The Toledo Blade: Historically, Obama favors working class

[Omaha Steve]

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081021/NEWS09/810210313

Candidate's votes encourage higher wages, better benefits

By JOE VARDON
BLADE STAFF WRITER

Barack Obama's pro-labor voting record in the U.S. Senate follows a similar pattern from his time in the Illinois State Senate.

Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. senator since 2005, served in the Illinois Senate from 1996 through 2004. During that span, he voted to raise the minimum hourly wage from $5.15 to $6.50 over two years, pass a 5 percent earned-income tax credit for low-income working families, and shield Illinois workers from federal rules that threatened overtime pay.

Of the more than 780 bills Mr. Obama sponsored, some would have provided job skills training for those on federal aid and established a right to universal health-care coverage. He also worked to include more money for child care and transportation for workers in the state's welfare reform plan, and to end $300 million in tax breaks for businesses.

Since arriving in Washington, Mr. Obama has voted to repeal tax breaks for multinational companies, to raise the hourly minimum wage to $7.25, to fund transportation-to-work programs for welfare recipients, to re-authorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and for overtime compensation for transit security officers.

"He's always been out there standing up for working families," said Anna Burger, national secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union. "Whether it was through his work as a community organizer, or as a state senator in Illinois or in the U.S. Senate, before we even ask him , he's out there trying to figure out what the solutions are."

Mr. Obama, who has developed a track record for voting to close corporate tax loopholes and end tax breaks for big business, also went against the state Democratic party by opposing some fee increases for businesses as an Illinois senator.

But time and again, Mr. Obama votes on the side of employees when legislation has asked him to choose between them and their employers.

FULL story at link.