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2005 CWA Legislative Conference: Saving Social Security Tops Weighty Agenda
The Social Security debate took center stage at CWA's annual Legislative-Political Conference in early March as pro-worker lawmakers pledged to block the White House plan to change the system by introducing partial privatization without addressing its real problems.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry put it bluntly and simply: "We're not going to privatize Social Security, period."
More than 500 CWA local officers from across the country attended the four-day conference in Washington, D.C., welcoming speakers in the mornings and heading to Capitol Hill afterwards to talk to members of Congress and their staffs about working family and labor issues.
In addition to Social Security, key issues this year included the federal budget, tax policy, fair trade, health care, telecommunications reform, the Employee Free Choice Act, welfare and worker reinvestment programs and due process for police officers through a national Peace Officers Bill of Rights.
CWA President Morton Bahr said CWA members and the labor movement, which collectively ran the largest grassroots campaign in American history, still have enormous clout lobbying for workers' issues despite President Bush's insistence that his razor-thin margin of victory was a mandate.
Preparing the local CWA leaders for their meetings with lawmakers, Bahr said they shouldn't hesitate to raise working family issues in a moral context.
"Universal access to health care is a moral value," Bahr said. "Minimum wage above the poverty level is a moral value. Equal pay for women is a moral value. Keeping good jobs in the United States is a moral value. Funding education so every child has an equal opportunity to learn is a moral value. We need to talk to people about what real moral values are."
CWA Secretary Barbara Easterling cautioned that CWA members would be "unwelcome" in many Capitol Hill offices, given the tight hold on Congress by anti-worker leadership. "They would rather be free to repeal the New Deal without having to answer to outraged union activists and angry working families, without having to bother with the inconveniences of democracy," she said.
Saving Social Security
The worker-friendly lawmakers speaking at the conference said Social Security is their line in the sand.
Disgusted and angered by the idea of risky private accounts and by the sham "town hall" meetings the White House is orchestrating to sell them, lawmakers said it's the latest, and potentially most devastating, assault on workers and America's middle class.
"These are people who believe that organized labor is holding back progress, and has held back progress," Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) said, naming conservative think tanks that are fueling the president's policies. "Read what they write. They mean it. They truly believe they know better what our workers need and want than we know. What's at stake here is nothing less than the repeal of the New Deal."
Lawmakers said they are willing to work with President Bush to ensure Social Security's long-term financial health, but all made the point that even the White House has acknowledged: Private accounts not only wouldn't improve solvency, setting them up would make the problem worse by trillions of dollars.
"Take privatization off the table and we can come together to make Social Security stronger than it is right now," Representative Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said.
Representative Al Green (D-Texas) likened the Bush approach to Social Security as giving a fatal diagnosis to a patient who'd be perfectly fine with a routine check up. "This occupant of the White House, rather than showing Social Security to the waiting room, if you will, is showing Social Security to a casket," Green said.
Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen, noting rollbacks in worker training and unemployment aid, among other cuts in the administration's proposed budget, said the president's "latest attack is on a program that's kept millions and millions of seniors out of poverty and provided people a sense of dignity and independence in their old age... the one inflation-protected lifetime benefit people have when they retire."
Representative Mel Watt of North Carolina, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, condemned as "shameless" Bush's Social Security sales pitch among African-Americans. Bush has suggested the system is unfair to them because statistically they die younger than white Americans.
"He seems to be demonstrating the 'soft bigotry of low expectations' by assuming this gap will continue far into the future," Watt said, adding that if the president and GOP leaders were truly concerned about the life expectancy issue, they would bring the caucus's minority health bill to the floor for a vote. Addressing health care disparities could do far more good for African Americans, he said, "than weakening Social Security as a distraction."
Stronger Worker Rights
All of CWA's top officers and many speakers addressed the Employee Free Choice Act, now co-sponsored by 247 members of Congress, including 34 Republicans. The bill would help level the playing field for workers by forcing employers to recognize card-check organizing and making penalties far stiffer when bosses try to thwart organizing drives.
Executive Vice President Larry Cohen said he's been asked why, with a Republican-controlled House, Senate and White House and a hostile National Labor Relations Board, labor is pushing the act now.
