US TRADE union leaders’ were yesterday demanding that the Democrats take action on workers’ issues in the Houses of Congress, in return for the country’s trade unionists delivering the decisive anti-Bush votes in the mid term elections.
Teamsters leader James P Hoffa declared that now it is ‘the time for action’ on jobs, wages, welfare and pensions.
Hoffa said: ‘Today, working families have new reason to believe in the ability of their government to better their lives, as Teamster endorsed candidates across the country prevailed at the ballot box yesterday.
‘I congratulate the victors and thank the thousands of Teamster members who invested countless hours over many months to help elect a pro-working families Congress.
‘Now is the time for action on issues such as universal health care, retirement security, the Employee Free Choice Act, fair trade agreements, safe highways and national security.
‘This new Congress must reverse action on the Bush administration’s misplaced priorities.
‘This election marks an opportunity to move our domestic agenda in a markedly different direction.
‘It is an opportunity to cease the global race to the bottom resulting from the endless series of job-killing trade pacts passed by Congress.
‘It is an opportunity to give all working Americans access to affordable, quality healthcare.
‘It is an opportunity to raise the minimum wage. It is an opportunity to promote the rights of workers who want to join a union.
‘Over the years, I have had many conversations with Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid about how Democratic control of Congress could directly benefit the lives of working Americans.
‘I commend them for their leadership throughout this campaign and congratulate their success in electing Democratic majorities in the House and, possibly, the Senate.
‘But the truly difficult task still lies ahead. I look forward to working with Representative Pelosi and Senator Reid to move our pro-worker, pro-union agenda through Congress.
‘In particular, I commit that the Teamsters are willing to work overtime to help enact key provisions of Rep. Pelosi’s “First Hundred Hours” plan, including a raise in the minimum wage and changing in the Medicare prescription drug programme that will lower the cost of medications.
‘The votes of working families made a difference at the ballot box.
‘We must now make sure this new Congress makes a real difference in their lives.’
Public sector workers’ leader, Anna Burger, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer said: ‘Working people across this country have spoken.
‘By voting to change the leadership of Congress, and electing eight new pro-worker governors, they have said enough is enough.
‘It’s important for the winning candidates to remember that this election is not just an accomplishment – it’s an opportunity.
‘It’s a chance to put working people back at the centre of the agenda for our country.
‘Today we celebrate, but tomorrow we go to work.
‘While corporate CEOs make more and more money, the average worker has seen her wages go down and her health care costs go up.
‘This election represents progress, but we still have a long way to go to give our children the future they deserve.
‘Yesterday, more progressive voices were heard.
‘But today in Houston, striking janitors still make $21 a day with no health care and no benefits.
‘We can’t rest until they and other workers across this country no longer have to struggle just to provide the basics for their families.
‘To Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, our message is the same: “No more empty promises, no more rhetoric. Working people have put you in office, and we will hold you accountable if you don’t start working for us.”
‘Congress has a lot of work to do to put the interests of working families first. We’re going to hold them to this standard.
‘All elected officials need to know that today is only the first step on a long road to restoring the American Dream.
‘Working people have sent the message about what they want: quality, affordable health care; good jobs that can provide for a family; and retirement with dignity.
‘The question now is whether our elected officials will listen and take action.’
The United Steelworkers union said it pulled off an unprecedented get out the vote effort in Tuesday’s mid-term election, based on issues of concern to working families.
While the continuing war in Iraq was clearly an issue, many voters cast their ballots based on serious concerns about the direction of the economy, including the Bush administration’s wrong-headed free trade agenda.
A CNN exit poll estimated that 39 per cent of voters keyed in on the economy. Another poll said 8 in 10 voters called the economy very important to their House vote.
‘This election proved that populism is alive and well,’ USW President Leo W. Gerard said.
‘Voters showed they’re fed up with flat and declining wages while executive compensation is out of sight,’ Gerard added. ‘And they’re deeply troubled by an Administration that is at the beck and call of drug and insurance companies when health care costs are totally out of control.’
Gerard said that ‘Democrat Sherrod Brown’s Senate victory in Ohio showed, voters are fed up with lousy trade deals that keep wiping out good paying jobs – another 29,000 were lost last month.’
Democrats won control of the House after a dozen years of Republican rule.
Democrats captured six out of six of the six Republican-held seats they needed to take control of the Senate, winning critical contests in Ohio, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Virginia and Montana.
US trade unionists will cheer that the Bush administration has been badly wounded.
However the Democrats will betray the aspirations of workers in the same way that the Clinton administration eliminated many of the New Deal gains that have been made by US workers and also drew up and signed the NAFTA free trade agreement.
The US trade unions must use the two years remaining of the Bush regime to push forward against the employers to defend jobs, wages and basic rights.
To achieve their demands, the trade unions must break with the Democrats and form a Labour Party.
The issue is not a populist programme, the issue is a socialist programme to defend jobs, wages and basic rights and oppose US military adventures abroad.
The crisis of US and world capitalism has put socialism back to the top of the necessary agenda for the US working class.
The trade union bureaucracy, permanently on its knees before capitalism is incapable of leading such a struggle.
The issue of the hour for US socialists is to build a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.
This will lead the struggle of the US workers to defend their jobs, wages and basic rights, to fight US militarism abroad, to break with the Democrats and found a Labour Party on a socialist programme.
Only the Trotskyist movement can lead the way forward to a Socialist United States of America.