You can bet your ass he wants the masses to pay for the screwups of the robber barons.
The WSWS is skeptical also:
The final question at the press conference came from a Chicago reporter who asked Obama about the actions of workers at a local factory who have begun an occupation to demand payment of vacation and severance pay following the sudden closure of the plant. Obama declared that the workers “were absolutely right,” and sought to portray himself as their advocate.
Another such gesture came from Vice President-elect Joseph Biden, who Friday appointed a liberal economist, Jared Bernstein, to the newly created position of chief economic adviser to the vice president. Bernstein is an expert in the field of income inequality and has long been associated with the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank financed by the AFL-CIO.
This appointment is another fig leaf, coming after complaints that Obama had filled the White House and cabinet with Wall Street figures like New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner, the incoming treasury secretary, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, head of Obama’s National Economic Council, and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who will be Obama’s top adviser in formulating an economic recovery plan.
Speaking of those workers at Chicago's Republic Windows and Doors, more power to them.
Note how skewed this country's values have become:
Some of the plant’s 250 workers stayed all night, all weekend, in what they were calling an occupation of the factory. Their sharpest criticisms were aimed at their former bosses, who they said gave them only three days’ notice of the closing, and the company’s creditors. But their anger stretched broadly to the government’s costly corporate bailout plans, which, they argued, had forgotten about regular workers.
“They want the poor person to stay down,” said Silvia Mazon, 47, a mother of two who worked as an assembler here for 13 years and said she had never before been the sort to march in protests or make a fuss. “We’re here, and we’re not going anywhere until we get what’s fair and what’s ours. They thought they would get rid of us easily, but if we have to be here for Christmas, it doesn’t matter.”
The workers, members of Local 1110 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, said they were owed vacation and severance pay and were not given the 60 days of notice generally required by federal law when companies make layoffs. Lisa Madigan, the attorney general of Illinois, said her office was investigating, and representatives from her office interviewed workers at the plant on Sunday.
The WSWS offers this:
Although Republic has placed the blame for the closing solely on Bank of America’s decision to stop loaning the company money, management had known about the closure for at least a few weeks. Workers became suspicious as materials listed in the inventory were nowhere to be found. Others told of the company moving equipment and supplies out of the factory in the middle of the night with the lights off.
With the slump in the housing market, Republic saw its monthly sales fall from $4 million to $2.9 million over the last month alone. CEO Rich Gillman, in a letter to the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, notifying the union of the plant closure, stated, “Our continuing to stay in business will only result in losing more money.”
For their part, Bank of America, in a statement released to the local CBS new station, said, “Neither Bank of America nor any other third-party lender to the company has the right to control whether the company complies with applicable laws or honors its commitments to its employees.” Bank of America has been the beneficiary of at least $25 billion in government bailout money over the past several months, supposedly to free up the credit markets.
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Bankruptcy--Tribune Co.
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The New York Times isn't doing much better.
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Dow Chemical--5,000 jobs lost
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