"People say, 'Why not be more practical?"' Cohen said. "It's not just about federal legislation. It's about putting a spotlight on this issue. Too many workers who try to organize today get smashed by the meanest, worst American management in at least 100 years."
A Pittsburgh-area worker received loud applause after describing the long struggle to organize CWA units at union-busting Comcast.
At Comcast, despite voting three times for union representation—with the union getting more votes every time—the cable giant has refused to negotiate a first contract. "They continue to stall, they move people to non-represented jobs, they terminate employees," worker-organizer Brian Malobisky said. "They do whatever they can to block the union, and we need your help."
Drowning in Debt
From "immoral" to "reckless," speakers had no shortage of adjectives to describe the proposed budget and overall fiscal policies that are making the rich richer and the poor poorer while the nation's staggering debt and trade deficit continue to soar.
Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota used a series of charts showing the explosion in the federal deficit and national debt, the gross disparities between tax cuts for the rich and cuts in social programs, the trillions in unbudgeted long-term costs of the Iraq war and private Social Security accounts, and more.
"The administration is running the most reckless fiscal policy in the history of our country," Conrad said, noting the hundreds of billions the United States already owes to Japan ($712 billion), China ($194 billion) and other countries-even $69 billion to South Korea. "You cannot strengthen a country by borrowing money and making yourself vulnerable to creditors."
Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson said it's important that everyone speak up, even urging CWA's flight attendants to take advantage of their captive audience when they have lawmakers on their planes. "We want to tell George Bush that you can't do all these things with the budget and expect people to roll over and play dead," he said. "We will challenge him. But we're going to need your help."
Noting the many nice-sounding but dishonest program names cooked up by the administration and used in budgeting-"No Child Left Behind," "Clear Skies," "Healthy Forests," for instance-California Representative Mike Honda said it's time "to expose this hypocrisy and cynicism and challenge their 'family values."'
Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan said the budget shows how out of touch the administration is with the lives of American families. "There are people behind those numbers. There are jobs behind those numbers," she said, saying the budget represents "the wrong values, the wrong priorities and it's up to us to connect the dots."
Hawaii Representative Neil Abercrombie said the budget, the Social Security campaign, and the sorry state of health care in the United States boil down to greed. "Nothing has been clearer in my lifetime than the divide between working people in this country, the foundation of democracy, and the people who want to take it away-the people for whom too much is never enough," he said.
Unfair trade deals and their devastating impact on American workers was another hot topic, with speakers uniformly pledging to fight the pending Central American Free Trade Agreement. Like the North American Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA ignores labor standards, worker safety and environmental impact, making it that much more attractive for companies to leave the United States for cheap, unregulated labor markets.
"I have seen firsthand the devastation of so-called free trade-the state of Maine lost 24,000 manufacturing jobs alone," Maine Representative Michael Michaud said. "Too many workers have become victims of crippling trade deals."
Representative John Dingell of Michigan spoke about the vast changes in the telecommunications industry, and how consolidation and outsourcing has affected jobs. "It is an outrage that American jobs are being sent overseas," he said, noting his co-sponsorship of the Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act last session, which would have required employees to disclose their location. "I think that most Americans would be shocked to learn just how many of their calls are fielded by people in India, China and the U.K."
Looking Forward
Despite the enormous struggle ahead against people with deep pockets, speakers said CWA and the labor movement have history on their side and have proven time and time again how hard they can and will fight for justice.
Pollster Celinda Lake presented results of surveys with union families showing the inroads labor-and especially CWA-made last fall. "The thing to celebrate today is the tremendous impact you had," she said. "You made tremendous strides."
Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, newly elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said despite the results of November's election, labor has to be proud of what it accomplished. "It was the best grassroots effort I've ever seen in my lifetime," he said.
Kerry, who was warmly and enthusiastically welcomed by his CWA audience, offered his supporters from his presidential run "a profound heartfelt thank you that's as real and encompassing and embracing as you can make a thank-you."
He said that in spite of every advantage the Republicans had, from more money to the war on terror, Democrats came within "half the people in a football field" from taking back the White House, and laid the groundwork for House and Senate victories in 2006.
