"Union bosses! Class warfare! Jimmy Hoffa! Send me money now." (Mary Chastain/Reuters)
Republicans continue trying to whip up a controversy over Teamster President James P. Hoffa's
fiery rhetoric at a Labor Day event, and of course Michele Bachmann wants to be in the middle of things.
Bachmann sent out a fundraising email under the subject "Big Labor Attack Squad":
"When they’re not on the attack on CNN, union bosses like Hoffa in Washington, DC, are getting big returns on their election day influence, yielding unprecedented power granted by Obama appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, and costing Americans countless jobs in the process."
Bachmann said unions that are using terms like "anti-worker" are engaging in "class warfare."
"Big labor policies enforced by unelected and unaccountable Obama bureaucrats cost Americans jobs, while boosting the professional and political prospects of union leaders like Jimmy Hoffa. As President, you can be sure that I will respect the right of Americans to work, and enact policies that promote prosperity and economic freedom, not membership in declining unions."
The "unprecedented power" unions are getting from the NLRB, of course, includes the overturning of Bush-era decisions that broke sharply with precedent in anti-worker ways.
Dammit! Did you catch that? I said "anti-worker," which makes me guilty of class warfare. Although you wouldn't think that someone like Bachmann, who wants to eliminate the minimum wage, would think class warfare was a bad thing. I guess she just has a problem with working people fighting back when she makes war on them.
Bachmann also uses anti-union language by referring to "union bosses"; it's anti-union language that is often unwittingly used by union supporters or by ostensibly neutral reporters. To clarify, union presidents are elected representatives of their unions; the term "union boss" is, tellingly, an attempt to make union leaders sound as problematic as bosses in the workplace. But Hoffa is a "union boss" like Bachmann is a "Minnesota boss." Additionally, the current President Hoffa shares neither a middle initial nor a nickname with his famous father, meaning that he's neither a Jr. nor a Jimmy. But hey, sowing confusion on that point will raise Michele Bachmann some money, so ... and since lots of reporters get it wrong, too, it's not like she's going to catch any grief for it.