Steelworkers taken for ride by Reid, Pelosi
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
The United Steelworkers’ rank and file must have a short memory. Maybe they’re just exceedingly polite. Perhaps their union bosses are exceptionally good at keeping members in line.
There might be an even more cynical explanation for the surreal political kabuki that unfolded in Las Vegas at this week’s Steelworkers’ annual convention: Big Labor and the Democratic Party take their support for one another for granted, to the point that platitudes, promises and applause lines matter far more than actions.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., gave separate addresses at the MGM Grand that defied reality and hinted at their party’s desperation to avoid landslide losses in November’s election. In pleading with Steelworkers and other union members to turn out this fall and vote for Democrats, Rep. Pelosi said Monday, “Democrats want to jump-start the middle class.” Sen. Reid took a similar approach Wednesday, saying Republicans are “simply not interested in helping American families.”
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Instead of roaring their approval, Steelworkers should be asking themselves how much more Democratic “help” they can withstand.
In case Big Labor has forgotten, the last time Democrats had full control of Washington, the party delivered a law that was devastating to unions, their members and their families. It was Rep. Pelosi and Sen. Reid who ushered passage of the Affordable Care Act.
The sweeping new health insurance mandates imposed huge costs on the health plans that unions had spent decades building. And when labor groups tried to persuade President Barack Obama and Democrats to address the problems the law had created — albeit through breaks exclusive to unions, not all Americans — unions were ignored. It was just last year that Steelworkers, the Culinary and other trade and service unions went public with their unhappiness with Obamacare. In fact, the parent AFL-CIO approved a resolution declaring that the Affordable Care Act will drive up the costs of union-sponsored health plans so much that members and employers will be forced to abandon them.
For this, Steelworkers waved signs Monday that declared Rep. Pelosi “Best Speaker Ever!” Wow. There’s pandering, there’s denial, and then there’s selective amnesia.
But the economic harm caused by Obamacare is small when compared with the Democratic Party’s larger assault on the private industries that employ so many union workers, including Steelworkers. Take the party’s opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline project, which would create thousands of jobs and require hundreds of miles of steel pipe. Rep. Pelosi has said she doesn’t believe Keystone brings value to the American economy, while Sen. Reid has blasted the Keystone project as “dirty” and “unsustainable.” In fact, Sen. Reid has blocked votes on the Keystone project, even though members of his own caucus support the project.
Rep. Pelosi and Sen. Reid also oppose expanded oil and gas drilling across the country, especially on federal land, even though those industries require huge amounts of steel and employ many thousands of union workers.
This helps American families? This jump-starts the middle class?
By now, Steelworkers and other trade union members know that when their interests are in conflict with the interests of the Democratic Party’s radical environmentalist base, party leaders will side with the doomsday climate-change crowd 100 times out of 100. Why? Because Democrats believe union support is a sure thing.
Union members must decide this fall what matters more: What Democrats say, or what they do. Because their policies don’t measure up to their rhetoric. And union workers are suffering because of it. The Steelworkers and others should remember as much in November.
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