Eight of the announced Democratic presidential candidates harshly criticized President George W. Bush’s economic record, pledged their support for cornerstone union and working family issues and outlined key components of their vision for the presidency to 2,500 AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) members April 9.
Their appearances topped off the three-day BCTD annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C., that included an April 8 lobby day on Capitol Hill in which union leaders and activists pressed lawmakers to focus on the nation’s top domestic priority: good jobs.
“This economy is in a mess. This president in 24 months has turned every economic fact on its head,” Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) told delegates. “We created 22 million jobs in eight years with the Clinton–Gore administration. In 24 months they’ve lost 2.5 million jobs.”
Several candidates urged defeat of Bush’s current tax cut scheme for the wealthy and repeal of his 2001 millionaire tax cut due to go into effect over the next several years. That money could be used to create jobs by rebuilding the infrastructure, provide health insurance for the more than 43 million Americans without coverage and fund other important working family programs.
“When we invest in infrastructure, we create good jobs for people and a good economic climate for business,” said former Illinois Sen. Carol Mosley-Braun.
Addressing workers’ rights, Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) said, “The right to organize and the right to strike exist only on paper. We need to ban the use of permanent replacements in strikes, and we need to put teeth into the law that when businesses violate workers’ rights, they will be punished swiftly and strongly.”
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) noted his strong support for the right of workers to form and join unions grew from his own experiences as the son of a Teamsters member and his membership in several unions, including his current membership in Theatrical Stage Employees.
With good jobs a top priority,” BCTD President Edward C. Sullivan told delegates, “We can’t afford to sit on the sidelines while this administration hands out tax cuts and tax breaks to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, while letting the deficits shoot through the roof. In the end, the jobs our members need, the jobs our economy must have to recover, will be squeezed out of the budget if we are not vigilant.”
Sullivan outlined key legislative issues, including the passage of job creation bills that maintain Davis-Bacon protections:
• Clean Water and Infrastructure Financing Act of 2003 (H.R. 20);
• America’s Better Classroom Act of 2003 (H.R. 717 and H.R. 930); and
• Legislation expected to be introduced later this spring to reauthorize the Transportation Equity Act, known as TEA 21, and the Aviation Investment and Reform Act (AIR 21).
The Davis-Bacon Act requires that local prevailing wages are paid on federal and federally financed construction projects such as clean water, highway and other infrastructure projects. The law protects workers and communities from unscrupulous contractors who attempt to win federal work with low bids based on undercut wages.
Federal commitment to build, repair and rehabilitate the nation’s transportation grids, drinking water systems and schools also is essential, union leaders say, with members of the building and construction trades urging Congress to reauthorize or renew legislation that allows continued funding for programs for surface transportation and highway construction.
Highway construction is the biggest job-producing bill considered by Congress, says Sullivan. “Tens of thousands of jobs are at stake for our members.”
Benny Auteney, an Electrical Workers representative who works with members in Washington State, Idaho, Utah and other western states from his Boise, Idaho-base, says pocketbook and paycheck issues often are the key to moving the sometimes more conservative western states’ members to political and legislative action.
“Showing that what happens in Washington makes a difference in wages or jobs is one of the best tools to get the membership involved,” he says.
Delegates also urged their members of Congress to enact legislation that would provide an additional 26 weeks of extended unemployment benefits for workers who exhaust their federal benefits and to oppose a bill that would undermine the 40-hour workweek and allow employers to offer comp time instead of overtime (H.R. 1119 and S. 317). They lobbied for support of new energy projects and the jobs they create, including oil development in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.
In addition, building and construction trades activists oppose inadequate and restrictive asbestos compensation legislation (H.R. 1114 and S. 413) for victims of workplace asbestos exposure. Exposure to asbestos can cause serious respiratory disease, cancer and death.
Conference participants could choose from a range of legislative workshops, including one on protecting and strengthening multiemployer pension plans in which retired Operating Engineer Local 478 member Pete Maddocks took part. “Congress and the Bush administration need to do something about protecting pensions and pensions plans, not privatizing Social Security and Medicare,” says Maddocks, who traveled from New Haven, Conn.
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