Issues include the economy, healthcare policy, and workers' safety and rights on the job

“GEORGE [BUSH] HAS put us in a mess,” says Royal Willie. “We need someone who can pull us out of it and get us on a track to revival, so to speak.”

Willie, a licensed master social worker, says that the economy and getting U.S. troops out of Iraq are, in his opinion, the two most pressing issues facing the country—and the next president. The price of oil is a concern, too. “The powers that be—OPEC—are socking it to us for various reasons,” he says. “The weakening dollar is not helping.”

Like many AFT members around the country, Willie, a service coordinator at the Staten Island (N.Y.) Developmental Disabilities Services Office, is looking forward to new leadership in the White House come January 2009. He’s one of more than 100 New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) activists who have given up a Saturday to get out the union vote in nearby states during the primary season.

Willie and his wife, Donnet, also a PEF member, went to Philadelphia in the days leading up to Pennsylvania’s April primary. PEF also organized get-out-the-vote bus trips to New Hampshire.

PEF member Marion Fox went on both road trips. Healthcare, the economy and homeland security are the top issues in the upcoming presidential election for Fox, a disability analyst for the Office of Temporary Disability Assistance in Manhattan.

A presidential candidate questionnaire sent by the AFT to both Democratic and Republican candidates last year outlines some of the issues the national union and its affiliates are most concerned about. They are issues that relate directly to the quality of public services, the quality of life for our members and the communities they serve, and the rights of members on the job.

Specifically, the union has identified privatization and the contracting out of public services as an ongoing concern, in addition to federal funding for public services. More than 25 percent of each state’s general fund revenues come from the federal government.

Strengthening Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA) protections also will be one of the union’s priorities for the new presidential administration. Currently, more than 8 million public employees in 25 states have no OSHA protection or entitlement to a safe and healthful workplace.

Moreover, the union is hoping to work with the next president not only to restore workers’ rights that have been undercut by the Bush administration, but also to take steps to further ensure that employees are free to organize and bargain in the workplace without fear of employer intimidation and harassment.

The AFT also is looking to support candidates for president and Congress with whom it can work to strengthen policies in the areas of healthcare and retirement security. The national union believes the nation must address healthcare access and affordability issues, as well as end public policy efforts to eliminate employer-provided defined-benefit retirement systems and privatize Social Security.