Union Members Ask McCain: What About Workers’ Rights?

by Seth Michaels, Apr 28, 2008

John McCain completed a swing through the South on Friday with yet another high-dollar fundraiser in Little Rock, Ark. As they have in the past few weeks, union members were there to raise the issues of concern to working families in this election year.

The more than 20 AFL-CIO union members who gathered outside the Little Rock Convention Center wanted answers from McCain on issues like trade and health care—and they wanted to know why McCain voted to block the Employee Free Choice Act.

A better life for working families starts with the freedom to form unions and bargain for better wages, benefits and conditions. The Employee Free Choice Act, which passed the House last year, would help prevent employer abuses and give workers a fair chance to form unions without employer harassment. But when the bill got to the Senate, McCain wouldn’t even let it come to a floor vote.

Bearing signs reading “Employee Free Choice Act Now,” Arkansas union members highlighted how McCain’s vote on the bill once again shows that,  as AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney has noted, McCain just doesn’t get it. Sweeney says:

John McCain is free to believe what he believes and to vote the way he votes. But if he’s going to continue trying to gain political points by talking about working family issues, it’s time for him to put his votes and policies where his rhetoric is.

Union members will continue to follow McCain around the country and ask for real solutions to the crisis in the economy.

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