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Labor Day Celebrated Around the Country |
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On Labor Day, across the county—from Manchester, N.H., to Detroit, from Magna, Utah, to Los Angeles—working families marched, rallied and picnicked to honor the nation’s workers and their work, and got ready to turn around America this election year.
Introducing Sen. Barack Obama to a rally of thousands of union members that capped Detroit’s annual Labor Day parade, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said Obama and vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden:
…understand the critical importance of manufacturing to our nation’s economy. We have a chance to elect two proven leaders who have a track record of support for working families, and fighting for the good-paying jobs that keep our country strong.
Obama said working families will have a different kind of president if he wins the White House.
I’m a labor guy. I believe in the labor movement. I believe in the American worker. I believe they have a right to organize. I believe they have a right to collectively bargain. I believe it’s important to have a president who doesn’t choke on the word union.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told the crowd at Detroit’s Hart Plaza:
We know America doesn’t have to be a country where good, hard-working people have to struggle just to get by, where we just have to accept that our best days are behind us. We know we don’t have to give up on good jobs here at home, or on high-quality health care our families can afford. Or the freedom of workers to join together in unions for a better life.
We love our country too much to accept things as they are today—we can’t afford four more years of the Bush-McCain policies. That’s why we’re ready to work our hearts out to elect Barack Obama president of the United States.
In Lorain, Ohio, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka joined thousands of working families from the unions of the North Shore Federation of Labor in a Labor Day/Turn Around America rally.
Outlining Sen. John McCain’s anti-worker record and policies, from opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act to rewarding companies for shipping jobs overseas and working to privatize Social Security, Trumka said:
This Labor Day 2008 is the beginning of the end of tax breaks for the rich and bad trade deals….Any worker voting for John McCain is like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders.
Trumka also joined working families at Pittsburgh’s Labor Day parade and rally.
At the New Hampshire AFL-CIO’s Labor Day breakfast, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker urged union members to commit and mobilize for Labor 2008, including knocking on doors this Thursday, Sept. 4.
We need you to pull out all of the stops, to staff the phone banks, walk our union households, distribute worksite fliers, each and every day until Nov. 4….I want to make a special request. Sept. 4 is the day John McCain will be nominated. We are planning walks all around the country. I am asking you to participate in the Sept. 4 walks planned for a number of your communities.
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New Hampshire AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie said:
Working families need change we can believe in. As Barack Obama said—we’ve had enough. The Bush administration is selling out America’s middle class and we’ve got a chance to change course this November.
It’s time to turn around America this Labor Day and return to the values that built our middle class. It’s time for a new direction on trade, health care and workers’ rights.
Holt Baker also took part in the Western Maine Labor Council’s Labor Day barbecue in Lewiston.
Many of the Labor Day events centered on the Employee Free Choice Act to restore workers’ freedom to join unions and bargain for a better life and spotlighted McCain’s strong opposition and the corporate world’s attacks on the bill.
At Milwaukee’s annual Laborfest, union members gathered thousands of signatures as part of the union movement’s drive to collect a million signatures in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Said Sheila Cochran, secretary-treasurer of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council:
I have seen with my own eyes the tactics used by management to threaten employees who try to form a union in their workplace. Captive audience meetings, singling out one or two of the most outspoken employees and firing them, the employer dragging its feet on a first contract—all of these things and more happen on a regular basis. This is why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.
Click here for photos from Milwaukee and here for Boise Idaho union members signing Employee Free Choice petitions. You can sign the petition here.
In other Labor Day activities:
Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Robert Haynes threw out the first pitch at Fenway Park before the Boston Red Sox took on the Baltimore Orioles. He was also a special guest on the Red Sox radio network, where he spoke about the importance of Labor Day and the union movement’s drive to turn around America.
In Ithaca, N.Y., the Midstate Central Labor Council and Tompkins County Worker’s Center presented several workers with “Mother Jones” awards for activism. They included Michelle Lopez, who was fired for trying to form a union at the hotel where she worked and is now an organizer at the workers’ center.
Several hundred union members and their families turned out for the Utah State AFL-CIO’s annual labor day picnic in Magna, including Plumbers and Pipe Fitter member Larry Facer, who told The Salt Lake City Tribune that without the success and strength of unions, “we’d still be working sweat factories.”
In Southern California, union membership is growing and workers are winning at the bargaining table, said Maria Elena Durazo, secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, at Labor Day festivities in Wilmington.
Thus far, 2008 has been a great year for workers in Los Angeles. We’ve banded together to support the historic number of workers who won higher wages through the renegotiation of their contracts, and 4,000 security officers, who won wage increases and health care coverage by joining a union….
The [Writers Guild] strike showed the union movement was unified. We had a march from Hollywood to the docks to kick off this year and to say we would all stand together.
And we did.
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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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