State Senator Steven Tolman Elected President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO

“Everything that labor stands for is what is right about America,” Tolman told a cheering crowd.  “We are the parents, family members, volunteers, community leaders and hardworking men and women of this great state and country. We’re the ones fighting for jobs. We’re the ones who help build and change our communities.”

 

Tolman laid out an ambitious platform for growth, calling on unions that have split off from the AFL-CIO over the last few years to return, and saying that only a larger, more unified organized labor movement could reverse the trends that are now wreaking havoc on the working and middle class.

 

Tolman also cited a number of alarming statistics about the growing inequities in Massachusetts and across the nation. In Massachusetts 250,000 people remain out of work, while the richest one percent of the country holds as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Median income for the middle class has declined since the 1970’s, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, while the current ratio of corporate profits to employee wages is higher than at any time since before the Great Depression. Middle class purchasing power has also decreased by over 40 percent during the past 40 years.

 

“The gulf between the super wealthy and the American worker has never been wider,” said Tolman.  “This is about hardworking Americans and the destruction of the middle class. It’s about the type of state and country we want to raise our children in.”

 

In addition, Tolman called on members to unite behind President Obama’s jobs bill, fight for a minimum wage that is tied to the Consumer Price Index, target new professions and trades for union outreach, create new alliances in the environmental and energy fields and reverse the economic tide that has suppressed pay, diminished pensions and undone long-held benefits, particularly in healthcare.