People Before Profit blog

Unity and the grass roots are labors real power

Fri, 27 Aug 2004 08:13:00 +0000

It’s been a long time since the labor movement has been so united, so energized and so mobilized. This remarkable upsurge is based on fierce determination by union members to defeat George Bush and elect John Kerry.

This vital new level of activity and energy goes far beyond the elections. Labor will not stand down after a Kerry victory. Why? Because the driving forces behind this upsurge are critical issues for workers — health care, jobs, the right to organize, and fair trade, to name a few. Even with the best of election scenarios on Nov. 2, there will still be a large, viciously anti-labor, ultra-right Republican bloc in Congress.

A good indicator of labor’s stance is that the AFL-CIO has put the Employee Free Choice Act on the front burner of this campaign. This bill would return to workers the right to form unions and bargain collectively when a majority sign union cards. (Both Kerry and Edwards are original sponsors of the legislation.)

It is not only labor and the left who see this upsurge taking place. The big business media and the right, also, are taking note. And to be sure, they don’t like it. Just as the Bush campaign tried hard to find splits in labor, the right is itching to find ways to divide and divert.

So it’s no big surprise that a columnist for the Washington Post would pick up on remarks by Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees union (SEIU), that, quoted out of context, seem to say that the elections and defeating George Bush don’t really matter. The story created quite a media buzz during the Democratic Party convention. Never mind that SEIU is in the thick of labor’s efforts to defeat Bush with millions of dollars and thousands of volunteers. That story is seldom told in the pages of the big business press.

The column got all the more attention because Stern and his union are part of a grouping in the AFL-CIO called the New Unity Partnership (NUP). The NUP unions are calling for major reforms in the AFL-CIO to make it more effective in organizing and in flexing labor’s economic and political muscle. Many of the questions that they raise are important ones that should be debated and discussed. Most in labor are also deeply concerned with these same issues. The big question is how and when to have the discussion.

The “how” has to include two cardinal principles.

Number one is unity. Everyone agrees that organized labor is too small. That makes unity all the more important. In the face of corporate globalization and big business attack there should not be even the hint of splitting labor. It is enough of a problem that the Carpenters, a NUP union, left the AFL-CIO. Any idea of further divisions in labor would be disastrous. Most in labor, from the AFL-CIO leadership to the rank-and-file, feel the need for big change to make unions more effective, more democratic, and more strategic, with the aim to organize the millions of unorganized. But those changes need to be debated out and made within a framework of guaranteeing unity. Unity is the heart and soul of union power.

Number two is rank-and-file power. The debate on necessary changes in labor has to come from the bottom up. That doesn’t mean there is no role for leadership in promoting and helping to develop the ideas for change. It does mean that the debate has to fully engage rank-and-file union members at all levels, from the shop floor, to the union halls, to the central labor councils. An idea only becomes a material force when it is the property of the grass roots. After many years of debate and agitation, industrial unionism only replaced narrow craft unionism when millions of workers in the basic industries were ready and convinced to organize on an industrial basis and give this new idea a try.

The “when” of this debate is also important. Right now nothing is more central than the November elections. Four more years of George Bush would be a train wreck for labor. Labor leaders and rank-and-filers agree that no debate, discussion or change is more important right now than total unity and mobilization to beat Bush and elect Kerry.

The good news is that most in labor understand and agree. The NUP and AFL-CIO leaderships have made this clear. In a statement at the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting, Aug. 10, John Sweeney, AFL-CIO president, put it very well, “Once this election has been won, we will focus with equal energy and commitment on the steps we know must be taken to strengthen the labor movement’s ability to fight and win for America’s working families.”

Scott Marshall is a vice chair of the Communist Party USA and chair of its Labor Department. He can be reached at scott@rednet.org.

