SEARCH
Presidential Candidates Call for Policies to Rebuild Middle Class |
|
 |
|
| Joseph Biden | |
 |
|
| John Edwards | |
 |
|
| Dennis Kucinich | |
How do the Democratic candidates for president plan to revitalize the nation’s manufacturing industries and create more good jobs?
Three Democratic candidates—Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.), former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio)—answered that question today at a United Steelworkers conference. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) will speak at the conference tomorrow.
More than 800 USW members attended the first day of the conference in Cleveland, where they heard candidates explain how they would revitalize the nation’s manufacturing.
Biden, Edwards and Kucinich all said the key to rebuilding manufacturing and restoring the middle class is to make it easier for people to join unions. Biden and Kucinich co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act this year, and Edwards co-sponsored it when he was in the Senate.
Manufacturing has been in a downward spiral for the past six years. Since 2001, the United States has lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the manufacturing workforce. Over the same period, more than 40,000 manufacturing plants have closed. The impact of the job loss also affects communities because manufacturing provides a strong tax base and benefits such as health care and secure retirements.
Biden compared the war in Iraq to the Bush administration’s war on the middle class. He said the Bush White House
“from day one was very determined to transfer power from the powerful to the very powerful.”
Saying it’s time “to put the meaning back in the L in NLRB (National Labor Relations Board),” Biden said a president ought to use the bully pulpit of the office to advocate for the right of workers to freely decide to join unions.
Biden says:
There is a middle class for one reason, and only one reason in America—organized labor. That’s why it exists…This administration has lined up 10 deep to strip away 100 years of labor progress.
Edwards reminded the union members that he has seen firsthand what it’s like to lose a good job. He said he saw the impact that the loss of textile jobs had on his hometown and many towns throughout North Carolina.
Edwards repeated his call for gradually increasing the federal minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2012, with the added protection of automatic cost-of-living increases to account for inflation.
Raising the minimum wage is one of the most important steps we can take to lift working families out of poverty and into the middle class. No one who works full-time should have to live in poverty. If a job takes you away from your family every single day—or for many low-wage workers all through the night—it had better pay you enough to support them. As president, I will raise the minimum wage and put our economy back on the side of working families.
Kucinich, a former mayor of Cleveland, laid out his plans to guarantee health insurance coverage for all Americans, cancel trade agreements that have eliminated millions of jobs and repeal a federal law that allows the government to intrude into union activities. He says:
How in the world can anyone who would call themselves a Democrat throw in the lot with the private insurers and say ‘I’m sorry, I can’t challenge them’ ?You’re looking at the one person running for President who’s ready, right now, to challenge those insurance companies and to get the for-profit insurers out of the health care business and reclaim the health care of the people of this nation to give you back your power at the bargaining table to make sure that no one has to go broke paying for medical costs.
Other speakers at the USW conference included Reps. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones and Betty Sutton, both Ohio Democrats, and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (D). Tomorrow’s speakers will include AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka.
5 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
It’s nice to hear this pro labor talk but with the Democrats almost universal support for the immigration reform bill I have to greet this with some skepticism. Kucinich is the only one of the three candidates that has consistently opposed increasing the amount of guest workers allowed in this country although he would have been for most of the other provisions in the bill as would Biden and Edwards judging by their voting record.
Presidential Democratic candidates need to raise the American people awareness that they are spending their money to support a slavery system of labor in China. The American people need to boycott Chinese-made products carrying an American label.
I believe that the number #1 issue that all candidates for President must focus on is this criminal war, and how our powerful
diplomats and high level representives of Big Oil, are determined to force members of the Iraqi parliament to cave in to the demands of Big Oil. This gangster like extortion to have those Paliament Members sign an agreement that is not in the best interest of the IRAQI NATION. Our troops targeted daily, and slain
daily have no idea how big busniess “works” and have absoluty
no idea of the real goal of our nation. No troops will be pulled out until Big Busniess gets a signed agreement that they will be the
private corporations to control and exploit their oil for the next 30 years. This of course will wipe out The National Iraqi Oil Trust, a state enterprise. For this our soldiers die.
JESSBOY
The middle class have been brutally destroyed by our politicians sell out to foreign interests. I often wonder why our presidents and members of Congress hate America so much
[...] So, when John Edwards, Joe Biden and Dennis Kucinich went to Cleveland on Thursday, and Hillary Clinton spoke on Friday in an address to 600 steel workers at their union conference, I had mixed emotions. It was fantastic that by their mere presence I knew we were not forgotten, that the sons and daughters of the mill workers of Northeastern Ohio were remembered by the folks who want to lead this nation. But I can remember a day when that type of meeting would have brought six thousand, not merely six hundred union faithful. (Or even the eight hundred reported by the union organizers.) [...]