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From the AFL-CIO Now Blog

Another day, another lie from the McCain campaign. Or, as the mainstream media would put it, another “distortion.”

But this time, the mainstream media, in the form of CNN, is part of perpetuating the lie.

In a speech yesterday, Sen. John McCain falsely asserted Sen. Barack Obama planned to take away workers’ right to vote by secret ballot when deciding whether to join a union. CNN’s “Fact Check” then went on to assert McCain was correct.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Obama supports the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would restore workers’ freedom to form unions. The Employee Free Choice Act will not take away the secret ballot election process. Instead, it would add another option: majority sign-up (card-check). Workers thinking about whether to join a union could pick either option. The ballot process, overseen by the federal labor board, gives employers lots of time to harass and intimidate workers. Under majority sign-up, if 51 percent of workers sign up to join a union, they have one.

McCain’s comments are the latest in seemingly desperate attempts to win the election. McCain was against tax cuts for the wealthy. Now he supports Bush’s tax giveaway to the rich. McCain was once a campaign finance reformer and now is a candidate whose campaign is run by lobbyists. McCain flip-flopped from opposing torture to voting to allow water boarding.

McCain pushes his health care plan as benefiting the middle class, when analyses of his plan have found it could push 20 million of us out of our employer-based health care coverage while cutting Medicare and Medicaid by $1.3 trillion.

And although McCain says he supports military veterans, his claim of a “perfect voting record” on veterans’ issues is contradicted by the Disabled American Veterans, which gives McCain only a 20 percent rating, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which gives McCain a “D”—a sorry distinction the group granted to only four other senators. In contrast, the IAVA gives Obama a “B,” and the DAV gives him an 89 percent rating.

So much for straight talk.

Link – 10/20/08

From the AFL-CIO Now Blog

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union is reaching out to thousands of members this fall to let them know that Sen. Barack Obama will fight for working families—while Sen. John McCain will leave them behind.

A new , going to 120,000 CWA households in key states, contrasts Obama’s Senate record and proposals with McCain’s on the most important issues facing working families. The mailer is part of a large-scale union mobilization effort that includes phone banks and member-to-member neighborhood walks.

In the midst of a presidential campaign marked by misleading ads, trivial coverage and under-the-radar smear campaigns, CWA is asking its members to look past the noise and pay attention to the facts.

Forget the pundits. Forget the attack ads. Just compare their records.

The mailer points out that when you look at the actual voting record and the policies the candidates have proposed, the differences are clear.

• Obama has voted to protect Social Security. McCain supported the Bush plan to privatize it.
• Obama wants to have tax and trade policies that keep jobs here. McCain voted for tax cuts for companies that ship jobs overseas.
• Obama supports expanding high-quality, affordable health care to everyone. McCain has proposed a new tax on health care benefits that could make our system worse.
• Obama wants to give tax relief to middle-class families, including nearly all CWA members. McCain’s tax proposals give nearly all of their benefits to big corporations and the wealthiest 2 percent.

A second CWA mailer addresses McCain’s frequent claims over the past year that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.” It notes McCain would continue the disastrous Bush administration policies that have thrown our economy into crisis: deregulation of the financial markets, massive tax cuts to the wealthiest and outsourcing thousands of jobs overseas.

CWA has endorsed Obama for president, and its plan to mobilize members around the country includes a website, CWA Votes, that spells out where the candidates stand on key issues.

Link – 10/20/08

Earlier today, CWA President Larry Cohen held an online chat with CWA members across the country. It was a unique opportunity to hear his thoughts on the upcoming election and CWA's key issues of jobs and wages, health care, retirement security, and the Employee Free Choice Act. You can read the full transcript here.

During the nearly hour-long chat, President Cohen fielded 23 questions. Many of them related to the importance of protecting the right to organize. For example, responding to a question about the connection between the current major economic crisis and the need for stronger unions, President Cohen said,

For 80 years policy makers have understood that collective bargaining means a better deal for workers and creates demand for goods and services. The US has been moving in the opposite direction making it nearly impossible for working Americans to gain collective bargaining coverage. In short more union workers means more bargaining power and better pay. This is in turn raises our buying power and stimulates the economy far better than another rebate.

There were also specific questions and answers on a wide range of issues, including working conditions for airline workers, health care negotiations with Verizon, the Presidential candidates' positions on veterans issues, and many more.

