Pittsburgh is a good place to work, live and raise a family, but it's taking more than ever to keep your head above water. For too many people, it doesn't matter how hard you work -- there's just not enough to make ends meet. That fact was acknowledged in Labor Day observations everywhere yesterday.

While the Republican leadership gave away huge tax breaks to big corporations and wasted billions overseas, the cost of living for working Americans has only gone up. Home heating costs are rising. Health care expenses are out of control. A gallon of gas now costs more than a gallon of milk. What's wrong with America?

It depends on who you ask. When it comes to trade deals, for example, things couldn't be better for the corporate executives who made fortunes by shipping millions of good American jobs overseas. These trade agreements have protected corporations that take advantage of unfair practices like Chinese currency manipulation or the routine abuse of workers. But they haven't protected our children from the dangerous toxins that have shown up in their toys.

This Wall Street agenda has hit working families hard here in Pennsylvania, as we've seen with the downsizing of General Motors' Metal Fabricating Division plant in West Mifflin. Drastic cutbacks have quickly transformed it from a thriving facility with 2,000 employees producing auto body parts to the shell of a plant with barely 200 workers. We have lost over 214,100 total good manufacturing jobs in Pennsylvania since George Bush took office. Median household income in the state has fallen by $900 during that time.

The global race to the bottom has to stop. We need a level playing field, where corporations are all held to the same labor and environmental standards regardless of what country they're doing business in.

These issues are key ones for November's elections. John McCain has never seen a trade deal he didn't like -- including NAFTA; he's a self-avowed "free trader." Barack Obama supports getting rid of tax breaks for corporations that send jobs overseas and giving protections for workers and the environment every bit as much priority as protections for corporate interests in trade agreements.

Unfair trade deals are just part of the reason why the gap between the rich and the rest of us has only grown wider during these last eight years. Here in Pennsylvania, a whopping 1.24 million people don't have health insurance because skyrocketing costs have put it out of reach. Nationally, over 47 million people remain uninsured. Studies show that middle class families make up the biggest portion of the newly uninsured. Employers are passing more costs onto employees or dropping their coverage altogether.

Meanwhile, insurance and drug companies are making stunning profits. Health insurance CEOs took home an average compensation of $8.7 million in 2006 and pharmaceutical company CEOs pulled in about $4.4 million apiece. But Senate Republicans including John McCain opposed the expansion of health care coverage to children. Now, John McCain is proposing a new tax on health care benefits, too. Most voters agree that we need broad reform to reduce costs, provide care to more Americans and improve the quality of care.

Fresh from Labor Day, it's time to turn around America and return to the values that built our middle class.

Working people know that the surest ticket to the middle class is a union card. Over half of all American workers say they would join a union right now if they could. But the barriers are high. Corporations routinely intimidate, harass and even fire workers who are trying to form a union. Over 90 percent of companies fight organizing efforts. One in four illegally fires workers for supporting a union, and our labor laws are helpless to stop them.

We can restore democratic values to the worksite by supporting legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act, which would give workers the freedom to choose union representation for themselves. We need to elect a president who has the courage to reform labor law and support working families.

It's time for a new direction on trade, health care and workers' rights. We simply cannot afford four more years of a Bush-style economic agenda. From the White House to the workplace, we have to fight with our voices and our votes to change the way business is done in America.