{"id":332,"date":"2011-03-16T14:22:58","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T18:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jparnell.com\/blog\/?p=332"},"modified":"2011-03-16T14:22:58","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T18:22:58","slug":"richard-trumka-and-wisconsin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/?p=332","title":{"rendered":"Richard Trumka and Wisconsin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month Richard Trumka\u2014President of the AFL-CIO\u2014penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal<\/em>. Those who have followed Trumka in the past are already well aware of his socialist leanings, but rarely does one piece say so much, especially coming from the left. His work is so revealing that it deserves its own blog post.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to read Karl Marx in his own words, and I recommend that everyone do so. But Marx has long since left this world, and few leftists acknowledge his Communist Manifesto<\/em> (with Engels) as the roots of modern progressivism. For many, quoting today\u2019s leaders seems more relevant. This is why Trumka\u2019s piece is so important.<\/p>\n

For the record, Trumka\u2019s editorial is entitled Scott Walker\u2019s False Choice<\/em> and can be accessed at http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748703559604576176601936928690.html<\/a>. I encourage everyone to read it in full for context. In the interest of brevity, I will focus on 4 of his comments.<\/p>\n

1. Commenting on the Wisconsin situation, Trumka contends, \u201cThe real question, the one at the heart of our economic debate, is this: Do we continue down a path that delivers virtually all income growth to the richest 1% of Americans, or do we commit to rebuilding a thriving middle class?\u201d<\/em> The path to which he refers is capitalism. Given the past two years, how can anyone claim that we are “continuing” down capitalism\u2019s path? Quite the opposite is true. And what evidence does he have to support his 1% claim? According to IRS data, the top 1% of wage earners paid 38% of all federal income taxes in 2008, while the bottom 50% paid less than 3% of the total. Like Marx, Trumka plays the class envy card early and often, and his claims simply don\u2019t correspond with the facts.<\/p>\n

2. Trumka later adds, \u201cThe freedom of workers to come together to bargain for decent living standards, safe workplaces, and dignity on the job has been a cornerstone of building our middle class. It’s also recognized in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights<\/em>.\u201d Why does Trumka find it necessary to cite a United Nations document to support his case? Why not base his argument in the US Constitution?<\/p>\n

3. Trumka laments that \u201ca group of radical Republican governors is working overtime to export the most short-sighted private-sector labor practices into the public sector<\/em>.\u201d In the private sector, labor practices are based on supply and demand. Employers and employees voluntarily agree on the terms and workers are paid based on their economic contribution to the organization. What part of this is short-sighted? In fact, Wisconsin\u2019s public sector\u2019s approach is economically short-sighted and has contributed to the very crisis the Republicans there are trying to solve.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0In closing, Trumka refers to Governor Walker and others and states, \u201cTheir claim is that public workers have become parasites, busting state budgets with bloated wages and benefits at a terrible cost to taxpayers<\/em>.\u201d Perhaps I missed it, but I haven\u2019t heard anyone in the Republican leadership refer to public workers as parasites. The rest of this statement is spot on.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, I am surprised that Trumka\u2019s handlers didn\u2019t do a better job of editing out the overtly Marxist overtones in the piece. Perhaps Trumka didn\u2019t write it anyway.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting that Trumka did not offer any specific suggestions to resolve the budget problem, not even the handy \u201ctax the rich\u201d argument. But then again, he has no interest in balancing the budget. In classic union parlance, that\u2019s a management problem.<\/p>\n

My point here is simple. Union members as a group may lean left of center, but some are conservative and it\u2019s my guess that only a minority would qualify as full-fledged socialists. But union leadership is a different story, as Trumka\u2019s op-ed reveals. The Wisconsin situation is about balancing the budget and PUBLIC sector unions, not class warfare, wealth redistribution, and UN mandates. Until now, many Americans have failed to see the connection between union leaders and the far left wing of the Democrat party. Perhaps Richard Trumka has set the record straight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month Richard Trumka\u2014President of the AFL-CIO\u2014penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. Those who have followed Trumka in the past are already well aware of his socialist leanings, but rarely does one piece say so much, especially coming from the left. His work is so revealing that it deserves its own blog […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}