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Social Security, Bush Budget Top Lawmakers' Lists
The Social Security debate is the top focus for Democrats on Capitol Hill who, one after another at CWA's annual Legislative Conference this week, pledged to stand in the way of any White House scheme to put workers' hard-earned retirements at risk by privatizing the system.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry put it bluntly and simply: "We're not going to privatize Social Security, period."
Disgusted and angered by the Bush scheme, lawmakers said it's yet another assault on workers and America's middle class by a president and his followers who are determined to fundamentally shift the country's economic and political power.
"These are people who believe that organized labor is holding back progress, and has held back progress," Delaware Senator Joe Biden 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."
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. Key issues this year were Social Security, 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 Bush's claim that his razor-thin margin of victory was a mandate. And he said union members shouldn't be afraid to raise the 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-Treasurer Barbara Easterling called the Bush budget "morally and fiscally bankrupt. "Look at the numbers ... Bush and company value idle wealth over hard work, entrenched privilege over equal opportunity, millionaires' greed over working families' needs, private gain over public good, the powerful over the left behind and today over the future."
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 cardcheck organizing and making penalties far stiffer for trying to thwart organizing drives.
Executive Vice President Larry Cohen said he's been asked why, with a Republican-controlled House, Senate and White House, labor is pushing the act now. "People say, 'Why not be more practical?'" he 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."
The budget, taxes and grossly unfair labor practices all had speakers riled up. But the one subject every lawmaker addressed was Social Security.
Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen, noting rollbacks in worker training and unemployment aid, among other cuts, said Bush'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 Bush's Social Security sales pitch among African-Americans as "shameless." Bush has suggested the system is unfair to them because statistically they die younger than white Americans.
Speakers pledged to work with Bush on ensuring 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," Arizona Representative Raul Grijalva said.
As Biden and others suggested, the attack on Social Security is part of a larger policy shift, one exemplified by what many speakers referred to as an "immoral" federal budget proposed for 2006.
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.
Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson said it's important that everyone speak up, even urging United 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 to 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, 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.
Many speakers also addressed the grave damage done to American workers by unfair trade deals, and uniformly they pledged 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 first hand 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."
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.
"The truth is the labor movement is the civil rights movement," Representative Al Green of Texas said. "If workers in China ever get a decent payday, it will be because American workers made it happen."
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 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."
Disgusted and angered by the Bush scheme, lawmakers said it's yet another assault on workers and America's middle class by a president and his followers who are determined to fundamentally shift the country's economic and political power.
"These are people who believe that organized labor is holding back progress, and has held back progress," Delaware Senator Joe Biden 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."
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. Key issues this year were Social Security, 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 Bush's claim that his razor-thin margin of victory was a mandate. And he said union members shouldn't be afraid to raise the 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-Treasurer Barbara Easterling called the Bush budget "morally and fiscally bankrupt. "Look at the numbers ... Bush and company value idle wealth over hard work, entrenched privilege over equal opportunity, millionaires' greed over working families' needs, private gain over public good, the powerful over the left behind and today over the future."
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 cardcheck organizing and making penalties far stiffer for trying to thwart organizing drives.
Executive Vice President Larry Cohen said he's been asked why, with a Republican-controlled House, Senate and White House, labor is pushing the act now. "People say, 'Why not be more practical?'" he 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."
The budget, taxes and grossly unfair labor practices all had speakers riled up. But the one subject every lawmaker addressed was Social Security.
Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen, noting rollbacks in worker training and unemployment aid, among other cuts, said Bush'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 Bush's Social Security sales pitch among African-Americans as "shameless." Bush has suggested the system is unfair to them because statistically they die younger than white Americans.
Speakers pledged to work with Bush on ensuring 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," Arizona Representative Raul Grijalva said.
As Biden and others suggested, the attack on Social Security is part of a larger policy shift, one exemplified by what many speakers referred to as an "immoral" federal budget proposed for 2006.
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.
Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson said it's important that everyone speak up, even urging United 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 to 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, 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.
Many speakers also addressed the grave damage done to American workers by unfair trade deals, and uniformly they pledged 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 first hand 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."
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.
"The truth is the labor movement is the civil rights movement," Representative Al Green of Texas said. "If workers in China ever get a decent payday, it will be because American workers made it happen."
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 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."