Obama today addresses unions who see Labor Day as a chance to lobby for healthcare reform
PRESIDENT BARAK Obama will reach out to one of his most loyal constituencies today when he addresses the Labor Day picnic of the AFL-CIO in Cincinnati.
The AFL-CIO is the most powerful federation of trade unions in North America, with 11 million members. On September 15th, Mr Obama will address the AFL-CIO’s Pittsburgh convention.
“This may be the most significant Labor Day in my lifetime,” Terry O’Sullivan, the president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), said in an interview. LIUNA represents more than half a million US labourers, most of whom are construction workers.
O’Sullivan cited three reasons for the importance of today’s picnics and parades: the need to mark “the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy, who was a labor hero, an American hero and a world hero”; to celebrate the movement’s past achievements, including the 40-hour working week and the minimum wage; and to mobilise US workers in the battle for “progressive legislation” on healthcare, climate change, immigration reform and the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would give unions a freer hand in organising, and force employers to negotiate with majority unions.
But Mr Obama’s ambitious programme has been put on hold as healthcare reform, his top priority, became bogged down amid acrimonious debate. In a further complication, Kennedy’s death and the illness of Senator Robert Byrd have left the democrats two votes shy of the 60-40 majority they need to ensure passage of legislation in the upper house.
O’Sullivan rejected suggestions that Obama has failed labour by delaying the EFCA, saying he is confident that labour and climate change laws will follow close on the heels of healthcare. “He unequivocally came through for our entire country,” the union leader said. “President Obama is living up to everything he said he would do for working men and women in this country.”
Some 100,000 workers are expected to participate in today’s events, turning them into a movement-wide demonstration in favour of healthcare reform.
Reports at the weekend alleged that the White House is preparing to ask US liberals to “be good soldiers” and abandon the “public option” (government-provided health insurance) in the hope of salvaging healthcare legislation.
Such a move would be very unpopular with US labour unions. Last week, Richard Trumka, who is about to assume leadership of the AFL-CIO, said there are “three absolute musts” for healthcare: the public option, a mandate requiring employers to provide health insurance, and no taxes on employer-provided healthcare. “We need to be a labor movement that stands by our friends, punishes its enemies and challenges those who, well, can’t seem to decide which side they’re on,” Trumka said.
Business leaders and the right portrayed Trumka’s statement as a threat. “It’s not a threat. It’s a promise,” said O’Sullivan. “After eight years of hell , where working people’s rights got trampled on at the expense of corporate America, we as the working class, as organised labor, are not going to stand idly by.”
Organised labour contributed to the election of Obama and of democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, O’Sullivan noted. “Workers’ boots were on the street. They were knocking on doors, raising flags, making phone calls. We cannot and will not be forgotten. We are not going to be marginalised.”
On an upbeat note, O’Sullivan said the labour movement is “full of hope this Labor Day, because we finally have a president that looks like us, that thinks like us and fights like us when it comes to the rights and protection of working people”. The labour movement never recovered from Ronald Reagan’s defeat of the air traffic controllers’ strike in 1981. Only 12.4 per cent of US workers are unionised, down from 20 per cent in 1983. A new Gallup poll shows that only 48 per cent of Americans approve of unions, down from 59 per cent last year.
A study released on September 2nd showed widespread violations of US labour laws, with workers being denied the minimum wage and overtime pay, and deprived of breaks. Undocumented workers are often threatened with being deported if they complain or try to unionise. An earlier poll showed 31 per cent of workers under 35 have no medical coverage because they cannot afford it and their employers refuse to provide it.
Irish-Americans have played a fundamental role in the US labour movement. Matthew Maguire, a machinist from New Jersey, is credited with proposing the first Labor Day 117 years ago. Congress made it a legal holiday in 1894.
John Sweeney will retire as president of the AFL-CIO this month. Michael Sullivan of the Sheet Metal Workers and John Slynn of the Bricklayers are other prominent Irish-American trade unionists. Terry O’Sullivan, whose grandparents came from Co Kerry, succeeded his father as president of LIUNA and is a strong supporter of Sinn Féin.
