Bush’s plan doesn’t help working class

By Sarah Turner
Daily Cardinal Editorial Writer

During the 2000 Presidential Campaign, George W. Bush accused his opponent Al Gore of using “class warfare” politics to discredit his tax-cut plan. Rather than assuage the fear that he would sell America’s working families down the river to further the interests of the super rich, Bush instead made those fears a reality by assaulting the rights of organized labor under new executive orders quietly passed last Saturday.

Bush’s executive orders included repealing regulations that denied federal contracts to companies that break pollution and labor laws and removed a federal provision that rewarded federal contracts only to businesses cooperative with labor unionization. Bush effectively closed off government employment for organized workers with collectively bargained contracts, while opening the door to law-breaking corporations.

Although Bush does not support restricting the amount of money the wealthy can give to his party, he applauds restricting the use of labor union money in political campaigns. Corporations outspend labor unions 11-1 in political campaigns, but Saturday Bush issued an executive order requiring federal contractors to post notices telling workers they have the right to withhold their union dues if they might be used to sponsor political activities.

Bush’s first days in office have included several inflammatory executive orders that have cut away at the very heart of his campaign promises. Rather than bring the nation together and do away with “bipartisan” bickering, he has resurrected the conservative extremism of his party. With the soul of Ronald Reagan and the wit of Dan Quayle, Bush has slashed international U.S. aid for family-planning agencies and abortion facilities. Impoverished women in desperate nations were Bush’s unfortunate targets.

The tax cut that Bush proposes severely favors the wealthy, with the richest 1 percent receiving nearly half of the $1.6 trillion tax cut. George W. staunchly opposes any real increase in the minimum wage for working men and women. Not only has Bush not reflected his campaign principles of avoiding dirty “class warfare” politics, but he has also flaunted his pro-wealthy servitude since day one of his presidency when he met with the top corporate donors to the Republican Party.

President Bush thinks that attacking labor rights is paralyzing the base of the Democratic Party. But minimum wage laws and union labor contracts with the federal government were not hand-me-downs from the Democratic Party. Minimum-wage laws were won by the labor movement during the era of the Great Depression. Pitched battles were fought in the streets between company guards and poor workers over the right to have a minimum wage.

The government was taught that if it did not fairly combat poverty and inequality, the consent of its poorest citizens would be broken, awakening their active dissent. While Bush may think that he is able to get away with his assault on the poor and organized workers, he may be reviving historically deep-seated class anger in America.

Through looking at our nation’s history and social reforms that were won through collective struggle, we can begin to construct a new vision for our future. Knowing the history of class struggle is knowing the history of reform and social change.

We will not let Bush roll back workers’ rights that took decades to win.

Sarah Turner is a columnist for The Daily Cardinal at the University of Wisconsin.
This column was distributed by U-Wire.

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