Rally protests cuts in widows pensions

Fri, 27 Aug 2004 03:57:00 +0000

EAST CHICAGO, Ind. – Over 500 outraged steelworkers marched at Ispat-Inland Steel here Aug. 9 to demand an end to cuts in widows’ pensions. They carried signs blasting Lakshmi Mittal, controlling owner of the profitable steel company. Mittal had recently rented the palace of Versailles in France for a $55 million wedding for his daughter and he bought a $100 million home in London, yet his company slashed widows’ pensions, already small, by $62.50 a month.

One of the widows, Ruth Smith, was shocked when her pension check arrived in the mail Aug. 1. It was for $27 instead of the usual $89.50. She called the company benefits office. According to the Hammond Times, Smith told the company, “My husband worked 30 years and I get $27?” The clerk replied, “Yes ma’am, that’s right.”

At the rally, protesters were spurred on by the sight of the widows, seated in the place of honor at the front of the rally. Some were in wheelchairs but all were in a fighting mood. Then Jim Robinson, director of United Steelworkers of America (USWA) District 7, reported that the company’s profits last quarter were three times as large as the first quarter of the year. He expressed the anger everyone felt about the company’s greed. Robinson pledged that the union would not allow the company to hold the widows as hostages in the ongoing fight to renew the union contract. The contract expired July 31. Work continues under the old contract but the company claims they are free to cut the spouses’ pensions.

Tom Hargrove, president of the Ispat-Inland Steel Union Local 1010, said, “Their husbands built the steel industry, fought for democracy in our country’s wars, and then they retired with small pensions prior to August 1, 1989. When they passed away the widow was left with a Surviving Spouse Benefit. For most of them this benefit is $200 or less — some as low as $38. Taking $62.50 a month away from them is a major loss in the twilight of their lives. To me, this is morally wrong and shows no commitment to human decency.”

Why working people must defeat Bush in November

Fri, 27 Aug 2004 03:50:00 +0000

NEW YORK – Recently, while announcing a major anti-Bush labor protest during the Republican National Convention, New York City Central Labor Council (NYCCLC) President Brian McLaughlin called George W. Bush “the working person’s worst nightmare.” Indeed, the policies of the Bush administration seem like a bad dream.

In New York City, labor is confronting its billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who is willing to spend tens of millions on harebrained development schemes and sports stadium giveaways, but has no money for public workers or public works. Tens of thousands of municipal workers have gone years without contracts.

While NYC schools have seen a 25-percent increase in class size and maintenance of aging facilities has been cut back, New York Governor and Bush supporter George Pataki has failed to meet a court-mandated order to remedy the grossly inadequate funding for urban school districts.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the quasi-governmental agency that operates the New York metro area’s transportation system, has recently issued a preliminary “doomsday budget,” projecting huge deficits and threatening workers and commuters with severe cuts in service and maintenance.

In addition, NYC is facing a severe employment crisis: 50 percent of the city’s African American male population is unemployed. That this catastrophic situation has received virtually no press and scant attention from the Republican leadership at the city, state and federal levels speaks volumes about their priorities.

How is it possible that in one of the richest cities in the richest country in the world, there is no money to pay school cafeteria workers, librarians, teachers, cops and firefighters a decent wage?

Nationwide, public workers are confronted with state and local governments in financial crisis and consequent cuts in public spending. In the private sector, millions of jobs have been lost since President Bush took office. Pension and health benefits are under attack, as are and labor rights, from the assault on the 40-hour week to the attack on the right to organize.

There is a nationwide crisis in public education, in large part the result of inadequate federal aid to education. Meanwhile, a recent report has indicated that charter schools, one of the underpinnings of the Bushites’ phony “No Child Left Behind,” have been a dismal failure.

While there is no money for cities and states or for education, military spending continues to mushroom with $416 billion for military contractors and wars of conquest.

Bush and the extreme right are running a campaign based on divisive and distorted issues. They can’t run on their real agenda. To win they have to convince millions of working people to vote for them, people who will, objectively, suffer great harm if the Bush administration is allowed to implement their actual program.

