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Mike Bloomberg Now Lauds Labor Strikes as ‘Highly Effective’

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By Hellen Zaboulani

Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg seems to have flipped the switch when it comes to supporting workers’ right to strike. The former NYC mayor now says he wholeheartedly endorses unions engaging in walkouts against their private-sector companies. Skeptics are pointing out, however, that as mayor he was singing a different tune. He had strongly criticized transit workers and school bus drivers who had called for a strike.

As reported by the NY Post, the presidential candidate drew ridicule from critics who say it’s all just a bid to win votes. Bloomberg’s “Protect the American Worker” plan includes a provision supporting union strikes against private employers. “Protect workers’ ability to strike. Employees’ ability to withhold their work is a core source of their bargaining power, highly effective at resolving labor disputes and generally protected by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA),” says the Bloomberg plan.

“But courts have narrowed the reach of the NLRA in this area, with damaging consequences. Mike supports provisions of the PRO [Protecting the Right to Organize Act] that will unequivocally protect ‘intermittent strikes,’ enabling workers to go on strike briefly or repeatedly — which is far less of a financial burden for employees than an extended strike,” the proposal says.

The plan, released Feb. 15, also says that employers should not be allowed to hire permanent replacement workers, which “threatens the livelihood of employees by effectively firing them.” Other provisions in the plan include raising the federal minimum wage to $15, and requiring employers to provide 12 weeks of paid family leave.

Several New York labor leaders, who had experience dealing with Bloomberg as mayor, spoke out calling Bloomberg out for his abrupt change of heart and new emphasis on backing strikes against employers.

“This is lip service on Bloomberg’s part,” said Arthur Cheliotes, who headed Local 1180 of the Communication Workers of America, which represents administrative workers in city government. “He’s in the business of buying people.”

“Bloomberg is a proven anti-worker plutocrat. He’s the quintessential example of a political candidate putting up a faux-metamorphosis façade,” said national Transport Workers Union president John Samuelsen, who is supporting Bernie Sanders. “He attacked NYC transit workers viciously when we struck in 2005, he never supported any striking workers in his life and a leopard can’t change its spots. Especially billionaire leopards,” Samuelsen added.

In 2005, when the TWU initiated a transit strike, which was illegal under NYS law, Bloomberg had rallied against the effort. “This illegal and selfish strike needs to end now. Roger Toussaint and the TWU have shamefully decided they don’t care about the people they work for and that they have no respect for the law. The leadership of the TWU has thuggishly turned their backs on New York City, and disgraced the noble concept of public service,” Bloomberg had said as the mayor.

In 2013, Bloomberg similarly slammed school bus drivers for going on strike, and he refused to take sides between the union and the bus companies that employed the drivers in a dispute over job protections. “We have told the unions in unequivocal terms, ‘Do not walk out on our students,’” he said, vowing that “the city would not be held hostage.”

The Bloomberg campaign did not respond to media requests for comment.

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