SWEENEY, BURGER SAY BUSH OFF
COURSE ON STATE OF THE UNION

The chiefs of the nation’s two labor federations, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney and Change to Win Chair Anna Burger, say GOP President George W. Bush was far off course in his Jan. 28 State of the Union address. Burger said the best thing about Bush’s address was that it was his last.

Both said the stimulus package Bush is pushing through Congress isn’t enough to help workers. They want lawmakers to extend the weeks of jobless benefits and raise the amounts. Burger said the package should increase eligibility for food stamps and heating fuel. Sweeney added Bush’s push to pass a so-called “free trade” pact with Colombia doesn’t aid workers and shows him “blind to gross human rights abuses.”

And Sweeney said workers would campaign to change the nation’s direction in November’s election.

“Seven years of Bush left the state of our union weaker, poorer and less pre-pared for the future. Our nation is facing one of most serious economic downturns in decades. Working families are struggling to make ends meet due to rising food and gas prices, home heating bills and health care costs. Real wages are declining, unemployment is rising and retirement benefits are disappearing. Bush sacrificed the needs of working men and women for the interests of the powerful and privileged. Change begins now,” Burger said.

“Congress must also provide a long-term vision for restoring the American dream by developing comprehensive health care reform that combats skyrocketing health care costs and provides access to quality, affordable health care for all men, women and children,” she added.

“Our economic growth program must include protection for the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Restoring worker bargaining power can turn the sub-standard jobs of today into the middle-class jobs of tomorrow,” Burger said, urging passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Sweeney also urged its passage, for economic reasons: To help workers gain bargaining power and raise living standards.

“Bush's rose-colored glasses need a new prescription. He is blind to Americans' day-to-day economic realities and the truth about our nation's standing in the world,” Sweeney declared.

“Under Bush, our nation's economy has not been working for working people for years. As our nation worries about a recession, for the first time ever, working people still haven't recovered from the last one,” he added. “Working families deserve better– they deserve an economy that works for all. But instead, whether it was health care or education or fair trade, working families got hypocrisy and tired pseudo-solutions.”

Sweeney also brought Iraq, where Bush touted recent success, into the criticism. He said the billions Bush has funneled to his war could have been better spent on domestic needs--and that the Iraq war only made the terrorist threat worse. In 2005, for the first time ever, the AFL-CIO broke with an administration on a war, demanding “rapid withdrawal” from Iraq.

“It's past time for Bush to acknowledge the reality of the huge trade-off we are making by sending troops indefinitely to Iraq, while neglecting real terror threats elsewhere as well as the urgent needs in America. As our sons and daughters continue to make the ultimate sacrifice, the $2 trillion spent could have funded a return to the best public education in the world, the massive reduction of poverty, or retirement security for generations,” Sweeney stated.

And Bush’s demand that lawmakers pass the Colombia FTA and its enabling legislation “only reinforces how out of touch he is with economic reality and working families. He is blind to the gross human rights abuses against workers in Colombia and the continuing violence and threats that union activists face” there, Sweeney said.

AFL-CIO-compiled statistics show thousands of unionists have been murdered by right-wing paramilitary forces--often abetted by the Colombian army and paid “protection” by multinational corporations--in that nation’s long-running civil war.

“Passing the FTA will not make life safer for Colombian working people, but it will reward a government that has done too little to protect them and bring their killers to justice. Bush's flawed trade policies have contributed to the loss of millions of good jobs in the United States, a colossal trade deficit, and growing international debt...As the middle class continues to lose ground, the president greased the slide,” Sweeney said.