Message from Bob Haynes, President MA AFL-CIO - November 2006
As we head into the Veterans Day holiday weekend I wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU to each of you for all your hard work in the 2006 elections. Clearly our hard work paid off and paid off in a big way.
Not only did Deval Patrick and Tim Murray recapture the Corner Office and return to it a willingness to listen to and work on behalf of working families.
Not only did our Special Friends and legislative campaign efforts result in the second consecutive election where pro-labor Democrats earned a net gain of 3 seats in the State House, leaving anti-labor Republicans with the fewest number of seats since 1867.
Not only did we elect Martha Coakley as our Attorney General, Tim Cahill as our Treasurer, Bill Galvin as our Secretary of State, and Joe DeNucci as our Auditor.
Not only did we re-elect the greatest champion of working families in government, Senator Ted Kennedy, and his colleagues in the Congressional Delegation.
But our brothers and sisters around the country worked just as hard as we did in their states and delivered the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, giving pro-labor Democrats the majority in both branches of Congress and giving us all a reason to be hopeful about our government again.
That means that we didn't simply re-elect Senator Kennedy and our Congressional Delegation, but that Senator Kennedy becomes the powerful Chair of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is one of the most important government committees for working families. We know Senator Kennedy will do everything in his power to help working families on the issues of health care, education, pensions and retirement security, and good quality jobs that are safe and fairly compensate workers for their labor. We also know that with his stewardship the Employee Free Choice Act, allowing workers to more freely exercise their human right to organize, will be on the front-burner. It also means our Congressmen will all assume important committee and subcommittee chairmanships, making them one of the most powerful delegations in the entire country. It also means that Deval Patrick and Tim Murray and our state legislature have partners on the federal level that will truly allow for our government to work in unison to address the issues that have plagued working families for too long. In short, it means that our work, our solidarity, our commitment to the cause of working families has finally, at least for the next few years, paid off in real, tangible, life-altering ways.
Heading into these elections I gave a speech imploring organized labor to stick together, to remain committed, and to work as hard as ever so that we could finally say in one relieved and hopeful voice:
"The time of apathy and indifference to the concerns of working people is over; the time of Republican governors biding their time until a better national opportunity comes along is finished; and the time for good government by good Democrats is finally back. Their time is done and our time is now!"
It is truly one of the greatest joys of my over thirty years in the Labor Movement that the conclusion of a speech I gave at the beginning of an election season is finally true at the end of the election. And it is true - our time is now - because of all the hard work done by you and our brothers and sisters across the Commonwealth and across the country. Thank you.
Message from Bob Haynes, President MA AFL-CIO - September 2006
Dear Brothers & Sisters,
The election for governor on November 7th is a crucial one for our local and for working people across Massachusetts. I cannot stress enough to you and your entire family the importance of showing up to vote on November 7th. It is not only important that you all vote, but that you vote for the best candidate for people like us. I write to you today to tell you and your family that after doing a great deal of research about all the candidates for governor, Deval Patrick has earned our endorsement and is the best candidate for our union families.
Many of you will agree with me that over the past 16 years our governors have pushed aside working families and made life tougher for us. On issues that matter to our families – health care, wages, a good economy with good jobs, pensions and retirement security, and education – the last four governors have moved Massachusetts backwards and allowed the quality of life for our families to decline. 748,000 Massachusetts residents did not have health coverage in 2004, over 167,000 workers are jobless, our pensions are in danger, and we rank 47th in the nation in spending on public higher education. By electing Deval Patrick we have a chance to end this tiresome trend of governors who ignore working people and attack unions like ours before leaving us behind.
As governor, Deval Patrick will stand with us on the issues that really matter to our families.
Deval Patrick will reduce costs, expand access, and improve the quality of health care by broadening eligibility to the CommonHealth insurance program, making premiums for working families affordable again and cutting prescription drug costs by negotiating bulk purchases. Meanwhile, Kerry Healey’s health care plan drastically shifts the burden for health care from employers onto the backs of workers like us who are already struggling to make ends meet.
Deval Patrick will bring high-quality jobs to Massachusetts and invest in workplace development and training. Under Kerry Healey’s leadership, Massachusetts’ unemployment level has drastically increased and employers and people are leaving the state in droves.
Deval Patrick opposes moves to shift public workers from defined pension systems to riskier private investment plans. Kerry Healey proposed eliminating defined benefit pensions and replacing them with private savings accounts and cutting over 100 pension systems – putting workers’ retirement security in the hands of an unsteady and unsympathetic marketplace.
Deval Patrick will restructure school funding so school systems can plan ahead, reduce class sizes and boost funding for state colleges and universities. It was on Kerry Healey’s watch that Massachusetts became the third worst state in the nation in spending on public higher education.
To learn more about Deval Patrick visit his website at www.devalpatrick.com. In the end, how you vote is a personal decision, but you and your family deserve a leader who will fight for affordable health care, job creation, retirement security and quality education. If you elect Deval Patrick on November 7, 2006, you will get the leader you and your family deserve.
In Solidarity,
Robert J. Haynes
President Massachusetts AFL-CIO
__________________________________________________ Central Massachusetts AFL-CIO