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Obama Tells AFL-CIO He’s ‘Fired Up’ for Health Care, Rebuilding America |
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Saying he was “fired up and ready to go,” President Obama challenged working people to join in building a future of prosperity out of the nation’s economic mess. The president vowed to pass health care reform, reaffirmed support for the Employee Free Choice Act and laid out a plan to rebuild the middle class.
Speaking at the 23rd annual Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council Labor Day picnic, Obama reminded the crowd of nearly 5,000 that in tough times, America’s working men and women are ready to roll up their sleeves and get back to work. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka joined Obama in the Queen City.
Trumka told the crowd in Cincinnati:
This is a unique moment in American history—and we can make it labor’s moment. This can be our moment to build the labor movement we need to create the country we want: …A nation where every worker has a job with a future and where all of us can step into the winner’s circle.
That’s the kind of America we want, and I’m here to tell you that if we educate and agitate—if we organize and mobilize—that’s the kind of America we’re going to have.
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker joined Vice President Biden in Pittsburgh, where hundreds of union members braved the rain to march in and cheer the city’s annual Labor Day parade. Biden assured the crowd of about 300 that he and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) wouldn’t let workers down. Biden also said the administration will get the Employee Free Choice Act done this year. The act makes it easier for unions to organize and is currently before Congress.
Holt Baker cited the recent AFL-CIO survey of young workers, saying:
Our new Labor Day study shows that younger workers are getting hit especially hard, and that they are likely to be the first generation not to do better than their parents. That’s why this Labor Day we’re working harder than ever to do better for the new generation and give them a better chance.
At the top of our priorities are jobs, health care and labor law reform…[President Obama and Vice President Biden] know and we know we can’t turn around our economy and turn around our country unless we win all three—this year, now.
Just two days before he delivers a major address on health care reform, Obama said the time for debate is over and it’s time to act.
We have never been this close. We’ve never had such broad agreement on what needs to be done. And because we’re so close to real reform, the special interests are doing what they always do—trying to scare the American people and preserve the status quo.
He said he wants reform that brings “stability and security to folks who have insurance today,” where “you never again have to worry about going without coverage if you lose your job or you change your job or you get sick.”
You’ve got coverage there for you. Where there is a cap on your out-of-pocket expenses, so you don’t have to worry that a serious illness will break you and your family even if you have health insurance.
I want a health insurance system that works as well for the American people as it does for the insurance industry. They should be free to make a profit. But they also have to be fair. They also have to be accountable.
Obama praised the union movement for winning many of the rights and benefits often taken for granted today—the 40-hour workweek, the minimum wage, health insurance, paid leave, pensions, Social Security, Medicare. Obama said “they all bear the union label.”
On this Labor Day, we reaffirm our commitment. To rebuild. To live up to the legacy of those who came before us. To combine the enduring values that have served us so well for so long—hard work and responsibility—with new ideas for a new century. To ensure that our great middle class remains the backbone of our economy—not just a vanishing ideal we celebrate at picnics once a year as summer turns to fall.
A big part of rebuilding the economy is reviving manufacturing. Obama made a point of announcing the appointment of Ron Bloom as senior counselor for manufacturing policy. In his new role, Bloom will oversee administration efforts to revive manufacturing. Bloom will retain his role as senior adviser to the secretary of the treasury assigned to the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says Blooms appointment is “another sign of how committed President Obama is to creating the good jobs of the future.”
We have lost so many manufacturing jobs; we have to rebuild our manufacturing sector if America is going to be a world leader. This country has to grab the opportunity to lead the development of new energy technology and manufacturing. And it is enormously important to have a single high-level person in the administration to coordinate manufacturing policies across different agencies to help strengthen and support the manufacturing sector.
Bloom is uniquely qualified for the position. Before moving to his present post, he was an assistant to United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard. As USW’s director of corporate research, he helped revive and restructure 50 companies in bankruptcy.
Hired by Sweeney when he was president of SEIU, Bloom began his career negotiating union contracts for low-wage workers.
