Huff Post: America's Class War: A Dispatch From the Front

[Omaha Steve]

I'm a proud AFSCME member.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-a-saunders/americas-class-war-a-disp_b_3461947.html

Lee A. Saunders

President, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO

Posted: 06/19/2013 10:33 am

Once again, the facts speak for themselves: Unions are the first and last line of defense for America's workers.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, growth in union workers' average hourly pay and total benefits far outpaced those of non-union members in the first quarter of 2013.

In fact, wages and salaries of union-represented workers grew 4.3 percent in the first quarter of 2013, while those of non-union employees rose 0.8 percent. Yet again, we have proof that there is economic power in an organized workforce.

Meanwhile, the highly respected Center for American Progress (CAP) recently released an extensive plan to recharge the U.S. economy. The Washington Post called the report

the most comprehensive effort yet by a think tank of any ideology to bridge what was the most glaring economic policy divide of the 2012 election: the difference between how often candidates promised to restore middle-class prosperity and how rarely they offered detailed proposals to accomplish that.

FULL story at link.