Pledging to implement policies that will boost the economy and protect the right of workers to join unions, Barack Obama spoke with thousands of labor activists by teleconference and streaming online video July 31.

Obama talked about the sagging economy. 'Everywhere I go, I'm hearing the same story. You've got wages that are falling. Good Jobs disappearing. Families losing their homes,' he said.

Meanwhile, rising costs are taking a bigger bite out of working families' paychecks. 'The price of everything form the prices of gas to groceries to health care going up and up and up,' he added.

Obama pointed to his community organizing experience in the 1980s in Chicago with churches and labor unions to help displaced workers rebuild their communities after the closing of a number of steel plants that had provided so many jobs for that city's residents.

Obama said that experience taught him something basic about what is at the core of America's success and that is a fundamental truth of the labor movement. 'It's a simple idea. That we've got mutual obligations to each other. I'm my brothers' keeper. I'm my sisters' keeper. That in this country, we rise and fall together,' he said.

Obama contrasted this philosophy with that of the past seven and half years of the Bush administration. 'They call it the ownership society,' he said to the labor activists. 'But you know what it really means: you're on your own.'

'If you're a worker trying to find a job, tough luck, you're on your own. If you're a single mother trying to find health care for your kid, tough luck, you're on your own. If you're a senior whose pension got dumped after a life time of hard work, tough luck, you're on your own,' Obama said of the Bush-McCain philosophy.

Without using the exact phrase, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has embraced Bush's concept of the 'ownership society' by promoting privatization of Social Security and public education, and tax cuts for the wealthy. The concept argues that individuals are responsible for solving social problems like unemployment, the environmental crisis, the lack of health care, and poverty.

To underscore his goal for privatization, McCain this past week replaced outgoing economic adviser former Sen. Phil Gramm, who referred to Americans who are worried about the economy and the price of gas as 'whiners,' with Martin Feldstein, the 'father' of the misguided proposal to privatize Social Security.

Feldstein was quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle as saying, “I’ve always been opposed to Social Security. I think it's a very unethical program.” Feldstein's views appear to echo McCain's recent statement that in his view Social Security is an 'absolute disgrace.'

McCain's Social Security privatization proposal, little different from Bush's failed plan in 2003 and in 2005, if implemented would have caused millions of retirees and others would have lost their life savings in the recent stock market dips, pointed out Alliance for Retired Americans spokesperson Ruben Burks.

In sharp contrast to this philosophy of privatization, Obama added that if elected, 'I'd be a champion of working people.' He pledged to sign the Employee Free Choice Act, to promote fair trade policies that protect workers rights, and end tax breaks for corporations that move jobs overseas.

Obama added that creating millions of new jobs would involve new investments in green jobs and sustainable energy as well as investments in rebuilding the country's infrastructure. Obama also said making a college education less expensive is crucial to the future.

Contrasting sharply with McCain's plan to privatize Social Security and to cut benefits, Obama pledged to protect Social Security. 'After a life time of hard work, you deserve to retire with dignity and respect,' he said.

Obama called for a presidency that would not be afraid to 'say we need a stronger labor movement in this country.' Obama said he would reform the federal agencies that oversee labor relations to prevent them from being 'tilted against workers.'

Obama noted that labor's activists are key to winning the election and to getting out the vote. 'We need your help,' he said.

'Basically the other side doesn't have any new ideas about how to rebuild America,' he added. 'So all they're going to do is spend time attacking me and planting doubt in the mind of your members about where I'm going from.'

Obama asked for labor's help in talking with other members and co-workers about Obama's real policies and the truth about his record of fighting with working people and labor to improve people's lives.

'You and I together are going to change this country,' he concluded. 'We're going to change the world and create a better future for the next generation of workers in this country.'

Obama's call for reinvigorating the working-class idea of mutual obligation, social solutions for social problems, and active participation of all the people in the political process is a step forward from the backwards philosophy of the Bush-McCain clique of Republicans.