By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
I don't blame MSNBC's Chris Hayes for chuckling on camera the other night.
He'd just shown video clips of Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley calling the Republicans the "working class" party. He also highlighted tweets from Hawley and Rep. Jim Jordan making the same bogus claim.
Hayes rightly dismissed their bunkum as "ludicrous on its face" and more "very disingenuous working class hero dress-up" from the Republicans.
The host of "All in With Chris Hayes" promptly challenged Curly, Larry and Moe to put up or shut up.
He dared Cruz, Hawley and Jordan to endorse the union drive at that Alabama Amazon warehouse: “So here's a simple test, gentlemen: Go on the record with your support for the workers fighting for their rights against Amazon right now. Otherwise we'll go back to assuming this is all an insulting act.”
Hayes said the union campaign at Amazon pitted workers "doing something incredible and brave and difficult" against "just about the epitome of big business in America, big tech, corporate power."
Of course, hogs will fly before Cruz, Hawley and Jordan slap "Union Yes!" stickers on their bumpers and join a picket line in solidarity with any union. Bama will drop football before these con men embrace the workers who want to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The vote is underway.
Meanwhile, the GOP is still what it's been in the main since the 1920s, the party of plutocracy and bare-knucks union-busting.
Donald Trump was the most anti-union president since Herbert Hoover. Click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Cruz, Hawley and Jordan were among Trump's top toadies. There's a Grand Canyon-wide gap between what they're saying about working people and how they vote on labor issues.
Cruz has backed the union position on issues just 6 percent of the time since he came to Washington, according to the latest AFL-CIO legislative scorecard. Hawley and Jordan score 5 percent each. The average Senate Republican notches 17 percent; (Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul tie at 12 percent.)
Cruz and Jordan have co-sponsored national "right to work" legislation. Hawley backed RTW when he was Missouri attorney general.
Hayes isn't the first journalist to call out Cruz's hypocrisy on unions.
"Senator Ted Cruz has been attempting to pivot in a new direction: championing the working class and unions," Jessica Montoya Coggins wrote in The Texas Signal. "That’s a big surprise for unions in Texas that have witnessed firsthand the junior senator’s antagonism for labor rights and policies that actually support the working class."
She added: "When the Biden administration announced an executive order revoking a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, many Texas Republicans, including Cruz, lamented it would cost thousands of jobs, especially union jobs. In a Senate confirmation hearing for Pete Buttigieg, Cruz specifically said ending the Keystone XL pipeline permit would cost the country 11,000 jobs. The Washington Post fact-checked that figure (which Cruz actually linked to his Twitter account), and noted that almost all the jobs were temporary."
Coggins quoted a statement for The Signal from Rick Levy, Texas AFL-CIO president: "Shocked, shocked I tell you that Sen. Cruz is trying to play cynical political games with President Biden’s bold proposal to create millions of good paying union jobs in the new green economy.
“Workers in Texas and those that truly support us are fighting for restoring the right to organize by passing the PRO act, for enforceable workplace safety, for raising the minimum wage to give all workers a fair shot at achieving their dreams. We’d love to have the Senator’s support for blue-collar workers on these and many other key issues, but forgive us for not holding our breath."
Doubtless, our Missouri and Ohio AFL-CIO brothers and sisters would express similar skepticism about Hawley and Jordan.
For the record: Jordan and nearly every Republican voted against the PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act when it passed the Democratic-majority House last year. Biden has endorsed the legislation, which collected yes votes from almost all Democrats, including Rep. John Yarmuth of Louisville, Kentucky's only Democrat in DC. Not unexpectedly, Kentucky's five GOP House members voted no.
Senate Minority Leader McConnell is counting on no votes from Cruz and Hawley if the bill gets a vote in the upper chamber. Wanna bet they won't disappoint Moscow Mitch?
Meanwhile, Reuters has reported that the Biden administration and the RWDSU have discussed the union campaign.
"A White House spokeswoman, who declined to comment directly on the Alabama effort, said President Biden supports union organizing and collective bargaining and has urged employers not to run anti-union campaigns or interfere with organizing and bargaining," wrote Nandita Bose. "He has also called for holding employers accountable and increasing penalties when they do, she added."
Bose quoted Joe Applebaum, RWDSU president: “We wanted to inform the White House that this campaign was taking place and that they would be hearing about it... we did not make any specific request.” Bose said the Biden aide wanted to learn "more about the situation in Alabama."
Kentucky unions know the situation Frankfort. Republicans pushed and passed RTW, repealed the prevailing wage and are going after our workers compensation, unemployment insurance and worker safety and health programs. Republicans are blocking a minimum wage boost, too.
“History will tell you that the Democrats ramrodded every meaningful piece of legislation for the benefit of working people,” said J.R. Gray of Benton, a former Democratic state representative, Machinists union official, and Kentucky labor secretary.
That's true in Washington, Frankfort and every other state capital.
Anyway, corporate stooges Cruz, Hawley and Jordan remind me of an old Kentucky expression: "Put 'em in a barrel, roll it down a hill and there'd be a liar on top every time it rolled over." (You can use stronger words than liar. But this is a family-friendly website.)