Bush’s ideologically driven tax policy has helped create a record high federal deficit – more then $400 billion – and has helped bankrupt the states. The effect of this tax policy has been to shift the tax burden down to those in the middle-income brackets. In fact, driven by an extreme, right-wing ideology, Bush and his cronies intend to bankrupt government at all levels, crippling all the functions of the public sector, save “coercive” ones.

The assault on the 40-hour week is similarly ideologically driven as part of their general attack on labor. On Aug. 23 the Bush administration took away overtime and the 40-hour week from an estimated 8 million workers. Furthermore, Bush has recently announced his intention to completely dispense with time-and-a-half for all workers. The Bushites are also attempting to outlaw union recognition via card check. There is no doubt that Bush will use a second term to push through these and other extreme measures.

A broad anti-Bush coalition has arisen in the face of the imminent danger from the extreme right. In NYC teachers, firefighters and the police unions have coordinated their contract mobilization activities. Recently they have engaged in joint informational picketing around Madison Square Garden, the site of the RNC convention. The historic “Stop Bush” rally called by the NYCCLC is an indication of the broad labor unity on this question. Labor is coming together to stop Bush and to replace his extremist agenda with one that meets the needs and serves the interests of all Americans, rather than promoting the narrow special interests of a privileged few.

Union cites perils of unmanned locomotives

Sat, 21 Aug 2004 08:23:00 +0000

PINE BLUFF, Ark. (PAI) — Another “remote-controlled” train accident could have been a terrible catastrophe, but wasn’t, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen newspaper reported. BLE, which has campaigned against railroads’ use of engineer-less locomotives, reported an unmanned locomotive smashed into a train carrying hazardous materials on the Union Pacific main line in Pine Bluff, Ark., on July 9. The 100-car remote-controlled freight came into the main line because Union Pacific managers, to improve productivity, overrode an “automatic train stop system” that could have prevented the crash, BLE said. And since the locomotive had nobody in it — two inexperienced workers, hired this year, guided it from afar — it hit the 11-car hazmat (hazardous materials) train. BLE President Don M. Hahs called the situation “absolutely disgraceful,” and noted the Pine Bluff City Council went on record against remote-controlled locomotives in early 2003.

UFCW breakthrough at Wal-Mart in Quebec

Sat, 21 Aug 2004 08:21:00 +0000

JONQUIERE, Quebec (PAI) — The United Food and Commercial Workers broke through the Wal-Mart blockade on Aug. 3, becoming certified to represent 160-170 workers at the retailer’s supercenter in Jonquiere, Quebec. And this time, the decision will stick, as the Quebec Labour Relations Board scheduled an Aug. 20 hearing to decide exactly how many workers — and which ones — UFCW will represent. Under Quebec labor law, bargaining must then start, and the board can step in and impose a settlement if agreement is not reached within a reasonable time period, UFCW Canada National Director Michael Fraser told Press Associates Union News Service. The Quebec board certified UFCW at Jonquiere, which is 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Quebec City, after a card-check drive gave the union a majority there. “In Quebec, certification is automatic if you demonstrate signed cards from 50 percent-plus-one of the members in the bargaining unit,” Fraser said. Even if some of the store’s 180 workers are not bargaining unit members — which will be determined in the Aug. 20 hearing — UFCW still has a majority, he said. UFCW’s win — its second at Wal-Mart in Canada, but the first that will lead to bargaining — is important because of the retailer’s size and influence. The union has a North America-wide organizing drive going at the million-plus worker behemoth. It is also important because Wal-Mart is so large and its market share is so huge that other retailers, especially grocers, use its competition as an excuse to try to match its below-market wages, bad benefits and lack of health care coverage. And Wal-Mart is also so large that it can dictate prices, and losses, to its suppliers, in turn driving those companies’ workers’ wages down, or driving the firms out of business. A previous UFCW/Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union win at the Wal-Mart in Windsor, Ontario, just east of Detroit, was thrown out by a later decertification vote. This win will stay, as Wal-Mart does not plan to close the Jonquiere supercenter. A UFCW win among meatcutters in a Wal-Mart Texas store several years ago fell through when the anti-union firm retaliated by abolishing all its meatcutting departments nationwide. “The Quebec certification shows that when workers’ rights are protected, Wal-Mart workers will exercise those rights for a voice at work,” said UFCW President Joseph Hansen.” Our challenge is to make sure that governments protect workers’ rights across Canada and the U.S. and around the world.” Besides Jonquiere, UFCW has organizing drives going at Wal-Marts in Saskatchewan, another store in Quebec, British Columbia and Manitoba. Though all are governed by different provincial labor boards, Fraser says those boards and provincial labor laws share some common elements. Those include card-check recognition provisions, limiting companies to providing only factual information during union organizing drives, and automatic union recognition — even without a card-check majority — after illegal firings, intimidation and other labor law-breaking. “In all the provinces, there are sections of labor law that say every employee has the right to form a union without intimidation or reprisal from either the employer or the union,” Fraser added. “And if you can demonstrate a company has violated that principle, there will be recourse,” he emphasized.

