Anti-Worker Trio Dominate Iowa Republican Caucuses

The first votes of the 2012 presidential election were cast last night in Iowa. Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul topped the polls. None is a friend of working families.

Mitt Romney traveled to Ohio this fall in support of Senate Bill 5, which stripped firefighters, teachers, and other public employees of the right to collective bargaining. Shortly thereafter, Ohio voters overwhelmingly repealed this anti-worker law. He has criticized the NLRB as being “out of control” for protecting things like the right to strike and fair union elections. And he has endorsed the notion that corporations are citizens. Good news for Wal-Mart and other Republican contributors. Bad news for democracy.

Rick Santorum established one of the most extreme anti-worker records during his time in the U.S. Senate. He voted against increasing the minimum wage and farm price supports crucial to the job security of thousands of agricultural workers. He has vowed to repeal manufacturing regulations that keep workers safe, falsely blamed unions for bankrupting state governments, and supports giving even more tax breaks to big corporations.

Ron Paul believes the federal government should be limited in protecting the safety of workers, yet have a heavy hand when it comes to employer-employee bargaining. He voted against raising the minimum wage and extending collective bargaining rights to first responders. He has called unions “unconstitutional.”

Romney, Santorum, and Paul were the big winners last night, but working families would lose if any of them reached the White House. By comparison, President Obama has been a consistent champion of good jobs, fair benefits, and a secure retirement. When it comes to standing up for workers, the 2012 presidential contest is no contest at all. That’s why we’ve strongly endorsed the President’s reelection bid.

United Food and Commercial Workers Union Endorses Obama 2012

The 1.3 million members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) are ready to fight for the future of our country and to stand with leaders who will stand up for working families. President Barack Obama is that leader.

I am proud to announce that the UFCW is endorsing President Obama’s reelection campaign because our members understand how much is at stake in this election. President Obama has stood up for the jobless, the uninsured, the middle class taxpayer, Medicare recipients, working women, and accountability from Wall Street. UFCW members are ready to mobilize for the president and to elect more leaders who will stand with him in Congress and statehouses across the country.

Cashiers and grocery workers are ready to stand up to elect leaders who will ensure good jobs stay in their communities and that their children can achieve their dream for a better life. Meatpackers and food processors are ready to stand up to elect leaders who will keep fighting to hold Wall Street gamblers accountable to the home owners and retirees who have invested in their future and deserve security and honesty from financial institutions.

Working families are struggling during this recession - a recession created by Bush-era tax breaks, lack of financial regulation and unnecessary military escalation. Turning our economy around is going to take a tremendous effort - an effort that must be led by a president who speaks for the 99 percent of Americans who clock into work every morning, instead of those who simply watch stock tickers all day.

UFCW members are energized because corporate-backed politicians at the federal and state level have launched an all-out assault on working people. President Obama is fighting back.

UFCW members have never stopped fighting back in statehouses and in their communities. They are ready to win the fight for the White House in 2012. The UFCW will be mobilizing, organizing and energizing our members, their friends and families to keep President Obama in the White House and to elect a Congress that works hard for hard working Americans. Ours is an enthusiastic choice to stand with President Obama as he fights against political opposition that seeks to enrich a select few at the expense of millions of regular Americans.

UFCW President Joe Hansen on President Obama's Plan to Put Americans Back to Work

Last night, President Hansen released the following statement in support of President Obama's jobs plan:

“President Obama’s plan for job creation, including a private fund to rebuild our roads and schools, a tax cut for companies that hire workers and help for the long-term unemployed, is a good start. The nation’s job crisis demands leadership from President Obama, but he cannot revive the economy alone. Bold leadership is also needed from Republicans in Congress and the business community in order to create jobs that can support a family and rebuild the middle class.

 “We will never win the future by turning a blind eye to the devastating impact of unemployment and underemployment on our country. It is time for Republicans in Congress to put our country ahead of politics and support the president’s plan to put Americans back to work. It is also time for America’s business leaders to make a patriotic commitment to invest in good jobs in America and provide their employees with decent wages and benefits with the end goal of giving the middle class the purchasing power it needs to revive the economy.

