Mandatory attendance at Romney rally: Coal Country Stands With Mitt! (or else...) |
In case anyone was wondering: "Coal Country Stands With Mitt". Do you see those cheerful, confident miners who flanked the candidate on the stage in Beallsville while 'their' man Mitt talked about bootstraps, the need to shut down labor unions and the importance of making it job one to repeal the Affordable Care Act if/when Rmoney is elected.
Lest anyone suggest that Mitt Romney could not bring out a working, middle-class crowd unless he paid them, let us put that ungenerous thought where it belongs - in the "false" category. Mitt Romney, and his friends in the private energy industry most certainly could bring out a working, middle-class crowd without paying them. They could and they did!
Here comes Mitt's (unpaid!) audience! No, really, they were not paid to attend. |
Several news sources have reported the following facts: The plant was closed for the day and the workers were docked that day's pay. Then, all employees were instructed to attend the Romney/Ryan rally, many lining up for hours to be admitted, thus spending the entire involuntary day off doing the company's bidding - without pay. Just in case anyone had any crazy ideas about giving up and perhaps spending the day with their families, the line up was for registration - to make sure that each and every attendee's name was recorded - in person.
In fact, just to show how eager the non-unionized Beallsville miners were to make a public show of support for the Republican candidate, a spokesman for the mine unapologetically confirmed all of the above. Speaking from the corporate office on Chagrin Blvd (you can't make this stuff up) in Pepper Pike, OH, Murray CFO made the position crystal clear:
So - yes, attendance at the rally being held on company property was mandatory, but - no, workers were not forced to go. Sure, the miners' names were recorded on a list, and sure they were told it was mandatory that they attend, but it's not like anyone held a gun to their heads and forced them to go!
Got that, America? In the new Republican corporate freedom lexicon, 'mandatory' no longer means 'forced' when it is used by the 1% to
Listen: It's a free country, people. Workers have a right to disobey unfair corporate demands on their personal time while corporations have a right to fire people who won't go along with their political agenda. If the workers don't like it, they can just find another job with another corporate job-creator! If they cannot find another job, it must be their own laziness, so the devil take them! Who can argue with that? As Republicans keep telling us: that's the
And what an agenda it is! Platform planks promising to weaken unions, to work to eliminate a federal minimum wage, and completely repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act. It is a working middle-class family's nightmare. Who needs unions, right?
But it is a dream come true for the top .01% - our beloved corporate 'citizens'. As Mitt Romney and his backers never cease to remind us, corporations are people, too, and these 'citizen' groups have thrown their hard-earned hundreds of millions at the struggling 99% to assert their "freedom". Now that's what I call people power!