AFL-CIO's Sweeney voices solidarity with Bush's wars By Bill Vann wsws.org
Sweeney began by declaring that, two days after Labor Day, “we have a lot to celebrate.” He continued: “Worker productivity in our country is the highest ever, and the working class heroes who pulled us through 9/11 and its aftermath are doing so again in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
Why record “worker productivity” is something an organization that claims to represent the interests of workers should celebrate, the AFL-CIO head did not explain. The dramatic increase in productivity by US corporations—at an annual rate of 6.8 percent according to the latest Labor Department figures—has translated into layoffs on the one hand and speedup on the other. Sweeney’s remark, delivered to a largely corporate audience, amounts to boasting about the role of the AFL-CIO unions in facilitating this whipsawing of the American workforce.