Calif. hotel workers rally for contracts

Sat, 21 Aug 2004 08:07:00 +0000

Thousands of California hotel workers rallied in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego Aug. 13 to press their contract demands, with health care, pensions, contracting out, workload and wages heading the list. UNITE HERE, which represents the workers, is also seeking uniform contract expirations in 10 major cities in 2006. In San Francisco, the day before a master contract covering over 8,000 workers in 60 premier hotels expired, more than 2,500 demonstrators gathered in downtown Union Square to march past several of the hotels. They then rallied near the Four Seasons and the Marriott. Workers carried signs declaring, “Health care is a right,” and “Retire with dignity.” Participating were several other UNITE HERE locals including Local 2850 in the East Bay and Local 49 in Sacramento, as well as dozens of other union and community groups. Earlier in the week, Local 2 said, the Multi-Employer Group proposed to take away health care from hundreds of lower-seniority workers and to impose huge co-pay increases on retirees. The union said the corporations also proposed to restrict their own payments so that employees’ health benefits would either be slashed or made unaffordable for the majority of hotel workers. “We won’t allow the hotels to balance their books on our backs,” said Local 2 President Mike Casey, adding, “Hotel employees work too hard to keep our city’s economy strong, to be cast aside in their retirement.” In his remarks to the crowd, UNITE HERE International President John Wilhelm emphasized the importance of unity in action for building the union’s strength. In Los Angeles, where a contract covering 2,900 workers at nine hotels expired June 1, over 1,500 members of UNITE HERE Local 11, clergy and other union and community supporters chanted, “No justice, No peace!” as they blocked a downtown intersection for about two hours during the evening commute. They rolled 20 beds into the intersection so workers could demonstrate the hard work they perform. Some 45 demonstrators and union officials were arrested. The Aug. 13 action, one of a long series of protests and rallies, followed a spontaneous demonstration Aug. 12 at the St. Regis and the Century Plaza in Century City, sparked by the issue of health coverage. On July 28, workers staged a mass demonstration in front of the Century Plaza with support of community and interfaith organizations. Simultaneously a demonstration was held in downtown Los Angeles at the Hyatt Regency. Other rallies and protests culminating in civil disobedience and downtown traffic tie-ups have been held through the month. Separate meetings of each side with a national mediator were slated to start this week. Last week Local 11 President Maria Elena Durazo questioned the employers’ motives in requesting mediation, asking, “Do they want a serious discussion, or is this just to position themselves, so they can say to the members that they triedeverything?” In San Diego, some 90 hotel workers and their supporters took over the lobby of the posh Hotel del Coronado, chanting “Don’t check in, check out,” for nearly an hour Aug. 13 before management asked them to leave. Nine who refused to leave were charged with trespassing. At issue is the behavior of the Coronado’s new owners, KSL Corp. and CNL Hospitality Properties, which invalidated the hotel’s contract with the workers three-and-a-half years early when they took over in December. The new owners laid off all 800 workers and then failed to rehire about 50. UNITE HERE Local 30 President Jeff Eatchel said the Coronado had set up two-tier wage and health care structures, for old and new workers. “It’s making it harder for workers to qualify for health care coverage and that’s not acceptable,” he said. The two sides last met two months ago. KSL is also the owner of Oakland’s Claremont Resort and Spa, where workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 2850 have been without a contract for two years. Last month the 180,000 members of the clothing, textile and laundry workers union UNITE and the 260,000 members of HERE joined forces to form UNITE HERE. Both unions have powerful histories of organizing, together having organized over 100,000 new members in five years. The authors can be reached at pww@pww.org. Marilyn Bechtel contributed to this article.

