9-01-08, 11:18 am

This Labor Day, working people are vowing to increase the struggle to end Bush administration and Republican Party policies that have presided over the second recession in seven years and have failed to bring needed relief. The first step will be a victory in the November election, a landslide for Barack Obama, larger majorities in Congress, and a new political agenda for change.

Since George W. Bush took office in 2001, working families have seen the real value of their wages drop by more than $2,000, compared with an increase of over $7,000 during the 1990s – while workers have been more productive and profit margins have been higher. According to the US government's own conservative estimates, poverty has grown by around 5 million, including close to 2 million children. The number of Americans without health care insurance has swelled to 47 million, while some experts estimate the number of those who lack adequate coverage is tens of millions more. As many as 22,000 people die each year due to the lack of access to health care.

Nearly 500,000 jobs have been lost in the first seven months of 2008. Inflation, fueled by high gas and energy prices, is growing at the fastest rate in decades. The housing crisis and credit crunch have cost millions of families their homes and pushed many millions more deeper into debt.

This situation has been driven and made worse by the Republican Party's ideological penchant for deregulation of banks, markets, and industry. Speculation, bad business decisions, and corruption in the board rooms have resulted. From Enron to Bear Stearns, airline bailouts and corporate loopholes, free trade agreements and tax breaks for the rich, and privatization and endless war for oil, Bush administration policies have favored the wealthy and the well-connected and left most Americans behind.

Bush has been the candidate of Big Business and together they have harmed working families, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney suggested. 'But when working people try to win better wages and more control over their lives by coming together in unions, corporate America declares all-out war – with the active support of the Bush administration,' he said.

On November 4th, Americans have a real chance to restore some balance. 'This year,' Sweeney said in a statement before Labor Day 2008, 'there’s historic energy and enthusiasm around this election because America’s voters are faced with a fundamental choice: to continue down the road we've taken and end up in a swamp of inequality where corporations and the wealthy always get more – or to turn around America and ensure health care for all, fair trade, the freedom to improve our lives through unions, and a fair share of the wealth that working people create.'

The choice is clear. John McCain would just continue the Bush administration's policies, Sweeney said. 'Sen. John McCain plans to continue the Bush record of putting corporate profit over working families’ needs. McCain is a self-proclaimed free trader, wants to tax our employer-provided health care benefits and continues to support tax breaks for Big Oil.'

On the other hand, Barack Obama 'has a record of putting communities – not corporations – first and helping average people get our fair share.'

Sweeney pointed to Obama's commitment to investing in job creation, affordable, universal health care, and ending tax breaks for corporations who move jobs out of the country. 'Obama understands that the single most powerful way to transform our economy and our nation is to make sure every worker who wants to form a union can do so, by passing the Employee Free Choice Act,' Sweeney emphasized.

To commemorate Labor Day 2008, working families are celebrating in rallies, parades, marches, demonstrations, picnics and cookouts, festivals, and other events.

But as the AFL-CIO emphasized, the day also launches the general campaign to engage, educate, and mobilize 13 million voters and their families to win a new direction for the country starting November 4th with a victory for Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.

This week, the AFL-CIO estimates that as many as 250,000 labor union members in at least 100 cities will participate in labor walks. Union members will go door to door, talking with other union members about the positions and policies of Barack Obama and the Democratic candidates. The labor federation also said that it is participating in at least 510 electoral races across the country.

This activity will likely impact major states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Michigan, for example, has 1 million voters who are members of unions or live in a household with union members. This is 40 percent of the state's voting population. Nationwide, in the 2006 elections, union voters comprised one-quarter of the total vote, and an estimated 75 percent of them voted for Democratic candidates, polls suggested.

--Reach Joel Wendland at