AFL-CIO Head Blasts Corporate Policies
January 20, 2006
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Corporate policies are driving millions of workers out of good-paying jobs, stripping them of health care and killing pension plans in a strategy that is “just suicidal” for the economy, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said Wednesday.
Sweeney outlined a state-by-state effort that he said was aimed at allowing organized labor “to break free from the gridlock of Washington” and fight for worker benefits such as stronger health care plans and a higher minimum wage.
“Wounded workers aren’t the only casualties of the corporate job-killing strategy,” Sweeney said. “It is also a self-destructive strategy because it leaves businesses with consumers who don’t have enough money to spend or save. It leaves government with more demand for public services and subsidies — and fewer taxpayers to pay for them.”
Sweeney, in a speech to the National Press Club on the state of labor in America, pointed to numerous economic developments that suggest the middle class is getting into increasing trouble — an increasing poverty rate, health care costs being shifted to workers and jobs moving overseas.
“We have to stop outsourcing,” Sweeney said. “If we don’t stop it, we’re going to see the elimination of the middle class.”
Read the AP report here.
View the address in it’s entirety here.