Obama also reaffirmed his support for the Employee Free Choice Act and workers’ freedom to join a union:
…some of the first executive orders I issued overturned the previous administration’s attempts to stifle organized labor. That’s why I support [the Employee free Choice Act]: to level the playing field so it’s easier for employees who want a union to form a union. Nothing—nothing wrong with that. Because when labor is strong, America is strong. When we all stand together, we all rise together.
In other cities, workers celebrated the achievements of workers and rallied for a better life for all Americans, including in New Orleans, where some 1,600 people attended the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO Labor Day Picnic and hundreds signed petitions supporting the Employee Free Choice Act and health care reform.
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Not a word about the so called “public option.” Does that mean Obama, like every other Democrat that Labor has endorsed, campaigned for, and spent our dues on is about to abandon us and throw out the one part of the tepid ‘reform’ that will actually benefit the uninsured? If the AFL-CIO had come out strongly in favor of HR 676, the medicare for all, single payer plan, we wouldn’t be fighting, begging for a weak “public option”!
Labor let the Democrats back track, as they always do despite their super majority, and failed to push them to support what the majority of Americans want—real health care reform with at least a publicly funded and administered option.
If we lose and the Democrats pass a weak, pro-insurance industry bill, we might as well forget about real reform; and forget about ever supporting the Democrat Party again.
looks like we will be forced to buy from price gouging insurance companies and fined by Democrat leader Max Baucus if we don’t buy in to the private plan, now that everyone has abandoned our principles and thrown out the ‘public option.’
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090908/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_health_care_overhaul
Health care reform?
The Employee Free Choice Act?
Yeah, sure. In name only, if that!
Labor has retreated on both of those critical issues. Our backs are now against the wall. Unless we take action, what we’re likely to wind up with is a shell of what we were promised prior to the elections.
The Republicans are in-your-face enemies of labor, whereas Democrats are sneaky, deceitful back-stabbers. Before the elections, Republicans promised us nothing. That was no surprise. Democrats, on the other hand, wanted our money, time and energy, so they made promises they knew they would not keep. They used us! And now they’re throwing us to the curb.
AFL-CIO and Change to Win honchos are withholding some critical facts from the ranks and file. The legislation currently being considered in the hallowed halls of the best Congress money can buy is junk. The junk was written by lawyers representing the medical-profits industry, and big business. Why isn’t the whole story being told?
Here’s why: It’s the same old same old strategy of retreat while declaring victory. The suits and ties of labor need to be replaced by men and women who have actually gotten their hands dirty toiling for wages. Adherents to business-unionism have got to go!
Organized labor can and must play a leading role in securing economic and social justice - and peace – for working class America. That will not happen until union members wrest control of our movement from the grips of pie cards.
It’s up to us! It’s up to those of us who actually turn the wheels in our country. We don’t need alibi artists. We need a movement! Now! Our voices must be raised in unison: “Lead, follow, or get out of the way”>
What we need is a massive march on Washington, D.C. We need to march and rally on weekdays. We need to be willing to close key industries down until Congress retreats!
I’m a 68 year old pensioner. I’ve seen my share of beefs. There is one undeniable reality I’ve learned over the years: “There is power, there is power in the band of working man [and woman!] when they stand hand in hand”.
Let’s join hands to win justice! We’re the power! Let’s use it!
Junk health care “reform” and a watered-down EFCA is not acceptable! Period!
Rich is correct, labor has backed down on critical issues (nothing new). The “reformed” Employee free choice act is a sham.
Healthcare? All the congressional proposals are lame or worse. Hr676 or other single-payer proposal would have done the job.
Paul, I am a HR676er as well and pretty angry about our getting the short end on healthcare. I did not vote for the democrats to “gurantee” profits for big insurance/pharm/hmos nor did I support “hope” for Wall Street makes big bonus money.
So far, this president and congress has bailed out Wall Street and stuck it to the people; something that will be remembered fall of next year and the following election cycle.