NEWS
A Labor Intensive
How Do the Presidential Candidates Compare?
by Jeff Burman
 Jeffrey Burman |
As we approach the general election, it is important to note that, on Labor issues, the two mainstream presidential candidates are as different as night and day. Illinois Senator Barack Obama understands the significance of the role played by organized labor as an essential counterweight to the overwhelming prerogatives of business. Arizona Senator John McCain has both feet in the corporate suites, as he has for decades.
The Democratic National Committee, using records available to the public, has identified 177 corporate lobbyists working for the McCain campaign as aides, policy advisers or fundraisers. Of those 177 lobbyists, at least 83 have in recent years lobbied for the same financial industry McCain has so bitterly criticized. Even McCain’s campaign manager was linked, through his business, to mortgage lender Freddie Mac until last August.
The AFL-CIO evaluated the candidates’ voting records as they relate to labor issues. Obama voted with Labor 98 percent of the time. McCain’s votes lined up with Labor’s interests only 17 percent of the time.
Organizing and Union Rights
Obama is committed to ensuring that workers can choose a union at work and
bargain with their employers for better wages, benefits and working conditions
without employer harassment or intimidation. In June 2007, he co-sponsored
and voted for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would simplify the workers’
right to form unions.
 Senator John McCain, left, shakes hands with Senator Barack Obama at the beginning of the first of three presidential debates on September 26, 2008 at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images |
“We’re ready to take the offense for organized labor,“ Obama said. “It’s time we have a president who didn’t choke saying the word ‘union.’ We need to strengthen our unions by letting them do what they do best––organize our workers. If a majority of workers wants a union, they should get a union. It’s that simple. We need to stand up to the business lobby that’s been getting their friends in Congress and in the White House to block card check. That’s why I was one of the leaders fighting to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. That’s why I’m fighting for it in the Senate. And that’s why we’ll make it the law of the land when I’m president.”
McCain voted against the Employee Free Choice Act and voted for so-called Right-to-Work Acts that would have limited union rights. McCain has consistently opposed expanding union rights. In January 2007, nodding to states’ rights, McCain went as far as voting to eliminate the federal minimum wage altogether.
In a speech to the Oklahoma state legislature in May 2007, McCain spoke about unions, playing to existing cynicism: “We must streamline our workforce, demand high standards of behavior, promote excellence at every level based on merit and accountability, and not let good workers be crippled by the fine print of the latest union contract. The civil service has strayed from its reformist roots and has mutated into a no-accountability zone, where employment is treated as an entitlement, good performance as an option and accountability as someone else’s problem.”
Implying that trade unions are a safe haven for the lazy, the incompetent and the corrupt––taken along with his more recent promises to reform the struggling financial markets–raise the issue of McCain’s own involvement in one of the nation’s worst bank failures––one that made headlines from 1987 to 1993.
The Keating S&L Scandal
In October 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Depository Institutions
Deregulation and Monetary Control Act, which loosened controls on savings
and loan institutions. Over the next decade, according to the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation (FDIC), 747 Savings and Loans, with assets totaling
$394 billion, failed outright. One of the most notorious was Charles Keating’s
Lincoln Savings and Loan. In 1987, it was under investigation for violating
“direct investment” rules, which prohibited S&Ls from taking
large ownership positions in their investments. McCain, who had already received
$112,000 in campaign contributions from Keating, and had benefited from business
deals with him, agreed to attend an April 1987 meeting with four other senators
and federal banking regulators, wrote Dan Nowicki and Bill Muller in The Arizona
Republic. The regulators were told to either charge Keating or back off. For
the time being, they backed off.
In April 1989, after a new audit, a then-bankrupt Lincoln Savings was seized by the federal government. It was the most expensive bank failure in the ongoing national S&L scandal. Taxpayers lost more than $2 billion on this bailout alone. In January 1993, a federal jury convicted Keating on 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud in the collapse of two banks, American Continental and Lincoln, its subsidiary. Keating was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison. For 23 excruciating days, beginning in November 1990, McCain and the four other senators were publicly cross-examined and then reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee. To make matters worse, investigators revealed that McCain had leaked sensitive information from closed proceedings in order to hurt the other senators already under investigation, add Nowicki and Muller. McCain, under oath, denied involvement with the leaks. McCain received no other punishment. He was re-elected to the senate in 1992.
Much has been made of this episode in McCain’s life. “I was judged eventually, after three years, of using ‘poor judgment,’ and I agree with that assessment,” said McCain, who only recently reversed his position on business regulation, having been an outspoken champion of deregulation for decades.
The Economic Crisis
The unfolding crisis that began with predatory sub-prime mortgages––aimed
at first-time home buyers––and spread to much of the financial
markets, gives voters an unusual chance to test-drive candidates in a real
crisis.
Obama has said that working families’ current economic hardships are not “an inevitable part of the business cycle.” The mortgage and banking crises are “the most serious financial crises since the Great Depression,” added Obama. “I certainly don’t fault Senator McCain for these problems... I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to.”
