For the last two weeks, working people have joined with students and sympathetic lawmakers as part of a Main Street Movement to protest efforts in multiple states to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights. While the protests against Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) have garnered the most attention, protests have also taken place inOhio, Indiana, Tennessee, Washington, Montana, and Idaho. The protests have caused Republican governors in multiple states to back down from their anti-worker stances.
Despite the obvious newsworthiness of these protests, the Sunday morning news shows last week (Fox News Sunday, NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation, CNN’s State of the Union, and ABC’s This Week) featured no labor leaders or members. Instead, they turned to the likes of conservative commentator George Will, CNBC’s Rick Santelli, Liz Cheney, and even a Thomas Jefferson impersonator, while Walker himselfmade an appearance on Fox.
AFL-CIO Political Communications Director Eddie Vale reports that the situation has not yet changed for this coming Sunday:
There is still time for the producers of these shows to rectify this situation, and give the Main Street Movement a voice on the national media stage.
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