Union-Busting Only Helps The Rich

This chart from billmoyers.com shows what is accomplished by busting unions. It only helps one group in society -- the rich, because they can then abuse their workers and steal their share of increased productivity. It was the union movement and powerful unions that built a strong and growing middle class in this country. And it is the destruction of unions (and stripping of their power) that has had the opposite effect -- the destruction of that middle class. Each year since the institution of 'trickle-down" Republican economics policies, the middle class has shrunk, and When Bush doubled down on that policy (driving the country into recession) the middle class destruction was accelerated.

The economy is in a real mess. But it is a mess that the corporations love, because it provides them with millions of people desperate for a job -- any job, even one with low pay and no benefits. And the Republicans seem to want it like that. They only care about two things -- fattening the bank accounts of the corporations and getting themselves re-elected.

That has become very apparent in states where the Republicans have held power for quite a while. Here in Texas, there hasn't been a Democrat elected to statewide office in nearly twenty years. Republicans hold the state up as an example of an economic miracle. But it is an illusion. In truth, most new jobs in Texas are not jobs that can support a family. In fact, Texas leads the nation is both the number of and percentage of minimum wage workers. It also leads the nation in the number of its citizens without any health insurance (about 27%).

That is what the Republicans are trying to do to the whole country, and they are well down the road toward doing that. Soon there will be no middle class -- only a country with two classes, the rich and the poor. Is that really what we want? It is what we'll get if the Republicans once again take over the national government.