Obama administration supports workers

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Vice President Biden Fires Up Union Activists: Organized Labor Keeps 'Barbarians From The Gate' 

White House: Wis. vote 'vilifies' public workers

Carney: Wisconsin Gov. Walker's Actions Violate Obama Principles

Obama Administration Raises Voice on Bargaining Rights
The Obama administration's voice of support for collective bargaining rights grew louder this week as President Barack Obama and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis publicly stated that workers in states deserve to maintain their bargaining rights.

Obama, speaking out on Wisconsin labor standoff, says public employees should not lose rights
President Obama on Monday waded into the labor standoff in Wisconsin and warned that the rights of public employees should not be infringed upon.

Obama has hardly been silent about Wisconsin protests
But when the occasion presents itself, Obama makes his comments count, most openly to the media at the bipartisan gathering of the nation's governors in D.C. the last weekend in February. That was the height of protest in Wisconsin, as Obama well knew - so amid all the congeniality and conviviality of the White House reception and address to them came the perfect moments for some sharp bitebacks.

At the Table
Collective bargaining -- what my dad called sitting "at the table" -- is a cornerstone of our democracy and our middle class. It shouldn't be cast aside in hard times. It can and should be part of the solution. Just as my dad explained to me with those paper scraps at our kitchen table, the best solutions come from people sitting down at the table together.

Obama to Governors: Don't Vilify Public Workers
Addressing governors from around the country at the White House this morning, President Obama dedicated a moment of his speech to warning them not to vilify public workers.

"I believe that everybody should be prepared to give up something to solve our budget challenges," Obama said. "In fact, many public employees in your respective states have already agreed to cuts. But let me also say this: I don't think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or when their rights are infringed upon."

Obama joins Wisconsin's budget battle, opposing Republican anti-union bill

"Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions," Obama told a Milwaukee television reporter on Thursday, taking the unusual step of inviting a local TV station into the White House for a sit-down interview. "I think everybody's got to make some adjustments, but I think it's also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens."

Obama to governors: Public employees must not be vilified or have their rights infringed upon

Biden defends unions against conservative 'social agenda'
Unions are not the cause of the country's economic woes, Vice President Biden said Wednesday.

"Public employees are not the problem. The problem is much deeper," Biden said during a fundraiser in New York for Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). Rather, Biden said, unions are part of the reason the country has a middle class.

Wisconsin fight rallies Democrats
"The fight is on," Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told the closing session of the DNC gathering at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel Saturday morning. "We work together. We help those embattled states right now where public employees are under assault."

Solis, a former congresswoman from California, got cheers and multiple standing ovations for her remarks blasting Walker and other Republican governors who seek to weaken government workers' collective bargaining rights.

"We know many states are facing tough budget decisions," she said. "We know there's room for shared sacrifice - shared sacrifice. We've seen our brothers and sisters in public employee unions willingly give up their fair share. The governors of Wisconsin and Ohio aren't just demanding that they tighten their belts, they're demanding that they give up their uniquely American rights as workers."

Arne Duncan voices support for Wisconsin teachers
"Governors across the country are facing, you know, tough budget issues - as the president is here - but we have to support our hardworking teachers and make sure that we do everything we can to help them do the critically important work they do every single day in the classroom," Duncan said.

"I'm troubled by the current climate and hope we can get to a good resolution as soon as possible," he said. "But the teachers in Wisconsin, across the nation, I think are often doing Herculean work in very, very challenging times."

Valerie Jarrett on MSNBC 2/22/11
ANCHOR: To the west of where you are in Cleveland, in the Ohio state capital of Columbus, there are apparently protesters gathering to show their solidarity with the protesters in Wisconsin in fighting back against measures that would break unions. That would at least limit their collective bargaining rights. Where does the president stand on how you move forward out of this gridlock?

JARRETT: Well, obviously, the president said last week, he's very supportive of unions. What's going on in Wisconsin was going on all around our country is similar to the challenges we face at the federal government and what the president thinks is that we should sit together with the unions and work collaboratively. We're all having to tighten our belts, and we're all having to do more with less but we ought to be able to do that in a constructive, productive way that leads to a brighter tomorrow. The unions have a lot at stake. They represent terrific workforces around our country and we should really be engaging and working with them to solve the problems together.

ANCHOR: Do you think there is room for reform among unions? Especially among government unions we've seen it with the car industry. We have seen it with the airlines. That the promises that have been made in terms of pensions, in terms of retiree health care costs, those promises are not realistic.

JARRETT: Well, I think there's always room for improvement. Everyone included at the state, local and federal level and in the private sector, are having to look at how we're doing business and figuring out how to be more efficient and effective. That doesn't mean there isn't a meaningful role for unions and for collective bargaining.  So I think it is a matter of sitting down at the table together and working constructively together as we face these difficult economic challenges. The president just announced his budget last week and said he had to make some tough decisions and make some cuts that in ordinary times, he wouldn't have made. But we are in these really challenging times and we have to figure out how to get our deficit under control. State and local governments are facing similar challenges and it is really the way you meet those challenges and the president is encouraging constructive dialogue.

Obama still opposed to targeting collective bargaining rights
Carney's answer was this: "Well, I will - on the specific actions that members of different legislatures have taken, I'm not going to judge that, but I will - from here. But I will say that there is nothing wrong with - as the President made clear in his interview with a Wisconsin television station, he firmly believes that state legislatures and governors need to address their fiscal issues, just as he is working with Congress to address fiscal problems at the federal level."

"His view is that it is important that everyone work together towards that goal; that public sector employees obviously have to tighten their belts, others have to tighten their belts, but that this should not be an effort that goes after some of the fundamental rights of collective bargaining in the name of reducing the deficit. Because that - I think it's fair to say that the best outcomes will be when everyone sits at the table - executive branch, legislatures, union members - and deals with these issues in a productive way so that they can be resolved, precisely so that these states can get control of their budgets, as we are very aggressively trying to get control of ours."