What do Republicans hate more than anything else in the world?
Taxes, of course.
But after that you have to figure they despise labor unions the most.
We don’t need to go back to the beginning, when they they called people organizing unions “Communists” (actually “Communards,” but that word has passed into history.
It may be difficult to believe, but American workers did not have the right to unionize at private sector jobs until 1935, when as part of the New Deal, Congress passed and President Roosevelt signed the National Labour Relations Act.
Republicans began attacking it after World War II, and when they took control of Congress in 1947, they passed Taft-Hartley, which said states could pass laws saying workers could not be made to join unions even in co-called “union shops” They called them Right to Work Laws, one of the most misleading and despicable titles for a law.
The idea was to kill the influence of unions.
It’s working.
Union membership peaked at 33.2 percent in 1955. In 2022, the most recent numbers available, that total was 11.3 percent.
It’s no coincidence that the mid 1950s was when income inequality sank to its lowest level in modern times. It’s also when Republicans pretended to like unions.
Not anymore.
In last night’s Republican Presidential Debate, former vice president Mike Pence basically blamed the unions, specifically the striking United Auto Workers, for loss of jobs and income equality.
“Auto workers, and all American workers are feeling it, and families are struggling in this economy. And Joe Biden’s Green New Deal agenda is good for Beijing and bad for Detroit.
“We ought to repeal the Green New Deal, get rid of the mandates and subsidies that are driving American gasoline automotive manufacturing into the graveyard, and beyond that also, as president of the United States, I’ll be standing with workers all across America, and I’ll be standing for the right to work of every American, to join a union or not join a union as they decide.“
I wish I could decide whether Pence is being disingenuous or just stupid.
He wants to repeal the Green New Deal?
There’s no such law. President Biden’s “Green New Deal” is just a proposal. Nothing like it has ever passed Congress.
And standing for the “right to work,” to join or not join a union as they please, this is maybe the No. 1 Republican wet dream, reducing the influence of unions even further.
Republicans just don’t like working people.
Never have, never will.