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by NW Spotlight
The three top Democratic candidates to replace David Wu in Oregon’s First District (CD-1) debated last week in Eugene at the Oregon AFL-CIO convention. State Representative Brad Witt, Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian and State Senator Suzanne Bonamici fell all over themselves to curry support from the unions. All three talked about their support of the Orwellian-named Employee “Free Choice” Act, or “Card Check” – which actually removes worker’s free choice by effectively eliminating private voting; opening the door to intimidation and coercion by union organizers.
All three Democratic CD-1 candidates in the debate must be hoping that AFL-CIO members don’t notice that they’re being thrown under the bus. These candidates have shown with their anti-corporation rhetoric (during the debate) and support of anti-business taxes and policies like Measures 66 & 67, that they don’t care how many private sector union workers are without work – as long as the public employee unions are growing, getting their pay raises, gold-plated benefits and guaranteed PERS retirement income.
Over the last 4 years in Oregon, the private sector has lost 110,000 jobs while the number of state employees has grown by 5,600. 188,000 Oregonians are still out of work – double the number out of work 4 years ago, and Oregon’s unemployment rate remains way too high at 9.6%.
Here’s the full video of last week’s CD-1 Primary debate at the Oregon AFL-CIO convention:
Video streaming by Ustream [2]