Southeastern Missouri doesn’t immediately come to mind as a hotbed of pro-worker political activism, but don’t tell that to the nearly 600 union members and their families who turned out for the Cape Girardeau Central Trades and Labor Council’s second annual labor picnic last weekend.
Council President Mark Baker, who also is a business rep for Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 702, says several local, state and national lawmakers and politicians joined the union families.
They all had a chance to hear Stewart Acuff, assistant to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, discuss how critical this election is to winning passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and restoring the nation’s middle class.
Acuff told the crowd that workers are more productive than ever but wages are stagnant and workers are forced to take additional jobs to make ends meet—even as CEO pay is through the roof. There are 20 percent more people living in poverty than when George W. Bush took office, and nearly 50 million people have no health insurance. Acuff said. And Sen. John McCain is more of the same.
All this economic crisis and real family heartbreak directly tracks a 30-year assault on workers, our unions and our freedom to form unions and bargain collectively…But it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to lose our middle class.
The Employee Free Choice Act will restore to America’s workers the absolute freedom to form unions and bargain collectively to bargain for an exit ramp from poverty, to bargain for a life of dignity for their kids and a place in the American Dream, to bargain for a larger, broader, stronger middle class.
Acuff noted that Barack Obama has vowed to sign the Employee Free Choice Act as soon as it hits his White House desk, but McCain has put the legislation on his “kill list.”
Baker says working families in this corner of Missouri have the same concerns as voters across the country—health care, the economy, jobs and the Employee Free Choice Act. Echoing AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka’s call that this election is about who is on the side of working people, not about race, Baker says he reminds union members that
this isn’t about arguing over race or social viewpoints, because that’s not going to solve the current economic crisis we are facing. Electing Barack Obama and working family candidates will go a long way toward doing that.
No comments:
Post a Comment