"Don't for an instant believe that that effort didn't make a difference and wasn't worth it, notwithstanding the outcome," he said. "You helped change the direction of this country."
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry put it bluntly and simply: "We're not going to privatize Social Security, period."
More than 500 CWA local officers from across the country attended the four-day conference in Washington, D.C., welcoming speakers in the mornings and heading to Capitol Hill afterwards to talk to members of Congress and their staffs about working family and labor issues.
In addition to Social Security, key issues this year included the federal budget, tax policy, fair trade, health care, telecommunications reform, the Employee Free Choice Act, welfare and worker reinvestment programs and due process for police officers through a national Peace Officers Bill of Rights.
CWA President Morton Bahr said CWA members and the labor movement, which collectively ran the largest grassroots campaign in American history, still have enormous clout lobbying for workers' issues despite President Bush's insistence that his razor-thin margin of victory was a mandate.
Preparing the local CWA leaders for their meetings with lawmakers, Bahr said they shouldn't hesitate to raise working family issues in a moral context.
"Universal access to health care is a moral value," Bahr said. "Minimum wage above the poverty level is a moral value. Equal pay for women is a moral value. Keeping good jobs in the United States is a moral value. Funding education so every child has an equal opportunity to learn is a moral value. We need to talk to people about what real moral values are."
CWA Secretary Barbara Easterling cautioned that CWA members would be "unwelcome" in many Capitol Hill offices, given the tight hold on Congress by anti-worker leadership. "They would rather be free to repeal the New Deal without having to answer to outraged union activists and angry working families, without having to bother with the inconveniences of democracy," she said.
Saving Social Security
The worker-friendly lawmakers speaking at the conference said Social Security is their line in the sand.
Disgusted and angered by the idea of risky private accounts and by the sham "town hall" meetings the White House is orchestrating to sell them, lawmakers said it's the latest, and potentially most devastating, assault on workers and America's middle class.
"These are people who believe that organized labor is holding back progress, and has held back progress," Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) said, naming conservative think tanks that are fueling the president's policies. "Read what they write. They mean it. They truly believe they know better what our workers need and want than we know. What's at stake here is nothing less than the repeal of the New Deal."
Lawmakers said they are willing to work with President Bush to ensure Social Security's long-term financial health, but all made the point that even the White House has acknowledged: Private accounts not only wouldn't improve solvency, setting them up would make the problem worse by trillions of dollars.
"Take privatization off the table and we can come together to make Social Security stronger than it is right now," Representative Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said.
Representative Al Green (D-Texas) likened the Bush approach to Social Security as giving a fatal diagnosis to a patient who'd be perfectly fine with a routine check up. "This occupant of the White House, rather than showing Social Security to the waiting room, if you will, is showing Social Security to a casket," Green said.
Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen, noting rollbacks in worker training and unemployment aid, among other cuts in the administration's proposed budget, said the president's "latest attack is on a program that's kept millions and millions of seniors out of poverty and provided people a sense of dignity and independence in their old age... the one inflation-protected lifetime benefit people have when they retire."
Representative Mel Watt of North Carolina, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, condemned as "shameless" Bush's Social Security sales pitch among African-Americans. Bush has suggested the system is unfair to them because statistically they die younger than white Americans.
"He seems to be demonstrating the 'soft bigotry of low expectations' by assuming this gap will continue far into the future," Watt said, adding that if the president and GOP leaders were truly concerned about the life expectancy issue, they would bring the caucus's minority health bill to the floor for a vote. Addressing health care disparities could do far more good for African Americans, he said, "than weakening Social Security as a distraction."
Stronger Worker Rights
All of CWA's top officers and many speakers addressed the Employee Free Choice Act, now co-sponsored by 247 members of Congress, including 34 Republicans. The bill would help level the playing field for workers by forcing employers to recognize card-check organizing and making penalties far stiffer when bosses try to thwart organizing drives.
Executive Vice President Larry Cohen said he's been asked why, with a Republican-controlled House, Senate and White House and a hostile National Labor Relations Board, labor is pushing the act now.
"People say, 'Why not be more practical?"' Cohen said. "It's not just about federal legislation. It's about putting a spotlight on this issue. Too many workers who try to organize today get smashed by the meanest, worst American management in at least 100 years."