 “The wasted economic potential of the millions of Americans who are unemployed or underemployed is a national tragedy. But the tragedy goes deeper than statistics alone. In all this turmoil, many Americans believe they will never achieve the American dream of owning a home, sending their children to college or retiring comfortably. If Republicans in Congress and America’s business leaders continue to put corporate profits ahead of job creation, our country will never fully recover from this downward economic spiral.”

Republicans Continue to Hold Americans Hostage Over the Debt Ceiling

Once again, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his fellow Republicans are proving just how disconnected they are from the rest of America by threatening to vote against raising the debt limit unless trillions of dollars are cut from the federal budget—including cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

For months, Republicans in Congress have been calling for an “adult conversation” about getting our fiscal house in order before raising the debt limit by cutting spending for services that serve the poor and middle class while insisting that tax increases of any kind are off the table. But raising the debt ceiling has nothing to do with controlling future spending. Rather, it’s a matter of paying bills that we have already incurred or are in the process of incurring.

The United States has never defaulted on its debt. If Congress fails to raise the debt limit, the damage will ripple across the entire economy and rock global markets in the process. A federal default will hurt American workers and jeopardize our country’s ability to recover from the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. A default will also weaken Americans' confidence in their government at a time when many believe that they will never achieve the American dream of working for decent wages and benefits, owning a home, sending their children to college or retiring comfortably.

If our lawmakers are really interested in long-term fiscal responsibility, they must address their differences quickly and raise the debt limit. Speaker Boehner and his fellow Republicans need to have an adult conversation right now and act responsibly.

Fixing our Economy with Union Values

Greed. Avarice. Reckless speculation. Zero accountability. That’s what got America into the financial mess we’re in. But those aren’t the values we advocate when we are teaching our children how to get ahead, how to support themselves financially, or how to be successful. We teach them just the opposite: responsibility, hard work, fairness, cautiousness, and generosity.

Those are also union values, and they’re the values that our governors, senators, representatives and elected officials at every level must draw on if we are to repair a decade of economic damage caused by Republican malfeasance. We have no choice but to draw on our own ethics and principles—not the ethics of Wall Street bankers—if we want to grow an economy that strengthens our country and middle-class families for the long run.

President Obama inherited an economy in free-fall with huge deficits, skyrocketing health care costs, rising unemployment, and banking and housing markets on the brink of collapse. It took two years, and we still have quite a way to go, but the fact is that under George Bush, our economy was losing 700,000 jobs a month. Despite Republican obstructionism, Democrats were the ones to turn America around by cutting taxes for 95 percent of working families, and investing in the sectors of our economy that are projected to grow the most jobs: health care, energy, education. And, there’s still more work planned.

• Putting Americans to work rebuilding roads, bridges, rails, and ports, strengthening our economy and our infrastructure across all 50 states.

• Investing in a clean energy economy, and providing tax credits to spark manufacturing of windmills, solar panels, and electric cars here at home; and

• Valuing and rewarding with decent pay and family-supporting benefits those who are already employed in the jobs and sectors that are here to stay—like the 4.2 million Americans who work in retail; grocery workers; food processing meat packing and other plant workers.

In addition to the Recovery Act, which stabilized the financial system and helped to prevent a second Great Depression, the President and Democrats have taken several actions to save and create jobs and to get our economy moving again and to ensure that as the engine of our economy comes back to life, it will run for working people, not Wall Street.

• Passed the Manufacturing Enhancement Act to help create jobs, lower business costs, and strengthen the manufacturing sector.

• Supported Americans looking for work by passing the Unemployment Compensation Act which restored badly needed assistance to hard-working Americans who lost their jobs in the recession.

• Reinstated fiscal responsibility in government spending and ensured that American taxpayers will never again be forced to bail out big banks.

• Passed the Home Buyers Assistance and Improvement Act of 2010, extending the eligibility for new home buyers to receive a tax credit for their purchase.

