Aug 31, 2002

Even a brief look at the make-up of the 107th Congress helps explain why workers are catching hell these days. Yes, it is true that there are “friends of labor” who have 100 percent AFL-CIO voting records, but they find themselves out-gunned in a Congress whose 535 members include 150 millionaire lawyers, bankers and other business people.

Job security, classifications, promotions and pensions are at stake when 4,000 Yale workers take a strike authorization vote on Sept. 4, as well as the right of graduate teachers and hospital workers to organize. But for many members of Locals 34 and 35, HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union), the bottom line is the bottom line: there’s just not enough money in their paycheck.