'I’m a Labor Senator'
Paul Wellstone
1944-2002
Paul Wellstone said he wanted to be a U.S. senator for the “little fellers, not the Rockefellers.”
By that measure, he was a huge success.
After the tragic deaths of Wellstone, his wife Sheila and daughter Marcia in a plane crash Oct. 25, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger called the Minnesota legislator a “true friend to our union and to all of America’s working families.”
The former champion college wrestler never avoided a fight when principle was involved. Going against the rightward trend of American politics in 1990 as a senate candidate, Wellstone declared his opposition to corporate privilege. He bravely called for a single payer national health care system when others ran from the issue.
Shortly before his death, Wellstone was the only senator in a tight re-election race to oppose handing President Bush a blank check to wage war against Iraq. When his plane crashed, he was leading in the polls.
Wellstone addressed UAW members via satellite in June at the Union’s 33rd Constitutional Convention. He called for labor to take the lead in building a new mass movement for social and economic justice.
“We want a global economy that works for working people, that works for human rights, that works for the environment, that works for family farmers,” he said to the cheers of UAW delegates.
Wellstone pledged to UAW members that in the next Congress he would introduce a right-to-organize bill that would heavily penalize companies for firing workers trying to organize a union, give equal time to unions in place of company-only captive audience meetings and prevent employers from stalling union recognition elections and collective bargaining.
Paul Wellstone will be sorely missed by workers everywhere.
