SEARCH
Strickland Talks with Ohio Union Members on McCain’s Anti-Worker Record |
|
 |
|
In Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland knows the economic crisis facing working families is the most important issue at stake for them this fall. And he knows Sen. John McCain has been part of the problem, while Sen. Barack Obama proposes real solutions.
Ohio Labor 2008 director Ben Waxman reports that McCain’s record on jobs, trade and health care topped union voter concerns at a workers’ roundtable discussion last week with Strickland.
Strickland opened the meeting by pointing to the fundamental imbalance in the economy, which has been thrown into distress, thanks to policies that have helped corporate elites at the expense of working families.
We got here, I believe, through a series of decisions that were made over multiple years that have resulted in a situation where our nation’s economy is on the brink.
There has been a growing gap between the economic circumstances facing most of America’s working families and a very privileged, small number at the top of the economic ladder.
Strickland talked with 15 union members about the financial stress Ohio’s working families are undergoing, and how the outcome of this presidential election will affect them. Union members at the event came from a range of unions: CWA, IBEW, NALC, OAPSE/AFSCME, SEIU, TWU and USW.
Mario Ciardelli from IBEW Local 683 brought up the McCain-supported outsourcing of jobs and the policies of the Bush administration that have resulted in many Ohio factories and other businesses closing up for good.
The factories that were around central Ohio—North American Rockwell, White Westinghouse, Timkin Roller Bearing Company, Jeffries Mining—they were all union jobs. And the General Motors plant on the west side—that was a great place to work for years and years, and now it’s gone. In central Ohio, we have lost thousands of good jobs with good benefits in the last couple years.
People don’t realize how many factories are gone.
In fact, in the eight years of the Bush administration, many factories and other enterprises have shut down or engaged in mass layoffs in Ohio. McCain promises to pursue those same community-destroying policies if elected, and he has gone so far as to tout free trade in the cities and towns of Ohio that have been hurt the most by it. While he was campaigning in Youngstown this spring, McCain said the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had been “a benefit to our country.”
Strickland responded, saying McCain would continue the downward slide in jobs.
Four more years of Bush policies represented by a McCain presidency would be a terrible thing for the state of Ohio and working families in general.
Strickland also pointed out that free trade often results in massive worker exploitation in countries like Mexico, whose low wages attract business. He described his visit to a Mexican town where workers employed at a modern factory were living in conditions so poor he wouldn’t want an animal he cared about living like that.
It embarrassed me and saddened me that we were participants in creating those inhuman conditions, by promoting free trade policies with no protections for workers.
Frank Mathews from Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 4321 asked about health care costs, noting that much time is spent in contract negotiations discussing how to pay for health care, even though there is a “laundry list” of other important issues workers want to address.
Health care is the most important issue in this election. Unless something is done to expand coverage to people who now rely on emergency rooms and can’t afford preventive care, our employers will continue to have to compete with employers who fail to provide good health care and wages. We need a president who will make improving health care a top priority; that’s why we need Barack Obama.
Strickland noted that McCain’s top health care adviser said that because everyone can go to an emergency room, everyone is insured.
There is no such thing as free health care. Every bit of health care that is delivered, somebody pays for. In many ways, John McCain is not the man he once was, or the man we thought he was.
Strickland said that, unlike McCain, a real straight talker does not hire advisers who believe an emergency room visit equals health insurance. A maverick doesn’t toe the Bush party line on free trade, supporting policies that force good American workers to endure joblessness and that promote the shameless exploitation of workers overseas. Strickland called McCain’s policies “damaging to the people.”
Early voting in Ohio begins tomorrow.
____________________________
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.
No Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
