Pay It Forward this Labor Day

Then I hope you’ll take another moment and think about what sacrifices you’re willing to make today to improve your great-grandchildren’s lives in 20 or 30 years. It’s easy to take good conditions for granted, especially if someone you never met paid the price. Thanks to them, however, we enjoy Social Security, Medicare and other benefits.  What legacy will we leave?

Many ATU Local 1700 retirees and senior drivers have our own battle scars to show. Brace yourselves for more, brothers and sisters. This Labor Day we are again standing up for the rights we thought we had secured decades ago. Since the campaign to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker came up short, Big Business has acted like it has a green light to smash collective bargaining once and for all for public and private employees.

I’m not surprised that the wealthiest bastards who ever walked the Earth are going for our throats. What I can’t figure out is how public opinion polls are showing that half of working people plan to vote Republican. A Romney-Ryan Administration would strip us of our last remaining rights. It would be the green light Big Business has always wanted.

With your support, we can stop that. We can re-elect President Barack Obama and win key local races for congress, state government and high-stakes ballot propositions. From now until Nov. 6, we need you on the frontline of this political battle. And then we must look beyond the election. We always need to remind elected officials that working people – not bankers and corporations – are the overwhelming majority of society, and that we expect them to represent the majority – not the bankers and corporations.