Category — Organized Labor

If you are a resident of the 6th Congressional District and you work for a wage, it makes absolutely no sense for you to vote to re-elect Representative Peter Roskam this fall. Voting for Roskam means voting for unfair wages, against workplace safety, and in favor of relocating your job overseas.

Peter Roskam is not just neglecting the needs of Illinois workers. Rather Roskam is using his office to actively work against their best interests. He consistently backs the interests of capital over labor and indeed Roskam has voted the position of the National Association of Manufacturers 100 percent of the time during his first term.

Here’s the latest example.

Yesterday (4/30/2008), the House voted to pass the Worker Protection Against Combustible Dust Explosion and Fire Act, H.R. 5522 by a vote of 247-165. The bill was prompted by the tragic explosion that occurred at the Imperial sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia in February. The blast, which killed 13 workers and severely injured many others, was caused by the ignition of sugar dust which had built up to hazardous levels.

But back in 2006, following a series of other similar explosions, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board had identified 281 previous incidents involving combustible dust that had killed 119 workers and injured over 700 since 19080. The board had urged the Occupational Health and Safety Administration to issue standards to protect workers from these hazards, but OSHA, which under the Bush administration that is so unfriendly to regulation of business, has failed to do so. If OSHA had acted, it is possible that the tragedy at Port Wentworth could have been avoided. This has been a pattern with OSHA under Bush.

The bill that was brought to a vote yesterday was necessary to force  OSHA to issue standards because the Bush administration has not compelled it to do so.  The bill still needs to be approved by the Senate where its future is uncertain.

The video that follows is Rep. George Miller speaking on the House floor in favor of the bill. He goes into quite a bit more detail on the history leading up to the legislation.

So the bill passed, but our own Representative Roskam voted against it. Roskam, as we have seen before with the Popcorn Worker’s standard shares Bush’s animosity toward workplace regulation. Bush and Roskam look with fondness back to the era before effective labor unions and progressive legislation when big business could do what ever it pleased and the workers be damned.

If you are an Illinois worker, don’t look to Roskam to stand up for your right to a safe workplace…or a fair day’s wage…or the right to organize. Roskam is not on your side.

The United States Chamber of Commerce recently honored Peter Roskam for proving in his first term to be “an effective ally to the business community”.

Sounds great until you realize what exactly “being an effective ally to the business community” means.

Put simply, it means consistently voting against the interests of the majority of citizens in your district and giving big business exactly what it demands.

It means means Roskam voting against reducing the dependence on fossil fuels that is threatening our national security and destroying our environment by requiring minimum standards for the percentage of electricity generated using renewable sources of energy.

It means Roskam voting against tax incentives for energy conservation and development of clean, renewable energy sources because they are funded by the repeal of tax breaks to big oil companies now enjoying huge profits at our expense every time we fill up our tanks.

It means Roskam voting against the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007 which would have insured that Illinois’ uninsured children receive the kind of health care that Roskam’s own kids get at taxpayer expense.

It means Roskam standing up for the interests of big drug companies rather than allowing the Medicare program to negotiate for better prices on prescription drugs.

It means Roskam voting against protection of his constituents right to equal pay for equal work. And their right to organize.

And it means Roskam voting against protecting middle class taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax.

So congratulations on your big award, Peter, and thanks for nothing. Its time we had a new Representative in Congress who works for us and not for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In the worst tradition of Republican policy in Central and South America, George Bush is again pushing hard for passage of a Colombia free trade pact, ignoring the ongoing violence against trade unionists and innocent peasants in that country. He called the matter urgent in remarks made as he was about to leave for a visit to the Ukraine yesterday.

Peter Roskam’s friends at the National Association of Manufacturers meanwhile are also pushing hard, urging citizens to contact their legislators in support of the proposed pact:

Roskam, you will recall, has voted the NAM position consistently during his term in office, and he, too, has been pushing for the pact. He journeyed to Colombia early last month to meet with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and came back proclaiming that everything in Colombia was just fine and that we should go ahead with the free trade agreement with all due speed.

Bush, Roskam and NAM are not telling you the truth. Things are not OK in Colombia.