• Passed a bill that will cut taxes and increase lending for small businesses, helping them to grow and hire new workers. It also lets businesses write off half of their equipment investments this year, and lets employers deduct health insurance costs from their taxes.

• Signed into law emergency aid for states saving the jobs of more than 140,000 teachers and preventing the layoffs of police officers, firefighters and first responders.

NLRB Doubles in Size, Thanks to Recess Appointments by Obama

President Obama took a stand against obstructionist tactics in the Senate this Saturday, making 15 recess appointments--that is to say, filling key administration posts on a temporary basis without confirmation by the full Senate.

This is great news for the National Labor Relations Board, which saw its membership double from two to four. One more member and we'd have a full board. This is a significant step toward having a functioning NLRB that doesn't elicit quite so many frustrated blog posts.

So how come the President went over the Senate's head to make these appointments? Could it have something to do with the fact that the Senate has blocked over 200 critical nominations since the beginning of 2008, leaving our federal government severely understaffed during the worst economic crisis in over half a century?

Well, actually, according to the White House Blog, yes:

"While the President respects the critical role the Senate plays in the appointment process, he was no longer willing to let another month go by with key economic positions unfilled, especially at a time when our country is recovering from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

[...]

"The roadblocks we’ve seen in the Senate have left some government agencies like the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission impaired in fulfilling their mission. These agencies can now get back to working for the American people."

Impaired! That's the word we've been searching for. And to put it all in context, the Congressional Research Service tells us that President George W. Bush made 171 recess appointments throughout his time in office (that's an average of 21 per year!), while President Clinton made 139.

And now, without further ado, your newest NLRB members are ...

Craig Becker: Becker currently serves as Associate General Counsel to both the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale College in 1978 and received his J.D. in 1981 from Yale Law School where he was an Editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school he clerked for the Honorable Donald P. Lay, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. For the past 27 years, he has practiced and taught labor law. He was a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law between 1989 and 1994 and has also taught at the University of Chicago and Georgetown Law Schools. He has published numerous articles on labor and employment law in scholarly journals, including the Harvard Law Review and Chicago Law Review, and has argued labor and employment cases in virtually every federal court of appeals and before the United States Supreme Court.

Mark Pearce: Pearce has been a labor lawyer for his entire career. He is one of the founding partners of the Buffalo, New York law firm of Creighton, Pearce, Johnsen & Giroux where he practices union side labor and employment law before state and federal courts and agencies including the N.Y.S. Public Employment Relations Board, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the National Labor Relations Board. Pearce in 2008 was appointed by the NYS Governor to serve as a Board Member on the New York State Industrial Board of Appeals, an independent quasi-judicial agency responsible for review of certain rulings and compliance orders of the NYS Department of Labor in matters including wage and hour law. Pearce has taught several courses in the labor studies program at Cornell University’s School of Industrial Labor Relations Extension. He is a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. Prior to 2002, Pearce practiced union side labor law and employment law at Lipsitz, Green, Fahringer, Roll, Salisbury & Cambria LLP. From 1979 to 1994, he was an attorney and District Trial Specialist for the NLRB in Buffalo, NY. Pearce received his J.D. from State University of New York, and his B.A. from Cornell University.

(Bios courtesy of the White House Press Office)

Good News for the Middle Class? Potential Movement on the Unfair Insurance Tax

Potential good news for union members: it looks like President Obama and members of Congress may be willing to negotiate so that fewer people would be affected by the so-called "Cadillac Plan" tax, including fewer union members. AP reports that although many ideas are under discussion, Obama:

is open to adjusting the tax so it would affect fewer people. There has been discussion of raising the threshold for the tax from $23,000 to $25,000 or higher. It has already been raised for first responders and workers in certain high-risk fields, and the levy could be softened for more unionized professions.

The foregone revenue from tweaking the insurance tax would be made up from the investment accounts of upper-income earners. (Pensions and retirement accounts would not be taxed.) The Senate bill already calls for raising the Medicare payroll tax on wages to 2.35 percent for couples making over $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000.

