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Conference comes at critical time :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Jesse Jackson
Conference comes at critical time :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Jesse Jackson: "Conference comes at critical time"
Unions have been under siege from corporations trying to drive wages down
December 11, 2007
BY JESSE JACKSON
Can the new global economy be made to work for working people? Only if working people can come together, across national, ethnic and religious boundaries, and enforce the right to organize and bargain collectively. This week, the AFL-CIO, the U.S. union federation, hosts more than 200 trade union leaders from 63 countries in a historic conference on the international crisis in workers' rights to figure out how to move forward.
The gathering comes at a critical time. Across the world, corporations have used globalization as a weapon in a war on unions while driving down wages and benefits. At the height of the Bush economy in the United States, corporate profits were up, CEO salaries were soaring, worker productivity was up -- but wages were stagnant and health benefits and pensions under assault.
This is a direct result of the successful offensive that corporations have waged against unions and the basic right to organize. When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, he broke the air traffic controllers' strike with replacement workers -- scabs -- and declared open war on unions. Corporations learned that they could routinely trample labor laws, intimidate workers and fire organizers, and get away with it. Unions in this country now are down to about 8 percent of the private economy. And wages, health care, pensions and basic worker rights have suffered accordingly.
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