickle down legend that has been the core tenet of their economic mythology.
The Department of Labor has long been a strange relic to economic conservatives. Where DC visitors to the DOL see an office building the GOP sees a wicked temple inhabited by evil wizards that actually count the unemployed and study statistics that often contradict core conservative economic superstitions. The questions to Solis were reminiscent of a witch dunking where there are no right answers. If Solis had drowned she would have been human and acceptable but her survival, due to her accurate and honest answers, indicated her pre-supposed guilt.
I reviewed the Solis hearing that seems to have befuddled the GOP inquisitors and found the Secretary Designate to be very even handed. Solis admitted that she sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act (apparently a type of anti-GOP spell) and that President Obama has endorsed it. However Solis also repeatedly indicated that she was not clear what her role would be in the coming debate surrounding the Act due to her potential new position and her inability to yet speak for the administration. Solis gave the same nuanced answers to Senate Democrats that wanted assurances about a host of progressive labor agenda items that she gave to the GOP. The Secretary Designate was trying to express and open mindedness to a middle ground while respectfully deferring to the new President (who by the way was still President elect at the time of the hearing.).
What gives some in the GOP the real jitters though is not the message as much as the messenger. Solis wears her working class roots on her blue collared shirt sleeve. Solis proudly embodies the current generation of blue collar workers yearning to become Obama's green collar wage earners. Solis will be hard to marginalize as an out of touch intellectual as is the customary right wing attack against economic progressives. In fact Solis as the face of labor will set GOP consultants struggling to find a whole new frame of distortion. What truly makes Solis's emergence remarkable is not only her Latina roots but also her working class background
The choice for some reason has been made to avoid another public hearing for Solis and offer GOP Senators one on one meetings with her. I say let this process see the light of day. Allow America's working families to see the GOP questioning of the Congresswoman that is now taking place in their secret Senate office suites. Allow Hilda Solis from El Monte to answer her critics publicly, straight from the very center of her working class soul. America's workers hunger for more than a champion that understands them; they desire a champion that is them. Let Solis be Solis and her GOP detractors be themselves and the choice will then be clear.
Mario Solis-Marich is a talk show host that can be heard on am760 in Denver and worldwide at www.GoToMario.com. Mario is editor of NuestraVoice.com and is no relation to Congresswoman Solis.
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When Change.gov provided an opportunity to post questions for the newly-elected president, my most pressing question was how we could protect workers' rights in an environment where congressional leaders were blaming automakers' problems on labor contracts.
They were so dismissive. They made the term "labor contracts" sound like something the automakers had foolishly stepped in when they weren't watching where they were going.
With that attitude and this economy, how could we even hope for fair wages or conditions? The answer to my question was Hilda Solis.
We need to do everything we can to get her confirmed.
Dept. of Labor has been a misnomer under republicans, sort of like human resources on the corporate level, humanity has to little to so with it, as dose labor
We have an auto industry without unions that is in far, far better shape than Detroit. The union demand to take away the right to vote privately is appalling. I doubt that would actually even work in that particular industry, but nevertheless, the idea that we would allow this as we crumble, in part, due to union rules is ridiculous.
I am very, very opposed to that bill, and I am sure that's why the GOP is speaking out.
This message by the GOP WILL get through to the public, for sure.
There is no union bill to take away the right to vote. Please get your facts straight.
The Employees Free Choice Act actually grants employees the right to either a private vote or a card check. As it stands now, the employer decides which option and the employees have no choice.
Also the union-free foreign-owned auto plants offer compensation and benefits comparable to the union plants. Ever wonder why they haven't unionized themselves? Thats why.
In fact, just a couple years ago Toyota workers (non-union) were making more than UAW workers. If the union workers received such incredible benefits the Toyota plants (and others) wouldn't hesitate to start their own. Next time do some research.
Thank you. I was about to post something similar for the umpteenth time. I'm not sure how many times it will have to be said to get people to understand it gives the employees the right to choose HOW to form a union before they will understand. I think most who haven't gotten it... don't want to get it.
Are talking a bout the assembly plant that Toyota just put the breaks on in Tennessee because nobody is selling cars in any great volume, that auto industry. Pull your head out of your a## and smell the roses, weather an auto plant is unionized or not, consumer confidence is in the toilet and things are tough al over in the auto business. Stop pretending all is OK in the union hating South.
Detroit's problems are all related to management, not labor. Labor doesn't decide to continue making SUV's because they have a higher margin as oil prices skyrocket and the market for them evaporates, Labor doesn't decide not to pursue hybrid or electric technologies because investments in R&D have a long term ROI instead of a quick stock jolt, Labor doesn't decide to spend money fighting mileage and emissions requirements in court rather than the laboratory.
Strong unions make for a strong middle class, which makes for a strong nation. The rebuilding of Japan and Germany was only possible because of the existence of strong trade and labor unions, a lesson lost on the idiots who tried union-busting in Iraq instead.
There is no issue related to the economy or unions on which the GOP is right.
#1 selling vehicle in America-Ford F150 pickup, #2 Chevy Cheyenne pickup. People like 'em.
