Average
monthly growth in employment during presidency. Source:
Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
SEIU
leading national campaign to ‘Show Bush the Door in
2004’
By SHERRY HALBROOK
The national labor movement may not be united yet behind
one candidate for president of the United States, but it
is united in opposing George W. Bush.
“The issue is not the man. The issue is his
plan,” said Andy Stern, president of the Service
Employees International Union — one of PEF’s
two international affiliates.
Stern says SEIU is taking the lead in a nationwide
campaign to “Show Bush the door in 2004.” Why?
Because Bush’s first three years have set the
country on a disastrous course that endangers the
achievements and futures of all working families.
Topsy-turvy
economics
“The pattern is clear,” Stern said, “Four
more years of Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress
means the power of the federal government will be used to
destroy labor unions. Health care, education and other
public services will continue to be gutted. The burden of
paying the taxes that support public services will be
shifted more and more heavily onto workers, those who can
hold onto their jobs. And more people will go without
health care.”
According to Stern, Bush’s economic record speaks
for itself.
In just three years, the US economy has been turned
upside down. Job losses are up — 2.9 million jobs
lost.
Health care costs are up 10 percent in just the last year
— the highest jump in more than a decade.
The number of people who are uninsured is up. The income
gap between the rich and poor is bigger. The number of
mortgage foreclosures is up. And the national debt is way
up.
Some things have gone down, Stern said, but they are the
ones that should be at the other end of the economic
seesaw — economic growth, pension security, business
investment, the stock market, and consumer confidence.
Others, such as the national minimum wage, have remained
static at best.
Time to turn it around
“This can’t continue,” Stern said.
“If we want to protect the things we have fought so
hard to gain for ourselves, our families and our
communities, we must elect someone to the White house who
can relate to the real struggles and values of working
families.”
He said SEIU knows it cannot win this nationwide campaign
without the full support of its members. The
international union is drawing from its own leadership,
budget and staff, but it is also depending on its locals,
such as PEF, to help fund and staff the campaign.
Smart, strategic, committed
The campaign is focusing on 15 “battleground”
states where the election is likely to be closest and
hardest fought, states with large populations and which
control large numbers of electoral votes.
“We need to deny Bush 18 more electoral votes than
he lost in 2000,” Stern said.
Since Bush did not do well in the last election in states
where labor is strongest, members of union locals in
those states are being asked to volunteer to travel to
the battleground states to work as full-time, paid,
political organizers on the campaigns there. The call is
going out for “2,004 SEIU Heroes in 2004.”
This message was paid for by the PEF Committee for
Political Education (COPE) and was not authorized by any
candidate or candidate’s committee. You may reach
PEF COPE at PO Box 12414, Albany, NY 12212-2414.
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SEIU leads ‘Show Bush the Door
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