Politics must be our central focus for 2004—continued from page 5
war on March 20, 2003, without the approval of the United Nations, there was another deep drop in Japanese visitors to Hawaii and a smaller decline of West Coast visitors. Again, Waikiki and the Big Island were the hardest hit.
Despite 9/11 and the Iraq War, we were able to negotiate fair contracts with most of our hotels. Hotel wage increases averaged 3.5% during this period.
The situation described in each of our industrial groups appears fairly normal, but there has been an unprecedented and sudden reversal in conditions for working people in America and for us in Hawaii.
Almost from the day he took office as president in January 2001, following a split-decision by the Supreme Court to stop the recount of the Florida vote, George W. Bush and his administration have been attacking working people with devastating results.
Union Busting
Bush has taken union busting to new heights. Bush and his Administration are using the excuse of national security and the threat of terrorism to bust government unions and take away the right to unionize from hundreds of thousands of federal workers. Using this excuse, Bush threw out union representation for 2,000 government workers in the Justice Department and in the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. One day these workers were in the union—the next day the union was gone. The workers did nothing to justify such an extreme action. Some of those workers have been in the union for 20 years and there was never any problem with security.
The real reason Bush is busting unions was revealed when 60,000 airport screeners working for the new Transportation Security Administration were denied the right to join unions and bargain collectively. The Bush Administration claimed,
that in order to fight terrorism and protect national security, government bosses had to have the unlimited flexibility to change work assignments, change hours, and change conditions of employment without having to deal with a union or union contract. This sounds like any other boss who wants absolute control over his workers. It never occurs to them that unhappy and
demoralized workers may do a lousy job which poses an even greater security risk.
Jobless Economy
Over 3 million jobs have disappeared since Bush took office. Most of the loss has been in good paying jobs in manufacturing as companies replace workers with machines or move production to Mexico and other low wage areas. Our country has lost jobs in 25 of the 31 months that President Bush has been in office, making this the worst jobs record of any president in 70 years.
Because of this loss of jobs, unemployment is over 6.2%—which is the highest in 9 years. The unemployment rate is even higher in California, Oregon and Washington, which is bad news for our tourism industry because most of our visitors
come from the West Coast.
Over 9 million people are actively looking for work but can’t find jobs. Another 2 million have given up looking or are underemployed at part-time or temporary jobs.
More Americans are being pushed into poverty—almost 33 million people live at or below the poverty levels. This is 12 percent of the population, and the highest in 26 years. Personal bankruptcy hit an all time record with over 1.5 million
people filing for bankruptcy last year in 2002. Personal debt—mostly charged on credit cards—is also at an all-time high of 14 percent of our disposal income.
Ordinary working people in the U.S. are worse off today—millions of jobs have been lost, unemployment is the highest in 9 years, poverty and personal bankruptcies are at record highs. The bad economic conditions of working people also affects the
fiscal health of state and local communities, which are being forced to cut education and needed public services.
To make matters worse, the federal government doesn’t have enough money to help the states or to pay for all its existing programs. The occupation of Iraq is costing more than $50 billion a year. The Bush tax cut was the most expensive
in history. This year’s federal deficit is expected to be over $450 billion— another record breaker. Bush will push the National debt to $6.750 trillion as of Aug 2003 and it will get higher every year.
To deal with the deficit, Bush plans to borrow the money and raid the surplus in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Instead of putting more money into Medicare to provide prescription drug coverage or to strengthen Social Security, Bush
plans to weaken the programs.
Give to the Rich
Yet, for one very small group of individuals, life has never been better. A very small group of people (58,000 individuals) own one-third of the financial wealth of the world— 18,000 are Americans. It is this tiny group of the very wealthy who have
benefited the most from the actions of the Bush Administration. Their companies are getting the lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq’s oil industry and infrastructure. Their companies are getting the defense contracts for military equipment and supplies.
It is this tiny group of the very wealthy who benefit the most from Bush’s tax giveaways that will cut taxes on inheritance, on stock dividends, and capital gains. Bush made a big TV production about mailing out rebate checks for the child tax credit, but that credit is only increased for two years—2003 and 2004. It drops back to the old rate after that, and so does most of
the other tax cuts that benefit the middle class and the poor. On the other hand, the benefits for the very rich, like eliminating the tax on capital gains and stock dividends, get better and better. By the year 2006, the richest 5 percent—the most wealthy people in America—will get over 72% of the tax cut. Their share of the tax burden decreases, while the burden increases for middle class working people.
Most of President Bush’s policies are calculated to take care of the wealthy and their businesses. The Prescription Drug program rewards insurance and pharmaceutical companies. The Healthy Forest Initiative relaxes environmental rules and opens up the wilderness to mining and logging companies. The Bush energy policy allows utility companies to avoid clean air requirements. Bush has changed rules to make it easier to privatize millions of federal jobs. He reversed job safety rules to prevent repetitive stress injuries and changed overtime rules to benefit business.
For a more detailed list of what Bush has done to help business and hurt workers, go to the AFL-CIO’s Bushwatch website at:
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/bushwatch/
Another good list is the “Countdown to Election Day: 525 Reasons to Dump Bush” at: http://www.525reasons.com/
Attack on Freedom and Democracy
Even more ominous are the Bush administration attempts to grab power and put the presidency above Congress and the Courts. The Patriot Act gave the Bush administration unprecedented power and seriously threatens the constitution rights and
freedom of the American people. Most of these attacks on our fundamental rights and democratic institutions are being done in the name of national security and the war on terrorism.
The world has become a more dangerous place as the result of Bush’s misguided foreign policy. His policies of preemptive war, unilateral action, and bullying the United Nations are proving to be disastrous.
Perspective
Whenever we talk about the importance of union political action, we often use the example of how gains that took years to achieve can be wiped out by a simple change in the law—by a stroke of the pen that signs a law into existence. We
constantly urge our members to vote and get involved because politics directly affects our standard of living and can change the quality of our lives. We urge our members to support union endorsed candidates, because the wrong people in office
can do a lot of damage.
We repeatedly warned how the Republican Party is the party of big business and the wealthy, and how it would be a disaster for working people if the Republicans ever took control of our government.
The Republicans did gain that control after the presidential elections of November 2000. A Republican dominated Supreme
Court intervened in the recount of Florida’s vote and essentially appointed George W. Bush president over Al Gore. The Republicans also held tiny majorities in the House and Senate. Control of the Senate shifted to the Democrats for a short period of time, but Republicans regained the Senate after the midterm elections of November 2002.
For the first time in 50 years, the Republicans had outright control of the Presidency, the Senate and House. We knew President Bush and the Republicans would begin to take care of big business and the wealthy and do so at the expense of working people. But we also expected the changes to come about more slowly and for the Republicans to be open to compromise and balancing the interest of business and working people.
We were wrong. What we didn’t anticipate, even in our wildest nightmares, was how unrelenting, far reaching, and one-sided this attack would become. We didn’t foresee how quickly our gains could be destroyed and programs dismantled.
George Bush has made politics the central issue for working people. All our hard work at the bargaining table, in protecting our members’ rights on the job, and the gains we made over the years are in jeopardy because of the impact of Bush’s policies on our economy, on our community, and on the international community.
The path forward is clear—we must take our country back in 2004, get rid of George W. Bush, and put this country on the right path again where working people come first. The theme of this Convention, “Defend Our Rights. . .Protect Our Union”, sums up the challenge before this union and before us as leaders of this union.
Eusebio “Bo” Lapenia Jr.
Robert G. Girald
Guy K. Fujimura