Posted: Tuesday, 1 March 2011

CLC President Ken Georgetti sent a letter to The Globe and Mail newspaper on March 1 regarding a column in which Globe writer Margaret Wente said that it would be a good idea if the draconian union busting practices in Wisconsin were to be copied north of the border.

Margaret Wente appears to be possessed of a convenient amnesia in her column advocating union bashing in Wisconsin (The Uprising in Wisconsin). She says the state is buried in debt and to get out of the hole it must attack its unionized public sector workers and walk away from contracts bargained in good faith. Ms. Wente conveniently forgets these workers did not cause the deficit faced by Wisconsin or any other state responding to the recession. Only a few weeks ago, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission concluded that the economic crisis was caused by failures in government regulation, corporate mismanagement and irresponsible risk-taking in the financial sector. The commission concluded that the financial crisis was completely avoidable. Add to that the penchant of Republican politicians to go ahead with tax breaks to corporations and the rich, even as the economy crumbled. Ms. Wente should know this but prefers to attack women and men of modest means who belong to unions.