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**APRIL 1, 2022**
Kuttner on TAP
The Shame of Corporate Democrats
****
The failure of Manchin, Sinema, and Kelly to confirm David Weil as the
top official cracking down on wage theft is not principled moderation.
It's all about corporate money.
David Weil was one of Biden's best appointees. The author of the
classic book
**The Fissured Workplace**, Weil is an expert on all the ways that
corporations cheat workers out of earnings.
Biden reappointed him to the job he had under Obama, as head of the
Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division. In the intervening years,
Weil has been my colleague as the dean of Brandeis University's Heller
School, where he has become an even more astute critic of labor abuses
such as wage theft, misclassification of gig work, and the
government's underutilized powers to defeat them.
Word of this evidently reached corporate boardrooms. Weil's
confirmation was blocked by Republicans in committee for months.
Democrats finally forced a Senate floor vote. But on Wednesday, three
Democratic senators-Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and a novel faithless
Democrat, Mark Kelly of Arizona, refused to support cloture and Weil
went down, 47-53.
Politico described
the trio as three of the caucus's moderates. They are nothing of the
sort. They are
**corporate**.
Of the three, only Kelly is up for re-election, and in a swing state.
But think about it. Is Kelly going to gain support because he voted
against protecting workers from wage theft? Do swing voters even pay
attention to confirmation of subcabinet appointees?
No, this is all about sucking up to corporate money and doing the
bidding of America's elites. Democrats failing to deliver for working
families for decades brought us Trump. The more that corporate fakes
like Kelly continue this shabby tradition, the more they prevent Biden
from restoring a credible Democratic Party.
So we at the Heller School get to keep David Weil as our dean. That's
a comfort, but his country and his party needed him more.
There is a banner that hangs in the lobby of our school, where students
and teachers research social injustice:
**Enough is known for action**.
The time for action is long past. Manchin, Sinema, and now Kelly stand
for reaction.
****
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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A Generational Worker Revolt Hits Its Stride
At Amazon's Staten Island warehouse, workers have broken through
corporate America's unified, furious opposition to giving employees a
voice on the job. BY HAROLD MEYERSON
[link removed]
Supply Chain Fixes, Energy Transition Take Major Steps Forward
Nobody will tell you, but Congress came closer to re-regulating an
economic sector while the president began the wartime mobilization of
clean energy. BY DAVID DAYEN
Uber Gives Up, Moves On
Taxis and the ride-hailing company end their feud; they had no other
choice. BY GABRIELLE GURLEY
[link removed] The
Cure for Hate Speech Is Not More Speech
A new book considers how colleges and universities should deal with
committed racists. BY RYAN COOPER
Altercation: CBS News Hires a Prevaricating Trumpoid
Because that's the kind of thing that TV 'news' does. BY
ERIC ALTERMAN
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