Judith Freeman, a senior research analyst in the AFL-CIO Politics and Field Department shares her thoughts on the importance this November’s election for working families.  

The Republicans are distracted by their scandals and corruption and they are distracting us from the work that needs to be done in this country—they are sending money overseas and ignorant of the problems the majority of Americans are facing. Since 1970, the productivity of our workers in this county has skyrocketed, and the richest has made themselves millionaires thousands of times over because of it.
 
But has the working class been rewarded for their massive contribution to this enormous economic expansion? No, workers’ wages haven’t even kept up with rising prices. While the average CEO pay has gone up more than 700 percent, more people than ever before are living in poverty in America.
 
You shouldn’t have to be a business mogul, be born into a wealthy family, or have powerful friends to be able to see a doctor when you are sick or have a job to support your family. But decent people are living every day in this great country without access to health care or a decent wage, they are in debt and depressed. Telling us there are terrorists who want to kill us if we try and focus on fixing America’s problems is a dirty trick and unconscionable. America is full of the most innovative, creative, driven people whose collective accomplishments are awesome. So what are we spending our visions and passion on? Are we working on bringing up the living standard of all of society and giving everyone a chance to lead productive, secure lives? No, the powerful in this country are wasting our collective resources on making it possible for the tiny fraction of the richest people to get even richer and to allow Big Business to exploit the labor of workers.
 
The working class, these men and women are our educators, the service providers, they do the dangerous, thankless jobs, they work in hospitals and in industries that most of us don’t think much about, but on whom we depend on every day. It is not part of the deal for a few people to be super-rich and powerful while the majority languish, worried about the future of their jobs and their families, while the Republicans threaten them with terror if they want to focus on health care and unemployment. We have the power to take this country in a better direction, to demand change from our government and leaders. We must make it clear that we demand more for America.
 
The 2006 election is about electing candidates and demanding these men and women will fight every day of their elected office for working families. It is about the ordinary, decent Americans electing representatives to fight for our freedom to form unions and to have real security through jobs, education and health care. 
 
We are less than a month away from the election, when America’s voters will decide if we want to stay with the same anti-working family, pro-war majority in power in Congress, or if we will put the people in Washington who will take their power and use it to make a real commitment to improve wages, education, safety and health care for everyone.
 
Choose to fight for working families.
 
On November 7, demand more for America.