Chris Coons Speaks Up For Labor

Yesterday Senator Chris Coons gave a speech supporting the labor movement and acknowledging the 43rd anniversary of MLK’s assassination.

Working together, as you know, Mr. President, as labor and management is not an easy path. No one wants to hear that they have to do more with less, especially when it comes to their own paychecks and public employees in Delaware and all across this country are in my view not just the backbone of our community, but the backbone of our middle class. They are the policemen, the paramedics, the 911 call takers, the emergency sewer repair men, the librarians, the health service workers, the prison guards, the folks who keep our community safe, healthy and prepared for the future day in and day out. And in my view, where public employees come together to organize and seek collectively representation on workplace issues, we ought to respect those choices.

Collective bargaining serves as a critical check on our system and its long and storied history — storied history is a part of American values. It led to child labor practices, led to the 40-hour workweek and ended legal sweatshops. It is a critical check against excesses and overreach by management and by the marketplace.

Mr. President, I stand here today to remind all of us that labor unions and hundreds of thousands of public employees they represent in this country are not the enemy.

We all know that this country faces a significant, almost devastating national debt and annual budget deficit, and we are going to have to make shared sacrifices and tough choices to get through these next few years. But that does not require that we strip the collectively bargaining rights of the hundreds of thousands of public employees who serve our nation at each and every level of government. More often than not, they do the difficult, the dirty, and the dangerous jobs that keep us safe and make our communities strong. And they simply, in my view, do not deserve to be demonized but rather, to be listened to, respected, and partnered with, as together we seek solutions to the challenges facing our country now and in the future.

It’s nice to see Washington Democrats acknowledging the importance of labor and the events playing out in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana. Speaking of Wisconsin, there are a lot of updates on the situation there. Today is the first test of the energized labor movement in Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court election between former Republican legislator and Walker ally David Prosser (incumbent) and challenger JoAnn Kloppenberg. Kloppenberg was considered a longshot until the events of this year.

Two reports came out yesterday about the recall elections in Wisconsin. Democrats announced they had enough signatures to force a second recall – that of Randy Hopper (the Republican who is now living with his 26-year-old mistress). Greg Sargent at the Washington Post reported that Democrats had collected 50% more signatures than needed in the other recall race (Dan Kapakne).

Scott Walker has used the budget deficit as a reason for cutting state workers pay and benefits and has lambasted them as greedy and unwilling to sacrifice. This kind of rhetoric can cut both ways. A watchdog group has discovered another high-payed, unqualified political hire by Walker:

Just in his mid-20s, Brian Deschane has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions.

Yet he has landed an $81,500-per-year job in Gov. Scott Walker’s administration overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce. Even though Walker says the state is broke and public employees are overpaid, Deschane already has earned a promotion and a 26% pay raise in just two months with the state.

How did Deschane score his plum assignment with the Walker team?

It’s all in the family.

His father is Jerry Deschane, executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association, which bet big on Walker during last year’s governor’s race.

The group’s political action committee gave $29,000 to Walker and his running mate, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, last year, making it one of the top five PAC donors to the governor’s successful campaign. Even more impressive, members of the trade group funneled more than $92,000 through its conduit to Walker’s campaign over the past two years.

Total donations: $121,652.

Teachers are greedy because they make $50,000/yr but a college dropout is worth $80,000+ per year AND he gets a raise. Way to show us how to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps Wisconsin Republicans!