NY Times Misses The Point On Labor

Opinion/Editorial


 

 

  Well here we are about to celebrate as a nation another Labor Day weekend marking the end of the summer of 2013.This mornings lead OPED in the New York Times once again and as always are the waterboy for the crying labor movement who whine about their pay nothing new here.
  Entitled "Labor, Then and Now" it begins "On Thursday, the day after the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, thousands of fast-food workers in 60 cities walked off their jobs, the latest in an escalating series of walkouts by low-wage workers demanding higher pay and the right to organize without retaliation.The parallels, though inexact, are compelling. A half-century ago, the marchers called on Congress to increase the minimum wage from $1.15 an hour to $2 “so that men may live in dignity,” in the words of Bayard Rustin, one of the chief organizers of the march. Today, the fast-food workers also seek a raise, from the $9 an hour that most of them make to $15.00 an hour. That’s not much different from what the marchers wanted in 1963; adjusted for inflation, $2 then is $13.39 an hour today."
  No offense to the fast food workers but I don't want to pay double for a whopper or Biggie fry.I love it how the left tries to incorporate the celebration of Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. 50th Anniversary of his infamous "I have a dream" speech in correlation to labor day. Makes me laugh LOL!
  It goes on "The strikers are targeting their employers — profitable companies like McDonald’s, Yum Brands (which includes Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC) and Wendy’s. But Congress could help. Today’s minimum wage is a miserly $7.25 an hour — which is actually lower, adjusted for inflation, than it was 50 long years ago. Raising it would support the legitimate demands of the strikers and underscore the pressing needs of the country’s growing ranks of low-wage workers.

President Obama has noted, correctly, that increases in labor productivity have long failed to translate into higher wages for most Americans, even while income for the richest households has skyrocketed. His proposed remedies, however, leave much to be desired — a pathetic increase in the minimum wage, to $9 an hour by 2016, plus hopeful assertions that revolutions in energy, technology, manufacturing and health care will create good-paying jobs."

  Sorry NYT but todays young people are getting dumber and dumber that's why there are a lot of low wage earners out there I see at the McDonalds here in the Pittsburgh area most of the register help can't give the exact change back they can't even count right. And they want $15.00 an hour LMAO!

As far as assertions that there will be good paying jobs in the health care field NOT! with Obama care taking effect soon.

  More from OPED "On its own, however, growth will not raise wages. What’s missing are policies to ensure that a large and growing share of rising labor productivity flows to workers in the form of wages and salaries, rather than to executives and shareholders. Start with an adequate minimum wage. Provide increased protections for workers to unionize, in order to strengthen their bargaining power. Provide protections for undocumented workers that would limit exploitation. Add to the mix regulations to prevent financial bubbles, thereby protecting jobs and wages from ruinous busts. Adopt expansionary fiscal and monetary policies in troubled times to sustain jobs and wages.

Low-wage workers would also benefit from executive-branch orders to ensure fair pay for employees of federal contractors. All workers need stronger enforcement of labor law so they are not routinely misclassified in ways that deny wages, overtime and benefits. They also need a tax system that is more progressive to shield wage earners from unduly burdensome tax increases or government cutbacks.

They need, in brief, pro-labor policies that have been overlooked for decades, with devastating results: from 1979 to 2012, typical workers saw wage increases of just 5 percent, despite productivity growth of nearly 75 percent, while wage gains for low-wage workers were flat or declined.

Recent experience has been even worse. In the decade from 2002 to 2012, wages have stagnated or declined for the entire bottom 70 percent of the wage ladder. The marchers had it right 50 years ago. The fast-food strikers have it right today. Washington has it wrong."
  Here we go NYT blaming the rich again same old liberal old BS tactic. What I highlighted in green since when does the NYT advocate for burdensome tax increases they are the kings of calling for tax increases all the time LOL!
  I have no problem with fast food workers getting a raise like everyone else but they have to earn it by doing their jobs CORRECTLY and efficiently. Besides the fast food workers can have better help carrying their water than having the NYT do it for them.

 

 

 

Dr.King Fought For "EQUAL" Rights Not Civil Rights

August 24, 2013

Column: King’s courage helped fuel civil rights movement

Arthur I. Cyr

“I have a dream” is how the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. highlighted his momentous speech in Washington on Aug. 28, 1963, and that phrase resonates strongly. His address was the centerpiece of the historic March on Washington, which involved over 200,000 people. In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy had addressed the nation, underscoring the importance of his administration’s proposed civil rights legislation.
King’s efforts were part of a massive current of historic change in American race relations. In 1955, Rosa Parks helped spark the modern civil rights movement by refusing to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Ala. Early in the 20th century, A. Philip Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly black labor union. These leaders and others built the American civil rights movement.
King’s leadership qualities were recognized while he was still young. Striking rhetorical skill was one key ingredient, cast in charismatic delivery. He was also often, though not always, a shrewd politician.
We honor King not because he was a perfect man, but rather for personal courage as catalyst for the civil rights revolution. Initially, he was reluctant to assume leadership beyond his local community, concerned about physical safety. He took on the job nonetheless, persevering until his assassination April 4, 1968.
Especially in the case of a murdered martyr, we tend to idealize the leader. That is unfortunate for two reasons. First, oversimplifying the complexity of the human spirit can easily diminish the person described. The leader actually seems less consequential as the internal personal as well as external battles that define courage are erased. Second, oversimplifying past times limits our own capacity to draw the most accurate and therefore best lessons for our future.
King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which preached racial integration and nonviolent tactics, became challenged by a range of radical groups. The Congress of Racial Equality staked out much more militant ground. The separatist Black Panther Party, always a very small fringe faction, nonetheless garnered enormous media attention through alarming rhetoric and occasional violence.
As the turmoil of the 1960s grew, King seemed to become overshadowed by the militants and the violence they preached, both near the end of his life and for a time thereafter. The fact that he and his message endure from that era, so sharply defined, testifies to the value of his leadership.
Fully making this point requires including noteworthy white political leaders. President Lyndon B. Johnson secured passage of major civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965, with vital help from Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen. Less visible today is President Harry S. Truman’s historic decision in 1948 to desegregate the armed forces.
Also in 1948, at the Democratic national convention, young Minneapolis Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey pressed to include civil rights in the party platform. Many advised Humphrey against this; he persevered successfully. In the resulting maelstrom, Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina led Southern delegates in bolting the convention and establishing the breakaway Dixiecrat Party. In the fall election, Dixiecrat presidential nominee Thurmond won Southern states, but Truman nonetheless was re-elected.
King was a particularly important leader, and without him another much less desirable national course might have resulted. Both his message and efforts were fully congruent with our most fundamental principles.
President Barack Obama’s political success personifies King’s victory.

