Labor & Employment Law

Working Class Anger: Tip to the Right or Left?

By Mike Hall

The angry working class?the good folks between the two coasts who live in what elitist pundits dub as ”Fly-Over Land”?are certainly getting a lot of TV face time, dead tree ink and blogosphere attention.

Most of the conventional wisdom paints them as part of a populist uprising, angry at the economy, distrustful of the government and, if not members of the ”Tea Party,” firmly planted on the right side of the political spectrum.

But let’s face it: Who wouldn’t be angry with an economy that’s lost 11 million jobs largely due to Wall Street’s reckless actions? What sane Americans wouldn’t be upset after working hard and playing by the rules for years only to see incomes fall and dreams of retirement security fade?

But does that mean this populist wave embraces the kind of corporate free-for-all, you’re-on-your-own economic philosophy of the Republican right, or the even-further-right fringe groups?

Working America and the AFL-CIO will explore this growing populist anger at a special forum, Working Class at the Tipping Point: Right Wing or Progressive Populism?

Panelists at the June 3 forum (10 a.m. to noon) at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., will discuss people’s growing anger over the economy and explore the elements that push this anger toward a progressive or right-wing economic vision. They also will explore other questions facing working men and women at the tipping point and how the progressive community can shift the balance.

Panelists are Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum, The Nation’s Christopher Hayes and The Wall Street Journal’s Peter Wallsten.

If you wish to attend, click here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on May 26, 2010 (boomark / email).