Labor Party Adopts Plan to Run Candidates 1,400 Delegates -- Representing 1 million Union Members -- Launch Campaigns on Health Care, Social Security, Trade, Workers Rights
PITTSBURGH -- A new player on the U.S. electoral scene has arrived -- a political party that directly represents the interests of millions of union members and other working people, the unemployed, the retired and others locked out of the current two party system.
More than 1,400 delegates to the U.S. Labor Party Convention meeting here November 13-15, representing 1 million union members and community activists from 46 states, adopted plans to begin to run Labor Party candidates for political office.
"When you consider NAFTA, welfare repeal, the balanced budget amendment, corporatization of health care, deregulation, attacks on workers' compensation, and reversals of affirmative action, it is clear we need to send a message to all politicians that working people can no longer be taken for granted," declared Robert Clark, general secretary of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE), the convention's host union.
In addition to the critical decision to field candidates for the first time in the history of the young party, delegates adopted a program of action for campaigns on five critical issues facing working people in the U.S. -- health care reform, Social Security, work place rights, the right to a job, and a fair trade policy.
In only its second convention, the Labor Party had more delegates, representing a broader array of the nation's trade union movement as well as many community activists. The greater breadth of the Party was also reflected in both the message and in an impressive field of speakers who addressed the convention.
Speakers included legendary consumer advocate Ralph Nader, independent film maker Michael Moore, and such prominent labor leaders as United Steelworkers of America (USWA) President George Becker, United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts, Canadian Auto Workers union President Buzz Hargrove, Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) President Robert Wages, California Nurses Association (CNA) President Kit Costello, and Cornell University Professor Kate Bronfenbrenner, and UE General Secretary Clark.
Meeting in the city where both the American Federation of Labor (1881) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (1937) were founded, the delegates and the speakers drew a direct line between increased clout for workers and their decision to enter the electoral arena. "We need a political party that will confront the raw power of those who control vast amounts of wealth in this country and therefore control the political process at the same time," Clark noted. Citing the "incredible event" of the election of Jesse Ventura as governor in Minnesota, Michael Moore emphasized that "people are definitely looking for alternatives. We don't need a third party in this country, we need a second party."
Nader outlined the growth of corporate power in the U.S. which has "become supreme in area after area -- media, the workplace, the marketplace, raising our children, and our government. That's not the way America was supposed to be designed."
Nader also contrasted corporate wealth with declining economic, health, and environmental conditions for workers and families, a point also emphasized by Canada's Hargrove. "The interest of capital is far removed from working people. We have to put an end to the logic of casino capitalism. Working people need a party that represents the interests of working people," Hargrove said to thunderous applause.
Labor Party delegates kicked off their programmatic campaigns with a march around the Federal Building in Pittsburgh calling for establishment of Just Health Care in the U.S. In a rally outside the Convention Center, CNA's Costello said, "We're here to launch a campaign for what every American wants, cradle to grave health security and an end to profit mongering in health care."
Noting that 600 hospitals have illegally dumped sick people from emergency rooms and 100 million people in the U.S. are uninsured or underinsured, Sid Wolfe, MD, of the Public Citizen Health Research Group, noted "as long as we have for-profit hospitals and HMOs, we will have unjust health care."
Kathleen Connors, president of the National Federation of Nurses Unions in Canada, described an alternative model in Canada that is universal, accessible, comprehensive, portable, and based on public, not for-profit, administration. "Whether you are homeless or a bank president, you're entitled to the same care no matter who you are," she said.
UMWA President Roberts outlined the campaign the Labor Party will begin to build support for a workplace Bill of Rights, strengthening the rights to organize and implementing labor law reform, to help insure that "people have a legal right to speak out, to defend themselves, to health and safety."
Calling for a reversal in the nation's trade policy, USWA President Becker described how the North American Free Trade Agreement has cost 600,000 industrial jobs in the U.S. and another 2 million in Mexican." The only beneficiaries have been "the industrialists and the banking interests," said Becker calling for a trade policy that protects jobs, communities and the American dream.
The delegates also embraced a campaign to protect Social Security premised on opposing all efforts to privatize Social Security, cut benefits or increase eligibility thresh holds.
For further details on the Labor Party campaigns, or the electoral program, contact Labor Party national organizer Tony Mazzocchi, 202-234-5190.