The Soul of the Worker (Page 5)

The Iowa AFL-CIO State Convention Wednesday, August 14, 2002

America needs a great new public works program to restore the dream of a full employment economy, to restore the physical health of our nation. When the American economy faltered, President Franklin Roosevelt created the WPA. Labor, inspired to rally the disaffected, the dispirited, the disfranchised, can provide new hope for our country through bringing forth new leadership responsive in word and deed to the task of rebuilding our nation.

A rebuilt infrastructure will help restore American commerce. America cannot come through the crisis of confidence in corporate America simply through improving accounting practices and imprisoning wayward executives. Our country must restore the American economy by restoring competition, by breaking up monopolies, by genuine antitrust enforcement, re-regulation, by the federal chartering of corporations and by the repeal of Taft-Hartley, which deprives the American workplace of a strong, co-equal relationship with labor. "The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit," said FDR.

Antitrust enforcement is needed in all areas of the economy, especially in agriculture, where unfair practices from seed to retail are driving our family farmers out of business. We must free the family farmer from the market dominance of agribusiness and its predatory policies, which set prices so farmers can't survive. Americans are learning hard lessons about the dangers of monopolies in energy. When Americans learn the difference between the price the producer gets and what the consumer pays for food, when Americans realize the risk of becoming dependent on imports or corporate mega-farms for our national food supply, we will be on the path of reform, which will protect independent farmers.

The largest roadblock toward the American Restoration is a corrupt campaign finance system that promotes plutocracy, allowing laws and regulations to be steathily auctioned to the highest bidder. Less than 1 percent of the US population contributes 80 percent of the money in federal elections. The top 1 percent in income also received more than half the tax cuts. Tax policy has become an engine for transferring wealth upward. Enron was poised to dominate energy markets worldwide because it controlled the White House, and it gave to seventy-one senators and 186 House members.

Private control of campaign financing leads to private control of the government itself, and schemes like the privatization of Social Security, which would put nearly $7 trillion in retirement funds of Main Street workers at the disposal of Wall Street speculators over the next twenty five years. Public control of the political process requires public financing. The restoration of our American Democracy depends upon public financing. The Supreme Court, equating money with free speech, will not restrict the power of corporate interests to own government. The establishment of our democracy began with the Constitution. Let us renew the Constitution by amending it, requiring public financing to redeem from the perishable fires of corporate control an imperishable government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Today, as we meet in Iowa, riveted upon uplifting the conditions of workers, on a day when IBM will cut another 15,000 jobs and Ames Department Stores will close, throwing 22,000 out of work, and American Airlines announces they will cut 7,000 jobs, some of our nation's leaders are distracted by a desire to control oil markets and a lust for war. In his farewell address in 1961, President Eisenhower gave this warning: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence ...by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." You know and I know that it will be the children of the poor and of working men and women who will become cannon fodder unless we demand that our leaders give up the arms buildup, end the war talk, stop the saber-rattling and work with our allies to take up the burden of global security.

We need a new vision of America, as a nation among nations, as a strong presence but not as king of a unipolar world dictating policy on behalf of global corporate interests. We need a vision that connects workers and all people in the highest causes of the human spirit: peace and justice. This will be the crowning achievement of an American Restoration, the liberation of people all over the world.

As we face the challenges ahead, let us recall the plea of the Prophet Isaiah. "To unlock the shackles of injustice? To break every cruel chain? Then shall your light shine in the darkness. Your people shall lay the foundations for ages to come. You shall be called repairer of the breach. Restorer of the streets to dwell in."

You, the men and women of labor: It is your light that will shine in the darkness. It is you who will lay the foundation for ages to come. It is you who will repair the breach. It is you who will lead the American Restoration.

Thank you.

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