Volunteers encourage union members to vote for Obama
By MATT COUGHLIN
Bucks County Courier Times
Before Sen. John McCain appeared on television sets across Bucks County Thursday night dozens of area union workers tried to bring Barack Obama into hundreds of Bucks County homes.
About three dozen volunteers from the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations met with 174 union members Thursday night to encourage them to vote for Obama.
Congressman Patrick Murphy, D-8, spoke to the volunteers at the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local 13 on New Falls Road in Bristol Township before the group started going door-to-door from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
AFL-CIO spokesman Andrew Gaffney said that the volunteers — members of the electrical workers, state, county and municipal employees, communications workers, nurses, letter carriers and bakers unions — were each given a packet, a list of homes of area AFL-CIO members and went door-to-door stumping for Obama.
“If they bring up experience, let them know we’ve had 26 years of experience of John McCain voting against working families,” Gaffney told the volunteers.
Gaffney said the volunteers had a series of questions for union members as well as a packet of information showing why the unions should prefer Obama to McCain.
“The three main issues are health care, economy and health care,” Gaffney said.
Gaffney said the organization opposes McCain because his health care plan would make the worker’s employer-paid health benefits taxable income. The packet also includes information claiming McCain has voted to abolish minimum wage and has pushed for privatizing social security.
The AFL-CIO is also backing Obama because of the congressman’s support of and McCain’s opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that has passed the House of Representatives but not the Senate. Currently employees looking to establish a union must first sign a card showing interest and then at a later date a vote is held to determine if the staff will join a union. However, Gaffney said, the vote can be delayed and companies can push out union-friendly employees. The new bill would immediately establish a union if even one employee over 50 percent of the staff signs the card that currently only starts the process.
In a written statement, Murphy’s opponent, Tom Manion, said he’s concerned about the rights of workers, but “the employee Free Choice Act is a misleading name for a bill that strips away an employee’s right to a secret ballot.”
Manion said he cannot vote for the bill because he considers the secret ballot a basic right.
And regarding healthcare Manion said he believes that through oversight, tax credits and healthcare savings accounts all types of employees will have healthcare. He said there was $80 billion in Medicare fraud last year and said that Democrats only plan on expanding a “big government-based healthcare system.”
Murphy, who is a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, said he believes in the freedom of assembly and the right of workers to unionize.
“I’m proud to fight for [workers of Bucks County] down in Washington and hope I get the chance to continue,” Murphy said.
He criticized an economy he said has seen wages go stagnant and seven and a half years of inequality.
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