Weird on labor issues

Labor Day celebrates American workers and the role we each play in the social and economic achievements of America. This election season it is more evident than ever that we must vote to build on the past as we modernize the means for future economic development.

The only jobs Sen. Michael Baumgartner has created are those of his own campaign staff. As far as I can tell, Baumgartner has worked only for the government, or as a professional politician. Never having met a payroll, I’m confused as to why he is fixated on compromising the working men and women of our state with so-called “Right to Work” legislation. I agree with a past Spokesman-Review headline, “Right to work weird for Washington.”

I was a Republican. I ran for the Legislature as a Republican. But I don’t recognize my party anymore. Baumgartner and the tea party types would do well to remember the words of President Dwight Eisenhower, who said, “Workers have a right to organize into unions and to bargain collectively with their employers. And a strong, free labor movement is an invigorating and necessary part of our industrial society.”

Cheryl Steele

Spokane