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Obama to AFL-CIO: ‘When organized labor succeeds, the middle class succeeds’

Date Posted: September 25 2009

By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

PITTSBURGH (PAI) –Amid a tumultuous welcome that could have raised the roof of Pittsburgh’s convention center – had that been do-able – President Barack Obama drew repeated roars and cheers from the AFL-CIO convention on Sept. 15 as he linked labor’s goals with his own.

The opening ovation for the chief executive, elected last November with strong labor support, went on so long and was so fervent that Obama tried to calm the 3,000-plus person crowd down by saying “You guys are going to make me blush.”

It didn’t work. And no sooner had everyone quieted down than they jumped on their feet again when he declared that “the White House is pretty nice, but there’s nothing like being back in the House of Labor.”

The scene during his speech was repeated over and over again, especially when he reiterated his commitment to one of labor’s biggest causes, passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.  

“If a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union,” Obama declared.  The law, designed to level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing and bargaining, faces a planned GOP Senate filibuster – but Obama did not say what he’d do about that.

Obama spent much of his speech discussing health care and the economy, while also pointing out the key role, both historically and in the present, which organized labor has played in past economic progress.

“It isn’t just organized labor, it’s the middle class.  When organized labor succeeds, the middle class succeeds.  And when the middle class succeeds, America succeeds,” he said. Other high points of Obama’s address included:

*“One of the fundamental reasons I ran for president was to stand up for hardworking families, to ease their struggles, lift their hopes and make possible the dreams of middle-class Americans.  Your stories are what drive me each and every day.”

* The stimulus law that he pushed through and labor strongly supported stopped prior economic bleeding.  But U.S. faces “a fundamental test” of whether it will become a nation of “the very rich and the very poor, of the haves and the have-nots” or a nation where “the success of all of us is built on the success of each of us.”

To create – or re-create – the latter nation, the president said he shares the AFL-CIO’s goals of universal, affordable health care, investment in infrastructure, workers’ rights, quality education, “creating jobs for the future” in “green” industries and “laying down tough rules of the road” for Wall Street “to ensure we never experience another crisis again” like the financial chaos that greeted him in office on Jan. 20.

*Reforming health care is a key to that turnaround.   Obama praised unionists for “making phone calls, knocking on doors and showing up at rallies” for that cause. 

“This isn’t just about the millions of Americans who don’t have health insurance, but it’s about the hundreds of millions more who do – Americans who worry that they’ll lose their insurance if they lose their job, who fear their coverage will be denied because of a pre-existing condition, who know that one accident or illness could mean financial ruin,” he pointed out.

Taking dead aim at the insurance companies, he declared: “When are we going to stop this?  When are we going to say enough is enough? Now is the time to deliver on health insurance reform…Because in the United States of America, nobody should go broke because they got sick.”  That last line drew another of the many ovations.

But Obama reminded the crowd that health care reform – he’s switched to “health insurance reform” –  faces a rocky road on Capitol Hill, including questions about its cost.  The tax-writing Senate Finance Committee will begin work the week of Sept. 21 on a 10-year $900 billion health care financing bill – omitting many of the provisions Obama and labor back, notably a “public option” to compete with the insurers.

He answered the cost question, somewhat, by noting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost more – as did the tax cuts for the rich pushed through by “the previous administration” of GOP President George W. Bush. 

He vowed that “we will not make that mistake again” of adding to the federal deficit – in his case for health care.

And he defended the public option, which draws heavy fire from conservative Democrats and the insurance industry. “Let me be clear: It would just be an option.  No one would be forced to choose it. No one with insurance would be affected by it.  But what it would do is offer Americans more choices, promote real competition and put

pressure on private insurers to make their policies more affordable and to treat their customers better,” the president stated.

The AFL-CIO strongly agrees with that, too.  In a convention resolution passed just after Obama’s address, delegates committed the federation to campaigning for the public option.  But in another resolution, they also said the fed backs an alternative: Government-run single-payer health care.

Union leaders, like the delegates, were enthusiastic about Obama’s address.  Appropriating some Obama 2008 campaign rhetoric, federation Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said of the crowd that “they are fired up and ready to go – solidly with us on health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act.”

“We know President Obama gets the connection between our broken health care system and our failing economy.  That is why he is as committed to achieving comprehensive health care reform this year.  We will be his strongest ally in this fight,” added AFSCME President Gerald McEntee.