AFT members pose questions to presidential hopefuls at AFL-CIO Forum

More than 17,000 spectators gathered at Soldier Field Stadium in Chicago Aug. 7 to watch seven Democratic presidential hopefuls tackle the issues that are foremost on the minds of America’s working families.

The forum was a historical moment for the labor movement. Sen. Joseph Biden, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Christopher Dodd, former Sen. John Edwards, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Bill Richardson fielded questions during the 96-minute presidential forum hosted by the AFL-CIO, moderated by Keith Olbermann, broadcast live by MSNBC and XM Satellite Radio, and watched by 960,000 people.

Cheers and thunderous applause erupted when AFL-CIO president John Sweeney declared: “This crowd came out because we are ready to change the direction of our country.” Saying that the labor federation plans “to drive that change with our biggest election effort ever,” Sweeney noted that one of the seven participating candidates would likely be the next president of the United States.

“So you can think of this AFL-CIO presidential forum as one giant job interview with workers doing the interviewing.”

Who is qualified for the job?

The questions asked speak directly to the concerns many AFT members have expressed on the You Decide 2008 section of the AFT Web site: Affordable and accessible healthcare, retirement security, workers’ rights, overseas outsourcing, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the war in Iraq were among the topics.

AFT members Shirley Forpe of the Illinois Federation of Teachers and Barbara Janusiak of the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals were among the unionists selected to ask questions. Candidates had 30 seconds to respond.

Forpe, who is an IFT executive vice president and president of the Northwest Suburban Teachers Union, submitted a question online asking what changes the candidates believed must be made to NCLB.

Olbermann directed Forpe’s question to Sen. Clinton. Describing NCLB as “a terrible imposition on teachers and school districts and families and students,” Clinton said part of the law’s problem is that the federal government hasn’t adequately funded it, and the U.S. Department of Education “did not absolutely enforce it and interpret it in the right way.”

“We need growth models for students. We need broader curriculum,” Clinton added. “We need to make sure that when we look at our children, we don’t see a little walking test. We’ve got to have a total change in No Child Left Behind.”

Janusiak, an intensive care nurse at St. Francis Hospital in Milwaukee and treasurer of her local, asked how the candidates would address failures of the American healthcare system.

Olbermann directed Janusiak’s question to Sen. Biden. “In the first year, I’d insure every single, solitary child in America,” Biden said, “and make sure catastrophic insurance exists for every single person in America while we move toward a national healthcare system covering anybody.”

Other questioners included:

■  Deborah Hamner of West Virginia. Her husband was killed in last year’s accident at the Sago mine and she wanted to know what the candidates would do to improve the health and safety of workplaces across the country.

■  Shirley Brown, a housekeeper at Resurrection Hospital in Chicago. She wanted to know how the candidates would support workers’ rights to union representation.

■  Jim McGovern of Gwinn, Mich., came home from the Iraq war to find that his employer—Maytag—had moved operations to Mexico. He wanted to know what the candidates would do to keep manufacturing jobs from leaving the country.

Other questions addressed the nation’s public infrastructure, emergency preparedness, U.S. trade policies and campaign finance.

Healthcare a central issue in 2008

By all accounts, the winner that night was the labor movement—the men and women who make up America’s workforce. And the MVP was Steve Skvara of Union Township, Ind.

Skvara brought the crowd to its feet. His story is a familiar one among workers in manufacturing and the airline industry. He lost benefits rightfully earned because his employer filed bankruptcy.

“After 34 years with LTV Steel, I was forced to retire because of a disability,” Skvara said. “Two years later, LTV filed bankruptcy. I lost a third of my pension, and my family lost their healthcare. Every day of my life, I sit at the kitchen table across from the woman who devoted 36 years of her life to my family, and I can’t afford to pay for her healthcare. What’s wrong with America, and what will you do to change it?”

It’s a question the AFL-CIO wants answered, too, and not just by presidential candidates.

Labor Day 2007 marked the beginning of an AFL-CIO effort to win universal, quality healthcare “by making the 2008 presidential elections a mandate on healthcare reform and electing a president and Congress pledged to that end.”

According to the AFL-CIO, the healthcare campaign joins the federation’s “ongoing efforts to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain collectively through passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and the new AFL-CIO program to win ‘An Economy that Works for All.’ ”

Speculation over an AFL-CIO presidential endorsement was quieted the day after the forum when the federation’s 47-member executive council announced that it was not going to make an endorsement at this time.

In a statement, the council encouraged its 55 member unions to continue “this education and mobilization process—not only to hear from the candidates, but to ensure that the candidates hear from America’s workers.”

The council did, however, leave the door open for an endorsement later on.