Thursday, April 02, 2009

Labor gets a TV show

Radio progressive talker Ed Schultz was given the 5 p.m. Central time slot by MSNBC yesterday.

Talking with Keith Olbermann last night on Countdown, Schultz said the show's focus would be on working people, the middle class, and labor unions. From an interview with AFSCME two years ago:

"This has been the most anti-labor administration in the history of the country. They want cheap labor: that's the conservatives' mission. They don't think the middle class — and unions — are important. I'm a staunch supporter of unions. If we're going to save the middle class, we've got to strengthen unions. They stand for quality of life, quality of wages, quality and fairness of benefits. All of those things are being attacked by the neo-cons. The only thing that's going to be able to push back at Corporate America is unions."

And in a recent audition on the network he will be working full-time for starting next week, Schultz gives the Democratic leadership in Congress some advice about the Employee Free Choice Act:



Conservatism's successful marketing of organized labor as demonic -- going all the way back to when former union boss Reagan disbanded the air traffic controllers -- has proceeded apace for nearly thirty years, dove-tailing nicely with declines in union membership, wages, benefits, and the erosion of the middle class in general. Even poor working stiffs bought into the 'one day you will be management, too!' BS notion that kept themselves oppressed by corporations all of this time.

Read any comment board where unions are mentioned and see for yourself.

Schultz's conversations about the benefits of organized labor is a welcome breath of fresh air in the soon-to-be post-corporate-controlled environment.

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