PETE? OR DIANNE? : A Range of Voices Argues that California Does Have a Choice : Feinstein: Working People’s Real Ally

Growing up in all-white Westchester in postwar Los Angeles, I thought that people who worked hard could make a good life for themselves and a better life for their kids. Now I know that this dream never came true for lots of people, especially minorities, women and low-income whites, no matter how hard they worked.

Today, white and minority Californians alike need a wake-up call to vote their self-interest, because the dream is vanishing for just about everybody.

Real income for working Californians has eroded steadily since 1980. Families must send two wage-earners into the daily fray to survive. Forced overtime and long commutes on crowded freeways have made a mockery of the eight-hour workday. Millions of Californians go without basic health care. Increasingly, employers are hiring temporary workers to avoid paying benefits.

Who can working Californians turn to in such times? The Republican Party will do what it has always done in this century: protect the wealthy and their class privileges. Democrats, while sometimes needing a boot to get started, are the only party that fights for fairness in our economy.

Dianne Feinstein and the Democrats, not Pete Wilson and the Republicans, believe that the state minimum wage should be periodically adjusted for inflation. And they will defend the eight-hour workday against the drive by corporate Republican interests to pass a 12-hour overtime law.

Feinstein and the Democrats, not Wilson and the Republicans, will try to give all working Californians access to affordable health care--and they’ll see to it that employers who provide health care won’t have to subsidize those who refuse to do so.

My union was formed in 1900 to clean up the garment sweatshops and to win decent pay and the eight-hour day. Today we must continue this fight against a powerful retrograde movement led by the Republican Party. That is why we support Dianne Feinstein and oppose Pete Wilson.