People Before Profit blog

Editorial: Remarkable Labor Day

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:18:00 +0000

This Labor Day is one of the most remarkable we can recall. Like a wave building power and momentum, American unions, declared dead or irrelevant by the punditry, are on a roll that we haven’t seen for some time — empowered and enthused by the movement for change that is sweeping the country with the Obama campaign.

The sight of leaders of the AFL-CIO, Change to Win and the independent NEA clasping hands at last Sunday’s rally in Denver — “united in our determination to Turn Around America,” as John Sweeney put it, brought tears to the eyes of grizzled veterans of the struggles of American workers.

What a beautiful, and historic, sight it was — a demonstration of the fact that America’s labor movement is headed toward reunification, and toward even bigger unity.

And what a beautiful and historic sight it’s been to see the labor movement taking the lead in fighting racism, educating workers across the nation about the connection between race and class, in order to elect the nation’s first African American president and advance the cause of all workers, their families and communities.

“There’s no evil that’s inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism — and it’s something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka told the Steelworkers convention last month.

“It’s our special responsibility because we know, better than anyone else, how racism is used to divide working people.”

And he continued: “We’ve seen how companies set worker against worker — how they throw whites a few extra crumbs off the table — and how it’s black and Latino workers who get the dirtiest, most dangerous jobs.

“But we’ve seen something else, too. “We’ve seen that when we cross that color line and stand together no one can keep us down.” Wow!

And it’s not just here and there in labor. Leaders and activists in a host of our nation’s mightiest unions are putting bold progressive politics and the key fight for black-white-brown unity front and center in a whole new way — the Steelworkers, AFSCME, SEIU, the Communications Workers, the two teachers unions, the building trades, the mine workers and more.

It’s the wave of the future. What a Labor Day!

Labor continues to oppose Colombia free trade pact

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:32:00 +0000

While Colombian representatives lobby the Democratic and Republican conventions in support of the Bush administration’s Colombia Free Trade Act, the U.S. labor movement continues its opposition to the pact, signed in November 2006 but put on hold by Congress last April. Labor’s concerns are shared by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, UN agencies, the European Union and International Criminal Court.

According to the AFL-CIO, 2,283 unionists have been murdered in Colombia since 1991. No perpetrators were charged or convicted in 97 percent of the cases. While 326 unionists were killed there between 2003 and 2006, the toll in the rest of the world was 201.

Leo Gerard, president of the United Steel Workers union which has long campaigned in solidarity with Colombian unionists, puts it this way: “No one wants a deal with a corrupt regime that continues to rule over the most dangerous country in the world in which to be a trade unionist.”

The death toll of union members so far this year is 32. Six murders followed union-organized demonstrations March 6 against paramilitary violence. Bogota union leader Guillermo Rivera, supporter of the left coalition Alternative Democratic Pole and a communist, was abducted April 22. Video monitors showed four police cars hovering nearby. His tortured body was found almost three months later.

As the Colombian People’s Permanent Tribunal was documenting corporate abuse of human rights and complicity with murder last month in Bogota, steelworkers, other unionists and community activists demonstrated in support of the Tribunal July 22 at Occidental Petroleum in Los Angeles, at Chiquita in Cincinnati and Coca Cola in Atlanta. All three corporations are active in Colombia.

The trade agreement would give a boost to transnational corporations. After a recent trip to Colombia for Trade Justice New York, Leonard Morin traced corporate ascendancy there. Bogota now hosts 500 branch offices of foreign companies. Annual foreign investments grew from $3.8 billion in 1997 to $6.5 billion last year. Colombia’s economy is expanding at a 7 percent annual rate.

As a result of the Colombian government’s reign of fear, imposed by the military, police and right-wing paramilitaries, unionization fell from 9.3 percent of workers in 1984 to 4.6 percent in 2005. Workers covered by collective bargaining fell from 260,000 to 60,000 in 10 years.