How closely is John McCain linked to the crisis he so self-righteously condemns? He has described former key advisor Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas) as the man he respects most on economics. Gramm, as former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, was the chief sponsor of legislation that set aside the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, President Roosevelt’s pivotal financial market reform that separated commercial banks from investment banks. In doing so, Gramm played a central role in deregulating the banking sector, legalizing the risky investment practices that are at the center of the current crisis.
McCain’s real view on this extraordinary financial crisis––despite his sudden reversals––”fits with the same economic philosophy that he’s had for 26 years,” said Obama on September 16. “It’s the philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise. It’s a philosophy that lets Washington lobbyists shred consumer protections and distort our economy so it works for the special interests instead of working people. We’ve had this philosophy for eight years. We know the results. You feel it in your own lives. Jobs have disappeared, and peoples’ life savings have been put at risk. This is the pain that has now trickled up.”
In 2007, according to the Congressional Quarterly, McCain voted with President George W. Bush 95 percent of the time.
Health Care
Obama has a plan (now contingent on the health of the financial sector) to
expand coverage, lower costs, improve care and ensure that no one could be
denied care because of a pre-existing condition or illness. “My plan
begins by covering every American. If you already have health insurance, the
only thing that will change for you under this plan is that the amount of
money you will spend on premiums will be less. If you are one of 45 million
Americans who don’t have health insurance, you will after this plan
becomes law.”
According to the Democratic Party Platform, “Families and individuals should have the option of keeping the coverage they have or choosing from a wide array of health insurance plans, including many private health insurance options and a public plan. Coverage should be made affordable for all Americans with direct financial assistance through tax credits and other means.
“Health care should be a shared responsibility between employers, workers, insurers, providers and government,” the platform language continues. “All Americans should have coverage they can afford; employers should have incentives to provide coverage to their workers; insurers and providers should ensure high quality affordable care; and the government should ensure that health insurance is affordable and provides meaningful coverage.”
McCain’s health care proposal is much the same as President Bush’s. He proposes Health Savings Account Plans (HSAs), which seek to shift coverage to the private market, leaving health care consumers to negotiate with big insurance companies on their own. They would reduce benefits, increase costs and leave many with no health care at all. They would also shift the burden of cost from employers to workers. McCain would make health care premiums part of taxable income, essentially creating a new tax for working families. The modest tax credit McCain wants to offer would cover less than half the average health premium, leaving workers to pick up the difference.
Many states have laws regulating health care quality by requiring basic services to be included in health care coverage. McCain’s proposal would circumvent these laws, resulting in lower quality coverage without consumer protections.
Trade
In the Democratic Party Platform, there are further indications of a significant
change in direction when it comes to trade policy: “We will work with
Canada and Mexico to amend the North American Free Trade Agreement so that
it works better for all three North American countries. We will work together
with other countries to achieve a successful completion of the Doha Round
Agreement that would increase US exports, support good jobs in America, protect
worker rights and the environment, benefit our businesses and our farms, strengthen
the rules-based multilateral system, and advance development of the world’s
poorest countries. We will end tax breaks for companies that ship American
jobs overseas, and provide incentives for companies that keep and maintain
good jobs here in the US.”
McCain voted for CAFTA, as well as for Fast Track bills to make it easier for the president to enact trade agreements without strong worker protections. He voted for NAFTA, saying it was a good idea. “All you’ve got to do is go to Detroit and see the thousands of trucks lined up every day, or to our Southern border,” he told The Des Moines Register in November 2007. “Have people lost jobs? Yes, they have, and they’re gonna lose jobs.”
From 1993 to 2004, the United States lost 1,015,290 jobs due to NAFTA––according to research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Further, China’s trade surplus with the US caused a net loss to the US economy of almost 2.3 million jobs from 2000 through 2007.
Is it possible that this country’s experiment with Free Trade has been a gift to multi-national companies, who have taken advantage of cheap labor elsewhere? What might be done instead? One option is taxing goods manufactured overseas and reimported to the States for sale. In May 2004, McCain voted against just such a bill, one that would tax multi-national companies on income from foreign factories when goods are shipped back to the United States.
Retirement Security
Finally, what will Obama and McCain do about giving our retirement years a
strong foundation?
Obama wants to strengthen Social Security and block attempts to privatize it. He has fought against cuts in Social Security and Medicare and worked to lower prescription drug prices for seniors. In April 2007, Obama voted to allow Medicare to negotiate with drug makers for lower prices for senior citizens. Republicans filibustered the bill.
McCain, on the other hand, voted for President Bush’s March 2006 Social Security Reserve Fund. The proposal would shift Social Security’s annual surpluses into a reserve account that would be converted into private accounts. In March 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported that a “centerpiece of a McCain presidential bid in 2000 was a plan to divert a portion of Social Security payroll taxes to fund private accounts.” The plan would put workers’ retirement money into an increasingly risky stock market and reduce the amount of Social Security payments they would receive from the government. McCain told the Journal he “disowned” details of a proposal on his 2008 campaign website that says he would “supplement” the existing Social Security system with personally managed accounts. But when asked about the position change, he denied it and promised to change the website to reflect his true position. He also voted to raise the Medicare eligibility age.
In the end, it’s your choice. Get out and vote!
Jeff Burman represents Sound Editors on the Guild's Board of Directors. He can be reached at jeffrey.burman@nbcuni.com.
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