One On One With Sen. Paul Wellstone
By Jimmie Turner
Paul Wellstone is the people's politician. Senator Wellstone (D-Minn.) — a son of Russian immigrants — became a local icon years ago after he led sympathizing protesters during the Hormel meatpackers' strike and was arrested for picketing a bank that foreclosed on farmers. When he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1990,Mother Jones magazine called him "the first 1960s radical elected" to that body. His victory was hailed as one of the greatest upsets of the decade.
In Congress, Wellstone has repeatedly voted in favor of issues that benefit the labor movement. When the country was feverishly working toward opening trade relations with China — a move unions opposed — Wellstone stood up for them: "We need more strong, authentic populist candidates to fight back against big money and their friends in Congress, and focus on the kitchen-table issues central to the lives of working families."
What's the most important thing union members can do to help turn this country around?
Continue working alongside your sisters and brothers to organize and fight for economic and social justice for all. Our nation's strongest defense, I believe, is found in the values that underpin the labor movement — the willingness to struggle alongside one another for the common good.
What do you see as the major impediments to organizing public employees? Workers in federal agencies long ago took the bold step to organize and form unions, yet newly unionized workers still face intimidation when working toward establishing their first contracts.
The opposition to public employees organizing and bargaining collectively is shameful. The men and women who work every day to serve the public interest deserve our respect and gratitude, not roadblocks to their exercise of basic human rights to organize and bargain collectively. We need stronger laws to ensure these rights. That's why it is so important to pass S. 952, the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, and also why it is so important to ensure civil service and collective bargaining rights in the Homeland Security bill.
Workers are facing never-ending workplace harassment to discourage them from forming unions. What can be done to enforce or strengthen national labor laws that are already on the books and designed to protect workers?
We need a comprehensive reform of our labor laws, and I have introduced S. 1102, which would amend the National Labor Relations Act to give labor organizations equal time to provide information about union representation. It would also require the National Labor Relations Board to award back pay equal to three times the employee's wages when the NLRB finds that an employee is discharged as a result of an unfair labor practice, and permit employees to file civil actions to recover punitive damages in such cases. And it would mandate expedited elections in cases where a super majority of workers have signed recognition cards designating a union as the employees' labor organization. This bill would deal with employer delays during first-contract negotiations, requiring mediation and then arbitration if the parties cannot reach agreement on their own.
Can labor make the difference in the 2002 elections?
Absolutely. If this latest round of corporate excess shows us anything, it is that government should be there to make a difference in people's lives. Labor can play a huge role in sending the message that our elected officials should be there to work for everyone, not just the wealthy and privileged few.
What can be done to reel in the high costs of prescription drugs that a good number of elderly citizens have a hard time paying?
We must do two things: First, make those prescription drugs more affordable for all Americans. Second, a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. Helping people pay their prescription drug bills through Medicare while doing nothing to control drug costs would just end up passing our tax dollars along to the drug companies.
That's why we should use the purchasing power of the more than 40 million Medicare beneficiaries to bargain with the pharmaceutical industry for lower drug prices. In one way or another, that's how other countries do it. And that's why they pay a lot less for prescription drugs than we do. Forty million Americans on Medicare — acting together — can negotiate a much better deal with the drug companies than they can individually.
In less than two years, the country has gone from a huge budget surplus to an accelerating budget deficit. How much is the tax cut hurting the economy, and what can be done to lessen its damage in the near future?
The tax cut is having a tremendous negative influence, and it's hurting people. We're facing horrific budgetary choices because the surplus is gone, which leaves too little money for education, health care, adequate government oversight and regulation. In addition, by running these deficits we're sending the absolutely wrong message to the financial markets. We worked hard to get our fiscal house in order — now all of that has been eroded.
What are your overall concerns about the state of the economy today?
I'm proud of American workers. I believe in this country's free market system. And I do think the economy will rebound. But I don't think this can happen until we have adequate systems in place to ensure that the market is able to perform as it should. That's why I'm so pleased that the Senate's corporate accountability and investor-protection bill has passed both Houses of Congress and is on its way to the President for his signature.