President Cohen reminded everyone just how important this election is. As union members, we have an even greater stake, due to threats to our right to organize, our jobs and benefits, and our retirements.

That's why it's so important that we do all we can to make sure Barack Obama is elected as the next President of the United States. He is the only candidate who understands the issues that matter most to workers and their families, and the only one who has shown that he'll fight for all of us.

Link – 10/08/08

With the Nov. 4 election just 33 days away, CWA local activists across the country have been ramping up their already considerable efforts to elect Barack Obama and worker-friendly candidates in Congress.

In the battleground state of Ohio, labor walks and phone banking are being conducted daily, according to Local 4302 Secretary Peggy Griffith, who coordinates CWA's "Labor 2008" activities in the state. "It's amazing how locals are stepping up to the challenge," she said. "I've worked numerous campaigns in years past, but we're now seeing members getting involved who have not participated before. The enthusiasm is just great," said Griffith.

This week in the Akron/Canton area, Local 4302 is leafleting at high school football games. In Cincinnati, Locals 4400 and 4401 are conducting one-on-ones with members in the workplace. Early voting began in Ohio this week, as it has in 23 other states, so activists are encouraging workers to get out to vote.

To stress the urgency of supporting Obama and the issues that are at stake – especially passage of the Employee Free Choice Act –  District 4 Vice President Seth Rosen has been visiting locals throughout the district since early summer to encourage activism at all levels.

In the battleground states of Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Washington, District 7 locals are going into high gear. In Colorado, the focus is on electing Obama, Mark Udall to the U.S. Senate, and defeating constitutional amendments on the ballot that would hurt working people. Locals there have increased weekly leaflet distributions and conversations to 100 worksites covering 5,000 members, according to District 7 Vice President Louise Caddell.  Wednesday evenings are CWA phone-bank nights at the state AFL-CIO. At Denver International Airport, AFA-CWA  local activists are talking to flight attendants in crew lounges.

In Missouri, another battleground state, CWA President Larry Cohen joined with District 6 staff and more than 50 CWA local union activists last week in a labor walk through neighborhoods in St. Louis.

Link – 10/06/08

As AT&T opened its new customer care center in Goldsboro, N.C., bringing 400 CWA-represented jobs to the region – work that previously had been outsourced – Barack Obama cited the move as the kind of corporate behavior that he will be rewarding as president.

Speaking elsewhere in the state, in Greensboro, on Sept. 27, Obama declared:  "I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas.  I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America – jobs just like the 400 union jobs that AT&T just created over in Goldsboro based on their pledge to return outsourced work to our shores."

CWA President Larry Cohen and District 3 Vice President Noah Savant were on hand along with Local 3606 leaders and members for the official opening of the Goldsboro center this week.  "It's exciting to see AT&T investing in bringing jobs home to our communities," said Cohen.  The Charlotte News & Observer wrote that the center represents a "step toward the American Dream:  a full-time job with a major corporation, potential promotions, a stable career."

The center results from AT&T's agreement with CWA to return to the United States some 5,000 tier one tech support jobs that had been sent overseas.  The company has opened other new centers around the country over the past two years.

Polls conducted in North Carolina this week indicate that Obama's message is resonating with working families in the state, which has been hard-hit by outsourcing.  He is now dead even with, or slightly ahead of, John McCain. Voters in the state have not supported a pro-worker, pro-union presidential candidate since 1976.  CWAers in the state also are working hard to elect Kay Hagan to the U.S. Senate.  A state senator, she is in a close race with incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole.

Link – 10/06/08

From the AFL-CIO Now Blog.

Last night’s vice presidential debate between Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Ala.) proved again that Sen. Barack Obama’s plans for improving our health care system and giving tax breaks to working families are the plans that will really help working families at this critical time.

Biden gave detailed, sharp answers that demonstrated why he’ll be a strong governing partner for Obama. Meanwhile, Palin mostly talked around the important issues. As did her running mate, Sen. John McCain, during last week’s presidential debate, Palin offered rhetoric that didn’t match the reality of the challenges facing our country.

On health care, the differences between the two tickets are wide. Biden explained to the millions of viewers that Obama’s health care plan would expand coverage, improve quality and cut costs. Biden also described the risks involved should McCain’s health care tax be implemented.