Union leaders, including UFCW President Joe Hansen, met with President Obama yesterday to discuss the tax and its negative impacts on middle-class families and union members. And while it's still too early to say if enough progress has been or will be made, the negotiations are certainly a step in the right direction.

White House Leaves Out-of-Touch Chamber Out of the Loop

What a novel idea. Instead of dealing with the out-of-touch Chamber of Commerce (see: climate change), why not talk directly with the business who actually create jobs and help grow our economy? That's the White House's approach to their relationship with business. As Politico reports:

Since June, senior White House officials have met directly with executives from more than 55 companies, including Chamber members Pfizer, Eastman Kodak and IBM.

“We prefer the approach — particularly in this climate — where the actual people who are on the front lines, running businesses, trying to create jobs, come and advise us on policy,” senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett...

Seems like a pretty good idea. After all, a group Chamber of Commerce is supposed to represent the interests of the business community(see: Nike, Apple, PG&E)--so if they've completely lost touch with the values of modern business, maybe it's time to let them fall by the wayside and deal with the businesses themselves.

Obama's Speech "A Clarion Call for Reform"

Missed Obama's speech last night on health care reform? You can check out the whole thing here.

UFCW members and health care reform advocates were reassured to hear the substance of the speech : a reform message and defense of the public option, a reassurance to President Obama's allies on health care, and a rebuke to those who continue to block real reform. Richard Kirsch, National Campaign Manager for Health Care for America Now, on President Obama's speech:

President Obama issued a clarion call for reforms that will guarantee all Americans have good, affordable coverage, directly taking on the insurance industry that wants to protect its profits and his political opponents who are engaging in fear-mongering for partisan purposes. He reaffirmed his support for the reforms that are essential to achieving his goals: assuring that people get good health coverage at work; strict regulation of the insurance industry; competition between private insurers and a new public health insurance option; and shared responsibility between individuals, employers and government in paying for coverage. The President reminded us that those who have opposed government programs like Social Security and Medicare in the past are once again working to deny history.

Town Hall Terrors

By now, you've heard at least something about the rowdy, often irrational, sometimes insane behavior at the health care town hall meetings across the country. You may have even been to a town hall meeting, encouraged by HCAN or Organizing for America to support health care reform and stave off the naysayers.

The script is roughly the same for each: a well-meaning senator or congressperson (doesn't seem to matter which party they're part of) holds a town hall meeting in his or her home district or state to dispel myths and answer questions about the health care reform being proposed in Congress. Protesters gather outside the building with signs, often depicting Obama as Hitler. And a few minutes, or sometimes even a few seconds into the meeting, participants begin shouting over their elected official's answers, loudly vocalizing their opposition to any health care reform. Many will ask strange questions, or shout accusations about Obama's "death panels." Some will go completely off topic, to protest Obama or said officials' supposed trampling of the Constitution. At least one even brought along a gun.

There's been a lot of debate about whether or not these people are being organized by anti-reform front groups. And there's been a lot of chatter on cable TV about whether or not Obama's PR team has been handling these folks the right way.

But really, who cares?

Because if you watch and listen to the loudest of the protestors, it becomes clear that health care reform is not really the main issue, or even the issue at all for a fringe few. It becomes clear that health care reform has simply become a catalyst for a larger fear of the unknown, a sense that their country is somehow being "taken away." (Seriously, listen to a selection of those crazy town hall videos and just count how many times someone in the crowd screams, "I want my country back!" or something similar. )
And all this would be okay if it were everyone were just voicing their opinion. Most are. And that's good. That's democracy. But the palpable fear of the fringe few is real. The anger is real. That gun was real--and loaded.

And I thought about that today, when I saw a new study released by the Southern Poverty Law Center today, showing that paramilitary militia groups are on the rise once more. The study finds that:

Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country. "Paper terrorism" — the use of property liens and citizens' "courts" to harass enemies — is on the rise. And once-popular militia conspiracy theories are making the rounds again, this time accompanied by nativist theories about secret Mexican plans to "reconquer" the American Southwest.

