To some extent they succeeded, especially in foreign policy, but also in over who gives the strongest support to workers and unions.
The 96-minute debate, held during the federation\'s Executive Council meeting, is part of the AFL-CIO\'s endorsement process. The 10-million-member organization seeks the widest input possible from its members before its leaders finally make a decision, if they do, by either late this year or early next year.
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Seven candidates participated in the AFL-CIO presidential forum at Chicago\'s Soldier Field. Photo courtesy of http://blog.aflcio.org |
Most of the hopefuls took pains to declare they support the right to organize and particularly the Employee Free Choice Act, the labor-backed legislation--which passed the House but which a GOP filibuster killed in the Senate--to help level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing and contract bargaining.
"In a workers\' White House under a Kucinich administration, the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike, the right to decent wages and benefits, the right to a safe workplace, the right to a secure retirement, the right to participate in the political process, these are all basic rights that will be the hallmark of a presidency by Kucinich," the former Cleveland mayor said.
But only Edwards said how he would push for the bill. "I intend to be the president… who walks on the White House lawn and explains to America how important unions and organized labor is to the future and the economic security of this country," he declared. He also said he would push legislation to outlaw striker replacements, or scabs.
"It is fine to come up on this stage and give a nice talk. The question is: Who\'s been with you in the crunch?" the North Carolinian, who is from a right-to-work state, asked.
His answer, that he had walked picket lines 200 times in the last two years and helped 22 unions organize, set off a round of differences over who had been with workers the most. Several of the other hopefuls said they had better credentials in backing workers.
Obama noted that his original work in Chicago was as a community organizer, in the city\'s South Side after the closure of the LTV Steel plant there. That included working "with unions to deal with laid-off steel workers." And he reminded the crowd that he has "marched on your picket lines" with AFSCME members who have been trying for four years to organize the large Resurrection Health Care system, with 8,000 workers.
"For 34 years, I\'ve walked with you on picket lines," retorted Biden. Jabbing at Edwards, he added: "The fact of the matter is it\'s not where you\'ve been the last two years. Where were you the six years you were in the Senate? How many picket lines did you walk in? Look at our records. Look at our records….Did you walk when the corporations in your state opposed you?"
The other candidates, who all support labor rights, passed up a chance to enter that debate on strength of support, even though they often turned away from topics questioners raised to answer prior questions.
A similar attempt at showing differences occurred on health care, with all the candidates backing universal health care, but only Kucinich advocating government-run single-payer Medicare for all, eliminating the insurance companies.
"In my first year" as president "I would ensure every single, solitary child in America and make sure catastrophic insurance exists for every single person in America, while we move towards a national health care system covering everybody," Biden said.
Edwards staked out several positions sharply critical of what he called "the Washington establishment," blaming it--in both parties--for the stalemate on health care, Bush policies on such things as contracting out, and anti-worker measures in general.
Edwards did not mention he voted for the war, as did everyone but Kucinich and Obama. Obama did, referring to unnamed candidates who changed their positions. That was an indirect jab at Clinton, who has been criticized for her pro-war vote in 2002.
"We need public financing of campaigns" for Congress as one way to clean up Washington, Edwards said, especially since business outspends workers by an 18-to-1 margin. "When a lawyer offers money to a jury" for a verdict, "it\'s called a bribe," he said. "When lobbyists go to members of Congress and offer money to them, it\'s called politics," Edwards noted. Both he and Obama refuse lobbyist dollars for their drives.
The foreign policy differences came mostly in fighting terrorism, as the candidates differed sharply over a prior statement by Obama that he would, if elected, take military action in Pakistan if Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf did not clean up the al-Qaeda enclave in that nation\'s northwestern province.
Dodd, a longtime veteran of the Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy expert, lectured Obama that "words have consequences." Several hopefuls said the GOP Bush government\'s war in Iraq made the country more vulnerable to terrorism. Clinton, drawing on her husband\'s experience as president before Bush, said candidates with big ideas sometimes should not articulate them.
