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Educated voters key to making every vote count in 2004

Date Posted: July 23 2004

“Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good: ‘Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson.

This year’s presidential election may be won easily by either George W. Bush or John Kerry. More likely, it will be won by only a few voters in a handful of battleground states like Michigan. With the televised images of Florida’s hanging-chad-counting election workers in the tight 2000 presidential election still fresh in their minds, few voters will go to the polls thinking that their vote won’t count.

In 2004, every vote will matter, because no one knows how close the votes will be in battleground states. In Florida, only 537 votes separated George Bush from Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, a margin which provided Bush with the victory. The same year, Gore won New Mexico by only 366 votes.

This year, the polling is showing that there is every reason to believe that the Nov. 2 election will be just as close. That makes each ballot important – so it is vital for voters to understand the views of the candidates so that their one vote will “do no harm” to their own interests.

In the 2000 election, some 64 percent of Michigan’s union-member voters cast their ballot for Gore. That was among the highest statewide union turnouts in the nation for Gore.

Conversely, garnering more than a third of Michigan’s union-member voters obviously meant that President Bush had a great deal of appeal in 2000. He went into the White House with a pledge of bringing “compassionate conservatism” to our nation, and promised to reach out across party lines and become a “uniter, not a divider,” and a “reformer with results.”

But has he brought about compassion? Has he been a uniter? Have his reforms brought results? Even though the president’s record will forever be shadowed by the Iraq war and the war on terror following the events of Sept. 11, 2001, his record as president is chock-full of decisions, executive orders and policy statements that clearly show the president’s vision for the nation’s future. (See the article below).

And as part of Bush’s vision, the needs of working people and organized labor have consistently been ignored in favor of the agenda of his supporters in corporate America. Bush campaigned as if he would help middle America, but his record shows that he has favored the rich and powerful.

Building trades union members may have voted for President Bush in 2000 based on the president’s moral character or his stands on abortion, assisted suicide or gun rights. Those are powerful considerations, and church leaders or interest groups often take time and effort during this time of year to influence voters to cast a ballot for this or that candidate based on his or her stand on those issues.

Leaders in the building trades unions and the rest of organize labor are also interest groups. And the primary area of interest of unions is the health, welfare and economic well-being of members. That is the case now and has been since unions were formed more than a century ago.

Some union members complain that labor-endorsed candidates are always Democrats. That’s a point that’s difficult to argue, although the building trades – more than any other group in organized labor – makes an effort to reach across party lines and endorse Republicans who support prevailing wages, project labor agreements and health and safety issues.

Organized labor supports Democrats because Democrats typically support the objectives of organized labor. In Michigan and around the country, Democrats do not propose to eliminate prevailing wage laws, remove safety regulations, restrict a worker’s right to organize, or create statewide right-to-work laws.

Democrats do not support judges who support the vast restriction on the right of workers to win compensation in on-the-job injury cases, as we’ve seen in Michigan. Democrats do not support cuts in Unemployment Compensation. Democrats do not support cuts in Labor Department funding and services.

Support for those anti-labor issues only emerges from the Republican Party – and that’s why organized labor typically supports Democrats.

The U.S. presidency will likely be decided this year by the narrowest of margins. Building trades workers are urged to register to vote if you haven’t already done so – then get educated about candidates for president, and about all the others on the ballot. After all, you wouldn’t want to use your vote to put yourself in harm’s way for the next four years.