Vote your job first, Building Trades members urged

In this fall?s elections, union members need to make one thing their priority ? their jobs.

That?s the message Building Trades delegates heard repeatedly last week at their annual state convention.

Right-wing politicians ?want you to believe it?s more important to have a gun in your hand that a paycheck in your pocket,? said state Rep. Mike Nelson, a union Carpenter. ?They want to divide us against each other, pick us off into little groups.?

?Too many union members are more concerned with their guns than with their jobs,? said Rep. Loren Solberg. ?We need to change that philosophy.?

Too often, said state Sen. David Tomassoni, union opponents try to attract union members? votes by getting them to instead focus on one of what he called the 5 G?s: guns, god, gays, government or gambling.

State Representatives Tony Sertich and Tom Rukavina were among the elected officials urging union members to vote their pocketbooks.
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Defining the core issues
When sizing up the issues and candidates ? whether for the White House, the U.S. House or the Minnesota House ? union members instead need to ask: ?Does it affect my job? My family? My health care? My pension?? Tomassoni said. ?It?s about your job. That?s what people need to start thinking about.?

?What?s important is a good job, affordable health care, a good education for our kids,? Nelson said.

?Some of our high-end members are a little selfish, maybe,? said Don Gerdesmeier, director of Minnesota Teamsters DRIVE. ?We have to get back to our issues: wages, health care and pension.?

Think about what values a candidate really holds, Solberg urged. ?Jobs that support families ? that?s what I consider family values,? he said.

Lack of bonding bill kills 10,000 jobs
But the failure of Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Legislature to pass a bonding bill is evidence that jobs are not a Republican priority, a parade of union and Iron Range legislators told Building Trades delegates.

The bonding bill proposed in the DFL-controlled Senate would have supplied jobs for 10,000 Building Trades members, Tomassoni said. Every DFL member voted for it, but the bill failed to meet the constitutionally required two-thirds majority vote because not even half-a-dozen Republicans would support it, he said.

Even the smaller bonding bill proposed in the House would have created 7,000 construction jobs, said state Rep. Mary Murphy.

Despite the jobs they would have created, despite the fact the state could borrow at interest rates that are near record lows, Pawlenty has refused to push the bonding bills and refused to call a special session because he has other priorities, state Rep. Tony Sertich said.

Pawlenty even referred to the bonding bill as ?dessert,? Sertich said. ?I call it the main course. I believe you turn the economy around the old-fashioned way ? by letting working men and women work.?

Workers? issues die
Further, Pawlenty and Republican leadership in the House blocked other legislation designed to help working families, said state Sen. Tom Bakk. This included exempting workers in Minnesota from the Bush administration?s attack on overtime pay, preventing the outsourcing of state jobs, and increasing the minimum wage.

?We passed these bills in the Senate but couldn?t even get a hearing in the House,? Bakk said.

Even worse, said state Rep. Tom Rukavina, Republicans are pursuing an agenda that would undo key protections for union workers ? including prevailing wages, project labor agreements, basic state labor laws, ?everything you have worked for years.?

?Bush and Pawlenty are not taking us into the 21st century,? he said, ?they?re taking us into the 19th century.?

?There really is a difference between Democrats and Republicans,? said attorney Harry Sieben, a former speaker of the Minnesota House. ?There really is a difference between George Bush and John Kerry.?

Sieben then rattled off a list of issues on which he said Bush would make things worse for workers ? project labor agreements, minimum wage, overtime pay, extended unemployment compensation, ergonomics standards for workplace safety, prevailing wages, whistle-blower protection and the outsourcing of jobs.?

Kerry, on the other hand, would preserve or improve things for workers in every one of those areas, Sieben said.

?Everything I am, everything you are, is on the line,? said state Sen. Steve Murphy, an IBEW member. ?The future of our kids, or our grandkids, is on the line, depending who gets elected to the White House.?

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