"Union Families Hold the Election Results in Their Hands"

At Stake in the Next Congress: Strengthening Patients’ Rights, Social Security, and Education

Union workers will be crucial to holding the line against inroads by radical anti-worker candidates in Congress and in state governments in next month’s elections, according to leading political pollsters.
A low voter turnout is expected this year, as generally is the case in non-presidential election years. And this time, because of the current mudslinging in Washington, the danger is that voter apathy among people "turned off by politics and politicians" may be greater than usual.

"Union members generally turn out in a higher proportion than the general public because they are better informed and more active, and this year that will be especially important to offset the organized election efforts of the Christian Coalition and other right-wing groups," said pollster James Laurer, who is working with several pro-labor candidates as well as the AFL-CIO political department.

Said another prominent pollster, Celinda Lake: "The radical right is extremely energized this year . . . Union families literally hold the election results in their hands when it comes to dozens of very close races."

Several issues of critical importance to working families will be dealt with, one way or the other, by the men and women we elect next month to the Congress:

Health Care Reform

An intense battle is shaping up between proponents of stronger patients rights standards for HMOs and other managed care plans on the one side and the insurance industry on the other.

The pro-worker "Patients’ Bill of Rights" (H.R. 3605 in the House and S. 1890 in the Senate) would reform the nation’s managed care plans by requiring insurers to cover emergency room care, give patients access to specialists they need and to appeal denials of coverage, and to sue the plans when denial of care injures or kills a patient.

After this bill was narrowly defeated by five votes in the House this summer, Speaker Newt Gingrich offered a substitute favored by the insurance industry that provides none of these protections, and doesn’t even protect patient confidentiality.

With time running out on Senate action this year, health care reform will be a major issue for the new Congress in 1999.

Bolstering Social Security

Some members of Congress agree with CWA and other unions and concerned groups that preserving Social Security should be a top priority, and are opposing efforts by Speaker Gingrich and his supporters to use the budget surplus for tax cuts without first insuring the long-term solvency of Social Security.

Two-thirds of older Americans rely on Social Security for at least half their income and can’t afford the risky experiments and "privatization" schemes favored by the Gingrich forces. Less than half of the elderly have any other pension income, and as employer-based pension programs continue to decline, fewer working families have access to this additional retirement security.

The question of how best to preserve the vital Social Security program will be one of the major topics confronting the next Congress.

Strengthening Education

Overcrowding of schools threatens the quality of our children’s education — and dangerous structural and environmental deficiencies threaten even their physical safety.

Today, about 60 percent of public schools have buildings in disrepair which will cost communities some $122 billion to fix, according to the Government Accounting Office. Some 14 million students each day attend schools with dangerous structural problems, environment problems and serious overcrowding. To address the latter, the Clinton administration has proposed federal initiatives to help local school districts add 100,000 teachers by 2005 and to improve teacher training.

Congress so far this year has failed to address these needs, and here again Speaker Gingrich and his followers are proposing billions of dollars of tax breaks — earmarked largely to the well-to-do — out of the budget surplus, rather than investing in education.

Meanwhile, the problems in our schools grow worse and will be handed over to the new Congress we elect this November.

State and Local Issues

The state and local elections, too, are vitally important to working families.

In California, for example, a state commission appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, recently threw out the 8-hour standard for overtime pay, deciding that workers not covered by a union contract would receive time and one half pay only after 40 hours — not after eight in one day.

The same governor has been able to effectively bottle up VDT safety provisions CWA was instrumental in getting passed by the California legislature.

And for public workers, such as the 40,000 CWA-represented state workers in New Jersey — currently in a major battle with Gov. Christine Whitman over privatization — political action means everything when it comes to defending their jobs and winning decent contract conditions (See Battle Against Gov. Whitman's Cronyism Continues).



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Additional resources, available on the Internet and through public libraries:

Web Sites

www.aflcio.org
the AFL-CIO’s web page
www.rollcall.com
the web page of the daily newspaper covering Congress
www.polisci.com
the web page of the Almanac of Politics and Government

Publications

The Almanac of American Politics
National Journal
Congressional Quarterly

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GET THE FACTS
It’s easy to learn about the voting records of your senators and representatives. Just go to CWA’s Legislative-Political web site at www.cwa-legis-pol.org (it’s also linked from the main CWA site: ga.cwa-union.org). This leads you to the voting record section; there you can check out how your congressional members voted on issues important to working families.

To check on candidates without a congressional voting record, contact their local campaign offices and ask how they stand on issues like the Patients’ Bill of Rights, preserving overtime pay after 40 hours, and funding for Social Security and education programs instead of spending the budget surplus on tax cuts.

For additional information on issues and the record of candidates, contact CWA’s government relations office: 202-434-1315.