Let me continue to introduce myself...
Let me continue my introduction. Native to California, I am also the son of a Naval officer and so I have traveled and lived many places. Two of particular note were the Philippine Islands with its still present WWII damage, a vivid memory, and the other was South Louisiana, in New Iberia, in the pre de-segregated days prior to the Civil Rights movement. The cruelty of one group of people inflicted upon another, whether it be war or racism, is a memory that has stayed with me ever since. These all helped shape who I am. These all are the foundation of my passion for the Democratic party.
My Democratic beliefs, though, really solidified early in my work career. Like my father, I too joined the Navy as an officer and pilot. But I left active duty to work in the airline business. The airline business is difficult and I was soon laid off during the recession of 1981; three years later after returning to the airline, I found myself locked arm and arm with my union brothers and sisters on strike against my company in 1985 defending our contract. To have your pay, benefits, and working conditions under direct attack, threatening the security of your family, made me believe in always defending the working family.
In 1996 I began defending the working family and labor in earnest by getting politically involved. An incumbent Republican named Bill Baker in my district had espoused many deeply anti-labor positions and it reached a point that I could no longer personally tolerate. And so I went to work as a precinct captain for the get-out-the-vote process for the Democratic challenger in 1996 in my district at the time.
I just happened to be on vacation that October but rather than head off to some exotic paradise for a month, I instead walked street after street, knocked on door after door, and spoke to whomever I could to fight to un-seat the Republican incumbent. It was the most rewarding vacation of my life because we won and in almost every election after that, whether I volunteered or contributed, again offering time and money, uppermost in my mind and deep in my heart I was working for a fairer playing field for working families and for the institution of unions.
There are many, many important issues to deal with today. Among the most important is the economic security of our families. Not a free ride mind you, but a playing field where the rules and expectations are held to a high standard for decent, ethical, and fair behavior and where people can get a good education to arm them with the skills needed to gain good jobs--jobs that offer good wages and benefits so that they can retain good people.
It is wrong to reduce pension benefits just because you can. It is wrong to increase healthcare premiums just because you can. It is wrong to outsource business to foreign markets just because you can. And it is wrong to pay the top tier members of a company 431 times the level of the shop floor just because you can. Mind you, this is happening at companies that are not necessarily under financial duress nor at the door of bankruptcy. This indecent behavior is happening at entirely healthy companies just because they can.
It is my experience that one of the great defenders against these behaviors is organized labor. Labor, i.e. unions, in my opinion get a bad rap from the general public from an underlying misunderstanding of the institution. Like our system of governmental checks and balances, labor provides a countervailing structure to the unfortunate excesses of business and in many cases, indirectly brings in more business to the community because it puts more money into the community, lowers the climate of risk for families, and allows more dollars to circulate about. This is something Wal-mart doesn't understand.
Labor is an institution I had to learn about along the way but once having seen its value to our society, I have always considered myself a strong defender of working families, not just out of self-interest, not just in words only, but in demonstrated tough action to know it's the right thing to do. Since 1985 through to the present I have considered myself a champion of labor. It is a core reason why I am running as a candidate for Congress. There are those who may doubt my devotion because they don't know me, but my conscience is clear that I have acted strongly and with substance for a long time defending working families.
In my next posting I will be discussing our national energy policy and the importance of moving our country toward independence from both foreign involvement and on fossil fuel sources.