VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
Greetings to my ATU Family in Canada and the United States as we continue to face many challenges for our Union, our members, our industry, and our families on both sides of the border. Assaults on our members, bargaining over wages and benefits, and agencies that deny these rights. With that being said allow me the privilege to spend the remainder of my article talking about the most important election of these times for our members and working families not only in the United States, but also in Canada.
Many of you have heard of Project 2025 but let me tell you how it will affect the labor movement in the U.S. First and foremost, it will make it easier for employers to fire workers who engage in collective action or organizing and allow employers to get rid of unions even if workers are protected by a signed union contract.
It will also ignore the federal minimum wage; eliminate overtime protections for workers; allow states to ban labor unions in the private sector and many others.
Make no mistake this is Trump’s blueprint for a second term despite his attempts to deny this. It includes extreme policies to transform the entire federal government, gut health care, and retirement benefits, destroy public education, wreak the economy, attack reproductive rights, civil rights, and immigration, and benefit the wealthy at our expense.
In my personal opinion, a second term by the 45th U.S. President would also be potentially devasting to our 13(c) rights and deliver a death blow to public transit and public sector workers. In most of the southern states, public workers do not have the right to collectively bargain with their employer. Many of our Locals in those states bargaining rights would be lost. In many of these states only because of 13(c), we have the right to bargain.
To our members in Canada, the politics in the U.S. impacts your country and vice versa. This election will impact all our members and their families and will have global implications.
As I have stated many times before all we need is a reason to get excited about the upcoming elections locally, statewide, in Congress, and of course the race for President.
Well, my ATU family I have listed many reasons above why you should do all you can to make your voice heard in the next few months. Don’t get hoodwinked by single issues or the divisive issues of the other parties running for office, but think about your pocketbook and our democracy!
What’s the four-letter word when you want to be heard? VOTE! VOTE!