Labor & Employment Law

Give Now to Expose the Chamber?s War on Workers

By Tula Connell

Want to get in the ring and help battle the Chamber of Commerce? American Rights at Work is holding a fundraiser to help expose the Chamber’s war on workers. The $7,000 in seven days campaign doesn’t aim to compete with the mega-millions the Chamber collects from its Big Business patrons. But your donation can help the workers’ advocacy organization spread the truth about the Chamber. Donate here.

Last year, the Chamber spent more than any other lobbying organization in the country: $144,496,000. And it plans to spend $50,000,000 to influence the upcoming elections.

Here’s where its lobbyists stand:

• The Chamber is for Big Banks and against real reform of our financial system: Chamber lobbyists fought for years for dangerous deregulation that brought the U.S. economy to its knees. And they’re still at it-teaming up with the likes of Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase and trying to sink financial reform.
• The Chamber is for the “Tea Party” movement and against rational discussion: Mine CEO Don Blankenship-who is on the Chamber’s board of directors-teamed up with his friends from the Chamber to spend more than $1 million on a Tea Party rally against green jobs legislation.
• The Chamber is for the insurance industry and against patients: During the fight to pass healthcare reform, the Chamber took $20 million from insurance companies and funneled it into misleading anti-reform attack ads.
• The Chamber is for huge corporations and against workers: Just recently, the  Chamber used its deep pockets to round up around 250 lobbyists-for-a-day from around the country and flew them to Washington to rail against the Employee Free Choice Act.

You also can sign the American Rights at Work act.ly “Not My Chamber” petition and retweet it for others to do the same.

Make a contribution today-and help David beat Goliath.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on May 07, 2010 (boomark / email).