These are people who really, really don't like the federal government. So whether it's immigration reform, health care reform, education reform--they don't want any part of it, because they don't want any part of the government in their lives.

I just wonder how much all the media focus on these town halls, all the anger working like a magnet to draw more angry people out to the meetings, all the hatred of the government simmering just below the surface will serve to catapult extremists into action? As the SPL Center points out:

Authorities around the country are reporting a worrying uptick in Patriot activities and propaganda. "This is the most significant growth we've seen in 10 to 12 years," says one. "All it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you see threats and violence."

Health Care Insurance Companies Scared of Losing Massive Profits to Public Option

According to the Associated Press, Health Insurance companies sent a letter today to the Senate saying that a pubic option for health insurance would cripple their profit-driven business model and hamstring employer-provided health insurance.

This is just another example of the scare tactics that opponents of health care reform are selling, and the American people still aren't buying.

And the health insurance lobby has a reason to be scared. New York Times/CBS Poll that came out this week found that most Americans

said the government could do a better job of holding down health-care costs than the private sector.

These are companies that have imposed average premium increases of more than 120% over the past decade, according to Health Care for American Now!

The basic disagreement comes down to this:

Americans think that the government could do a better job than private health insurance companies and therefore want a public option.

Private Health Insurers know that the government could do a better job than private health insurance companies and therefore do not want a public option.

The private health insurers have a really big interest in keeping the system the way it is, in spite of it being broken. Why? Because

Profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007. In 2007 alone, the chief executive officers at these companies collected combined total compensation of $118.6 million-an average of $11.9 million each.

Whose interests should our elected officials keep in mind?

"Health Care Reform Cannot Wait"

President Obama in his remarks this morning on the 2010 Fiscal Budget announced a radical departure from the old trends in spending and outlined his support for sweeping reforms that will reach all of America.

Among the reforms, Obama reemphasized health care as a priority in getting our economy back on track:

Because of crushing health care costs and the fact that they drag down our economy, bankrupt our families, and represent the fastest-growing part of our budget, we must make it a priority to give every single American quality, affordable health care....With this budget, we are making a historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform. It's a step that will not only make families healthier and companies more competitive, but over the long term it will also help us bring down our deficit.

Obama's budget reflects the urgent need for action he spoke of in his State of the Union address earlier this week:

Now, there will be many different opinions and ideas about how to achieve reform, and that is why I’m bringing together businesses and workers, doctors and health care providers, Democrats and Republicans to begin work on this issue next week.

I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also now that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.

We have fought tirelessly for this moment and the time is finally here: we are going to get health care reform in 2009. The question now is what will that reform look like?

As the fat cats who have been profiting off of the status quo for so long start to throw up roadblocks on the path to change, it is crucial that we all make sure those who are working for the right kind of reform know they have our support.

Can you help by sending a quick note to the Senate Finance Committee and President Obama thanking them for their swift action so far and commitment to change?

It only takes a minute and we know it makes a difference.

Hundreds Of Union Members To March In 56th Inaugural Parade

From Change To Win In Washington, DC:

January 20th is going to be an historic day!

Oh, you think, I knew that. That’s when we’re going to be swearing in our first-ever African-American President of the United States!

That’s true, but it’s not the only reason why Tuesday will be historic.

What else is happening? For the first time in living memory, members of America’s labor movement have been asked to march in the official Inaugural Parade, that’s what.

Representing America’s workers will be 265 union members from across Change to Win, the AFL-CIO, and the National Education Association (NEA), along with a 17-by-24 foot float built entirely by union workers and driven by a Teamster. The float will feature the “faces of labor” — a tribute every hard-working man and woman who gets up every day and goes to work. (In the photo above, you can see the faces as they wait to be mounted on the float.)

January 20 will be the start of a new era for American workers, so it’s fitting that hundreds of them will be marching alongside President-Elect Barack Obama to mark the occasion!

Now What?

