For Immediate Release
Tuesday, June 18, 1996
1996 Election Battle Stressed by Senator Edward Kennedy at AFSCME Convention
Chicago, IL —"Let's end the reign of this anti-labor, anti-worker, anti-union Congress," U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy told the more than 4,000 members and guests today at the 32nd International Convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
"Half a century of progress on workers rights is hanging in the balance," declared Kennedy. "What in the world, Mr. Dole, Mr. Lott, Mr. Gingrich, have you got against working families? What have you got against children? What have you got against retirees? The answer is greed. The squeeze on Medicare and Medicaid, the cutbacks in education, all the cuts in lifeline programs are to provide lavish tax breaks for the rich and for corporations," said Kennedy, pointing to the $4 billion in tax cuts over the next six years for businesses and wealthy individuals proposed by the Republican Congressional leadership.
"The Republicans who control the Congress have proven again and again that they're no friends of America's working families. They've spent the last year and a half pushing an agenda that the American people categorically reject. Bob Dole couldn't get that agenda through the Senate, and he won't be able to get it through the country either."
Kennedy, first elected to the Senate in 1962, is the ranking minority member of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. AFSCME is the nation's second largest union, representing 1.3 million workers in state and local government and health care, social service and education employees. Also speaking to AFSCME's convention today was John J. Sweeney, elected last year as national president of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
"AFSCME is the political soul of the AFL-CIO," said Sweeney, "and it's because of you that today we are on the cusp of one of the greatest political comebacks in the history of the American labor movement. We did it because your union stepped up and said 'here's our program for the November elections,' and the rest of us had to step forward and become leaders again."
Sweeney pledged to establish a core group of at least 100 union activists in each of the nation's 435 Congressional Districts, saying: "America's unions are back, and now we're going to take back the House, we're going to take back the Senate, and yes we're going to take back our country!"
