Why Labor Backs 'Occupy Wall Street'

From Mary Kay Henry, at WSJ (and at Google).

Amazing how the jobs she cites are public sector jobs nearly to the one. And that's going to reinvigorate the economy?

We can't begin to fix what is wrong with our economy without creating good jobs. We have work that needs doing in this country and millions of Americans looking for full-time work. It's time to put the two together to make America a stronger nation. And it's time to use the money being made on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms across the country to put Americans back to work.

Congress can begin by passing the American Jobs Act and immediately put Americans to work rebuilding our outdated and dangerous roads and bridges and ensuring our kids have first-class schools. We can invest in our communities to keep teachers in our classrooms, police on the beat, health-care workers at our hospitals and clinics, and ensure that we have enough firefighters to protect our communities.

The 2.1 million nurses, janitors, school-bus drivers and other members of the Service Employees International Union stand arm in arm with the peaceful Occupy Wall Street protestors. While unions cannot claim credit for Occupy Wall Street, SEIU members are joining the protesters in the streets because we are united in the belief that our country needs a change.

Nobody can predict what's next for the Occupy Wall Street movement. And no one institution or person should try to exert their pressure on this inspiring collective of people.

The importance of the Occupy Wall Street protests lies in the simple fact that all it takes is a small group of courageous people to light a spark and forever change the arc of history. The auto workers in Flint, Mich., lit that spark in the 1930s through their sit-down strikes and forever changed American industry. The civil-rights activists lit that spark when their sit-ins forced us to confront the racial inequality that poisoned our nation.

We saw that spark in Tahrir Square and across the Middle East this Arab Spring as a few brave people inspired millions of fed-up citizens to challenge their governments and demand better lives.

Actually, it took a Radiohead concert hoax to get (some resemblance of) a critical mass of people to show up. And these same union people are astroturfing the rest. It's pretty much a joke. The Egyptian street overthrew a dictatorship that held power for 40 years. Wall Street is not Mubarak. People who need jobs need banking, finance, investments, and savings. And it's the Democrats who have failed people for the last 30 months. Up is down and down is up in these freaked out political times. One sure thing is that Obama's gonna be a one-termer, and perhaps then we'll have some change folks can believe in.