Fearing for their survival, over four million peasants and indigenous people have abandoned land to corporate entities for “macro projects” like mining, forest industries, agribusiness, and oil. In fact, Morin asks, “Will the land belong to the poor who have traditionally populated and cultivated it or to the multinational corporations?” Colombia’s poverty rate is now 47 percent, 0.3 percent of the population owns half the agricultural land and 13 percent experience daily hunger.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told a Chilean newspaper, “I am for a free trade agreement with Peru, but oppose that of Colombia, until I am certain they are not killing union leaders. We must stop this kind of paramilitary activity.” Following the Bush line, his Republican opponent, John McCain, backs the trade plan.

atwhit @roadrunner.com

Latinos cheer Clintons call: Elect Obama president

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:27:00 +0000

DENVER — More than 1,000 Latino delegates and guests to the Democratic National Convention here stood and cheered as Hillary Rodham Clinton urged them to unite and help elect Barack Obama president on Nov. 4.

“I came here to say ‘Thank you!’” Clinton said in her speech to a meeting of the Hispanic Caucus in a ballroom of the Colorado Convention Center. She thanked the crowd for working tirelessly on her behalf during the hard-fought primaries.

Then she added, “We came here to pledge our support for the next president of the United States, Barack Obama. … I know with all my heart we cannot afford four more years of failed Republican policies. On any issue that matters to you, we must have a Democratic president. … I want you to work as hard to make Barack Obama the next president as you worked for me.” The crowd erupted in deafening cheers.

The rousing display of unity came amid a media drumbeat that “bitter” Clinton supporters, especially Latinos, plan to sit out the presidential election.

Clinton is expected to deliver a similar message of unity when she speaks to the DNC Tuesday. The Associated Press reported that she has agreed to call for a suspension of the balloting and the unanimous nomination of Obama.

Colorado’s Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar welcomed the caucus. “I am 100 percent behind Barack Obama,” he said, citing Obama’s pledge to reverse “the most failed foreign policy in the history of the United States.”

“What has George W. Bush done to our world?” Salazar demanded. “Is America safer today than it was eight years ago?” The crowd roared, “No!”

Cuban-American Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said the convention opens “on the edge of the Rockies and the edge of history.” The nation went 30 years without a Latino in the U.S. Senate after Sen. Joseph Montoya (D-N.M.) left office in 1977, he said. Now, hundreds of Latinos hold elective office and people of Latin American descent have won gains in all walks of life. Henry Cejudo, “son of an undocumented immigrant,” has just won a Gold Medal in wrestling at the Olympics, he noted.

Menendez branded as intolerable the raids on job sites and mass deportations of undocumented workers. “Let us tell everyone in this election season that we are not second class citizens,” he thundered.” This year we have a transformational opportunity. … More than 17 million Latinos are eligible to vote.”

He decried the Latino jobless rate, highest of any sector of the population, with Latinos also the highest percentage who lack health insurance. “I believe the road to the White House in this election comes through our communities. We must make Barack Obama the next president of the United States.”

Bridgette Davila, a professor of political science at San Francisco State University, was wearing a T-shirt she designed with the word “Obamanos” (Let’s “Obama”) stenciled on the front and the words “Latinos, Unidos por Obama” (Latinos United for Obama). “I think Obama is a leader for the 21st century,” she told the World. “His policies are going to do better not only for America in general but especially for Latinos: health care, the economy, education. His experience as a community organizer was really compelling to me because that is what I do.”

She praised Clinton’s speech. “I think she was very gracious and politically astute. It is everything I would have expected from a woman of her stature.”

greenerpastures21212 @ yahoo.com

Obama picks Biden

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 03:56:00 +0000

DENVER — Barack Obama picked Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate Aug. 23. Biden is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Political benefits to the Obama campaign of selecting Biden include his reputation for experience in foreign affairs, his record of winning support from some Republicans for progressive legislation, including bills backed by the labor movement, and his abilities as a strong campaigner and debater.

