Editor's Note:This article was published in the Graphic Communicator before the death of Minnesota's Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone. Please see separate article for more information on the Senate race in Minnesota.

Graphic Communicator photo by Herald Grandstaff

GCIU Vice Pres. Lawrence Martinez

The Nov. 5 elections are "very, very important to working families."

GCIU Vice Pres. Lawrence Martinez, who chairs the General Board Legislative Committee and directs the International's political activities, also said that every vote for friends of working families is crucial.

He said there are "extremely critical U.S. Senate races that are going to be determined by only a few votes. That's also the case in the House" of Representatives.

"The concern," he said, "is there should be checks and balances in the make-up of Congress and the administration."

Martinez worried that "if the president's [Republican] party wins control of the Senate, as well as the House, the concern we have for working families is that there is currently in the White House an anti-worker, anti-union attitude."

He noted that in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia area, there are television and radio commercials for legislation that "would hamper economic and unfair labor practice strikes if not make them illegal. If the administration, Senate, and House are all of the same party, the odds of such legislation being passed increases substantially."

Martinez said that the so-called "anti-strike violence act" is "misnamed, just like 'right to work' – for less."

He cited the elections for all of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and one-third of the seats in the Senate. Martinez said "some of the best friends of working families are up for election in the Senate – such as Tom Harkin of Iowa, Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, Jean Carnahan of Missouri, Max Cleland of Georgia, and the open seat in New Jersey with Frank Lautenberg. And we have a chance to elect to the Senate friends of labor with Tom Strickland of Colorado and Ron Kirk of Texas."

He also noted there are 22 states where governors' races are crucial to working families.

Martinez figured that working families got a reprieve when James M. Jeffords of Vermont bolted his Republican Party in 2000 and gave Democrats a one-vote margin in the U.S. Senate. "Had he not done that," Martinez said, "there would have been a lot of anti-labor legislation pushed through."

He added that "the economy of the past two years should make us all aware that this next election is very important to working families. We need legislation that will protect working families, pension funds, afford them fair and cost-efficient health care coverage, and stop the separation between the middle class and the very rich. The only way we are going to do that is that each one of us vote and we make sure that our family, friends, and coworkers all vote."

"Those who do not vote should not complain when their wages, benefits, and other working conditions deteriorate," Martinez said, adding: "You have the power at the voting booth use it."