Non-partisan 'Families' Focuses on Middle-Class Economic Issues

The following is an excerpt from a story in the December 14, 2005 issue of  The Dyersville Commercial, a small town paper that still provides excellent reporting on local topics of importance to citizens.  The Commercial is available in print only.

by Josh Jorgenson

A new grassroots organization is doing its part to shift the national political focus back to middle-class economic issues.  Working Families Win held one of its first Iowa town hall meetings in Dubuque Wednesday night.  Some of the issues the group hopes to address are support for increasing the minimum wage, opposition to trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA, stronger union rights and the protection of health care and pension benefits.

David Osterberg, the executive director of the Iowa Policy Project,  recited statistics that indicated a declining number of Americans have health insurance. The former Iowa state legislator noted 25 percent of all positions in the U.S. are non-standard positions, which he defined as being part-time or temporary jobs. Of those with non-standard positions, Osterberg said 79 percent are left without health insurance.

The outsourcing of positions has also hurt American workers, said Merle Duehr, the business representative for United Steel Workers Local 1861.  Duehr noted the shrinking workforce at one Dubuque based company alone in the last four years. Currently, Flexsteel Industries has 285 employees, compared with around 600 in 2001.  “We’ve got a problem in this country,” Duehr said. “We need to elect officials, and I don’t care what party they are from, that are going to support fair trade policy.”

Despite an abundance of regional Democratic Party elected officials and candidates, along with a number of union members, at the event, [David] Leshtz, the meeting facilitator,  said the program is intended to be a non-partisan. He noted Republican gubernatorial candidate, U.S. Congressman Jim Nussle, along with other GOP First Congressional District candidates, were invited to the event.

The Working Families Win initiative is coming to seven states. The Dubuque meeting was the second of such held in Iowa.