AFL-CIO gets down to nuts and bolts

Sat, 21 Aug 2004 07:57:00 +0000

CHICAGO — If America’s union members have anything to say about it, come Nov. 2 this country’s ship of state will be making a sharp course correction. And they’ll have plenty to say about it, judging from the highly detailed plans laid out at an AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting totally devoted to politics, held here Aug. 9-11. “We will have the finest political effort in the history of the labor movement,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told reporters. Sweeney declared emphatically, “We are leading a solid, united labor movement.” It’s unusual to mobilize volunteers on a weekday, but on Thursday, Sept. 2, from 4 to 8 p.m., 25,000 union volunteers will be hitting the streets just as George W. Bush accepts the Republican nomination. Using computer-generated walk maps, they will disperse from 150 “walk sites” mostly in battleground states to knock on 1 million union household doors with flyers comparing Bush’s stands on jobs, health care and retirement security, “our basic issues,” to those of Democratic nominee John Kerry, says Denise Mitchell, Sweeney’s assistant for public affairs. The allocation of resources is unprecedented. The federation is spending $44 million, and that is being added to by its affiliates, to make a total of $150 million. Gerald McEntee, head of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, says his organization alone is spending $40 million. The Service Employees Union is spending $65 million. And it’s not just money — it’s man- and woman-power. McEntee says AFSCME’s offices will “basically close down” to put staff on the streets. Only the most urgent work, for those on strike or at the negotiating table, will go on. Drawing on the same techniques employed in successful organizing campaigns, the council meeting got down to the nuts and bolts of strategic organizing. “Today we are getting reports and assessments as to what more we have to do,” Sweeney said during an opening day lunch meeting with reporters. McEntee, who heads the AFL-CIO political action committee, has been given direct responsibility for two key states, Ohio and Pennsylvania. “The intensity and specificity — we’ve never done this before,” he said. His responsibilities include monitoring goals for work site activities and registration campaigns. “We are looking at the goals each union should be meeting, and taking corrective action if some are not performing up to the standard set,” he said. According to Karen Ackerman, director of the federation’s political department, labor is taking special initiatives to protect voters’ rights. The focus is on 32 communities in 12 states where voter suppression has historically been a problem. The states include Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. Union activists will work with 1,000 labor lawyers who have volunteered their time to protect the election process. Full details on the AFL-CIO’s “My Vote, My Right” campaign will be available shortly. Labor is taking a new look at congressional races too. “We are not losing sight of the importance of these races,” said Sweeney, pledging to commit resources to those campaigns. McEntee cited the seat of Illinois 30- year GOP veteran Henry Hyde. “Henry Hyde is in play, and we didn’t think that seat was even reachable,” McEntee said. “Contrary to the thinking of a year ago, there are enough seats in play to make Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the House.” Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards met with the council in a closed-door session, Aug. 9. Steelworker President Leo Gerard took the opportunity to emphasize the importance of the Apollo Project, a multi-million-dollar energy conservation program that is also a jobs-creation program in new fields of manufacturing. Building new factories for energy-efficient products would add thousands of construction jobs, an AFL-CIO statement said. Edwards agreed and strongly reiterated his ticket’s stand for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow for card-check union recognition. In other action, the council formed a Wal-Mart task force co-chaired by Food and Commercial Worker President Joe Hansen and AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka. Hansen said, “Wal-Mart is not just a UFCW problem. It’s a labor movement problem. It’s a community problem. And it’s a global problem.” The multi-union group will aid the UFCW’s campaign to organize the million-worker poverty-wage retail giant. The task force includes the presidents of UNITE-HERE, the ILWU, SEIU, IBEW and representatives of the Teamsters and AFT. A statement issued by Sweeney appeared to address recent calls by some affiliates for a radical restructuring of the labor federation. He pledged to put together a post-election planning process in which all AFL-CIO unions would be asked to fully participate, “addressing common issues in an environment of shared values and mutual respect.” He expressed confidence in the ability to find common ground in building a “bigger, stronger” movement committed to “union solidarity and unity.” The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org.

