Pennsylvania Union Members: McCain Has Supported Every Bad Trade Deal

Lenny Sapozhnikov, AFL-CIO deputy state director for Pennsylvania, sends us this report from the field. 

Union leaders and members came out in droves in recent days to mark Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s arrival in Pennsylvania and draw the public’s attention to his record of voting against the labor movement and against the middle class.  

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President William George unveiled the campaign on a media call with several radio stations on Thursday.  

John McCain’s voting record is 88 percent of the time he’s voted with George Bush. Pennsylvania, since the beginning of NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement], has lost 1.2 million jobs and in the last six years, we’ve lost over 220,000 jobs in the state of Pennsylvania to these bad trade policies.  

Pete Wingerter, a member of the Chocolate Workers (Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 464) in Hershey, said, “Too many American families have lost their jobs” because of McCain’s voting record.  

I can only imagine the travesty these people must experience losing their jobs and having responsibilities such as paying a mortgage and educating their children.  

Some 300 Hershey workers are losing their jobs, which are going to Mexico, this month.  

On Friday, more than 40 union leaders and members from AFSCME, Electrical Workers (IBEW), SEIU, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and Working America greeted McCain outside the Springfield Country Club. Steve Sarno, president of IBEW Local 126 and chairman of the Southeastern Area Labor Federation of Pennsylvania, said: 

John McCain has supported every bad trade deal that has cost Pennsylvania hundreds of thousands of jobs. He is fooling himself if he believes that this economy is strong, when working families all across Pennsylvania are losing their homes and their jobs under the crippling weight of McCain’s economic policies. Pennsylvania’s working families can’t afford McCain.  

The Pennsylvania actions are part of the nationwide AFL-CIO “McCain Revealed” campaign. For more information see: www.mccainrevealed.com.

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Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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