Biden has a liberal voting record. He opposed the Bush tax cuts for the rich and voted against five right-wing Supreme Court nominees — William Rehnquist, Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. In 1987, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he spearheaded the Senate rejection of Bork, Ronald Reagan’s ultra-conservative nominee.

While much of the media focus is on Biden’s experience dealing with matters of foreign policy or the judiciary, the labor movement is interested in his votes on matters of concern to workers.

Biden has a 100 percent AFL-CIO “interim rating” for the current 2008 legislative year.

He voted for unemployment benefit extensions that were filibustered by the Republicans, for the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, in favor of allowing collective bargaining for public safety workers and for improvements in Medicare.

Don White Presente!

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:37:00 +0000

I love Los Angeles. Not the la-la land of the media. I like downtown LA, east of Hill St., the Maginot Line the LAPD puts up to keep the homeless away from the high rises. I grew up in the fifties just east of downtown and could see City Hall from my grammar school window by day, then on TV’s Dragnet show at night.

On special days we’d go to the Old Plaza Olvera and eat cactus candy. Every Saturday we brothers would accompany Dad to the Grand Central Market where he would buy the freshest produce, especially the chiles. It was full of different people and their foods. Brown, Black, White, Asian, working people. It was fascinating and fun.

All my adult life I have continued going by these places almost weekly, most often to march, picket and advocate with working people, Black, Brown, white and Asian, with LAPD keeping watch all around. It is fun and fulfilling. It was here I got to know one of Los Angeles’ finest working class heroes, Don White.

Don passed away June 19 at the age of 71. He was one of the key people who linked the struggles of Central Americans, here and in their homelands, to the progressive movements in greater Los Angeles. Leaders and activists of the progressive movements of Central American peoples, here and abroad, affectionately came to call him Don Blanco. He became a leader of the city’s progressive movement as a whole.

Don grew with the causes he served because he applied his wonderful gifts: intelligence, sensitivity, imagination, humor and courage with both modesty and assertiveness. He could focus on the key tasks at hand and get others to agree to disagree enough to develop the social force needed for regional, national and international impact.

Don emerged as a key citywide activist in the early eighties when Ronald Reagan was president and state and county government as well as the LAPD were run by rightwing Republicans. He helped make this town a powerhouse for progressive politics.

He had already been a history and journalism teacher for two decades, in a middle school in an inner city working class neighborhood that was becoming a Latino barrio in 1963 when he started. A founding member of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, he was by all accounts an effective and popular teacher. He obviously learned much from the over 5,000 students who passed through his classrooms.

At an Aug. 10 memorial meeting at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, attended by a thousand multiracial progressive activists, I learned that in the mid-seventies, Don had become very active in humanitarian aid for natural disasters in Central America, and that as a college student in the late fifties he actively opposed the House Un-American Activities Committee’s red-baiting. Like most Southern Californians he was raised out of state, growing up in a working class family in Mount Vernon, Wash. where he became high school student body president.

In 1983 Don White became a key local activist and then a leader in the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. While the spokespersons were mainly Salvadorans and established local activist leaders, he was everywhere, working on details to move things forward. He often risked his life traveling to El Salvador on solidarity missions. Don’s leadership emerged even more strongly with the setbacks to Central American democratic movements as U.S. global corporate dominance intensified following the Cold War.

His retirement from teaching in 1997 made him more available to help facilitate development of the progressive movement as a whole as reaction took control of virtually every lever of the national government. Increasingly, he was the emcee or a board member for various progressive causes.

Ever youthful, Don was short of stature, with a gleam in his eye and a smile on his lips —always a gentleman with a bit of the elf in him.

I got to know him a bit better on a windy day last winter. It was the day of the monthly Iraq Moratorium and we both showed up at the northeast corner of Fifth and Figueroa — the main gateway from downtown LA onto the freeway system — at 4 p.m. as rush hour started. For nearly an hour and a half we were the only ones holding a 20 by 4 foot banner saying, “Stop the Iraq War.”