So Barack Obama’s going to be our next president. Now we can all heave a big sigh of relief, sit back, and watch while he changes everything for the better. Right?

Not so fast.

Fox News reports that “The nation's leading business group on Thursday urged President-elect Barack Obama to devote the early days of his presidency to reviving the economy, leaving more controversial issues such as labor rights for later.”

Problem: Who makes this economy work? Workers! You can’t improve the state of the economy without improving the condition of workers!

These days, just about every week another example of economic hardship hits the press. Housing crisis, credit crunch, failing banks, and now the auto bailout! What do all of these problems have in common? They all affect workers like us, but they’re such massive problems that it seems like there’s nothing we can do about it but hope that Congress can figure out a decent solution.

But there is one thing that we as workers can do – form unions. The prosperity of America is strongly based on the prosperity of America’s middle class. America’s middle class is hurting right now, because corporate America has gotten a little carried away taking advantage of the rest of us, and the results of this behavior are finally sinking in. In order to keep corporate giants in check, we must protect our most effective tool against them, the right to organize. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would solve the problems that workers now face when they are trying to form a union on the job. Obama’s support of workers' rights was a key reason his campaign was successful. We need to continue to show our support for workers' choice to help it push past opposition in Congress. Over the next few weeks we’ll be blogging more in depth about the Employee Free Choice Act to let you know what it’s all about.

*NEW* UFCW for Obama song!

submitted by UFCW member Phillip Mesa

Hello my name is Phillip Meza and I am a proud member of UFCW local 1428 in California. I have been a member of the UFCW for 17 years now and an employee of Albertsons. I didn’t really realize how important our union was until the strike and lock-out that we went through in 2003-2004. That's when I really got active and took true interest in the causes that our union fights for.

With my involvement in the Hip-Hop community I felt it was only fitting to express my views through music. As Mr. Picket Man, I put to music the thoughts, views and struggles into a few songs. All I hoped was to inspire those of us on the picket line the keep our heads held high and keep fighting.

Now in 2008 we are in another fight. A fight to get a man elected to the office of
President of the United States of America. That man is Barack Obama and I truly believe he is the candidate that honestly knows, shows and cares about us.

I feel in my heart that he actually knows our stories and what our lives are like as working people. It has been a long time since I have felt so trusting of a politician, but there is something in him that I Believe and I am ready for the Change that I know he can bring to this great nation.

This new song that I have done is dedicated and donated to the UFCW to express my views of Barack Obama as I pledge my vote to him. I hope that all of you would do the same. If all us as the great Union that we are would cast our vote for Barack Obama on November 4th. I am sure we will all soon be referring to him as Mr. President.

Please realize that we are not just voting for a president but that we are voting for our future.

Thank You.

"OBAMA 08"

Click to listen

McCain's "Health Care" Plan: Downright Spooky

If ghosts and goblins have got your heart racing this Halloween, you'd do well to steer clear of John McCain's health care plan. You might just die of fright.

At this point in the election season, it is hard to take in all of the information about the candidates. But if one thing grabs your attention let it be this: McCain's plan to tax health insurance benefits is fundamentally flawed, scary, SCARY change.

If you've got good health insurance from your employer, under his plan, you'd be taxed on the dollar value of your coverage. To make this sound better, McCain offers a $5,000 tax break that sounds pretty good at first until you start to realize most plans are way more than $5,000. Plus, who is to say they won't just get rid of that tax break a few years down the road once the employer-provided insurance system has been dismantled?


Above: Check out the new video from Health Care for America Now


If you don't have insurance, good luck getting any if you've got any pre-existing conditions. It's already bad enough trying to get care. Do we really need to make it worse?

Barack Obama has made health care reform a priority. He's got a real plan for making sure American's receive the care they need-- and it doesn't involve you paying hundreds more in taxes or trying to negotiate on your own with your insurance company.

ACTION ALERT: IS HEALTH CARE THE NEXT MORTGAGE CRISIS?

Yesterday, Paul Krugman of the New York Times wrote a great editorial reflecting on the devastating effect McCain’s proposed changes to our health care system would have on working people.

