Blog

Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard

International President

The words Barack Obama uses are deeply meaningful to organized labor. He speaks to union members on a gut level about concepts that define their lives: unity and brotherhood.

Listen to what he says in his closing argument speech:

“Each of us has a responsibility to work hard and look after ourselves and our families, and each of us has a responsibility to our fellow citizens. That’s what’s been lost these last eight years – our sense of common purpose; of higher purpose. And that’s what we need to restore right now.”

That’s the theme of serving as a brother’s keeper that Obama detailed at the Democratic National Convention.

He continues in the “closing” speech:

“Yes, we can argue and debate our positions passionately, but at this defining moment, all of us must summon the strength and grace to bridge our differences and unite in common effort – black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; Democrat and Republican, young and old, rich and poor, gay and straight, disabled or not.”

These are the lyrics of unity that have distinguished Obama throughout his campaign.

They resonate with union members, who unify to achieve greater good for all and who call each other brother and sister because we are willing to sacrifice for one another.

This is what has lured members of my union, the United Steelworkers, to work for a candidate for president harder and longer than they ever have before.

More than 10,000 Steelworkers have volunteered their time to ensure Barack Obama’s election. They’ve knocked on doors, manned phone banks, filled envelopes with letters of persuasion, leafleted at plant gates, worked to protect voters’ rights and helped with the Steel Blitz for Barack bus tour that took Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney and retired players on visits to battleground areas in Pennsylvania and Ohio over the past four weeks.

Steelworkers gathered together to accomplish these tasks, inspired by Barack Obama’s words of harmony:

“In this election, we cannot afford the same political games and tactics that are being used to pit us against one another and make us afraid of one another. The stakes are too high to divide us by class and region and background; by who we are or what we believe.

Because despite what our opponents may claim, there are no real or fake parts of this country. There is no city or town that is more pro-American than anywhere else – we are one nation, all of us proud, all of us patriots.”

By Election Day, Steelworker volunteers will have called and spoken to more than 105,000 union members in a dozen battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina. It’s an incredibly time-consuming and frustrating endeavor because to reach that many human beings, 850,000 phone calls will have been made. Many of those were entreaties to answering machines. But Steelworkers carried on, spurred by Obama’s counsel that everyone must work together to be part of the solution:

“I ask you to believe – not in my ability to bring about change, but in yours.”

On weekends and evenings, Steelworkers across the country went door-to-door, checking in with fellow union members to ensure they supported Obama and would vote on Nov. 4. This labor-intensive and gasoline-consumptive activity has proven incredibly effective in the past. Steelworker door-knocking aided both Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey in winning their seats over the past four years. Steelworkers volunteered to block-walk and drive-the-suburbs in the past two presidential elections as well, but the number who gave time this year was unprecedented. Their willingness to suffer blisters and high gasoline prices was inspired by Obama’s expression of their shared principles as U.S. citizens:

“Understand, if we want to get through this crisis, we need to get beyond the old ideological debates and divides between left and right. We don’t need bigger government or smaller government. We need a better government – a more competent government – a government that upholds the values we hold in common as Americans.”

At the USW headquarters in Pittsburgh, at district offices across the country, and at local union halls, volunteers spent countless lunch hours stuffing, not their stomachs, but envelopes. All together, the USW mailed nearly 4.5 million pieces of persuasive literature. That is a lot of folding and licking. It was worth the time for Steelworkers who understand negotiation and support Obama’s intent to talk to prevent war:

“I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the Twenty-First Century and I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.”

I’ve been part of the campaign as well, phone banking, block walking, and touring and talking with the Steel Blitz for Barack. I know great leadership when I see it. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was once Obama’s primary foe, mentioned what is for a union leader a key factor in leadership. Here’s what Richardson said during Obama’s half hour presentation to the American people Wednesday night about the Democratic candidate: “This guy is special because I think he can bring people together.”

That is what compelled 10,000 Steelworkers to donate their time and energy to Obama. He creates connections. He unifies. He motivates us all by calling on America to be the best she can be:

“In one week, we can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo.

“In one week, we can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history. . .

“. . . together we will change this country and we will change the world.”

Steelworkers joined untold thousands of other Obama enthusiasts across the country to get him elected. If he is, Steelworkers will remain active to support his goals and ours during an Obama administration.

By Holly Hart
USW Legislative Director

Presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, on his 72^nd birthday, announced a selection that revealed the depths of his cynicism and the shallowness of his judgment – and his disregard for women’s intelligence.

After looking into a pool of vice president candidates deep with qualification, he plucked out the least experienced person.

This follows four months in which he and his surrogates continually blathered that Democratic nominee Barack Obama was unqualified. Former New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani just got done giving that GOP talking point to TV commentators during the Democratic Convention, contending repeatedly that Sen. Obama’s credentials made him unfit to be commander-in-chief – an accusation Sen. Obama effectively refuted in his nomination acceptance speech Thursday night.

That speech was so effective, the McCain campaign had to do something – anything – to steal the spotlight away from a defining moment in American history.

The very next day the McCain campaign played their trump card – McCain announced that he’d selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

Although a dedicated public servant, wife and mother, here’s the sum total of Palin’s experience: not quite two years as governor; two terms as mayor of the Alaskan town of Wasilla, population, 8,000; two terms on Wasilla city council; chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission; TV sports reporter; small business owner for three years; mother of five; bachelor of arts degree in journalism from the University of Idaho, and Miss Alaska runner-up.

If McCain, who has suffered melanoma, were elected, Palin would be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Palin’s competition for the VP slot included Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Sen. Joe Lieberman, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Every one of them has at least one advanced degree; Romney has two, both from Harvard. Every one has substantially more years of experience in governing than Palin.

The least experienced might be Pawlenty. But even he has, in addition to that city council experience, a dozen years in the state legislature. And he’s serving his second term as governor, not his second year.

With Palin at his side, McCain now is open for the same ridicule he’s heaped on Obama. And the reason he opened himself up for that mock-fest is clear: He believes women are stupid.

Put a woman on the ticket, he cynically figured, and he’d garner disgruntled supporters of unsuccessful Democratic candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The strategy of selecting Palin shows he believes women, who supported Sen. Clinton, an abortion rights advocate, are so Stepfordesque that they’ll just follow the Republican ticket now that there’s a woman attached to it.

Palin, unlike Sen. Clinton, is anti-choice. She is a member of an anti-abortion group called Feminists for Life. In 2002, when she ran for lieutenant governor in Alaska, she sent an e-mail to the anti-abortion Alaska Right to Life Board saying she has “adamantly supported our cause since I first understood, as a child, the atrocity of abortion.”

She’s a member of the National Rifle Association and backs drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (McCain picked her, though he does not support drilling there.)

But McCain doesn’t think Clinton’s supporters will notice any of that.  He figures they’ll blindly accept any female – whether she has a strong record on the issues that affect working families or not.  There is no doubt that Palin’s a successful woman.  But what we know of her record does not qualify her to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency.  McCain has so little respect for women’s intelligence that he thinks we will make a choice based solely on gender.

When Obama was in the process of vetting vice presidential candidates, he told reporters he couldn’t make a hasty decision. The reason, he said, was the selection of a running mate was “the most important decision that I will make before I am president.”

In choosing Palin, McCain has clearly shown he lacks the judgment to be president. In this most important decision, he made his choice based on cynicism and politics instead of choosing a leader qualified to govern this country should something dreadful befall the president.