Commentary

Mr.Cyr has it all wrong as it is with most of these kool-aid drinking leftist Professors. It doesnot take a rocket scientist to figure out that Rev.Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. was a great leader who fought for not CIVIL rights but EQUAL rights for all.
So for this leftist to say Obama's poiltical success personifies King's victory is ludicrous to say the least.If the great Dr.King was alive today he would be getting on Obama's case for all the political correctness and BS

More Immigration BS From NYT

Opinion/Editorial

   It seems that we are now back to the argument of immigration reform with the New York Times this morning. The title of this mornings lead OPED is "Of Courage and Cantaloupes" on the so called immigration reform bill that is now in the U.S. House.
  Here is their opening salvo "After the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill in June, hope for reform shifted to the House. That is where hope sits, on ice, getting freezer burn.The House leadership has rejected the Senate bill, saying it will instead move slowly on “piecemeal” measures. That means things like border fencing and visas for farmworkers, but nothing to allow 11 million unauthorized immigrants to become American citizens — a pillar of the Senate’s bipartisan compromise. “Compromise” and “path to citizenship” remain dirty words to Republicans like Representative Steve King of Iowa, who has likened immigrants to dogs and livestock. He has recently taken to calling them mules — drug runners, that is, with “calves the size of cantaloupes” from lugging marijuana bales over the border.
   And Congressman King says the truth.
  It continues "Dysfunction, inaction, demeaning blather — is this any time to be optimistic about immigration reform? It could be. Because with Congress now out on vacation for five weeks, when it can’t do anything awful, it is the people’s turn to push, to be heard and, if at all possible, to move Congress in the right direction. To that end, an amazing array of determined advocates from all corners of the country has plunged into a month of protests, rallies, vigils, town-hall meetings, phone-calling and canvassing, focusing on Republicans in their home districts.       

Their message is that comprehensive immigration reform deserves a vote in the House, and that any legislation must allow unauthorized immigrants to seek full equality as Americans — not, as some Congress members are proposing, to remain a permanent underclass of provisional, deportable, disposable laborers. They also are highlighting the urgency of fixing the broken system now because, as Congress dawdles, deportations are continuing at a record pace — thousands of lives and families torn apart every month, hundreds of thousands every year.

The advocates see hope in pressuring Republicans relentlessly for the next few weeks. They also find hope, believe it or not, in reasoning with them. Many House members are relative newcomers to Congress, having missed the last great immigration debate in 2007. Their rejection of the Senate bill could simply be reflexive recoiling at anything touched by Democrats. When asked to consider immigration reform point by point, on the merits — with stronger border and workplace enforcement and tough-but-fair rules for granting the undocumented legal status and citizenship — perhaps many may accept that path as sensible. (It happens to be the Senate’s.).

  Wow! evidently there is a new politically correct term for illegal immigrants now started by the NYT instead of "undocumented immigrants" the new definition is unauthorized immigrants. As usual now the rest of the lame stream media outlets in both print and TV will follow suit in using this new BS terminology.

  Here is the remainder of the BS "If reason doesn’t work, maybe embarrassment will, unease at having to associate with the anti-immigrant hard-core, exemplified by people like Mr. King, who is Exhibit A for those who see the ugly nativism behind the naysaying. Mr. King is an immovable “no” on any kind of positive immigration reform, but he isn’t the only member out there. Advocates have counted the votes, and they say there are enough Republicans and Democrats to pass a comprehensive bill, with a citizenship path, right now. But the House would have to agree to hold a vote, which the Republican leadership has, so far, rejected.

On Thursday, a group of leading immigrant-rights advocates were arrested while blocking traffic near the Capitol. Other advocates delivered cantaloupes to the offices of more than 200 House members, including some Democrats, who in June voted with Mr. King to halt an Obama administration program that deferred the deportations of some young people who were brought here illegally as children. A sticker pinned to each fruit read: “This cantaloupe was picked by immigrants in California. You gave Steve King a vote. Give us a vote for citizenship.”

Those were two actions; there will be hundreds of others across the country in the next few weeks. Immigration reform is stalled, so now is the time for advocacy and relentless optimism. Pressure makes heat, and a hot summer is about to get even hotter."

  Real immigration reform would be to enact and follow all the laws that are currently on the books for example making those to wait in line to become American citizens it would be the moral thing to do but don't expect that from the lame stream media and their socialist elites.