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Democrats like to accuse Republicans of waging “war” on women and on “immigrants” and anybody else they need to lie to in order to solidify their base. They get away with it only because the major media are nearly 100% in the tank for Democrats. In the real world, it is actually Democrats who are waging war, and the war they’re waging is on the same base they lie to with a regularity that would put X-Lax out of business.
The Democratic party has been waging a war on workers, especially lower income workers, for decades. They’ve gotten away with it because nobody – Republicans are you listening – has had the courage to point it out to those workers. The tide may be changing on that, but that doesn’t mean the war is won, it just means the Democrats are doubling down.
There are two major issues that are at the forefront of the Democrats’ War on Workers. So-called immigration reform and forced unionization of public employees.
With respect to “immigration reform,” which is in fact amnesty for 15 million plus illegal aliens currently in the US and another 30 to 40 million who will come in due to the chain immigration rules Democrats and Republican amnesty sell-outs like John McCain insist on, will depress wages at the low end of the scale because this flood of illegal aliens is made up almost entirely of uneducated, unskilled workers whose command of the English language is marginal at best. The highest rates of unemployment are already low income workers and adding 15 to 45 million more potential low income job seekers will do nothing but depress wages.
The Reason Foundation cites twelve reasons why amnesty will hurt the most vulnerable among us. The highlights include:
It will cost trillions, depleting resources.
According to The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector, the cost for amnesty is at least $6.3 trillion. Most of this cost is absorbed in Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, education, welfare benefits, and social services like police…
Amnesty will depress wages
The majority of the 33 million new immigrants that would benefit from amnesty would be low-skilled labor. The Congressional Budget Office stated that wages would decrease over ten years. Mass immigration is already hurting many low-skilled laborers, The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights stated that both legal and illegal immigration accounts for forty percent of the 18-point percent decline for African American employment levels.
Employment will decrease amongst low-skill domestic labor
The addition of 33 million new permanent job seekers would increase the already strained native work force. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, “the native-born population increased by 16.4 million from 2000 to 2013, yet the number of natives actually holding a job was 1.3 million lower in 2013 than 2000.”
Get the idea? Please follow the link to The Reason Foundation, it’s an eye opener.![tax base](https://whatdidyousay.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/tax-base.jpg?w=674&h=1012)
With respect to forced unionization, Democrats around the country have spent decades building the strength of public employee unions. The reason is simple. Employees are required to join the union, required to pay dues which are automatically deducted from their wages, and the unions are the number one funding source for the Democratic Party.![Next election in the bag](https://whatdidyousay.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/next-election-in-the-bag.jpg?w=730&h=395)
We’ve seen some dramatic reversals on that score over the past few years. Both Michigan and Wisconsin, states with a long history of labor union activism, have both become right-to-work states and unions have lost the majority of their members in both states. Secondly, the recent Supreme Court decision – Harris v. Quinn – from Illinois that struck down the requirement that low paid home healthcare workers be union members has put a huge dent in union membership. California, of course, is moving to counter the effect of that decision and continue to prop up unions at the expense of low wage workers.
Two years ago, however, the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown began to merge IHSS [In-Home Supportive Services caregivers] with other social services and shift the negotiation of union contracts for aides – who are selected by care recipients and usually family members – to a new statewide “authority.”![Show me the Union Dues](https://whatdidyousay.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/show-me-the-union-dues.jpg?w=540&h=411)
As that county-by-county shift occurs, IHSS will become, in effect, a state program with nearly 400,000 employees. While IHSS unions like the shift to state bargaining, it’s creating a new and semi-adversarial relationship between them and the state.
The just-concluded legislative session provided some clues to that evolving relationship.
When, for example, President Barack Obama’s administration declared that IHSS workers were entitled to overtime pay, Brown attempted to limit them to 40-hour weeks to limit costs, but eventually settled for a lesser restriction.
When the Legislature was passing a so-called “domestic worker bill of rights,” laying out working conditions for housekeepers, babysitters and other home helpers, it exempted IHSS workers from its protections – a kind of do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do attitude.![Laid Off](https://whatdidyousay.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/laid-off.png?w=540&h=408)
[…]The bill, ostensibly a budget cleanup measure, contains a curious provision giving union representatives the right – at public expense – to talk to new workers about union membership for “up to 30 minutes.”
Why?
Well, it may have had something to do with a U.S. Supreme Court decision in an Illinois case that IHSS workers cannot be compelled to pay union “agency shop” dues because they are not truly public workers, since they are chosen by their clients.![Union-Bosses](https://whatdidyousay.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/union-bosses.jpg?w=540&h=423)
IHSS workers are paid, in most cases, only slightly more than minimum wages, so union dues can be a major bite and many might opt out of paying them under the Supreme Court’s decree.![yourgreed](https://whatdidyousay.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/yourgreed.jpg?w=540&h=401)
Republican governors in both Michigan and Wisconsin fought the unions and won major victories for the workers in their states as well as state taxpayers. Both governors inherited huge deficits from outgoing Democrats. Both Michigan and Wisconsin now have budget surpluses just four years later and, in large part, the reason for those surpluses is moving to being right-to-work states.
It’s long past time for states to stand up for their most vulnerable workers and the best way to do this is to fight amnesty and fight for the right-to-work. Where do your Representatives and Senators stand? Where do your State representatives and candidates for statewide office stand? It’s time to hold the politicians accountable.![Resist Amnesty](https://whatdidyousay.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/resist-amnesty1.jpg?w=540&h=455)
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