New Jersey Senator Rallies UFCW Political Activists to Fight Wal-Mart Assault on Workers
May 11, 2005
Today, Senator Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey addressed UFCW Legislative and Political Action meeting attendees in Washington, DC. Corzine pledged to lead a fight to get Wal-Mart to represent the values of America by offering their workers fair wages, collective bargaining, and a health care plan that doesn't draw off of state Medicaid and Medicare funds. Here is an excerpt of his remarks:
Wal Mart is the nation's single largest employer, and the single largest welfare beneficiary in this country, living off the backs of our Medicaid and Medicare systems. It is incredible how self serving Wal-Mart can be. And weather it's our trade deficit, or, more importantly, how it treats our workers, is just flat out wrong. Building big box stores that throw everyone out of work has got to stop. We're going to stop Wal-Mart from pushing forward in a way that undermines everything that is American.If Wal-Mart comes in they end up dominating the market in distribution of food, and the grocery outlets, and you end up having an undermining of UFCW's position. It's very simple. It's self-interest in protecting one's family so that they have health insurance and fair wages. It's absolutely essential to be involved in legislative and political action.
If you believe in collective bargaining, the right to organize, the right to sit across the table and defend the economic interests of the membership, you have to be involved in politics so you get the support in the political arena to make sure that you have those rights, and that they're growing and not being carved back.
If you believe that we need to have economic power units like Wal-Mart held in check, held to equal standards with the rest of America's economic interest, then you need to have political power to be able to say that they have to conform to safety regulations, they have to enforce the law on immigration rights, that they have to bargain, and they have to pay for the heath care that they are leveraging off of the public's funds. So I think there are lots of reasons why working men and women have to understand that their vote counts - that the makeup of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, and who is President, makes a difference.
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