Much of the public got to hear, for the first time, that McCain would tax health care benefits. Biden laid out a stark fact for viewers and voters: If they’re among the 158 million working families covered by employer-based health care, McCain’s plan would put them at risk of losing that coverage entirely. Biden explained the tax credits promised in the McCain health care plan would not cover the cost of the average family’s plan—in fact, McCain’s “tax credit” is more like a subsidy to insurance companies.

So you’re going to have to replace a $12,000 plan with a $5,000 check you just give to the insurance company. I call that the “Ultimate Bridge to Nowhere.”

Palin didn’t show much depth of understanding on the issue. She focused on the McCain plan’s insufficient tax credits, and largely ignored the question of why that plan would impose a new tax on health benefits. Palin also bragged about the McCain plan’s deregulation of health care, but what she couldn’t explain was the fact that this policy means that insurance companies would have more power than ever to deny coverage and payment for care and leave out anyone with pre-existing health problems.

Palin even alluded to a time in her life when she didn’t have health care, and she and her family worried about paying out-of-pocket for health care. But she never made the connection: Families like that wouldn’t be helped by the McCain plan. It’s structured as though the uninsured don’t exist.

And how did the Palin family eventually get good health coverage that protected them? It was through union membership. Yet Palin is running on a ticket with a candidate who is hostile to unions—he voted to block the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing field for workers seeking to form a union and bargain for family-supporting wages, and he’s voted against bargaining rights.

Tax policy in general also separated the two candidates. Biden said that the McCain plan to give $300 billion in tax cuts to corporations and the very wealthy showed the wrong priorities. The Obama-Biden tax plan, on the other hand, would offer tax cuts to 95 percent of working families

That seems to me to be simple fairness. The economic engine of America is middle class. It’s the people listening to this broadcast. When you do well, America does well. Even the wealthy do well. This is not punitive. John wants to add $300 million, billion in new tax cuts per year for corporate America and the very wealthy while giving virtually nothing to the middle class. We have a different value set.

Palin never addressed the fact that the majority of working families would get a bigger tax cut under Obama’s plan than McCain’s.

Palin claimed that education was “near and dear to my heart,” yet she never addressed McCain’s record of voting against vital education programs.

It seems that Palin doesn’t get it. The policies she’s supporting, as McCain’s vice presidential candidate, are completely disconnected with her rehearsed talking points about reform, change and helping the middle class.

Last night’s debate proved why Biden was a strong pick by Obama. His understanding of policy and how it affects real people’s lives, his judgment and his consistent record of supporting working families were apparent. He effectively laid out the most important question in this election: How to turn around the economy so it works for everyone.

You ask anybody…whether or not the economic and foreign policy of this administration has made them better off in the last eight years. And then ask them whether there’s a single major initiative that John McCain differs with the president on. On taxes, on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on the whole question of how to help education, on the dealing with health care.

These people know the middle class has gotten the short end. The wealthy have done very well. Corporate America has been rewarded. It’s time we change it. Barack Obama will change it.

Link – 10/06/08

Every day, we get reminded of ways that technology is changing the way the 2008 Presidential Campaign is being carried out.

Today, that reminder comes from Arizona AFA-CWA members who have created a YouTube clip telling John McCain “Thanks, but no thanks.”

The video focuses on several of McCain’s votes and policy stances that have hurt flight attendants. Be sure to check it out.

Link – 10/01/08

From the AFL-CIO Now Blog.

In Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland knowsthe economic crisis facing working families is the most important issue at stake for them this fall. And he knowsSen. John McCain has been part of the problem, while Sen. Barack Obama proposes real solutions.

Ohio Labor 2008 director Ben Waxman reports that McCain’s record on jobs, trade and health care topped union voter concerns at a workers’ roundtable discussion last week with Strickland.

Strickland opened the meeting by pointing to the fundamental imbalance in the economy, which has been thrown into distress, thanks to policies that have helped corporate elites at the expense of working families.

We got here, I believe, through a series of decisions that were made over multiple years that have resulted in a situation where our nation’s economy is on the brink.

There has been a growing gap between the economic circumstances facing most of America’s working families and a very privileged, small number at the top of the economic ladder.

Strickland talked with 15 union members about the financial stress Ohio’s working families are undergoing, and how the outcome of this presidential election will affect them. Union members at the event came from a range of unions: CWA, IBEW, NALC, OAPSE/AFSCME, SEIU, TWU and USW.

