The presidential election of 2004 may be the most important in our lifetimes,
and the unions of the AFL-CIO are unified in our commitment to elect a
president who will stand with and for working families.
Instead of moving forward toward an America of promise and opportunity
for all, our country has moved backward over the past three years under
the Bush administration.
America has a jobs crisis. Over the past three years we’ve lost 2.8
million good manufacturing jobs, more than in the preceding 22 years, and
economists from across the political spectrum say many of those jobs aren’t
coming back. Now analysts predict that as many as 14 million white-collar
and high-tech jobs could be moved offshore by America’s largest, household-name
corporations. Far too few new jobs are being created. And most of those
that are being generated pay substantially less and provide neither health
insurance workers can afford nor employer-funded pension benefits that
will provide a secure retirement
after a lifetime of work.
The result is that while the yachts of the wealthy and giant corporations
are being lifted by a rising economic tide, the small boats of working
families are being swamped by increased debt, stagnant wages and rising
health care costs.
Today in America, 14.7 million workers are jobless, under-employed
or have given up looking for work.
Today in America, 43.6 million people have no health insurance.
Today and every day in America, 4,227 people will file for personal
bankruptcy, 6.8 million people who are working will still be poor and 11
million children will attend broken-down schools.
The middle class that made America great is being squeezed out of existence
and we are rapidly becoming a nation divided between the rich and “everyone
else.”
The Bush administration’s response to the plight of working families
has been to pursue an ideological agenda rather than meaningful solutions.
Giving tax breaks to large corporations and the wealthy instead of investing
in things working families need, such as health care, better schools and
job training. Negotiating more flawed trade policies that abandon workers
and rewarding companies that export American jobs with tax breaks and government
contracts instead of creating trade and tax policies that keep good jobs
at home. Kicking the legs out from under 8 million workers by allowing
their employers to take away their overtime pay rather than offering working
people a steadying hand through extended unemployment benefits, a higher
minimum wage and genuine immigration reform.
During the Democratic primary season, we’ve seen the debate over the
Bush administration’s anti-working family stewardship raised to a new level,
and we are indebted to the many great candidates for articulating the concerns
of working families.
Today we are unified in our support of a presidential candidate, one
who not only can take on President Bush, defeat him and turn our nation
around, but who is all of the best things America has to offer.
Sen. John Kerry has lived a life of unselfish public service by standing
up for working families throughout a distinguished political career and
by presenting plans and policies that form a blueprint for rebuilding the
progressive infrastructure of our country.
Sen. Kerry demonstrated he shares working families’ values and commitment
to country when he volunteered for combat service in Vietnam, even despite
misgivings about the conduct of that war. He showed us what the words,
“my country, right or wrong,” really mean when he repeatedly offered his
own life to save the lives of the men under his command.
He revealed his commitment to our values over a 20-year career in the
U.S. Senate by devoting his time and energy to national security, foreign
affairs and the concerns of America’s service men and women in uniform
and by taking the lead in resolving the painful issue of Vietnam war POWs
and MIAs. He took on corporate welfare, took stands to protect our environment
and fought for early childhood education. He stood up to Newt Gingrich
to save Medicare and Medicaid and took on the big drug companies to lower
the price of prescription drugs.
Senator Kerry believes, as working people and our unions believe, that
maintaining and creating good jobs must be our #1 national priority, that
we should repeal tax breaks and loopholes that encourage corporations to
export American jobs and that tax breaks for millionaires should take a
back seat to schools, health care and investments in working families.
He believes we need a powerful coordinated strategy to keep our industrial
sector strong, that affordable health care is a right and not a privilege
and that our federal minimum wage needs to be raised to a decent standard.
Senator Kerry also believes that every child deserves a decent education,
every senior a secure retirement, every corporate criminal a stiff punishment,
every person civil and human rights and every family a strong and secure
America. He will work to maintain a strong and vibrant middle class so
essential to preserving our democracy, and he will fight for the freedom
of every worker to form and join a union in order to have a voice on the
job and economic security.
Sen. Kerry has a 91 percent AFL-CIO lifetime voting record in favor
of working families. He has pledged to reform NAFTA, to conduct an immediate
review, using worker input, of all our trade agreements and to insist that
workers’ rights and environmental protections be part our trade agreements.
Equally important, he has demonstrated real leadership by running a powerful
and positive campaign and gaining the trust and confidence of millions
of Americans.
America needs John Kerry’s leadership as president of the United States.
The AFL-CIO wholeheartedly endorses Sen. John Kerry for president.
We pledge to him and to the nation that we will run the most powerful campaign
in the history of our movement—a campaign of, by and for America’s working
families—to elect him in November.