re: #99 RadicalModerate

So, what we have from the GOP in regards to labor laws this year is the following:

1. In Missouri, a proposal is in the legislature to repeal most significant child labor laws.
2. In Wisconsin, we have this bill that Governor Walker attempted to ramrod through the legislature without debate, which removes workers’ ability to collectively bargain - the very foundation of workers’ rights.
3. There is a renewed effort at the federal level to weaken, or outright repeal OSHA worker safety laws.
4. In multiple states (Nevada, West Virginia, among others) there are proposals on the table to repeal minimum wage laws. This has also been brought up again recently by GOP representatives.

And the Tea Partiers are so disconnected from reality that they think that these people represent their best interests.

That’s the thing. It’s not just about the unions. There’s a developing pattern of deciding that worker rights and protections—those very things that only came into existence because the unions were willing to go out there and risk life and limb to protect them—need to go.

A lot of people died for the forty hour workweek, and laws that said nine-year-olds should be in school rather than a coal mine.

I do not want them to have died in vain.