Defeat Bush movement spurs mass voter sign-up

Sat, 21 Aug 2004 07:50:00 +0000

Leaders of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance had a busy day planned for Aug. 21. After winding up their national board meeting in Las Vegas, half of the 40 board members were going to work a voter registration table in the city’s busy Chinatown Plaza. The other 20 were set to staff a voter registration booth amidst hula dancing and lei making at the grand opening of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue. But before that, they were to start the day along with a couple hundred other labor and community voter activists at an 8:30 a.m. rally at the AFL-CIO hall. The aim, said APALA board member Rozita Lee, was to rev folks up and give them the information they need to get out the vote in Nevada. These Las Vegas events are part of thousands of voter registration, education, mobilization and “vote protection” activities spreading like wildfire across America — in “red” states as well as “blue,” in tiny towns, leafy suburbs and gritty cities. They are evidence of, and seek to translate into votes, a smoldering grassroots rejection of the Bush administration. Harnessing the Internet along with old-fashioned shoe leather and a determined, no-business-as-usual army of experienced organizers, new groups like Voices for Working Families, America Coming Together, MoveOn.org, and Young Voter Alliance are working with organized labor, the NAACP, women’s organizations, environmental groups and a host of others under the umbrella “America Votes.” Rozita Lee is Nevada assistant state director for Voices for Working Families, which aims to involve the “millions of people of color, women and young people [who] are not registered to vote.” Voices is focusing on seven key states “to reach a million voters … to register, educate, mobilize and protect their right to vote at the polls … to raise a unified voice for social and economic justice.” “We go to grocery stores, malls, ethnic markets, festivals,” especially focusing on Hispanic, African American and Asian Pacific communities, Lee told the World from the Voices Las Vegas office. Through voter registration and information tables and phone calls, they have already reached more than 45,000 homes. Lee, a 25-year Las Vegas resident, was born in Hawaii to Filipino parents. There are at least 50,000 Hawaiians in Nevada today, she noted. Most have come in the last eight years, seeking jobs, a result of the downturn in Hawaii’s tourist-dependent economy. So Las Vegas Voices for Working Families is spending a lot of time at Hawaiian festivals and islander events. Lee is also president of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations, which includes some 300 groups. How does she do it all? At 69, she has 11 grandchildren and even a great-grandson. “I’m doing it because of them,” she said. “It’s for their future.” “What’s so nice is that we have about 20 young people working with us,” Lee said. The 16- and 17-year-olds knew very little about government when they got involved this spring. They will continue to work for Voices part-time in the fall when they return to school, informed and energized. “I’ve seen such growth and maturity,” Lee said. “It warms my heart.” Two thousand miles away in Miami, 18-year-old Leo Urena, from the Bronx, has spent the past month and a half working as a canvasser for Voices. “What I’m into is empowering people my age, people of my color, who are Hispanics and Blacks, to go out to vote,” he told the World. Urena’s home is the largely Black and Hispanic East Crotona Park neighborhood in the Bronx. “My community is being ignored completely.” For example, he said, “If you go to Manhattan the parks are a lot nicer. In my neighborhood the parks are ignored, there’s garbage on the ground.” It makes people feel bad about themselves, he said. But, he realized, it’s no surprise that officials “don’t care about us, because we’re not even voting.” So far, Urena has personally registered about 350 voters. “It feels great,” he said. In 2000, the Florida vote was decided by only 560 votes, he noted. “I’m halfway there,” he exclaimed. “I’ll probably get that number by myself.” When he goes back to school in September, he plans to “inform my high school peers to register and vote.” Asked what he’s learned from his summer experience, Urena responded, “That I can change the country. One ‘meaningless’ individual from the Bronx can change the country. It’s one vote at a time. So if I vote, it means something. If another person votes, that means something.” The author can be reached at suewebb@pww.org.