Obama retorted Dodd had not read his whole speech on terrorism, where he laid out a series of steps to battle al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan--after leaving Iraq.
On another foreign policy issue, unfair trade treaties, the candidates, except Kucinich, agreed NAFTA, the 11-year-old jobs-losing trade pact between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, should be fixed with insertion of labor rights, not scrapped. President George Bush Sr. pushed it and Democratic President Bill Clinton pushed it through a then-Democratic Congress, over intense union opposition. It lacks enforceable labor rights.
The hopefuls did not say how they would fix it, but they said they would notify the Mexican president and the Canadian prime minister--Obama said "president"--that they want to renegotiate it. Kucinich would scrap NAFTA and the other trade pacts, such as the World Trade Organization. All said any new pacts must have enforceable worker rights. Clinton called for "a trade prosecutor."
She also criticized the Bush regime for lax enforcement in the domestic arena, at one point telling Deborah Hamner, a widow of a dead Sago, W. Va., coal miner, that "Chris Dodd and I were on the committee that passed some very good laws. The problem is we have an administration that doesn\'t want to enforce those laws.
"When I am president, we\'ll have a Department of Labor that actually cares about labor. And when it comes to organizing Resurrection Hospital, I will be the president who signs the Employee Free Choice Act," Clinton declared.
All the hopefuls took a somewhat critical stance against China, not calling it an enemy, but, in Richardson\'s words, "a strategic competitor." Obama and Biden said part of the problem is that the U.S. trade deficit is so large that China is financing part of it, and that weakens our bargaining position. "They hold the mortgage on our house," Biden said.
"We\'ve got to get back to fiscal responsibility in order to undercut the Chinese power over us," Clinton added, reminding the crowd and the TV audience that Bill Clinton\'s administration ended with budget surpluses, not record deficits. "And we have to have tougher standards on what they (China) import into this country. I do not want to eat bad food from China or have my children having toys that are going to get them sick."
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.
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To some extent they succeeded, especially in foreign policy, but also in over who gives the strongest support to workers and unions.
The 96-minute debate, held during the federation\’s Executive Council meeting, is part of the AFL-CIO\’s endorsement process. The 10-million-member organization seeks the widest input possible from its members before its leaders finally make a decision, if they do, by either late this year or early next year.
|
|
Seven candidates participated in the AFL-CIO presidential forum at Chicago\’s Soldier Field. Photo courtesy of http://blog.aflcio.org |
That need for information led Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), Joseph Biden (D-Del.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) to the stage at Chicago\’s Soldier Field, its football stadium. Their responses drew frequent applause, occasional laughter and even one or two boos, when candidates ducked questions.
Most of the hopefuls took pains to declare they support the right to organize and particularly the Employee Free Choice Act, the labor-backed legislation–which passed the House but which a GOP filibuster killed in the Senate–to help level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing and contract bargaining.
"In a workers\’ White House under a Kucinich administration, the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike, the right to decent wages and benefits, the right to a safe workplace, the right to a secure retirement, the right to participate in the political process, these are all basic rights that will be the hallmark of a presidency by Kucinich," the former Cleveland mayor said.
But only Edwards said how he would push for the bill. "I intend to be the president… who walks on the White House lawn and explains to America how important unions and organized labor is to the future and the economic security of this country," he declared. He also said he would push legislation to outlaw striker replacements, or scabs.
"It is fine to come up on this stage and give a nice talk. The question is: Who\’s been with you in the crunch?" the North Carolinian, who is from a right-to-work state, asked.
His answer, that he had walked picket lines 200 times in the last two years and helped 22 unions organize, set off a round of differences over who had been with workers the most. Several of the other hopefuls said they had better credentials in backing workers.
Obama noted that his original work in Chicago was as a community organizer, in the city\’s South Side after the closure of the LTV Steel plant there. That included working "with unions to deal with laid-off steel workers." And he reminded the crowd that he has "marched on your picket lines" with AFSCME members who have been trying for four years to organize the large Resurrection Health Care system, with 8,000 workers.
