Paul Wellstone: Fighting for Minnesota’s Working Families

As a former collegiate wrestler, perhaps it is appropriate that Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) has earned the title of “Undisputed Champion” of working families. In his 12 years in the U.S. Senate, no one has fought harder to advance the quality of life and standard of living for CWA members in Minnesota and around the country.

Because Wellstone has never been afraid to take on tough issues or controversial causes, his election campaigns have always been very close. It will be the same again this year, as his opponent is St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, a former Democrat who became a Republican in order to gain that party’s gubernatorial nomination in 1998 (he lost to Independent Jesse Ventura).

Time after time, Wellstone makes clear which side he is on. He sponsored a national ‘Right to Organize’ bill, which would strengthen the right of workers to organize and strike, guaranteeing union organizers access to the workplace and the right to use employer bulletin boards, mailboxes, and other means to contact workers.

He introduced the “Wellstone Workforce Recovery” bill, which would provide tax breaks for working families, extend unemployment insurance and health care benefits for laid-off workers, and provide additional funding for job training and child care.

Wellstone was a leader in a successful filibuster of legislation by then-Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) that would have destroyed the 40-hour work week as we know it and time-and-a-half pay for overtime work.

He repeatedly introduces and pushes for legislation to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. And Wellstone helped spearhead passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act — which guarantees that workers will not lose their jobs if they need to take time off to care for a new baby or ill relative — and now is working to expand it to cover more Americans.

On workplace safety and health, Wellstone has as strong a record as there is in Congress. He voted against the Republican bill that repealed the tough ergonomics standard which CWA worked more than a decade to win. That measure, driven by the Bush administration and its corporate allies, has left millions of workers, including many CWA members, at continued risk of painful, crippling injury. Sen. Wellstone also sponsored the Safety and Health Whistleblower Protection Act, which would give the Department of Labor more power to force the rehiring of workers who are fired for filing OSHA health and safety complaints against employers.

On every key issue that came up for a vote in the past year, Wellstone sided with working families, according to the AFL-CIO. Wellstone’s votes included:

• Supporting a strong Medicare prescription drug benefit to provide real relief to seniors struggling to afford the medicine they need.

• Supporting a real Patients’ Bill of Rights that would protect working families from managed care abuses and allow patients to sue their health plan if they suffer harm.

• Opposing President Bush’s plan to give away an average of $342,000 per family over the next decade in tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers — people whose incomes average more than $1 million a year — which would take away precious resources from Social Security, Medicare, health care and education.

• Providing meaningful unemployment, job training and health benefits for workers laid off in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

• Extending full collective bargaining rights to firefighters, police and other public safety officers in all 50 states.

• Opposing “Fast Track” trade legislation to give President Bush a green light to extend NAFTA’s drain on U.S. jobs and our standard of living throughout the entire hemisphere.

Compared with this remarkable record of commitment and courage, Wellstone’s Republican opponent does not come close. Supported strongly by the Bush administration and the Senate Republican leadership, Coleman would be beholden to the anti-worker, pro-Big Business philosophy that dominates his party.

In fact, the significance of this race extends far beyond one vote in the Senate. The outcome could determine which party controls the Senate for the next two years, with major consequences on every policy and budget issue that matters (see U.S. Senate: One Vote Makes All the Difference).

Minnesota’s working families are fortunate to have a tireless champion in Paul Wellstone. He stands with CWA and trade unionists everywhere. His support for our working families agenda has been constant and uncompromising. In short, Paul Wellstone has earned our respect, our support and another term in office.

This portion of this website is paid for by the CWA Committee on Political Education - Political ontributions Committee, with voluntary contributions from union members and their families, and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.