The headline reads ‘Standoff at factory is drawing support’. ……The nation’s grim economy now has a rallying point: Employees at a window and door factory that went out of business have taken over the building in a siege that has come to symbolize the problems of the ordinary worker. The factory closed abruptly last week after Bank of America
canceled the company’s financing. Since then, about 200 of the 240 laid-off workers have taken turns occupying the factory, declaring that they will not leave until getting assurances that they will receive severance and accrued vacation pay.
This standoff also symbolizes peoples’ growing anger at the bail outs being offered to large corporations while paying little to no heed of the middle class. The middle class is the backbone of this country. And this is why we are in this mess, to begin with. We forgot that without a strong middle class this country is simply not your grandfather’s or even father’s country.
Rallying behind these workers are such illuminaries as ….Barack
Obama.., ..Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, civil rights activists and others.
Unions still matter and they are about to have a come back. Big time!
This is just the beginning.
Now about the long slow slide of America’s middle class. Creating a strong middle class has been the goal of organized labor since labor first became organized. And it is this goal that was abandoned outright by American political and business leaders as they did all they could
over the past three decades to encourage a relentless race to the bottom in wages and benefits.
Ah, the worship of capitalism. The worship of companies at the expense of what this country is all about. Trickle up. What happened to this country isthat the middle class could not afford to live a middle class life without borrowing. BECAUSE corporations and businesses kept squeezing more and more outf workers for as little monetary benefit as possible. A company is financially strong when its people can afford to purchase products. Money moves when workers have money to spend.That has not been the case for decades. Borrowing has been the case. A necessity for many. ….
We need to start paying workers enough to sustain themselves. We need to get the money into the hands of those who are striving to stayat or attain a middle class existence. That is the backbone. That is how which companies live and die should be decided; by what people choose to spend their money on.
The labor movement has started. And it promises to be a doozy. Hang on to your hats folks. People are pissed off!….
Finally……………………….
