In case anti-worker politicians underestimated working families, primary election results are in and no one today is doubting the John Sweeney-led labor movement's effort to make sure the voices of workers are heard on Election Day.

The March 7 Super Tuesday results demonstrated a massive turn out. For example, 47 percent of the Democratic primary votes in Ohio were cast by union households. This marks the highest Ohio union vote in history! From California to Maine union households voted in massive numbers, with Vice President Gore sweeping to victory and setting his sights on Texas Gov. George Bush, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Job site actions, election weekend precinct walking by union volunteers and tens of thousands of get-out-the-vote phone calls coordinated by central labor councils took place in communities nationwide.

In February, the New York AFL-CIO and the state's 31 local labor councils organized among the biggest single day political mobilizations ever when volunteers visited 10,000 work sites and distributed leaflets and made more than 100,000 phone calls to union families.

When the labor movement elected the Sweeney-Trumka-Chavez Thompson team to lead the AFL-CIO in the 21st Century, all of us saw their rise to power as a return to the days when union members not only would speak out, but would be listened to.

The early primaries demonstrated that AFL-CIO leadership is serious about restoring what I referred to in my January/February column as people-powered politics where working families, not corporate special interests like the big railroads, set the agenda for America's politicians.

Despite the tremendous efforts of working families in the early primaries, workers across the economy are just beginning to recover from two decades of wage stagnation and membership decline, and five years of mean-spirited attacks on working people by Newt Gingrich and the Gingrich clones that today control the Congress.

BMWE members know too well how difficult-often intolerable-the railroads can make our working lives in this industry-and we're in a unionized workplace! Whether we're fighting rail carrier efforts to destroy our collective bargaining agreements or battling unsafe job sites, the battles never end. And, we face constant pummeling by the rail industry's most reliable ally-the Republican leadership in Congress.

While the railroads join their corporate allies in a campaign to literally buy the presidency, working people offer the only hope that the hundreds of millions of dollars in unregulated corporate money won't be enough to turn over the White House to an anti-union politician like Gov. George Bush, who will have a huge debt to pay to those out to roll back everything we have fought to achieve.

While the BMWE will be doing much more to highlight the stakes in the fall election, take a look at George Bush's record.

George Bush supports privatizing individual social security accounts.

He not only opposes increases in the minimum wage, but in Texas he even forces workers employed in agriculture and domestic services to fall under the state minimum wage of $3.35 an hour instead of the $5.15 an hour federal minimum wage.

George Bush supports siphoning off public funds to provide voucher schemes for private school education.

BMWE members know all too well the importance of a strong railroad retirement system and yet, in 1995, Gov. Bush broke a campaign promise and cut the state's contribution to the teacher retirement fund by $400 million. We hardly want him holding the keys to and appointing the future guardians of our Railroad Retirement Trust Fund!

Worst of all, George Bush supports so-called "Paycheck Protection" measures pushed by anti-union extremists and the business community to gag workers in the legislative and political arena by limiting the use of dues money for issue advocacy and education. If such a measure at the state or federal level is ever put into effect, BMWE members and all railroad workers can brace for the most unrelenting railroad industry attack on the rights and protections we care about.

If the BMWE and all AFL-CIO member unions are weakened by paycheck deception measures, who will stand up against proposals to eliminate railroad retirement? Who will battle those wanting to repeal rail workers' protections during mergers and acquisitions? Who will turn back proposals to repeal FELA? And who will be there to oppose and discredit proposals to dismantle Amtrak through risky privatization schemes.

One thing is certain: The labor movement is the only thing standing in the way of the railroads achieving their legislative agenda to snatch away everything we have fought to achieve and retain for more than 75 years.

If the early primaries are any indication, we seem poised for the fight.

Like in Ohio, New York and across the entire nation where union members turned out in record numbers, we must be ready to show elected officials this fall that working families will be ready for the Main Event.