View this email in your browser

 

**SEPTEMBER 21, 2021**

Meyerson on TAP

A Company That Takes Our Money and Goes South

As American workers rebel against low-wage-no-benefits jobs, some
employers, ranging in size from Amazon and Walmart to neighborhood
restaurants, have felt compelled to actually raise their wages. But not
all of them.

Still, among those you'd expect to provide decent work would be
companies getting public, or quasi-public, money to produce greener
products.

This is one instance in which you'd be wrong.

Oshkosh, Inc.-not to be confused with OshKosh B'gosh, the kids'
clothing company-is a venerable manufacturer of trucks and military
vehicles, many of which are produced in Oshkosh (Wisconsin) itself.
There, workers have had their livelihoods and lives brightened by the
wage and benefit standards they've won through their union, the United
Auto Workers, since 1938. You might conclude, then, that Oshkosh's
recent selection by the U.S. Postal Service to manufacture a new
generation of electric postal delivery trucks hit the sweet spot for
progressives, addressing as it does the sometimes conflicting goals of
combating the climate crisis and paying good union wages in the process.

And, I'm sorry to tell you, you'd be wrong again.

Turns out Oshkosh is eager to make those gasless mail trucks, all right,
but not with its unionized workforce. Instead, it says it will decamp to
ferociously anti-union South Carolina, which annually ranks either
number one or number two on the list of least unionized states, to make
those trucks. As the state that most vociferously defended slavery
before the Civil War, the first state to secede following Abraham
Lincoln's election, and the state that fired the first shot in that
war, South Carolina has a long history of suppressing not just Black but
worker power, which continues to this day. And there, where fewer than 3
out of 100 workers are union members, Oshkosh will make its stand
against granting its employees a modicum of power.

According to UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada, Oshkosh has found an
abandoned warehouse in South Carolina where it plans to make the mail
trucks. "A friggin' warehouse?" she observes. "They can't find
a warehouse in Wisconsin?"

Thanks to President Biden, who has made going green at union wages one
of his administration's mantras, the Board of Postal Governors now has
a Democratic majority. It might want to reflect on that mantra in
rethinking the USPS decision to subsidize Oshkosh's lowering of labor,
and living, standards for the workers who will build our future.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

[link removed]

Infrastructure Summer: The Democrats' David Boren Wing

There's always someone in the House or Senate willing to tank a new
Democratic president's agenda. BY DAVID DAYEN

Will Boston Get a Right-Wing Mayor?

If the progressive community splits along tribal lines, it could happen.
BY ROBERT KUTTNER

Paid Leave Advocates Won't Push Back on Payouts to Private Insurance

House proposal would fork over paid leave benefits to private insurers.
BY LEE HARRIS

Democrats Expand Obamacare While Abandoning It

While learning the lessons of the Affordable Care Act, Democrats are
still building on top of it instead of seeking a better design. BY
JON WALKER

To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe. 

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM


The American Prospect
IDEAS, POLITICS & POWER
The American Prospect, Inc.
1225 I Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC xxxxxx
United States
Copyright (C) 2021 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.

To opt out of American Prospect membership messaging, click here
.

To manage your newsletter preferences, click here
.

To unsubscribe from all American Prospect emails, including newsletters,
click here .
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States