McCain has a long history of working against workers. He has worked with large corporations and the right wing to weaken and destroy organized labor by supporting right to work (for less) laws, he has attempted to limit overtime for workers by radically overhauling the Fair Labor Standards Act and he has blocked a Senate vote on the Employee Free Choice Act which would restore workers' freedom to form unions and bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions without employer harassment.
McCain has waged a 25-year attack to destroy prevailing wages by attempting to completely waive or repeal the Davis-Bacon Act which requires that workers on federally-funded construction projects be paid no less than the wages and benefits paid in the community for similar work. He has also blocked votes on "Strikers' Rights" legislation which allows SCABs to undermine striking workers by permanently replacing them while the workers are on the picket line fighting for wages, benefits and working conditions.
McCain failed to vote on legislation extending unemployment benefits to hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers whose lives are being brutalized in this economic crisis created by the Bush administration. McCain, who claims to be an independent thinker, has actually supported the Bush policies and positions 89% of the time including making Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy permanent and attempting to privatize social security.
McCain has made no effort to stop the outsourcing of jobs as corporations abandon the sinking US economic ship in their unending quest for profits in other countries where they exploit the people and steal their resources. The fact that US workers are being downsized to the point of non-existence is scarcely relevant to the wealthy ruling class as represented by McCain.
Working class families struggle to make ends meet as fuel, health care, food, housing and education costs soar out of control. Yet McCain seems indifferent to the economic crisis and its devastating effects on the lives of millions of people.
McCain is a strong advocate for continuation of the Bush agenda of perpetual war for perpetual profits. Under McCain the working class would continue to pay for military misadventures of The Empire with the lives of their sons and daughters. Their tax monies would continue to be sucked up by the military/mercenary/corporate war mongers while elimination of social services, environmental destruction and infrastructure deterioration would continue. McCain would continue to placate the underclass by appealing to their patriotism while the wealthy corporate elites laugh all the way to the bank. A working class vote for McCain is the equivalent of a slave asking to be caned.
Life for the working class and the unemployed would not improve in a McCain administration. The policy of domination at home and abroad through force and economic strangulation would essentially replicate that of the Bush administration.
Sue Bastian, Bend
