From the President

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger
We are a collection of people who work in fields as varied as the economy is diverse.

UAW members and our families celebrated Labor Day 2009 in solidarity as a union that includes workers and retirees from every sector of America's diverse economy.

We are EMS workers in Flint, auto assemblers in Dearborn, Mich., and casino dealers in Atlantic City. We are warehouse workers in Fishers, Ind., ferry-boat captains in Massachusetts and skilled-trades workers in St. Louis.

Our ranks include adjunct professors at New York University and teachers at the University of California. We are attorneys who work for federally funded legal services programs across the country. We are day care workers in Boston and child-care providers in Michigan. We are firefighters in Grand Rapids and auto parts workers in Canada.

And we are one union.

We brew beer in Ohio. We manufacture firearms in Hartford, Conn. We make coffee in New Orleans. We assemble school buses in St. Louis.

We are the voices you hear on Detroit's public radio station and the writers you read in New York's Village Voice. We are chemists and engineers and librarians.

We are one union.

The "A" in UAW has stood for Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural-Implement since 1937 when workers at J.I. Case in Janesville, Wis., and North American Aviation in Inglewood, Calif., joined the UAW.

The first group of UAW office workers – at Chrysler UAW Local 889 – joined our ranks in 1941.

We segment ourselves into groups that make strategic sense for bargaining contracts, organizing members and furthering our political goals, but we are still one union.

Like all unions in this country, we have been set back by pro-business, anti-worker ideology that has pervaded the boardrooms of corporations and the halls of Congress for more than two decades. It's the same mindset that has driven workers' real wages down even while their productivity rises through bad trade deals that pit U.S. workers against those in low-wage countries in a race to the bottom.

It's the ideology that has stymied our efforts to assist those who want to join our union to gain better pay and working conditions. Even when workers prevail against employers' anti-union tactics during an organizing drive, they too often are unable to reach a first contract because management refuses to bargain in good faith.

The Employee Free Choice Act would change that by providing for mediation and arbitration if a first contract can't be reached in 120 days. It would also assess stiff penalties on employers who threaten, intimidate and retaliate against workers during organizing campaigns.

All workers deserve these basic rights and protections. Please help them by contacting your representatives and senators and urging them to pass the Employee Free Choice Act this year.

In similar fashion, the unfettered goals of big business insurance lobbyists have shaped policy decisions that have left us the only advanced nation on the planet that does not provide adequate health care for its citizens.

This is more than a shame. It's a crime.

More than 47 million Americans have no health care coverage, and millions more are underinsured. A recent study by researchers from Harvard Medical School found that more than 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies are caused at least in part by medical expenses. And in 78 percent of those cases, the petitioner had some level of health insurance.

Before leaving for the August recess, members of three key congressional committees in the House passed the America's Affordable Health Choices Act (H.R. 3200). This legislation is the right first step toward universal coverage. It will allow Americans to keep their existing health care coverage and provide coverage options for those currently uninsured or underinsured.

The act also will help reduce costs for individuals, businesses and government, and prevent private insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

Unfortunately, members of Congress left for their month-long break without passing this historic bill.

But we did not take a break from this quest to finally achieve national health care. We continued to contact our representatives and senators at their district offices in August and to push for meaningful progress.

As Congress reconvenes in September, we ask each and every UAW member to join us in this effort by putting pressure on your legislators to pass the America's Affordable Health Choices Act.

And as we celebrate our union's rich diversity, remember we are and always will be one union. With one voice, let's seize this moment in our history to finally restore workers' rights to join a union and every American's right to a healthy life.

Ron Gettelfinger