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Kentucky Steelworker says Tuesday must be labor’s day |
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Posted by Berry Craig
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Friday, 31 October 2008 |
By: Berry Craig
Paducah, Ky – Kentucky Steelworker Jeff Wiggins says nobody has more at stake Tuesday than union members.
“The choice could hardly be clearer,” said Wiggins, a member of Steelworkers Local 9447-5 and president of the Paducah-based Western Kentucky Area Council, AFL-CIO. “Sen. Barack Obama, the labor-endorsed Democrat, has voted the union position on legislation 98 percent of the time, according to the AFL-CIO’s Committee on Political Education. Sen. John McCain, the Republican, has sided with unions on bills 14 percent of the time, COPE says.
“In other words, Obama is 84 percent better for us than McCain.”
National polls have Obama leading. But surveys show him trailing in Kentucky.
“At the same time, labor-endorsed Democrat Bruce Lunsford is about even with Mitch McConnell in the senate race,” said Wiggins, Zone One coordinator for Kentucky Labor 2008. “Sen. McConnell is even more anti-labor than McCain. His COPE rating is only 11 percent.”
Kentucky polls that show McCain ahead and Lunsford and McConnell in a virtual tie suggest that many people plan to split their vote. “That would be a big mistake for union members especially,” said Wiggins, who is also on the Kentucky State AFL-CIO Executive Board.
“The first casualty of a McCain presidency would be the Employee Free Choice Act. A President Obama would sign the bill. A President McCain would veto it.”
Wiggins added that overriding a McCain veto would be next to impossible. “It takes a two-thirds vote of the House and the Senate to beat a presidential veto. The Democrats should make gains in the House and Senate Tuesday, but nobody expects them to win a two-thirds majority in either chamber.”
The Employee Free Choice Act is the most important labor bill proposed since the Wagner Act of 1935, according to Wiggins. “It would stop employees from stalling union elections for months, even years,” he said. “It would also prevent employers from threatening to fire – or firing – workers the bosses think would join a union.
“If it were to be passed and signed into law, the Employee Free Choice Act would give organized labor – all of us – its biggest boost since the Wagner Act, which gave workers the basic right to organize and bargain collectively.”
The Wagner Act also created the National Labor Relations Board and empowered it to oversee employer-employee relations. The board was supposed to be impartial.
“But we all know that Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes appointed fiercely anti-labor people to the NLRB, steeply tilting the panel toward management,” Wiggins said. “Some union people have said the NLRB is so biased against organized labor we would be better off without it.”
Wiggins said a President McCain would continue to name “union-haters” to the NLRB. “A President Obama would not. He would restore fairness and balance to the NLRB, which is what Congress meant it to be when it passed the Wagner Act and President Franklin Roosevelt’s signed it.”
Likewise, unions would get a fair shake from the U.S. Department of Labor if Obama were to become president, according to Wiggins. “The current secretary, Elaine Chao, Sen. McConnell’s wife, is perhaps the most bitterly anti-union labor secretary in history. ‘Anti-labor secretary of labor’ is a better title for her.
“A President McCain would follow the lead of Reagan and the Bushes and appoint another Chao – or maybe even keep her on the job. You can bet Obama wouldn’t nominate a union-hater as his secretary.”
Wiggins said Obama wouldn’t appoint ultra-conservative ideologues to the Supreme Court and other federal courts. “McCain would. One of the worst legacies of the Reagan and Bush I and Bush II administrations was the packing of the federal judiciary with far-right-wing judges who despise unions.
“It is likely that vacancies will occur on the Supreme Court during the first term of the new president. There will also be openings in the lower federal courts. Do you want McCain filling them?”
Wiggins said unions endorse candidates like Obama and Lunsford after “…a thorough examination of a candidate’s position on issues vital to us and with input from the rank-and-file. Some endorsements are more difficult than others.
“But Obama over McCain and Lunsford over McConnell were easy choices. Obama and Lunsford are for us. McCain and McConnell are not.
“Somebody nicknamed McCain “John McSame” as in four more years of the same anti-union policies of George W. Bush. ‘McSame’ would also fit McConnell, whose labor voting record is even worse than McCain’s.”
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