-By Warner Todd Huston
Last week, Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union, threatened to foster riots if the $900 billion bailout didn’t get through Congress. “If we have Republicans who oppose us, we are going to take to the streets, we are going to occupy places. We are not going to allow any more of our members’ lives to be destroyed,” he warned in a conference call to journalists over the weekend.
A new coalition of union welfare seekers has been formed that goes by the name Campaign for America’s Future (CAF).
CAF, made up of more than two dozen labor unions, 127 lesser-known economists and assorted activists, hosted a press conference call to announce the proposed $900 billion Main Street proposal, which the group hopes will be ready for President-elect Barack Obama’s signature when he takes office on Jan. 20.
Yes, it’s all supposed to be legitimate and grown up of these folks lining up in front of Congress with their hands out for our tax dollars to be stuffed into their pockets to come together in a democratic styled coalition. But, as soon as a reporter seems to question these union thugs at all, the yelling begins.
On the CAF conference call, when Monica Showalter, a reporter for Investor’s Business Daily, pointed out that exports are the strongest sector of the U.S. economy (according to the National Association of Manufacturers, exports accounted for 46 percent of the growth in the U.S. economy in 2007), and asked why Gerard’s union opposes the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, he answered: “My union and I, and most of the labor movement, are not opposed to trade. What we are opposed at [sic] is the kind of trade that throws our jobs on the altar of this ideological dialogue. The fact of the matter is we can’t sustain a strong industrial base or a strong manufacturing economy if we are running ongoing trade deficits on an annual basis.”
When Showalter asked what blue jean factory workers in Medellin might have to do with the agenda of the United Steelworkers, Gerard shouted at her, “We should not do deals with countries that allow the shooting of people who represent the workers!”
A few minutes later, when the Sunday Paper asked him what the United Steelworkers union has done for the past 20 years to make the U.S. more competitive in the global market, Gerard said the union has reduced man-hours for production.
“Do you know what that means? Do you know?” he said, raising his voice.
“That there should be fewer employees?” I asked.
To which Gerard angrily responded, “Do you want us to work for nothing?”
In other words, these guys don’t care about any legitimate, democratic process. If they don’t get their pockets filled with our tax dollars, they’ll take to the streets and riot. Yeah. That’s really adult of them.
Figures.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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