A report in the Post-Gazette on July 22 ("Latrobe Steel Workers Due Back on Job Next Week") told our community that the lockout of union workers at Latrobe Specialty Steel had been resolved. Also mentioned was the resolution of another lockout of workers at Calgon Carbon on Neville Island.

Both of these companies are hugely profitable. Yet 360 members of the United Steelworkers were prevented from working for 85 days at Latrobe and 60 at Calgon were locked out for 140 days.

This situation, where highly profitable companies refuse to come to terms with their employees and then use a lockout to try to starve them into submission, is happening more and more frequently in America today. The time it takes to resolve these disputes is also increasing, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

But what about those people who don't have a union or the resources to survive weeks off their jobs? The standard of living for their families are even more at risk.

Real earnings in America are down and the gap between the boss and working families is as high as it was during the Robber Baron era of the early 1900s. Corporations have stacked the deck against workers and are pulling all the chips to their side of the table.

This isn't happening by accident. Union workers and every wage worker in America has been under a silent assault on their legal rights for several decades.

We have a Labor Department that boasts about the decline in unions (although the number of union members grew for the first time in a long time last year). The agency set up to level the playing field for workers, the National Labor Relations Board, has had its teeth pulled and under President Bush is busy reversing decades of worker protections. Trade laws that encourage companies to move jobs to other nations like China and India are promoted by our government, as are visa programs that make sure enough low-wage engineers and computer programmers are brought into the United States to keep wages in those professions at a minimum.

The decline in the earning power of America's working men and women and how it got that way is a story that needs to be told. Too much media time is spent on subjects like the lifestyle difficulties of the rich and famous. What about the lifestyles of the rest of us who are trying to earn an honest living and raise families in these times of soaring costs?

The members of our United Steelworkers unions just went through two long, tough fights to hold onto benefits like family health care and regular pensions for retirees. It shouldn't require this kind of sacrifice to get companies to do right by their workers.

With an election coming up this fall and the presidency and control of Congress hanging in the balance, we hope the people of Pennsylvania will consider which candidates are serious about shaking things up in Washington and changing laws that have weakened the hand of working people.

Barack Obama has pledged to help pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would unchain the rights of millions of nonunion working people and give them a stronger voice to bargain for decent wages, hours and working conditions. It also would help workers in already-organized shops like our own. A rising tide lifts all boats. It's too bad John McCain hasn't seen fit to support this legislation, nor other measures that would help keep good-paying jobs in the United States.

Coming out of two lengthy lockouts in the Pittsburgh area, we feel that it's time for the kind of change in Washington that would strengthen the rights and living standards of working-class people in Western Pennsylvania.