Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

It was recently reported that an anti-union business group has been formed to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act, which would permit the "card check" option of union organizing in addition to the current secret ballot election. Secret ballot initiative backed by business group The group called "Save Our Secret Ballot" is a misnomer designed purposefully to mislead people into believing that the Employee Free Choice Act would do away with the current law providing for a secret ballot election. This is patently false. Even more disingenuous is the real reason why this group is opposed to the legislation, which is not revealed by the reporter: the act would increase penalties and sanctions against employers who engage in intimidation and harassment of workers and union organizers, finally putting some teeth back into enforcement provisions.

These good 'ol boys just want themselves some good 'ol fashion union busting fun without the risk of being held accountable in a court of law for their unlawful activities. The group is proposing a constitutional amendment in five states including Arizona, which reads in part, "the right of individuals to vote by secret ballot shall be guaranteed." This measure is actually intended to prohibit the card check option.

A word to Congress: insert a federal preemption clause in the Employee Free Choice Act modeled after the federal preemption clause in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) which the federal courts have uniformly held preempts any state regulation. That should put an end to this nonsense.

Tim Mooney, a Scottsdale-based political consultant is one of the directors of Save Our Secret Ballot. Mooney would not disclose who the groups financial contributors are (of course). But its advisory board includes the usual suspects of bad government conservative think tanks, the Heritage Foundation, Goldwater Institute and Americans for Tax Reform.

The U.S. economy is crashing down around us based upon the economic policies advanced by these conservative think tanks over the past 40 years. Haven't these destructive assholes caused enough damage to this country already? Their failed economic policies have been entirely discredited and lie in ruins. They should be mocked and ridiculed and laughed out of existence. They should not be taken seriously by serious people.

But these conservative think tanks are only symptomatic of the larger disease that is the Republican Party.

The Republican Party since the rise of corporations in the mid-1800's has been the party of big business, the so-called "captains of industry" (aka "Robber Barons", or as Teddy Roosevelt called them, the "malefactors of great wealth") and their Wall Street bankers and financiers. This is the party's core constituency, and Republicans make no apologies for representing the interests of the wealthy elite.

In doing their bidding, the Republican Party has always been "the party of cheap labor." Except for a very short period of time when they were briefly afflicted with a social conscience during the Progressive Era under President Theodore Roosevelt, Republicans have opposed almost every piece of legislation to improve the working conditions and economic well-being of average working Americans over many, many decades. Republicans have been particularly virulent in their opposition to any rights of organized labor. Their objective has always been to maintain a pool of cheap labor to be exploited (this includes many of the proposals for a "guest worker" program under the guise of "immigration reform.") America's industrial revolution was built upon the exploitation of slave and indentured labor followed by decades of cheap foreign immigrant labor. When these workers brought with them their "foreign" ideas about organized labor to America, they were demonized by conservative Republicans as anti-American subversives and were beaten, killed, or deported.

It was President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal that gave American workers their first real taste of freedom and legal protections to organize and to collectively bargain for their working conditions and pay as an equal partner at the table with their employers. Conservative Republicans have demonized Franklin Roosevelt and labor unions ever since, defaming them as "marxists," "communists," and "socialists." (Ironic now that George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has presided over the largest nationalization of American businesses since the country converted to a war footing in December 1941. It is Bush Republicans who are the socialists.)

It was during the organized labor heydays of the 1940s through the early 1970s in which American workers built the largest middle class in American history, and the country enjoyed its greatest period of economic prosperity. Non-union labor also indirectly benefitted from the improved working conditions, pay and benefits attained by union labor (something most Americans today simply take for granted). This blue-collar middle class lifted the economic boat of all Americans. During this period, most business and labor interests (in union friendly states) came to a truce and negotiated a mutually beneficial agreement to work together for their common interests. (In the auto industry, this was known as the "Treaty of Detroit.")