2008 Candidates Hammer Home the Message That America Needs Unions

by Mike Hall, Mar 28, 2007

As the nearly 3,000 building and construction trades union members left the huge hall where seven Democratic presidential candidates stated their cases for the White House earlier today, cement mason Cameron Hall said he felt good, real good.

Said Hall, a member of Cement Masons Local 886 in Toledo, Ohio:

It’s good to see they know about us, about unions…that they recognize what we did and realize the potential we have to make changes in 2008. It reflects an attitude that too many other politicians don’t have. It makes you feel good.

There was a lot of feel good to go around as the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) wrapped up its three-day legislative conference in Washington, D.C., with a presidential forum.

All the candidates pledged their support for the Employee Free Choice Act and universal health care, promised to end the mismanaged war in Iraq and pass trade deals that protect workers’ rights and jobs.

The candidates also spoke about issues specific to building and construction trades workers, such as rebuilding the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, protecting Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws, cracking down on contractors that misclassify workers as independent contractors and restoring project labor agreements to federal projects that President Bush banned via an executive order in his first weeks in office. (Davis-Bacon requires that federally funded construction projects pay the local prevailing wage, which prevents contractors from low-balling bids by undercutting wage levels for skilled workers.)

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who spoke last, drew a laugh when he kicked off his remarks:

At this point, everything that needs to be said has been said, but not everyone has said it….I have a vote to cast in the Senate at noon, so I’ll have to cut short my remarks. [pause] That probably merits some applause.

Obama did get a round of applause, but he also kept the crowd’s attention when he spoke about a 2004 trip to Galesburg, Ill. There, he met with workers who had lost jobs when a profitable, productive Maytag plant closed even after employees agreed to givebacks and despite local and state tax breaks to encourage the plant to stay open. The jobs went to Mexico.

Obama talked about a Steelworker, Tim Wheeler, whose plant had been shuttered. Wheeler had lost his job and health insurance and couldn’t afford any kind of stopgap coverage. He didn’t know how to pay for his son’s liver transplant and couldn’t get answers from Medicaid. He was willing to sell his house, everything he had, go into debt. Eventually, through donations and community help, Wheeler’s son got a new liver. Obama says the trials Wheeler and millions of other Americans are forced go through symbolize the vision for the country offered by the Bush administration and its corporate and congressional allies.

We are fighting for a different vision of what America should be. The vision of this White House is simple—you’re on your own. If the rug is pulled out from under you and you lose your job, life’s not fair…If you loose your health care or pension, tough luck, you are on your own…We have a different vision, one that says we are in this all together…People who work full time should have a living wage, decent benefits, Social Security, prescription drugs.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards talked about the huge disparity that has developed between the few at the very top of the economic ladder and the rest of the nation: mothers and fathers working two jobs to get by, struggling to pay for health care and wondering how or even if they can pay for their children’s education.

There are two Americas still. There is so much to do to bridge the gap between the two Americas. Who is going to stand up for the people if we don’t? …The most powerful anti-poverty movement in American history is the union movement.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) told the crowd:

Let’s face it. This administration wants to stamp out unions. The first thing they do when they see the union bug is call the exterminator. If we don’t give you the right to organize, we are undermining a fundamental right. We passed the Employee Free Choice Act through the House, and we will pass it through the Senate…If you want to be someone who says they stand up for the American middle class and want to be pro-worker, you have to be pro-union.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson spoke about how tax incentives for companies that pay above the prevailing wage and new project labor agreements on state construction have helped create good jobs in the state during his governorship. “The best way to get in on budget on schedule is using union labor,” he said.

Richardson also got the best laugh when noted that New Mexico has the toughest independent contractor law in the nation to prevent employers from misclassifying workers as independent contractors to avoid paying fair wages, benefits, taxes, Social Security and other obligations.

If they break that law, they are going to spend some time in jail…a 100 percent union-built jail.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who says he is proud of his 100 percent union voting record in Congress, drew loud cheers when on trade he said:

The first thing I would do as president is cancel NAFTA, cancel WTO [World Trade Organization] agreements and go back to bilateral agreements focused and conditioned on workers’ rights.

It’s time to change presidential perspective, said Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.):

It’s long overdue that we have an administration who knows what it’s like to put in a day’s work…We have an administration that doesn’t believe that unions have a role in lifting up American families. If we are ever going to rebuild and revitalize the middle class, it is going to have to start with a revitalized labor movement.

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) also noted how out of touch the Bush administration is with the everyday lives of working families:

I have never seen the American public more uncertain than ever about what is facing them…But for the past six years, we have an administration that has no notion how hard it has been for people who made a good living in the past and are now having so much trouble keeping up.

Click here to read more about the BCTD conference and later this evening view videos of today’s speakers.

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