AFL-CIO President John Sweeney gave a high-profile and impassioned speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, focusing on a top issue in the election: turning around our struggling economy.
Sweeney said 28 million active and retired union members and their families will mobilize this fall to elect Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden and help bring about the change America needs. Sweeney put the key issues of the campaign in the spotlight by highlighting the experiences of real people, members of working families whose lives are affected every day by the policies set in Washington.
Three workers appeared with Sweeney: Annette Lewis, a single mother whose son, Marcus, is starting 6th grade this fall; Steve Skvara, a retired steelworker, who lost his health care and saw his pension cut when his former company went bankrupt; and Dan Luevano, an electrical worker, who was fired for trying to form a union and bargain. They’ve all run up against the callous, corporate-friendly policies that George W. Bush and John McCain have imposed on the country.
Economic Report:
A new report suggests there has been no progress concerning poverty and family income in the state of New York since 2001. The report issued by the Fiscal Policy Institute found the current income of working age households in the state to be at the same level as in 2001 after adjustment for inflation. Analysts at the Institute said that with a weakening economy, those incomes will only continue to decline. New York has the highest poverty rate in the entire northeast at 14.4 percent. The national average is 12.4 percent.
One labor leader wasn’t afraid to talk about the impact of race on the labor vote during this week’s Democratic National Convention. Jesse Russell reports:
Labor leaders from all over the country are in Denver this week for the Democratic National Convention and one leader from Senator Barack Obama’s backyard is Chicago Federation of Labor
President Dennis Gannon. Gannon told Chicago’s South Side newspaper, The Southtown Star on Monday that union members need to get beyond the issue of race.
[Gannon1]: “I’m sure our members understand and get the message and do a balancing act. There’s a thousand reasons to be with Barack Obama and there’s one reason to be against him and it is time for all us to unite, get behind Obama and the best thing we can do for our members and that’s make a change in Washington, D.C. and that’s what we’re about.”
By Doug Cunningham
[Hoffa]: “We’ve got over two million homes going into foreclosure, we’ve got millions of people having their cars repossessed. We haven’t see a condition like this since the depression.”
Teamsters’ President, Jim Hoffa speaking to Workers Independent News from the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Hoffa says working class voters have got to realize that a vote for Obama-Biden is a vote to improve their lives.
[Hoffa2]: “We’ve gotta tell’em the truth about John McCain and we have to tell them what’s going on with Barack Obama and how he’s going to make their life better.”
Even though the nation’s economy has grown over the past few years, more of America’s workers are living in poverty and household incomes are lower now than in 2000, the year before the 2001 recession.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported today that 816,000 more people—including 500,000 children—slipped into poverty between 2006 and 2007, raising the number of the poor to 37.3 million. The poverty rates for adults and children were both higher in 2007 than in 2000, when 31.6 million were poor.
Sen. Barack Obama says the Census report “confirms what America’s struggling families already know”:
Over the past seven years, our economy has moved backwards. We have now lived through the first so-called economic “expansion” on record where typical families saw their incomes fall, and working-age households lost more than $2,000 from their paychecks.
Sen. Edward Kennedy consistently has been the strongest champion in Washington for workers and their unions, for policies that ensure the right of hardworking Americans to support themselves and their families.
Safety on the job. Affordable health care. Secure retirement. Pay that doesn’t discriminate by gender or race. Access to education. Wages that support families. And the freedom to form unions without which these other struggles would be impossible.
Kennedy has led these battles and many more. His speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last night shows, once again, the passion behind his belief that America’s working people embody what the world sees as the American Dream.
Watch it.
 |
|
|
Randi Weingarten, President, AFT |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Reg Weaver, President, NEA |
|
|
|
The leaders of the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions in the country spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last night, praising Sen. Barack Obama as the candidate we need to strengthen our country’s public education system.
AFT President Randi Weingarten and National Education Association (NEA) President Reg Weaver spoke proudly about Obama and Sen. Joe Biden’s commitment to education.
Weingarten said the AFT was ready to mobilize its members and fight alongside Obama—this fall and after the election—to make sure that America has the top-quality education system our families deserve.
The American Federation of Teachers is ready. Our number-one priority is, as it has always been, strengthening our public schools to better serve our students. Let’s do what we do best in our schools, in all of our schools. Barack Obama knows that teachers must be partners, not pawns, in federal education policy. And federal education policy must be about more than testing.
I ask you to join us in this quest. Because you believe that strong public schools are the cornerstones of our democracy. Because our aging population depends on future generations growing the economy. Because today’s students will be the caretakers of tomorrow’s environment, the sparks igniting our innovations, the tenders of our global relationships, the guardians of our prosperity and the creators of our arts. And simply because every child has the right to a fair and hopeful start in life.
A new report shows tax and accounting loopholes allow top executives and corporations to avoid paying about $20 billion a year in taxes. The report, Executive Excess 2008: How Average Taxpayers Subsidize Runaway Pay, released this week by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, calculates the annual cost to taxpayers of the five tax and accounting loopholes that encourage excessive executive pay. Even worse: Many large corporations are not paying any taxes at all.
The authors point out that the average CEO of a large U.S. company last year received $10.5 million in total compensation, 344 times the pay of the average U.S. worker. Thirty years ago, the ratio was 35:1. The top 50 private equity and hedge fund managers in 2007 pocketed an average of $588 million each, or 19,000 times as much as the average worker.
Recent Comments