Thousands of passing cars honked and waved at our banner. We would struggle to wave back, and then Don — ever alert to details — would remind me the wind had moved us away from the most visible spot and we would move back.

The last time I spoke with Don was later in the spring at a taquito stand on Olvera Street. He was working on a fund appeal for later that afternoon. We chatted about the prospects of defeating the rightwing Republicans in this year’s elections, particularly the nearest Republican incumbent, Rep. David Dreier. After finishing my tacos I left him to his preparations. A month later I learned of his death.

I have thought about him every day since.

As a Mexican American, a Chicano and a worker, I am ever grateful for Don’s contributions to the understanding and strength of Latino progressive movements at home and abroad, and to the overall struggle for progress and democracy here in the United States. In the Los Angeles area there are probably well more than a million people of Central American heritage, a large proportion of whom support the democratic struggles in their home countries, in this country and around the world. Don White helped make this happen.

Among the lessons of Don Blanco’s life is the importance of white American workers’ internationalism and working class consciousness for the democratic transformation of this country and the world. Don Blanco was aware of the connections between imperialism and monopoly, democracy and progress, principle and personality. He was and is an all-American Angelino.

Don Blanco presente!

Rosalio_munoz@ sbcglobal.net

Study: Latino voters favor Obama

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:33:00 +0000

Nov. 4 could ultimately change the face of American politics and it is Latino voters who could make the difference.

In a recent poll by the nationwide Pew Hispanic Center, Latinos are overwhelmingly supporting Sen. Barack Obama for president at 66 percent over Sen. John McCain at 23 percent.

Latino voters remain an important bloc to both the Republican and Democratic camps numbering at 15 percent of the total U.S. population and representing 9 percent of the eligible electorate. Latinos are the fastest-growing minority group in the country.

With roots in different countries, the key voting blocs are among the Mexican American, Puerto Rican and Cuban American communities. Florida, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada are important battleground states for the presidential candidates where these voters could make all the difference.

Although Hillary Clinton won the majority of the Latino vote during the Democratic primaries, the new poll dismisses the charge that Latinos were unwilling to vote for a Black presidential candidate.

According to the report, which surveyed over 2,000 Latino adults of which 892 are registered voters, Obama is rated favorably by 76 percent compared to McCain at 44 percent. President Bush scored a 27 percent approval rate. Clinton’s rating among Latino registered voters remains high at 73 percent favorable. Latino voters supporting McCain represent a smaller percentage today than those who supported Bush in 2004.

But despite what many speculated about Latino voters for Obama, more than three-quarters of Latinos who said they voted for Clinton during the primaries now say they are inclined to vote for Obama next November, while just 8 percent say they will pull for McCain.

Education, the cost of living, jobs and health care were ranked the most pressing issues facing Latino voters nationwide. Crime, the Iraq war and immigration are not far behind. Obama is strongly favored over McCain to tackle these issues.

Latinos have historically supported Democratic candidates but in the last two years their support for the Democratic camp has increased significantly. Some 65 percent of Latino registered voters now say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with just 26 percent with the Republicans. The 39 percentage point difference is the largest gap in 10 years among Latino voters, who now favor Democrats over Republicans. In 2006, the partisan gap was just 21 percentage points.

The historic possibility of electing the country’s first African American president along with confronting major issues such as an economy in crisis, rising gas and food prices, the war in Iraq, health care and education has energized many new and young voters to become fully engaged in record numbers. Some 70 percent feel the country is headed in the wrong direction under Bush.

Addressing the National Council of La Raza’s national conference last month, Obama said the current system is not working when the public school system is crumbling, high unemployment rates continue to rise and when 12 million undocumented immigrants have to live in hiding.

Obama stressed his campaign is about correcting the problem of working women who can’t find affordable health care or after-school programs for their children and about fighting for a living wage that fights for equal pay for equal work with guaranteed benefits.