Mario Ciardelli from IBEW Local 683 brought up the McCain-supported outsourcing of jobs and the policies of the Bush administration that have resulted in many Ohio factories and other businesses closing up for good.

The factories that were around central Ohio—North American Rockwell, White Westinghouse, Timkin Roller Bearing Company, Jeffries Mining—they were all union jobs. And the General Motors plant on the west side—that was a great place to work for years and years, and now it’s gone. In central Ohio, we have lost thousands of good jobs with good benefits in the last couple years.

People don’t realize how many factories are gone.

In fact, in the eight years of the Bush administration, many factories and other enterprises have shut down or engaged in mass layoffs in Ohio. McCain promises to pursue those same community-destroying policies if elected, and he has gone so far as to tout free trade in the cities and towns of Ohio that have beenhurt the most by it. While he was campaigning in Youngstown this spring, McCain said the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had been “a benefit to our country.”

Strickland responded, saying McCain would continue the downward slide in jobs.

Four more years of Bush policies represented by a McCain presidency would be a terrible thing for the state of Ohio and working families in general.

Strickland also pointed out that free trade often results in massive worker exploitation in countries like Mexico, whose low wages attract business. He described his visit to a Mexican town where workers employed at a modern factory were living in conditions so poor he wouldn’t want an animal he cared about living like that.

It embarrassed me and saddened me that we were participants in creating those inhuman conditions, by promoting free trade policies with no protections for workers.

Frank Mathews from Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 4321 asked about health care costs, noting that much time is spent in contract negotiations discussing how to pay for health care, even though there is a “laundry list” of other important issues workers want to address.

Health care is the most important issue in this election. Unless something is done to expand coverage to people who now rely on emergency rooms and can’t afford preventive care, our employers will continue to have to compete with employers who fail to provide good health care and wages. We need a president who will make improvinghealth care a top priority; that’s why we need Barack Obama.

Strickland noted that McCain’s top health care adviser said that because everyone can go to an emergency room, everyone is insured.<

There is no such thing as free health care. Every bit of health care that is delivered, somebody pays for. In many ways, John McCain is not the man he once was, or the man we thought he was.

Strickland said that, unlike McCain, a real straight talker does not hire advisers who believean emergency room visit equals health insurance. A maverick doesn’t toe the Bush party line on free trade, supporting policies that force good American workers to endure joblessness and that promote the shameless exploitation of workers overseas. Strickland called McCain’s policies “damaging to the people.”

Early voting in Ohio begins tomorrow.

Link – 09/30/08

From the AFL-CIO Now Blog.

With so much at stake for working people in the November election, union members and activists are working through the AFL-CIO My Vote, My Right voter protection project to ensure the ballot process is run fairly and that every vote is counted.

(A new website up now offers help to voters who have questions about voting, including where to register. The National Campaign for Fair Elections launched www.866ourvote.org and spotlighted a toll-free voting rights hotline 1-866-OUR-VOTE, operated by a nonpartisan coalition of groups, including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and the AFL-CIO.)

Through broad local coalitions with union activists, lawyers, civil rights organizations, faith-based organizations and other community allies, My Vote, My Right participants are working with local election authorities to mitigate any problems that may be caused by this massive voter turnout and to clear up significant weaknesses in our election system that were spotlighted in the 2000, 2004 and 2006 elections.

In Colorado, My Vote, My Right activists met with county election officials to work on strategies to reduce the lines at the polls and convinced them to send out an absentee ballot application to every registered voter in the county.

In Michigan, members of the Amalgamated Transit Union and the United Steelworkers have joined to pass out bookmarks with a voters’ bill of rights to Detroit bus riders. In Kansas City, Mo., the local My Vote, My Right coordinator is recruiting high school seniors to monitor polling places near their school.

In Pennsylvania, our coordinators are pushing the secretary of state for a policy that would ensure each polling place has sufficient emergency paper ballots on hand Election Day and would require paper ballots if more than 50 percent of the voting machines break down.

As AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker says:

It’s time to turn around America, and we will start by voting and making sure that every single vote is counted. A truly historic election day is going to come down to individual voters who should do everything we can to protect our own right to vote—and those of our friends and neighbors.

Click here to learn more about the My Vote, My Right program.

