Attack on unions is an attack on workers

I am writing in response to a guest column by Jay Ambrose, 'Fighting public unions, saving the future,” which was published in The Gazette Nov. 13.

Ambrose praises Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin for his attack on public sector collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin and goes as far as to call Walker a hero.

He states that public sector union workers are a tax burden but mentions nothing about all the workers' tax dollars going to corporations while many corporations pay nothing in taxes themselves.

The entire column is an all-out assault on working people. Is Mr. Ambrose unaware that the very people he feels do not deserve decent wages, pensions and voices in the workplace are taxpayers?

There is not one credible source cited to back up any of Ambrose's claims. He goes as far as to say that unions caused the 2008 recession.

But you see, when Mr. Ambrose points the finger at unions, he is accusing the working men and women of this country, and such a statement only proves his lack of knowledge.

It has been well documented that the cause of the recession was due in great part to Wall Street and inequality. To blame working families for the result of the elite's greed is simply wrong.

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich wrote that Wall Street's banditry was the proximate cause of the Great Recession, not its underlying cause. Even if the Street is better controlled in the future, (and I have my doubts) the structural reason for the Great Recession still haunts America. That reason is America's surging inequality.

Ambrose praises those who openly attack workers' rights and goes on to claim that unions are cheating children out of education.

Trades unions are well known for their apprenticeship schools, and all unions give to their communities to assist with education, income, and health.

Stripping police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, schoolteachers, prison guards and state, county, and city employees of their pensions, wages and collective bargaining rights does not make a hero in my opinion. It is a myth that typical public employees are receiving 'lavish” pensions.

As Iowa Federation of Labor President Ken Sagar states, 'Mr. Ambrose clearly has an anti-worker, anti-union agenda and is part of the one-percent echo chamber machine seeking to vilify workers, unions and government. His selective use of facts to achieve these ends is typical of the right-wingers he seeks to represent. Their views and activities in the last election cycle seem to be above reproach. He chides teachers for spending $60 million in the past year on political activities - that would be 3.1 million teachers - while he mentions nothing about two billionaire brothers who spent many times that amount. Expect more one-percent drivel denigrating workers and their democratically elected worker organizations.”

I agree with Ken. Working people and their unions are not the problem.

' Rick Moyle is executive director of Hawkeye Labor Council AFL-CIO; rmoyle@hawkeyelabor.us or (319) 396-8461.