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Reports from New York

 

vol.26 This is America - A bloodless Civil War(October,2018)

Life in America is decidedly different the past 2 years under President Trump. It appears that most Americans fall into one of 3 categories:

1) Those who love President Trump and continue to strongly support him and attend his political rallies in states across the country;

2) Those who don’t like President Trump or his ‘tweets’ yet feel he is focused on delivering on his campaign promises and making the country stronger. They point to the recent trade negotiation success with Mexico and Canada, replacing NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) with the USMCA (United States Mexico Canada Agreement), along with record highs for the stock market, record low unemployment, progress with talks between the US, South Korea and North Korea on denuclearization. These people recognize the President is clumsy and rude with his communications and actions but they like his results.

3) Those who hate President Trump deeply and who resent him for denying the Presidency to what would have been the first female president, Hillary Clinton. These people have formed the “Resistance” who are determined to obstruct and attack the President at every opportunity, starting with the “Not My President” marches the day after the election in November, 2016.

Those people who consider themselves to be part of the “Resistance” are very passionate and eager to protest and oppose anything President Trump supports. Every day brings new protests, lawsuits or official actions to challenge the President. Research shows that 90% of mainstream media stories about Trump are negative, so the “Resistance” is provoked daily to oppose him. Recently a lot of effort has been made to oppose his nomination to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh.

To the average citizen, it feels like a bloodless civil war is taking place. Those who support Trump or his policies feel the election victory gives him the authority to govern according to his priorities. The “Resistance” does not feel he won the election fairly and are hoping that the Mueller investigation that has been going on for almost 2 years will conclude that President Trump conspired with the Russians to alter election results or he obstructed justice by firing the Director of the FBI (James Comey) who was investigating the alleged Russian conspiracy. The results of this investigation could be released any day now or weeks from now.

Mid-term Congressional elections are also coming up on Nov 6, 2018. Democrats are expected to gain a majority in the House of Representatives while it’s uncertain whether Democrats or Republicans will gain a majority in the Senate. The Senate is expected to hold a vote on the Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, by October 5th.

All of these issues have deflected attention away from labor and employment issues so not much has happened in this arena. The Supreme Court decided in June, 2018 that public sector unions collecting “fair share” fees from non-members to cover the cost of representing them is unconstitutional. These fees were meant to cover the costs of contract negotiations for non-union employees but were often used as political contributions to mostly Democrats. It’s early, but non-union employees could request that these fees NOT be deducted or current union members drop their membership, depriving the unions of much-needed funds. Unions represent 34% of public sector employees, so this decision could lead to decreasing overall union membership. Private sector union membership is already down to 6.5%, its lowest level in decades.

 
掲載日2018年10月27日

「Reports from New York」はニューヨークでHRMに関する活動をしているPhilip S. Kozlowskiからのレポートです。
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