As documented in a recent story in the LA Times, extrajudicial killings by the Colombian military are on the rise. As a bizarre consequence of pressure by the Bush administration to show progress in it’s fight against leftist guerrillas, poor innocent civilians are being killed and then dressed as guerrillas, to be used as evidence. And this killing is being funded by the U.S. Government in its role as a leading state sponsor of terrorism.

Violence also continues against trade unionists and human rights activists, even being spurred on by advisers close to Uribe. 4 unionists were murdered early in March, just after Roskam’s return from the country. In years past, American corporations such as Drummond Co., Coca-Cola, and Chiquita have been linked to such anti-union violence. And it is on behalf of corporations such as these that Roskam and Bush are pushing the free trade pact.

Illinois unionists, especially, should be horrified to know that their tax dollars are funding violence against their brothers and sisters in Colombia. I urge all my readers to contact Peter Roskam and demand an end to U.S. funding to the Colombian military and the rejection of the proposed trade agreement while violence continues. You may reach his office in Bloomingdale at (630) 893-9670 or in Washington at (202) 225-4561.

I would be very interested to hear from Jill Morgenthaler her thoughts on this grave issue.

This is a video about the March 6th protest against paramilitary violence:

Breaking News: The source of Peter Roskam’s rosy assesment of the present situation in Colombia has now been revealed. RubberStampRoskam has learned that, during his recent visit to the country, Roskam and his delegation held high-level trade talks with fictional Colombian coffee grower Juan Valdez and his mule Conchita. Apparently Valdez and Conchita reassured Roskam that the situation for trade unionists in Colombia was hunky dory. On his returm from meeting with Valdez, Roskam complained that the issue of free trade with Colombia is being “simplistically caricatured in the Democratic debate“.

You can read the story from El Colombiano of Roskam’s meeting with Valdez and Conchita here:

Seguimos en la lucha por el TLC: Carlos Gutiérrez

The picture of Roskam and his delegation with Valdez and Conchita is priceless but, sadly, very tiny.

President Bush has previously held talks with Valdez and Conchita.

Illinois labor leaders and union workers should take a long, hard look at Peter Roskam.

At the behest of the Bush Administration, Roskam recently traveled to Colombia and came back singing the praises of President Alvaro Uribe and his Colombian “success story”. Roskam has chosen to totally ignore the persistent violence that is occurring against union organizers, human rights activists, journalists and indigenous people by paramilitaries with ties to Uribe’s administration and to American and other foreign corporations. Bush is agressively pushing for a free trade agreement and Roskam is staying on message.

In promoting the free trade agreement for Bush, Roskam is wholeheartedly embracing the immoral Latin American policies of the two George Bushes, Henry Hyde, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and their predecessors going back many years, men who have embraced terrorism and brutal right wing regimes to advance the interests of American corporations at the expense of the lives of countless voiceless people.

Roskam looks at Columbia and doesn’t see the plight of its people. He sees only profits for American corporations, some of whom have been actively funding paramilitary violence.

Unionists in this country should be infuriated that Roskam cares so little about the oppression and murder of their brethren and they should understand that Roskam has no more support for their cause here. And if men like Roskam are allowed to continue turning the reigns of our own government over to corporate elites, the kinds of abuses that happen in Colombia can happen here as well.

BTW: If Roskam is interested in promoting trade, perhaps he should push for normalizing relations with Cuba. My sense is that the people of Cuba would actually benefit from such an opening and Americans could benefit as well.

This weekend finds our Congressman, Peter Roskam, on a junket to Colombia. There he has been meeting with the Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe, in an effort to smooth the way for a free-trade agreement with Columbia by downplaying the persisent violence against trade unionists, human rights activists and journalists by rightwing para-military groups with connections to both the Uribe administration and the Colombian military. 40 union leaders were killed in the past year alone. And there has been violence directed also at poor people who pose inconveniences to projects by large multunational corporations, a trend that may increase if Roskam and his allies are able to push a free-trade agreement through.

Like his predecessor, Henry Hyde, Roskam has little problem with this kind of terrorism if it supports the rightwing government’s hold on power and thus U.S. corporate interests.

Roskam’s comment from Columbia on the situation there:

“This is a market of 44 million people,” he said. “There are great export opportunities. This is a country that buys a tremendous amount of agricultural equipment.” The best argument for approving the agreement, he said, is geo-political: “We have a lot at stake to see this place flourish and do well.”

So much for human rights.