Organized labor's strength has been waning for the past three decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations. But after eight especially difficult years under George W. Bush, the labor movement is preparing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect Barack Obama. During the Democratic National Convention, I caught up with John Sweeney, head of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation with 56 national and international unions and a membership of  10.5 million, and asked him about the labor movement's take on the Democrats, the 2008 elections and the struggle for immigrant rights.

JT: Under the last Democratic administration, labor's strength waned with NAFTA and other trade agreements being passed. Why are you hopeful labor would fare better under an Obama administration?

JS: The Senator has really stated his position on trade policy and is open to reviewing trade agreements which have impacted the rights of workers and their jobs both in our country and in our trading partners' countries. I think this whole campaign is about change and how do we improve the lives of workers. The labor movement is interested in improving the economy every way we can. We're also interested in reviewing trade policies and how they have hurt workers.

We've lost three million manufacturing jobs—good middle class jobs, good pension and health care. Those jobs aren't coming back. We were against NAFTA. We saw how NAFTA has really been a failure. People in Mexico had some improvement for a short period of time. Those jobs aren't in Mexico anymore. They've gone to China. This is the greed of corporate America. The wage and wealth gap has just been a horrible situation. Workers' wages aren't improving. They're stagnant. And we've had the most anti-worker, anti-union administration over the past eight years. It's time for a change. It's time for people elected to office office to be held accountable on workers' issues.

JT: If an Obama administration pushes legislation to defend the right to organize, will Democrats in Congress stand up to the corporate interests that will descend on Capitol Hill?

JS: These people do not want to see a stronger labor movement, do not want to see their workers becoming members of unions. Yet, all our polling shows that better than 60 percent of all unorganized workers want to join a union to improve their collective bargaining situation and to improve their own standard of living.

It's about time there was some fairness and some justice when it came to workers. You see these CEOs bailing out of bankrupt companies with golden parachutes and leaving behind wiped-out pension systems. That's not America. That's not the way we have worked in the past and what we've seen with our labor laws is that they have become so pro-employer in terms of allowing employers to harass and intimidate workers if they are expressing any interest in joining a union.

All we're asking with this Employee Free Choice Act is the right of workers in an expeditious way to decide whether they want a union or they don't want a union and not have to fight through the National Labor Relations Board for years. There's an average of 25,000 workers [per year] who have been terminated because of their expression in favor of a union. That's a disgrace. The National Labor Relations Boardis processing these complaints at the slowest pace that they can possibly do it. It's about time we have a labor law that was intended when Senator [Robert] Wagner proposed it and when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed it [in 1935], not a labor law that's favorable to employers who don't like unions.

JT: Can you talk about the accelerating rate of raids on workplaces with immigrants including places where union organizing was going on and the raids appear timed to disrupt that organizing.

JS: I think there will be attempts to disrupt organizing campaigns. I think that's going on now with the exploitation of these workers. But, we're aggressively committed to organizing these workers who are especially at the lowest level of the economic ladder. Those people need the help they can get with a good union and with strong labor laws.

JT: What do you say to people who say crack down on immigrants to protect jobs?

JS: We are for strong reform of our immigration laws and for the enforcement of the immigration laws. But, laws that protect immigrant workers from being exploited, laws that give immigrant workers the power of the fair wage and hour laws—these workers shouldn't be exploited the way they are where they're being paid less than minimum wage. Why aren't we enforcing the minimum wage lawfor these folks at the low level?

This country really has to take a hard look at our immigration laws. We're not proposing anything that impacts on workers who are here, who are working in jobs. I know some workers see immigration reform as a threat to them in their own jobs. But, that's not what the effect is going to be. This is to protect all workers. How we achieve it, what regulations we have in terms of people coming into the country should be enforced. But once folks are here they should have the protection of the laws and the benefit of them.

I really have to go now...

JT: One more question. Do you support immigration reform that creates a guest worker program? Or, do you think that would create a two-tier labor system in this country?

JS: We really are not in favor of the guest worker program. It can be exploited in terms of creating a two-tier system. We think we should have overall immigration legislation that protects these workers but set standards for how workers come into he country. But, we think that once workers are in the country, they should have a clear road to becoming citizens if that's their desire and they should have the standards other workers enjoy here.

JT: Thank you very much.