Labor Movement Dusts Off Agenda as Power Shifts in Congress

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Labor Movement Dusts Off Agenda as Power Shifts in Congress
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: November 11, 2006


Kevin Fitzsimons for The New York Times
Helping clean up after the elections, on which labor spent more than $100 million.

After the Republicans took control of the House in 1994, perhaps no group was on the outs as much as organized labor. But now that the Democrats have swept both houses of Congress, the nation’s labor unions feel as if they are back — and then some.

Eager to be treated as an important force, union leaders have worked overtime since Election Day reminding Democrats about all that organized labor did to help put them over the top, including spending more than $100 million and dispatching more than 100,000 volunteers to help get out the vote.

After years of being sidelined by the Republican majority, the nation’s unions are now pushing Congress to act on a long list of issues: improving mine safety, putting a brake on outsourcing, making it easier to unionize workers and extending health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans....

For now at least, organized labor sounds fully in tune with the presumed House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, because they both want to raise the minimum wage, rein in drug prices and help students with high college tuitions....

***

Larry J. Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia said unions were not as demanding as they had sometimes been in past decades. “They’re not pushing the Democrats far to the left on many subjects,” he said. “They want to win, too. They were perfectly willing to back a lot of those moderate to conservative Democrats, who are Blue Dogs.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/11/us/politics/11labor.html

[HereSince1628]

1. After 1994, the DLC dominated Democrats turned against labor

in favor of free trade and globalization. And pushing globalized economies and free trade is still their deal.

The blame hardly belongs only to the Republicans, and folks need to keep that in mind as the DLC once again makes a play to be in control of the party.