Businesses have "nothing to fear from unions," Sen. John Kerry told a crowd of labor activists at a town meeting held in Philadelphia on Aug. 25. Then the Democratic presidential candidate outlined his position on the rights of workers to organize.

Kerry was speaking at the Steamfitters Local 420 office to about 300 unionists, including AFT members from Pennsylvania and New York. In response to a question from a University of Pennsylvania graduate employee, who has been part of an AFT effort to organize at the private university these past five years, Kerry laid out a three-point program.

First, he said, he would appoint a Secretary of Labor "who represents working people's needs." Second, he would appoint people to the NLRB who are "fair and balanced" and who make decisions about labor law based on careful study of the issues. Third, he would fight for workers' right to organize without being harassed.

Kerry noted that he had recently met with workers in New York where he had heard stories of harassment and firings that reminded him of The Grapes of Wrath. When 51 percent of workers sign cards indicating that they want to join a union, he reasoned, they should be recognized and be able to bargain.

The question that spurred Kerry's statement came from Sayumi Takahashi, co-chair of the Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania/AFT. GET-UP has been trying to gain recognition from the university after holding an NLRB-supervised election last year. Takahashi noted the terrible setback delivered last month by the Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board in its decision that Brown University graduate employees did not have the right to organize. "Not only that," she added, the board "had the audacity to claim that we are not workers."

After laying out his plan, Kerry added that he "believes in creating wealth" and supports entrepreneurship. In fairness, unions want what all Americans do, he said, "the chance to do a little better." [Barbara McKenna]