"For 34 years, I\’ve walked with you on picket lines," retorted Biden. Jabbing at Edwards, he added: "The fact of the matter is it\’s not where you\’ve been the last two years. Where were you the six years you were in the Senate? How many picket lines did you walk in? Look at our records. Look at our records….Did you walk when the corporations in your state opposed you?"
The other candidates, who all support labor rights, passed up a chance to enter that debate on strength of support, even though they often turned away from topics questioners raised to answer prior questions.
A similar attempt at showing differences occurred on health care, with all the candidates backing universal health care, but only Kucinich advocating government-run single-payer Medicare for all, eliminating the insurance companies.
"In my first year" as president "I would ensure every single, solitary child in America and make sure catastrophic insurance exists for every single person in America, while we move towards a national health care system covering everybody," Biden said.
Edwards staked out several positions sharply critical of what he called "the Washington establishment," blaming it–in both parties–for the stalemate on health care, Bush policies on such things as contracting out, and anti-worker measures in general.
Edwards did not mention he voted for the war, as did everyone but Kucinich and Obama. Obama did, referring to unnamed candidates who changed their positions. That was an indirect jab at Clinton, who has been criticized for her pro-war vote in 2002.
"We need public financing of campaigns" for Congress as one way to clean up Washington, Edwards said, especially since business outspends workers by an 18-to-1 margin. "When a lawyer offers money to a jury" for a verdict, "it\’s called a bribe," he said. "When lobbyists go to members of Congress and offer money to them, it\’s called politics," Edwards noted. Both he and Obama refuse lobbyist dollars for their drives.
The foreign policy differences came mostly in fighting terrorism, as the candidates differed sharply over a prior statement by Obama that he would, if elected, take military action in Pakistan if Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf did not clean up the al-Qaeda enclave in that nation\’s northwestern province.
Dodd, a longtime veteran of the Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy expert, lectured Obama that "words have consequences." Several hopefuls said the GOP Bush government\’s war in Iraq made the country more vulnerable to terrorism. Clinton, drawing on her husband\’s experience as president before Bush, said candidates with big ideas sometimes should not articulate them.
Obama retorted Dodd had not read his whole speech on terrorism, where he laid out a series of steps to battle al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan–after leaving Iraq.
On another foreign policy issue, unfair trade treaties, the candidates, except Kucinich, agreed NAFTA, the 11-year-old jobs-losing trade pact between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, should be fixed with insertion of labor rights, not scrapped. President George Bush Sr. pushed it and Democratic President Bill Clinton pushed it through a then-Democratic Congress, over intense union opposition. It lacks enforceable labor rights.
The hopefuls did not say how they would fix it, but they said they would notify the Mexican president and the Canadian prime minister–Obama said "president"–that they want to renegotiate it. Kucinich would scrap NAFTA and the other trade pacts, such as the World Trade Organization. All said any new pacts must have enforceable worker rights. Clinton called for "a trade prosecutor."
She also criticized the Bush regime for lax enforcement in the domestic arena, at one point telling Deborah Hamner, a widow of a dead Sago, W. Va., coal miner, that "Chris Dodd and I were on the committee that passed some very good laws. The problem is we have an administration that doesn\’t want to enforce those laws.
"When I am president, we\’ll have a Department of Labor that actually cares about labor. And when it comes to organizing Resurrection Hospital, I will be the president who signs the Employee Free Choice Act," Clinton declared.
All the hopefuls took a somewhat critical stance against China, not calling it an enemy, but, in Richardson\’s words, "a strategic competitor." Obama and Biden said part of the problem is that the U.S. trade deficit is so large that China is financing part of it, and that weakens our bargaining position. "They hold the mortgage on our house," Biden said.
"We\’ve got to get back to fiscal responsibility in order to undercut the Chinese power over us," Clinton added, reminding the crowd and the TV audience that Bill Clinton\’s administration ended with budget surpluses, not record deficits. "And we have to have tougher standards on what they (China) import into this country. I do not want to eat bad food from China or have my children having toys that are going to get them sick."
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.