I had this exact conversation with David Moberg, a sober-to-a-fault guy who's been writing about labor for decades, a while back and he concluded that the Clinton administration had delivered essentially nothing for unions. Look at your own list. It's pretty small beer. How many workers in total do you think it all organized, or would have in the case of striker replacement? Levae aside the NLRB appointees, where admittedly there's a discernible difference between the parties, and the answer is basically zero.
In fact, I'd say that labor policy is one of the areas where the difference between the parties is smallest. You can't say that Clinton would have done more for unions if he'd had a Dem majority in Congress, either -- I can't think of a single part of labor's agenda that he spent significant political capital on, and the dead-set opposition of the whole union movement didn't give him any noticeable pause on free trade.
It's perfectly possible to recognize the urgency of electing Kerry this fall without exaggerating the differences between the parties or denying that the American electoral system poses major structural obstacles to the left and to progress in general.
Josh
> Chuck, how about Clinton's support for Project Labor Agreements versus
> Bush's banning them for federally-funded construction projects?
>
> How about Clinton's ergonomics standards, which Bush and the GOP Congress
> eliminated?
>
> How about the prohibition of permanent striker replacements, which Clinton
> and almost all the Democrats supported, but was filibustered by GOP
> Senators?
>
> How about Clinton's appointment of pro-labor officials to the NLRB, such
as
> chairman William Gould and its counsel, Fred Feinstein? (which led to
> recognition of the right of grad unions to organize, which the Bush NLRB
> has just reversed).
>
> Or Clinton's ban on the federal governmnet using union-busting
contractors,
> rules Reagan-appointed judges struck down?
>
> It's hard to think of an issue where the parties differ more than on the
> right of unions to organize.
>
> Kerry has essentially endorsed the whole AFL-CIO labor law agenda. Why
> doesn't that count as reason for any labor person to support him?
>
> Nathan Newman
>
>
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