Currently, companies don’t have to pay taxes on the money they spend on employee health care plans. McCain wants to change that. Basically, he wants to take away the tax breaks given to employers and offer much smaller breaks to individuals.

This might sound good at first. After all, your employer has more money than you do, right? So why do they need a break?

But health care costs have already gone up so much that many companies are scaling back their health benefits as it is. Without the tax breaks they currently receive, many companies are going to start dropping plans altogether.

The McCain camp has spun the plan to sound like you’ve now got the right to choose your own coverage. That his plan will fix our nation’s health care crisis by putting it in the hands of American families.

What American families will really have in their hands is a stack of bills they may not be able to pay and plans, like HSAs, that don’t offer real coverage. The $2,500-$5,000 tax break McCain is offering just isn’t going to pay for the over $12,000 that the average family plan actually costs.

You’d think with the U.S. market a state of crisis and families losing their homes because they can’t pay their mortgages, McCain would have learned a thing or two about what happens when you deregulate and leave the well-being of the country up to the whims of the free market.

The health insurance industry is already one of the least regulated businesses in America today. What other service do you pay for when you don't need it, and then get denied the service when you do? At least personal savings accounts at the banks are insured by the FDIC, but where do you go when your insurance company denies care due to a pre-existing condition?

Today, Senator Barack Obama announced his support for Health Care for America Now, a coalition the UFCW joined to fight for quality, affordable health care for everyone. He’s pledged to fight on the side of the American people--not big business.

Tomorrow, we need your help. We’ve got Obama’s support, but we need to know where the rest of Congress stands. Are they with the American people or are they going to leave us on our own until the health care crisis explodes into a catastrophe?

We mobilize tomorrow. If you read this, we need you to be a part of the solution and make the call to hold Congress accountable. So tell your friends and tell your family. Call your representatives and ask them: which side are you on?

Learn more at www.healthcareforamericanow.org

Introducing Brittney Spears, Paris Hilton….and John McCain?

What matters to you? Health care costs? The cost of food and gas? Wages? Brittney Spears?

The latest McCain ad calls Barack Obama a celebrity along the lines of Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton. Republicans say he is more of a celebrity than a leader. But, Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton…oh, com’on! Watch Senator Obama’s response.

Right before this ad aired, McCain was defined as a “political celebrity” when he first announced his entrance into the presidential race. Of course, now it seems that he's no longer claiming celebrity status. Google's has McCain's claim to fame cached.

McCain defined Obama as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared. Of course, "John McCain is aware of the internet," and he doesn’t know the price of gas.

Tell us what you think: Who's out of touch? McCain or Obama?

How Are You Working For Change?

Registering voters. Volunteering at food banks. Phone banking for candidates. Organizing workers and improving working conditions. Raising money to fund research for important cures.

These are just a few of the things young workers are doing throughout the nation to make a differnce. With health care costs out of control, the economy a mess, rapidly rising gas prices, escalating college costs, the mortgage crisis, a broken immigration system...our nation needs all the help it can get.

This is a year for change if there ever was one. And hundreds of thousands of UFCW members will be working hard to send Barack Obama to the White House to make that change real.

But change doesn't start with the President or the people in Washington, as Senator Obama points out in his speeches.

Change starts with us. We can make a difference. We can help UFCW members, workers, and fellow Americans around the nation in times of trouble. We can oppose greedy CEOs and corporations, and fight for better wages, affordable, quality health care for all, improved working conditions, and the dignity of a secure retirement.

We can speak together and become more powerful. We can stick together and make our voices heard--and we can shout out for a real shot at the American Dream for each and every person in this country.

We can all be leaders. Young workers can and will lead the way to the change we need today.

How are you working for change? Tell us what you're doing to make this country a better place.

Obama Visits UFCW Convention

Senator Barack Obama stopped by the annual convention of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) in his hometown of Chicago to share his thoughts on the role of unions in rebuilding the American Dream and how he intends to stand up for working people as President.



The entire text of Obama's speech is published here.