In eight days, men and women who get up and go to work everyday will head to the polls with one thing on their mind: how will they ensure their children will have a better future? Over the last eight years, the gap between the rich and the rest of us has reached extremes we have not seen in generations. While a few at the top have profited immeasurably, too many of us have lost our savings. We've lost our retirement, our healthcare, our jobs and our homes. Some of us have even lost our children at war.
Make no mistake about it: the stakes of this election are nothing short of our belief in what kind of nation we will be.
But here's the good news: All indicators suggest that November 4th will be a day of victory for Barack Obama and dozens of new members of Congress who have promised to represent the concerns of working families. And it will also be a time of triumph for the common good sensibility that has defined our country at all of the brightest moments of its history.
And on November 5th, those of us who have worked so hard on this election for so many months will face a choice: do we start planning how we will stake our individual claims on the new president and Congress, or do we turn our attention to the greater--albeit riskier--opportunity at hand to work together for the good of all? Will we pursue gains for just us, or justice for all?
Too often, we in the American labor movement have not been on the right side of this question. We have been guilty of focusing our work for justice too narrowly--seeking gains in wages, healthcare, workplace safety and retirement security just for our members.
This time around, we are called by a great candidate to something greater. From the beginning, Senator Obama has run a campaign that is not fundamentally about him, but about us. He called us to acknowledge that we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers--an awesome challenge that, despite the unprecedented nature of his candidacy and the magnitude of our personal losses, we as a nation have embraced wholeheartedly.
This embrace has profound implications for us on November 5th and beyond. Justice for all must be our challenge, our mission and our choice.
It means that in an atmosphere of record job loss, we must work together to create not just new jobs, but good jobs that can support a family and grow an economy. We need to invest in our infrastructure and develop green jobs that help our planet as well as our workforce. And we must ensure that workers have a voice on the job and in decisions which not only affect their work place, but also their role in our 21st century economy.
When we think about what to do with our broken healthcare system, we must not merely patch up the hole that we fell through, but instead build a new system without holes, where quality, affordable care is available to all, without qualification or precondition. This will require us to reach across the aisle and across traditional divides to help create the climate where change is possible, because one thing we can agree on is the longer we wait, the worse it gets.
As we grapple with the indisputable effects of climate change, we must use our collective ingenuity not just to lower what we pay for gas and heating oil, but to figure out how we can use less of them. And we must insist that this task be engaged by the corporations that contribute the most to climate change--not just the people who suffer the most from its effects.
In the aftermath of the unfunded mandate of No Child Left Behind, we must work for an education system where a child's opportunity to learn is not dependent on his parents' ability to pay and the quality of his education not determined by their zip code.
The true opportunity of this election begins--not ends--with the election of Barack Obama and a Congress committed to solutions for America's working families. Going forward, we must forge a bond of mutual accountability with our elected leaders and with each other.
The losses of the past eight years have meant that the American Dream has fallen out of reach for so many of us. But the good news is that Dream is not just in the past, it's in our future, too. Beginning Nov. 5th, we face an historic occasion to reconstruct an America where the dream of justice and opportunity can still come true for all of our children. It will take our courage, our creativity, our good will and yes, our sacrifice. This nation of ours deserves nothing less.