Meanwhile, in the pivotal state of Ohio, the youth activist group Rock the Vote plans to hand out more than 10,000 of the AFL-CIO Student Voter Bill of Rights during a statewide voter registration drive, which began earlier this week.The Ohio student registration drive is critical, because across the country, younger voters are energized as never before behind the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama and Republicans are actively trying to suppress student voting. Democrats in three states say Republican election officials have sent false information to local college students about their voting rights.

The Republican county clerk in El Paso County, Colo., admitted sending incorrect information to out-of-state Colorado College students, telling them they could not register if their parents listed them as dependents on their tax returns. After Democrats complained, the clerk, Robert Balink, who was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, issued a statement saying his office had misinterpreted state law and “mistakenly published information that was incorrect.”

Balink’s actions are the latest of several instances in which local election officials, including some in Virginia and South Carolina, have discouraged college students from voting. The New York Times reported earlier this month that a local registrar at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg issued two releases that incorrectly suggested students who registered to vote might no longer be claimed as dependents on their parents’ tax returns.

Jon Greenbaum, a voting rights expert with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the McClatchy Newspapers that while voter residency requirements vary from state to state, they must meet the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. States and counties cannot adopt rules that treat one group of voters differently than others, he said.

Also in Ohio, according to McClatchy reporter Greg Gordon,Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner yesterday advised county election boards that home foreclosure lists should not be considered proof that voters have changed residences. “Ohioans faced with the pain and turmoil of a home foreclosure should not be targeted by the forces of disenfranchisement on Election Day,” Brunner said.

The Michigan Democratic Party and the Obama campaign have filed suit to stop the Republican Party from using lists of people whose homes are in foreclosure to challenge their right to vote. Macomb County Republican Chairman James Carabelli told the Michigan Messenger his army of election challengers “will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses.”

In addition,The Seattle Times has this:

A Washington State court judge will hold a hearing Friday on a lawsuit by the state Democratic Party to force Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi to list his party preference on the November ballot as “Republican” instead of “GOP Party.” Rossi is running against Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire. He lost to Gregoire by 133 votes in the 2004 election, and polls show this race to be close as well. The Seattle Times reports that recent polls suggest that many people don’t know that GOP and Republican mean the same thing. One poll showed Rossi did better among voters if he used the “GOP” label instead of “Republican.”

Link – 09/30/08

From the AFL-CIO Now Blog.

It’s exactly six weeks until Election Day, but in many states, voting is already under way.

More and more states are offering absentee voting and early voting this year. In 13 states, absentee ballots are already available. Most states don’t require an excuse for using absentee ballots or early voting. And registration deadlines are approaching quickly—for 23 states, the registration deadline falls from Oct. 4-7, within two weeks of today. 

At Working Families Vote 2008, our state-by-state section includes vital voting information for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. You can register to vote, learn more about the AFL-CIO’s efforts in your state and find out the key dates for absentee voting, early voting and voter registration. Nationally, the AFL-CIO is working to elect Sen. Barack Obama, while many state federations have endorsed candidates in critical races for Senate, House and gubernatorial seats.

Union leaders say that getting out the vote early can make a big difference. In New Mexico, one of the states making voting by mail available this fall, Lindsay Burr, a Letter Carriers (NALC) member, is leading a vote-by-mail outreach effort.

There are several ways in which vote by mail is beneficial. Voting by mail increases participation because voters have added flexibility that going to the polls on Election Day does not provide. It also reduces the impact of last minute negative campaigning because voters have their ballots starting Oct. 7, almost a full month before the election.

Volunteers for the AFL-CIO’s Labor 2008 political program will be working throughout the fall, across the country, to encourage early votes from union members, to maximize turnout and make sure every voter is reached.

With competitive contests for the White House, Congress and statewide offices in many states, it’s more important than ever to ensure that everyone gets a chance to cast their vote and that everyone’s vote counts. The AFL-CIO has launched the My Vote, My Right campaign to help educate voters and protect them from potential problems with voting. The AFL-CIO has created a Voters’ Bill of Rights to help protect voters in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and it will be releasing this important information to more states soon.

No matter where you are, it’s critical to get informed, get involved and vote this year. Check out our state-by-state pages for more information. With early and no-fault absentee voting in many states, it’s easier than ever to cast your vote.

Link – 09/30/08