Talbert Trailer workers march for justice

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 05:04:00 +0000

Rensselaer, Ind. — “Hands off our health care!” and “No justice, no peace,” echoed through the streets here July 31 as hundreds of steelworkers marched to protest the lockout of the Talbert Trailer workers.

Talbert workers had voted “no” to a company proposal to end their health care plan. Tony Hopkins, president of Steelworkers Local 6589 at Talbert, described what happened next: “We told the company we wanted to continue to work while we negotiated a new contract with health care. But when we came to work the next day, the gates were locked and they were hiring scabs.”

“We need better laws,” Hopkins said. “We need to elect better people to make better laws.”

Hopkins was protesting attempts by the State Unemployment Insurance Board to hold back the locked-out workers’ unemployment checks. Thanks to a USWA Local 1010 president appointed to the Unemployment Insurance Board by Democratic Gov. Joseph Davis, unemployment checks were released to the Talbert workers.

Davis is currently in a close re-election race with a rich Republican candidate who represents the pharmaceutical companies.

The theme of defeating George Bush and electing Kerry and Davis was repeated by every speaker at the solidarity rally. Community support was brought by the Northwest Indiana Central Labor Council. They delivered 13,000 pounds of food from their food bank to help feed the locked-out workers. Several local unions brought checks in support. Many steel retirees, members of SOAR (Steelworker Organization of Active Retirees) attended the rally and walked the two-mile march, keeping up with the striding steelworkers.

“The lockout is a pure example of corporate greed,” charged Jim Robinson, District 7 director of the United Steelworkers of America. “They made big profits because the union and Congressman Pete Visclosky lobbied to get them military contracts. Then they turn around and abuse the workers.”

Talbert workers told this writer that Visclosky, too, has joined the locked-out workers on the picket line.

The protest ended on a high note. “We will win this fight,” predicted Robinson. “And we’ll win the elections in November.”

The author can be reached at bealumpkin@aol.com.

NYC Labor Council says, Bush must go!

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 04:45:00 +0000

NEW YORK — On the morning of Aug. 2, representatives of New York City labor turned out for a press conference in front of Madison Square Garden, site of the Republican National Convention later this month.

Beneath red, white and blue posters declaring, “Stop Bush” and “We’re Taking Back America,” Brian McLaughlin, president of the NYC Central Labor Council, announced that on Sept. 1, instead of the traditional Labor Day parade, the city’s unions will hold a massive demonstration in the street, right outside the convention hall. McLaughlin made clear that the intent of the demonstration is not to protest the Republican Party’s choice of New York as the site of their convention, but rather to protest the anti-labor, anti-people policies of the Bush administration.

Calling Bush “the working person’s worst nightmare,” McLaughlin recited a litany of recent Bush attacks on working people, including threats to dismantle Social Security, assaults on public education and health care, and the loss of overtime protection for some 8 million workers.

McLaughlin said, “The Bush administration goes out of its way to do bad things to working people. ... It is crystal clear that four more years of Bush will be the death knell for American workers … the Democrats stand with us and as far away from Bush as possible. … We are taking back America.”

