CWA 1180 - Political Action

Redefeat Bush!
1180 members stump for Kerry and mobilize to send Bush back to Texas
October 2004

"I'm concerned about the direction the country is going in," said Hattie Dallas. "I believe this particular election is really critical," explained the 1180 shop steward in the Unified Court System. It's why she got up before dawn on a day off and joined other 1180 members on a bus to Pennsylvania, where they spent the day registering voters and talking to people about the issues at stake in the upcoming presidential election.

For Dallas, the number one issue is the war in Iraq. "I think it was wrong for us to go into Iraq. The amount of money and lives lost, I don't think it will ever be worth the cost." She added, "As long as Bush is in the White House, I believe this firmly, terrorism will not get better, it will get worse.

"I have a lot of things to do on Saturday," she continued, "but I decided this was really important. If you can make a difference in terms of changing the course of our country, a Saturday is worth giving up."

"The way the economy is going, the way things are going, it's worth giving up a Saturday," said Laura Lewis, expressing the same sentiment as Dallas. "I'm afraid for the next four years. I want to make a difference," Lewis emphasized.

For Lewis, an 1180 member at the NYPD, the economy and economic opportunity are the most pressing issues of this election. She criticized the Bush Administration's moves to eliminate overtime pay for six million Americans, and raised concerns about urban aid, public housing and labor issues. Pointing to Bush's anti-union record, she said she's "worried he'll do even more damage next time," in a second term.

So like Dallas, Lewis spent a day in Pennsylvania talking to voters and potential voters in that crucial swing state. Lewis went in June, Dallas in October, and both are part of a large group of 1180 members actively doing whatever they can to make a difference in this election. Whether it's domestic policy issues or foreign policy issues, 1180 members are pretty much in agreement that George Bush has been a disaster for the United States and that this presidential election is the most crucial one in memory.

Across the board, on virtually every issue, Bush's opponent in the election, Senator John Kerry, has staked out positions that are more hospitable to working-class interests. While Kerry's Senate record includes votes that CWA and 1180 opposed (he voted for NAFTA, for instance, and for the PATRIOT Act) the differences between Bush and Kerry and substantial and significant, and a Kerry presidency would be clearly better for Local 1180 members than a second Bush term. A look a just a few issues illustrates this point amply.

While "President" Bush continues to pretend that the war in Iraq is going well, Kerry acknowledges what a disaster the war has become and accused Bush of a "colossal error of judgment" in invading Iraq. With over 1,000 U.S. soldiers dead, some 20,000 wounded and tens of thousands of Iraqis killed, Bush's "pre-emptive" war has turned out to be not only illegal but extremely bloody. The Bush Administration promised that Americans would be "greeted as liberators" in Iraq, but of course they were greeted as the occupiers they actually are. The photos of torture at the Abu Graib prison and the revelation that Bush Administration officials were arguing in legal memos that some torture was acceptable and legal only further inflamed world—and especially Arab and Muslim—opinion against the U.S. Resistance to the U.S. in Iraq has grown steadily, and as of press time there had been over 2,300 attacks by insurgents in the last month—an average of over 70 every day. The U.S. military responds with attacks that desecrate holy sites and kill civilians, including hundreds of children. Meanwhile, electricity and water systems have yet to be reliably re-established and the promised reconstruction of the country is non-existent as western investors have stayed away even though the occupation government illegally imposed a series of orders and an interim constitution that are highly favorable to business. What it left in place was Saddam Hussein's law restricting trade unions and collective bargaining. But the violence has cancelled out the lure of low corporate taxes and high profits and the Financial Times declared Iraq "the most dangerous place in the world in which to do business." Unemployment for Iraqis is as high as 67%.

George Bush has responded to all this as though it simply weren't true. He has yet to go to a single funeral for a fallen American; indeed he's banned photographs of returning coffins at U.S. military bases. He's shown no sign that he grasps the loss of credibility and sympathy the U.S. has in the world as a result of his military aggression. There is no indication that the Bush Administration has any exit strategy for Iraq. All he does is repeat his mantra that he is a tough, resolute leader. "People out there listening know what I believe, and that's how best it is to keep the peace," he said during the first presidential debate, as though that had anything to do with anything.

John Kerry was an initial supporter of the war in Iraq (Local 1180 opposed it), but in recent months he's shown signs that he understands that the war was wrong and that the U.S. must do something more than "stay the course." While he not pledged to withdraw the troops, he's hinted at a timetable for extricating the country from the Iraq disaster and he clearly understands that the U.S. must mend fences with other nations and show some respect for international law.

The domestic costs of Bush's illegal war are also staggering. As of this writing, the estimated cost of the war was $140 billion, and of course every passing day increases the cost. "The billions we're spending on the war could be better put in housing, healthcare and education," observed Dallas. "Especially here in New York City, where we have children without textbooks, and overcrowded classrooms. And with healthcare, you have so many people without insurance, and they get sick and they wait and then they go to the hospital emergency room," which Dallas pointed out is cost ineffective because emergency medical care is more expensive than routine and preventive healthcare.

Bush's housing, healthcare and education policies have been wholly inadequate in addressing these pressing issues. The Bush Administration has cut funding for Section 8 federal housing subsidies, which eliminated 4,500 vouchers in New York City. It recently changed the way Section 8 vouchers are calculated, which resulting in the lowering the amount most New Yorkers receive by hundreds of dollars—in effect raising the rents of the poorest New Yorkers by hundreds of dollars a month. Bush's 2005 budget calls for another $1.6 billion in cuts for Section 8, which would eliminate another 10,000 vouchers for New Yorkers.