A Pittsburgh-area worker received loud applause after describing the long struggle to organize CWA units at union-busting Comcast.
At Comcast, despite voting three times for union representation—with the union getting more votes every time—the cable giant has refused to negotiate a first contract. "They continue to stall, they move people to non-represented jobs, they terminate employees," worker-organizer Brian Malobisky said. "They do whatever they can to block the union, and we need your help."
Drowning in Debt
From "immoral" to "reckless," speakers had no shortage of adjectives to describe the proposed budget and overall fiscal policies that are making the rich richer and the poor poorer while the nation's staggering debt and trade deficit continue to soar.
Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota used a series of charts showing the explosion in the federal deficit and national debt, the gross disparities between tax cuts for the rich and cuts in social programs, the trillions in unbudgeted long-term costs of the Iraq war and private Social Security accounts, and more.
"The administration is running the most reckless fiscal policy in the history of our country," Conrad said, noting the hundreds of billions the United States already owes to Japan ($712 billion), China ($194 billion) and other countries-even $69 billion to South Korea. "You cannot strengthen a country by borrowing money and making yourself vulnerable to creditors."
Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson said it's important that everyone speak up, even urging CWA's flight attendants to take advantage of their captive audience when they have lawmakers on their planes. "We want to tell George Bush that you can't do all these things with the budget and expect people to roll over and play dead," he said. "We will challenge him. But we're going to need your help."
Noting the many nice-sounding but dishonest program names cooked up by the administration and used in budgeting-"No Child Left Behind," "Clear Skies," "Healthy Forests," for instance-California Representative Mike Honda said it's time "to expose this hypocrisy and cynicism and challenge their 'family values."'
Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan said the budget shows how out of touch the administration is with the lives of American families. "There are people behind those numbers. There are jobs behind those numbers," she said, saying the budget represents "the wrong values, the wrong priorities and it's up to us to connect the dots."
Hawaii Representative Neil Abercrombie said the budget, the Social Security campaign, and the sorry state of health care in the United States boil down to greed. "Nothing has been clearer in my lifetime than the divide between working people in this country, the foundation of democracy, and the people who want to take it away-the people for whom too much is never enough," he said.
Unfair trade deals and their devastating impact on American workers was another hot topic, with speakers uniformly pledging to fight the pending Central American Free Trade Agreement. Like the North American Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA ignores labor standards, worker safety and environmental impact, making it that much more attractive for companies to leave the United States for cheap, unregulated labor markets.
"I have seen firsthand the devastation of so-called free trade-the state of Maine lost 24,000 manufacturing jobs alone," Maine Representative Michael Michaud said. "Too many workers have become victims of crippling trade deals."
Representative John Dingell of Michigan spoke about the vast changes in the telecommunications industry, and how consolidation and outsourcing has affected jobs. "It is an outrage that American jobs are being sent overseas," he said, noting his co-sponsorship of the Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act last session, which would have required employees to disclose their location. "I think that most Americans would be shocked to learn just how many of their calls are fielded by people in India, China and the U.K."
Looking Forward
Despite the enormous struggle ahead against people with deep pockets, speakers said CWA and the labor movement have history on their side and have proven time and time again how hard they can and will fight for justice.
Pollster Celinda Lake presented results of surveys with union families showing the inroads labor-and especially CWA-made last fall. "The thing to celebrate today is the tremendous impact you had," she said. "You made tremendous strides."
Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, newly elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said despite the results of November's election, labor has to be proud of what it accomplished. "It was the best grassroots effort I've ever seen in my lifetime," he said.
Kerry, who was warmly and enthusiastically welcomed by his CWA audience, offered his supporters from his presidential run "a profound heartfelt thank you that's as real and encompassing and embracing as you can make a thank-you."
He said that in spite of every advantage the Republicans had, from more money to the war on terror, Democrats came within "half the people in a football field" from taking back the White House, and laid the groundwork for House and Senate victories in 2006.
"Don't for an instant believe that that effort didn't make a difference and wasn't worth it, notwithstanding the outcome," he said. "You helped change the direction of this country."