Bush Legacy Tour

Since President Bush took office, Americans are working longer hours just to get by – but the income gap between working Americans and the wealthiest few has exploded. The top earning 300,000 Americans collectively control as much income as the lowest earning 150,000,000 Americans. The average CEO makes 262 times the pay of average employees.

What’s causing this? The conservative assault on worker’s rights.

In 2003, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the Bush Administration “the most anti-worker administration in the history of our country.” President Bush’s longest serving cabinet member is Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, wife of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell – and together, they have turned the Department of Labor into the Department of Anti-Labor.

Workers who have unions earn almost 15% more than workers in comparable jobs without unions. They also are 28% more likely to get company health insurance, 54% more likely to have a pension, and 14% more likely to have paid time off. That’s why almost 60% of workers say they’d join a union if they had the chance.

Bowing to pressure by big business, conservatives have made it as difficult as possible for people to join unions. Bush has packed the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with anti-worker, anti-union cronies, who have done little to little to discourage the firing, harassment, and discrimination of workers. In 2006, the NLRB changed the definition of a “superviser” to disqualify millions of low-level employees from forming unions.

Bush and his conservative allies also opposed the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation to level the company-dominated playing field and restore the freedom of workers to organize and bargain for better wages and benefits.

But it’s not just wages and benefits where Bush has failed American workers. Under the Bush Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Mine Safety Health Administration (MSHA) staff and budgets have been cut to the bone. Without proper government oversight, 16 workers are fatally injured on the job each day – including mining disasters like those in Crandall Canyon, Utah, which killed 9 people.

During the Bush Administration, protecting workers’ rights has meant protecting CEOs’ rights. Big Business has gotten exactly what it wanted: a weaker workforce with little power to fight back.