AFLCIO Sweeney speaks at Harvard about elections.

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http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/02/13/sweeney-at-harvard-time-to-turn-around-america/


Sweeney at Harvard: Time to ‘Turn Around America’

by Mike Hall, Feb 13, 2008


Harvard University Professor Alex Keyssar and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney at last night’s forum.


Voters are turning out in record numbers for the presidential primaries this year—and driving them in large part is their worry and anger about an economic recession, home foreclosures, stagnating wages, unaffordable health care and their vanishing freedom to improve their lives by joining unions.

But turnout at the polls, said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, also shows voters are ready to “turn around America.”

Speaking last night at a Harvard University forum, Sweeney said:

We should all take heart in the monster voter turnout in the primaries. It is proving that when angry, hopeful people get together and stand together, we can truly make America different.

In the first-ever address by an AFL-CIO president to Harvard’s influential John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, and in a question and answer session that followed, Sweeney outlined why America is not working for working people.

People are worried to death about the economy, tired of spending too many hours on the job for too little pay, distrustful of our government. Students are worried about earning a degree without being in hock for the rest of their lives. And for the first time in our lives, parents are rightfully worried that their children will end up less well off than they are.

This anguish wasn’t created overnight—our economy has been heading in the wrong direction for more than 30 years. Over those three decades, workers’ productivity has increased by about 75 percent, but workers’ wages are frozen right where they were in 1973. Workers are producing more but paid less, and we’re stuck with the widest income and wealth gap of any industrialized nation.

Sweeney also told the audience that when President Bush took office he shoved the “descent into inequality into overdrive.” Under Bush, 3 million good manufacturing jobs are gone, poverty’s increased by 25 percent, 47 million people have no health insurance and now there is a massive housing collapse and deepening recession. These problems did not come about by accident, Sweeney said.

We were shoved in this direction by laws and policies created by corporations and politicians to push down wages and push up profits: Deregulation of basic industries so consumers can be victimized and shareholders short-changed. Downsizing government so vital services can be contracted out to profit-driven companies. Rules governing globalization written by corporations to favor corporations, pitting workers against workers and maximizing profits.

With better wages, health and pensions benefits a union card is the “best middle-class supporting program our nation has,” he said. But for the past three decades, employers have engaged in assault on workers’ freedom to improve their lives by joining unions. They’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars to fight workers and to gut the nation’s laws that protect workers.

In response to a question from the audience, Sweeney said passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is vital:

There is a tremendous amount of fear out there. In the past 10 years, every year, more than 30,000 workers are harassed, intimidated, even fired for trying exercise their freedom to join a union. The Employee Free Choice Act guarantees workers the democratic process to decide wither they want to join union.

The November election is the best opportunity in years to change direction of the economy and the nation, Sweeney said.

We’re determined to create an economy that works for all, not the few–including universal health care, fair trade, more transparent corporate policies–and a guarantee of the freedom to form a union.

From what I’m seeing as I travel the country, I think voters are ready for a change in the direction our country is headed. They are ready to turn around our economy. To turn around our health care. To turn around our labor laws. And to turn around America.

Before the forum, Sweeney met with Verizon techs Kevin Lippmann, Mark Latham and David Rogol. The workers are fighting to form a union with Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 2222. During his presentation, Sweeney praised their efforts to win a voice at work.

The Verizon workers also distributed fliers to the audience calling on Harvard, as a major Verizon customer, to contact Verizon management and urge the company to respect workers’ rights. About 35 audience members signed letters to Harvard’s procurement office urging the university to use its influence with Verizon in support of the workers.

The event was sponsored by the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School. It was broadcast live online and soon will be available at the Forum’s archive. Click here to read Sweeney’s post on the congressional insider site The Hill’s Congress Blog on why its time to turn America around.