Kerry has pledged to fully find Section 8 and has also said he would support measures to create more affordable housing.

Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education program mandates standards that schools must meet, but the administration has refused to adequately fund it. The program has been underfunded by $26.6 billion, including an estimated $2.5 billion shortfall for New York City. Meanwhile, Bush has frozen college Pell Grants for three years while college tuition has gone up 9.8% in the last year alone. He has also cut $100 million in funding for low-interest Perkins Loans for college.

Kerry proposes a "National Education Trust Fund" to ensure that there is full federal funding for all educational mandates. He has proposed a "College Opportunity Tax Credit" to make college more affordable by offering a tax credit on the first $4,000 in tuition.

On healthcare, Bush's main "accomplishment" is the Medicare law passed last year that provides some minimal prescription drug coverage while beginning to dismantle and privatize Medicare. It prohibits the federal government from using its purchasing power to negotiate lower drug costs Meanwhile, the law forces Medicare to compete with private insurance plans beginning in 2010—private plans that can "cherry-pick" healthy enrollees while Medicare must (as it should!) serve everyone, and private plans that, unlike the government, are allowed to negotiate lower drug costs. Bush would also cut nearly $1000 billion from Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

Kerry has said he would repeal the Bush tax cut for incomes over $200,000 and spend at least $653 billion to insure 27 million of the 44 million uninsured Americans. He has also said his plan would pick up the cost of more than 20 million children enrolled in Medicaid.

The Bush Administration's priorities are nowhere clearer than on the issue of tax cuts. Bush's tax cuts have overwhelmingly benefited the rich—an estimated 50% of the tax cuts will go to the richest 1% of Americans—while thereby creating a fiscal crisis, increasing the national debt and slashing social spending. One result of all this is that inequality in the United States is reaching crisis levels. The income gap is the biggest it has been since the Hoover Administration during the Great Depression. The richest 1% of Americans—the people raking in 50% of the tax cut windfall-saw their wealth grow by 109% from 1983 to 2001 while the bottom 40% of the population saw their wealth fall by 46%. Life expectancy in the U.S. is actually down, and Cuba now has a higher infant mortality rate than the U.S. does.

Equally alarming has been the loss of jobs for Americans. Since Bush took office, nearly 3 million private-sector jobs have been lost and he is the first president since the Great Depression to end a term with fewer jobs in the country than when he took office. African Americans have been particularly hard hit by the job losses, and in New York City in 2003 barely half of black men had jobs according to Bureau of Labor Statistics employment-to-population ratios; fully 48.2% of the city's black men are out of work [the BLS statistics include people who have stopped looking for work and others that official unemployment figures leave out]. Yet not only has Bush done nothing to create jobs, he has cut money for job training and employment programs, and he has issued rules taking away overtime pay from an estimated six million Americans.

Kerry co-sponsored legislation to stop the Bush Administration's overtime rules, and he has pledged tax reform to create incentives for companies to keep jobs in the U.S. and to increase manufacturing jobs. Kerry has pledged t create 10 million new jobs in his first term as president.

The Bush record on labor rights is as appalling as his record on jobs and social equality. He issued four anti-union executive orders in his first month in office, including the revocation of the ergonomics standard it took 10 years to win. After 9/11, Bush used the false pretense of national security to bust unions. He stripped 170,000 workers in the Department of Homeland Security of union rights, and intervened in the dock workers' struggle on the employers' side. His National Labor Relations appointees have ruled that graduate teaching assistants—who in many colleges teach the bulk of all classes—have no union rights, and the NLRB is poised to rule that workers cannot organize unions through the method (called "card check") that is now used to organize a majority of all new workers.

These are but a few of the reasons that Local 1180 members have been galvanized and active in this year's presidential election. (Other issues include Bush's attack on civil liberties, his assault on the environment, his opposition to civil rights and his opposition to reproductive rights.) Hattie Dallas and Laura Lewis are just two of many 1180 members who have gotten on the bus out to Pennsylvania, or have signed up to work on other aspects of the election. Lewis returned from her day in Pennsylvania inspired to do more. "It was an experience. I had such a good time," she said, "that I volunteered to do it again. I volunteered for the phone banks, too." The local has been running nightly phone banks in the weeks before the election, and members will be out on election day as well.

Much of the focus of Local 1180's electoral work has been on the so-called "swing states." Because of the indirect way in which Americans elect their president, this year's contest between the two candidates has focused on those states where the race is close. The presidency is decided not on a direct, popular vote (1180 members will recall that Al Gore won the popular vote by over 500,000 votes in 2000) but based on the electoral votes of each state. Whether a candidate wins a state by a slim margin or a huge margin does not matter; either way the electoral votes from that state go into his column and towards the total electoral votes he needs to win. Thus states where one candidate or another has a strong lead in the polls—like New York, where Kerry is far more popular than Bush—are being largely ignored by the campaigns in favor of states that are up for grabs. The campaign strategy of the AFL-CIO and many other organizations has been to concentrate on these swing states. That's why union members like Dallas and Lewis are giving up Saturdays to go to Pennsylvania, the closest swing state to New York.

There's a lot at stake in this election, and 1180 members aren't leaving anything to chance. "I'll be doing phone banking, too," said Dallas, "and working on election day, and I will be talking to everyone to go out and vote. It's a fundamental right people have died for. I've been talking to people in my building, and to just anyone I see."

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