Saying that working families were facing “the worst rollback of employee rights and protections” since the anti-labor Taft-Hartley law, McLaughlin called for all labor council affiliates to mobilize their members for the anti-Bush demonstration. “On September 1st we are asking all our brothers and sisters in the labor movement to join us. We will come together to raise our voices together to denounce Bush’s anti-labor policies.”

As other union leaders spoke, the theme of “taking back America” was repeated again and again.

Ed Watt, secretary-treasurer of Transit Workers Union Local 100, stressed the importance of labor-community unity and pointed out that Bush’s failure to adequately fund mass transit hurts the public as well as transit workers. He said, “Not only do transit workers need to turn out in a massive show of strength on September 1st, subway and bus riders have to turn out as well. Bush is bad for transit workers, and bad for the transit riding public.”

AFSCME District Council 1707 Executive Director Raglan George spoke of the importance of a full mobilization to elect John Kerry.

As the press conference ended the crowd of unionists broke into a spontaneous and spirited chant of “Bush must go!”

Even after the press packed up, people lingered, talking among themselves. Some said that they were surprised at how angry rank-and-filers were over the arrogance and dishonesty of the Bush regime. They reported a general sentiment, even among members who had traditionally voted Republican, that the party has been hijacked by narrow extreme right-wing elements that must be defeated.

Most of the unionists went away convinced that mobilization, education and voter registration must be the watchwords of labor from now until the election.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Circuit-Wise workers: No to concessions

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 05:01:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – “This company is asking for so many concessions, we would be paying Circuit-Wise to work for them, instead of them paying us for our labor,” charged Dorothy Johnson, president of United Electrical Workers Local 299 at a plant gate rally held here July 15.

Area union members and community supporters greeted workers as they came off the first shift with the message that they are not alone. Even though there are not many workers left at this component parts manufacturer for the auto industry, union brothers and sisters pledged to stand by them in the fight to win a decent contract, call back those on layoff, and create more jobs.

The company, in and out of bankruptcy, has demanded steep concessions in wages and benefits, using the threat of a plant closing. “What the company is asking this year would basically turn Circuit-Wise into a temp agency with no benefits and no overtime,” said Johnson. “It is unbearable.”

In addition to 10 percent across the board wage cuts on wages averaging $12 an hour, the company wants to eliminate life insurance and sick and accident benefits; reduce vacation time; and require employee weekly contributions for health insurance as high as $185 per week.

When the workers pointed out that it is impossible to afford such high health insurance payments, the company dismissed them saying, “Get on Husky.” Husky is the health care assistance program for children in low-income families.

The struggle for union recognition at Circuit-Wise became a national cause in the late ’80s and early ’90s, attracting support from across the state and as far away as Canada. It took a three-year battle and a 17-month strike to win a first contract.

The Mettler brothers, Yale graduates who owned the company, repeatedly proclaimed that never, over their dead bodies, would there be a union at their plant. Now, many union contracts later, their sons are running the show. These younger bosses carry their dads’ same old agenda: to do away with UE Local 299.

What Circuit-Wise workers face is not just a local problem, but part of the need to rebuild the manufacturing base of our country. Workers at Circuit-Wise are eligible for Trade Readjustment Act benefits, as victims of a company that built a Maquiladora plant in Mexico, although it has since been closed. When Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) came to the plant last year at the union’s request, she remarked on the size and potential of the facility. The brothers did not respond to any ideas to expand production and jobs.

The Mettlers will stop at nothing to get higher profits. They have taken full advantage of the anti-labor atmosphere created by the Bush administration.

On the picket line outside the shop, union members from UNITE HERE at Yale, UE at Sargents, Machinists at U.S. Repeating Arms, and SEIU District 1199 pledged to stand with UE 299 at Circuit-Wise for as long as it takes. These same unions are among the many mobilizing to get out the vote to defeat George W. Bush and take back Congress on Nov. 2.

The author can be reached at joelle.fishman @ pobox.com.