President Obama continues to slowly chip away at the Bush administration policies. Today, he and Vice President Biden announced plans to help out organized labor and the middle class. At a White House ceremony, President Obama signed three executive orders that he claimed would “reverse many of the policies towards organized labor that we’ve seen these last eight years, policies with which I’ve sharply disagreed.” Vice President also attacked Bush and Cheney (coincidentally on Cheney's 68th birthday) when he announced to labor officials in the audience, "Welcome back to the White House."
Obama's executive orders would require federal contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change, and would make it harder for federal contractors to discourage union activities. Also, Biden announced that the first meeting of a task force that would "bring together those Cabinet members who have the greatest impact on the well-being of the middle class" would be on February 27 in Philadelphia. This task force will examine various issues, such as health care and college opportunities, and will aim at "restoring the balance in the workplace." The task force will be led by Jared Bernstein, a liberal economist writing on the impact of Obama's stimulus plan. And according to Biden, the first meeting will focus on "green jobs, those jobs that pay well, can’t be outsourced and will help us move toward a cleaner, more self-sufficient energy future.”
President Obama claims that there is no need for conflict between workers and employers, and that American business and industry can be "lean and mean", and competitive in the global marketplace. Vice President Biden claims that by helping out the middle class, the administration can help out the poor; and "by the way, the wealthy do better as well. Everyone does better."
Friday, January 30, 2009
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2 comments:
With each passing day, I'm starting to love the Obama Administration more and more. Last week, I didn't have much more than an observant opinion when Obama issued his executive orders freezing White House staff pay. Okay, cool. But this week, from the law fighting pay discrimination to Obama's comments on the greedy folks on Wall Street and now to these orders that actually provide help for the labor of this country (not to the businesses who outsource labor to other countries). Add to that this new Middle Class Task Force that was created and that Vice President Biden will be chairing (by the way, that would be something good to blog about!), and man, I can't remember the last time I was excited about the people running our government in this way.
Forget the first hundred days, it's only been the first ten. Wow. I think we're getting an idea of what it was like to live in early 1933.
I'm not sure how someone can claim that organized labor needs help.
Didn't you see all the stories claiming unionized auto workers got paid like 70 bucks an hour? (I know that number has been disputed).
Also haha at getting an idea of what it was like to live in 1933. Because it's way too true.
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