Fair negotiations are based upon each party to a negotiation having power the other party must respect. The employer, with the power to hire and fire, has all the power in negotiations with individual employees. The employee's only resort is to quit and find something else or to accept the employer's decisions. Labor unions allow employees to negotiate with their employers on a more even playing field through collective bargaining.
Labor unions are imperfect, but so are corporations. In comparing the corruption of organized labor to the corruption of American corporations, one has to acknowledge that organized labor is the lesser of two evils. Over the last approximately thirty years, American corporate power has grown while the power of organized labor has dwindled. Blaming labor unions for America's economic woes, when their power has been consistently broken during times of prosperity so that management could take a bigger chunk of the profits is indefensible.
American business has failed because of the failures of American corporate culture and its excesses. Labor is one of the victims.
The GOP will continue their inexorable march into irrelevance, they have yet to receive the memo that their people unfriendly policies were soundly thrashed at polling places across this country. And what a short sighted move with the sobering news today of the loss of 68,000 jobs, we need a Secretary of Labor and we need her NOW.
GOP, last one to leave turn out the lights.
I just hope Hilda Solis-Sayyad ends the H1-B Non-Immigrant Visa program and proposes solutions to get out workforce right here in the USA ready for the coming flood of tech jobs this green economy will bring. Les get the US ready and put it to work. It wont take long.
Why is this taking so long? Why doesn't the Obama White House force this through?
And, can anyone reading this provide we readers with the name(s) of the Republican(s) in Congress that are secretly holding up this nomination?
Why, in a democracy, should a senator be allowed to put a roadblock in the way of a presidential appointment---and do so secretly?
Let's shine some sunlight on this entire sordid process: Let the Republican cowards stop hiding on this and come out into the open. What are they afraid of?
I watched 60 Minutes yesterday and was disheartened concerning the plight of the human beings in Wilmington, Ohio. The individual citizen is sucked up, chewed up, and spit out by the corporate machinery that cares not about sweat, blood, and tears, but only about the bonuses some get, illicit love, and golden parachutes of executive retirement years. This is not true of all corporations but enough to make one frustrated and enough to make one side with anything that seeks to protect and strengthen the position of the individual worker. The Wilmington situation is not related to unions, but it is reflective of, or part of the mix of all that is wrong.
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The GOP has no courage. If they did they would say it plain. If you are not rich, white, and male, you are not of interest from a policy standpoint. I would respect them more if they said that, versus saying they care about all Americans with their words, and then vigorously reflecting their true love of the aforementioned demographic -- in all that they do. “Trickle Down” and the elevation of Reagan as someone to revere as economically astute, is the height of hypocrisy and/or delusion. Companies and nations are comprised of individuals. Strengthen the individual and the company and the nation is thereby strengthened. Cripple the individual over decades through economic misinforma
This still stands no matter the election of Steele to head the RNC. The GOP is not racist but there are racist Republicans. Making Steele the front man does not begin to answer many questions one who is African American has about how the Party really feels about issues of being brown in America.
As for economics, I wholeheartedly agree the market should be able to operate without intervention of government (no AIG/Bear bailout). I also believe every human being should be loving and kind and towards a global family in their approach to others. Since that is not the case it also cannot be the case that we have a market free from regulation (and assistance) by government.
Tax cuts is the GOP Band-Aid solution for anything that is domestically challenging to America. Give the people whose income is taxed relief, and they will spend money which will boost manufacturing, which will create jobs, which will add to the tax rolls, which will create income for government both local and national. It all sounds swell. However, as with many theories, in practice we find that when the Republicans cut taxes the people most benefited by the cuts are those who are least affected by downturns in the economy. They have an answer for that as well, called trickle down. The theory is that somehow the residue of being rich is supposed to magically sprinkle the land like glittering fairy dust and make all the lower earners prosperous.
"Give the people whose income is taxed -- relief, and they will..."
The true battle line here is not Labor Secretary Designate Solis but the opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act and Solis's working class background which understands the need for the EFCA.
The EFCA would give workers, not employers, the right to decide how to express the choice about going union: through the card-check process OR through the NLRB election process.
If passed, the EFCA will help expand the number of workers who enjoy union wages and union benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. If passed, the EFCA will help expand the number of workers who have a voice on the job through their union.
Labor Secretary Designate Solis must be confirmed and the Employee Free Choice Act must be pased!
For More Information on EFCA please visit our website and blog
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http://efc
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All the GOP has left is secrecy. They will hang on to it with a deathgrip
I might have more sympathy with Solis if she wasn't such a right wing religous nut on social issues.
Sure she is a lefty on economic issues BUT she has publicly and vocaly championed prop 8 in Ca, against CONDOMS, and anti-choice because she is a die hard catholic.
economicaly a dem but socialy a right wing religous nut job
HMM Not true. Where did you get the misinfo?
Looks like the same place he/she got their amazing spelling skills!
I'm guessing the equation looks something like this....
Latina = Catholic = right wing religious nut job
If we could just get away from the stereotypes.
Total Lie.
but......b
Good one !!!
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