NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
THE TOP THREE UNION-BACKED BILLS: HOW MEMBERS OF THE OREGON HOUSE VOTED
LEGEND
✓ -voted for the bill
✗- voted against
N/A - didn’t cast a vote
July 7, 2017 | PAGE 7
OPEN FORUM
Don’t believe Trump’s hypocritical
‘anti-education,’ ‘pro-worker’ rhetoric
To The Editor:
I am a proud member of United
Food and Commercial Workers
Local 555, and my partner is a
strong union supporter who or-
ganized for the United Auto
Workers back East. We were
both deeply disturbed by Don
McIntosh’s article, “Clueless
about Class.” Obviously, we
agree that classism is wrong,
and we also agree that the work-
ing class should be supported,
strengthened, and not demeaned
in any way. But the article came
across as a screeching attack on
Democrats and on Clinton, and
a valorization/glorification of
Trump and the Republican
Party.
The Republican Party under
Trump is no friend to the unions
or to the working people of
America. Our health care is be-
ing undermined, environmental
protections are under fire, our
public education system is un-
der DeVos’s butcher knife, So-
cial Security/Medicare/Medic-
aid are being targeted, and the
regulations that keep corpora-
tions in check are being torn
down. Don’s article failed to
distinguish between a manipu-
lative rhetoric that flatters the
working class to get their votes
and a political agenda that actu-
ally supports the things that mat-
ter most to working people: So-
cial Security, clean environ-
ments, good schools, real health
care coverage, and legal protec-
tions from greedy corporations
and individuals who are out to
abuse the public trust.
The Democrats have their
flaws, but Democratic presi-
dents don’t appoint people like
Betsy DeVos to manage our
children’s future, they don’t at-
tack health care expansions,
they don’t kill environmental
protections, and they don’t seek
to minimize our safety nets like
Social Security. I was surprised
Low Prices!
to see a union newspaper buying
into a highly cynical and sinister
Republican “pro-worker” rheto-
ric that seeks to use the working
class in the polls only to then
stomp on us when they get into
office.
One other point must be
made. Instead of criticizing the
highly educated for not respect-
ing the working class enough,
we should be encouraging the
working class to love and pur-
sue education for themselves
and their children.
The anti-intellectual position
that the working class should
shun or otherwise strike back at
the educators and educational
institutions that deliver higher
learning is very self-defeating.
Academics are not the enemy of
the working class, though this
was strongly implied by the ar-
ticle. Research and advanced
learning produces the technolo-
gies which create jobs and new
opportunities, and it is in our in-
terest to see educational institu-
tions as doorways to the future.
A working class that turns its
back on higher education is a
working class that is doomed to
stagnation and manipulation by
those (like Trump) who did ben-
efit from first-class higher edu-
cation. Trump sends his children
to top universities while telling
the working people that they
don’t need the “cultural elite” or
colleges. Remember that Eric
and Ivanka Trump went to
Georgetown University, Trump
Jr. and Trump himself went to
the University of Pennsylvania,
and none of these Trump kids
ever attended the public school
system that DeVos is now un-
dermining. Trump has been ben-
efiting his whole life from the
fruits of higher education, and
yet he and the Republicans want
workers to chant “we don’t need
no education.”
In summary, don’t believe
Trump’s hypocritical “anti-edu-
cation,” “pro-worker” rhetoric.
We should never turn our backs
on education — an educated
working class is a powerful
working class.
R. Hantid-Margetaes
UFCW 555
Salem, Oregon
Mon-Fri 9-6, Sat 9:30-5:30, Sun 12-6