Top Candidates Back Employee Free Choice

Five of the seven Democratic candidates for president spoke at the annual CWA Legislative-Political Conference in Washington, D.C., March 25-28, all of them expressing their support for the Employee Free Choice Act. Listed in the order they spoke, here is some of what each one had to say about unions and workers' rights.

Sen. Joseph Biden, Delaware

There's another war going on, a war on labor's house — the house that built our middle class. You represent the reason that our country is the way it is. Name me a worker who would have health care, who would have decent working conditions if it were not for labor. Tell me how we can possibly sustain the middle class without a strong, vibrant union movement in the United States.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Ohio

I was proud to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act. The House took an important step. [If elected president] I intend to take NAFTA and tear it up. Cancel NAFTA. Go back to trade based on workers' rights and human rights. You want to trade with the United States? Then you have to have a right to collective bargaining, a right to strike and a right to fair wages and benefits."

 
Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois

I am in favor of card check. We need to build up our unions in this country. There's nothing wrong with giving workers a fair share of the wealth they helped create. There's nothing wrong with protecting the pensions they've earned. And there's nothing wrong with making sure workers can organize without intimidation.

Former Sen. John Edwards, North Carolina

What everyone seems to forget when they talk about the jobs that built the middle class in this country is they weren't great jobs before the union, were they? It's the union that made them great jobs. It's the union that allowed collective bargaining, that allowed workers to have a voice, to have a decent wage, to be able to send their kids to college for the first time. It's the union that did all that.

  
Sen. Hillary Clinton, New York

I'll tell you what the 'middle-class squeeze' means. It means that the balance of power that worked so well through the 20th century in America, where we had fair labor laws that were enforced fairly, are being disregarded wholesale because there is a mood, unfortunately, in too many corporate board rooms that we don't have to take care of the people who take care of us.