President Obama at a Labor Day event in Detroit, Michigan (see around 16:30 mark)
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couple weeks ago, when President Obama was asked about attacks on public sector unions, he issued a strong defense of collective bargaining rights, but also suggested, incorrectly, that unions and their members have not made concessions and therefore face a "natural backlash."
On Labor Day, in front of an audience of union members and allies, he did better, saying first:
So when I hear some of these folks trying to take collective bargaining rights away, trying to pass so-called “right to work” laws for private sector workers—
AUDIENCE: Booo—
THE PRESIDENT: —that really mean the right to work for less and less and less—when I hear some of this talk I know this is not about economics. This is about politics.
He also substantially improved on his comments about public employees and their unions:
We understand that the world is changing; unions understand that the world is changing. Unions understand they need to help drive the change, whether it’s on the factory floor, or in the classroom, or in the government office. (Applause.)
But what unions also know is that the values at the core of the union movement, those don’t change. Those are the values that have made this country great. (Applause.) That’s what the folks trying to undermine your rights don’t understand. When union workers agree to pay freezes and pay cuts—they’re not doing it just to keep their jobs. They’re doing it so that their fellow workers—their fellow Americans—can keep their jobs. (Applause.)
When teachers agree to reforms in how schools are run at the same time as they’re digging into their pockets to buy school supplies for those kids, they do so because they believe every child can learn. (Applause.) They do it because they know something that those who seek to divide us don’t understand: We are all in this together.
Obama's ideas about education reform are at best being imposed without having been tested or proven. Pay freezes for public employees are not necessarily good for the economy. But while some of the policy ideas underlying these paragraphs are not good, Obama took a significant step in acknowledging the major concessions and sacrifices that union members have made, and the underlying motivation to strengthen their communities.