“I will be a president who stands with you, and fights for you, and walks with you every step of the way,” said Obama. “When the system isn’t working, people who love this country can come together to change it. That is the history of the Hispanic community in America. From fighting to desegregate our schools and neighborhoods, to organizing farm workers, and to standing up for the rights of immigrants.”

“Make no mistake about it: the Latino community holds this election in your hands,” said Obama.

plozano @pww.org

John McCains veterans problem

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:32:00 +0000

John McCain has developed a veterans problem.

In late May, McCain aided a Republican filibuster of the 21st Century GI Bill by refusing to return to the Senate for a key vote. In fact, McCain claimed the bill’s generous provisions to aid veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan — additional health care, educational opportunities and other resources — were bad because they would give incentives for troops to leave the military.

In fact, Time magazine reported that McCain has voted favorably on veterans issues only 30 percent of the time, while Barack Obama has supported them 90 percent of the time.

The battle over the GI Bill spurred veterans like Purple Heart recipient Christopher McGurk, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, to join the Obama campaign.

Last week, he was part of a media teleconference showcasing the “Next Greatest Generation of Veterans for Obama.”

McGurk told reporters, “I support Sen. Obama because he’s supporting us.”

He cited Obama’s work on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and his support for new funding for veterans’ health care and the GI Bill.

“Thanks to the new GI Bill, I now have opportunities I did not have before,” the former infantry staff sergeant added.

Veterans also say McCain’s poor judgment on the Middle East has caused them to back Obama.

In a TV ad released by VoteVets.org, Iraq veteran Brandon Woods reminds viewers that McCain told the public that he would support troop withdrawal if the Iraqis asked us to leave, but once the Iraqi prime minister called for a withdrawal timetable McCain changed his tune. “Sen. McCain would occupy Iraq indefinitely against their wishes,” the former Army captain says. “That’s not what freedom means; that’s not what we fought for.”

Former Army Ranger Collin McMahon of Savannah, Ga., a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, told reporters during the teleconference that his endorsement of Obama was based on the Illinois senator’s “strategic clarity and good judgment,” qualities which he said McCain lacks.

McMahon, a former sergeant, saw Obama’s promise to combine economic aid, multilateral alliances and military action focused on the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks as a better choice than what McCain offers.

Drew Sloan, a former infantry officer and Afghanistan and Iraq veteran from Aspen, Colo., said, “The threats that face us today are diverse and complex, and a Cold War mentality is not the place to look for the answers.”

“I am supporting Sen. Obama because I think he gets it,” Sloan added. “He understands that in the 21st century, it requires two plans: one to win the war, and one to win the peace.”

John McCary, a former Army intelligence specialist in Iraq, said he thinks Obama “understands the kind of strategic vision we need to be successful in places like Iraq and Afghanistan where we have an ongoing counterinsurgency.”

“The tools we need to be successful there,” McCary noted, based on his personal experience, “are not those of greater force implements or larger guns, but marshaling tools like cultural understanding, alliance building, marshaling resources like civilian reconstruction.”

McCary highlighted his personal struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and Obama’s support for him. “This draws me completely, naturally to the senator, because I think he’s the kind of leader we need to support these sorts of efforts,” McCary said. “And I believe he will stand by us.”

Other veterans say that while they respect McCain’s military record, it is not a good basis for deciding who should get your vote for president.

“This election is not just about Senator McCain’s veteran record,” said McGurk. “The election is about health care, energy, a wide spectrum of different issues.”

In an ad by the newly formed AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council, electrician and Navy veteran Jim Wasser says, “Every vet respects John McCain’s war record. It’s his record in the Senate I have a problem with.”

Wasser, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, points to McCain’s agenda of big tax breaks for corporations, job-draining free trade agreements and other anti-worker policies.

AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Council President Mark Ayers, a former Navy pilot who is chairing the federation’s veterans group, said in announcing the initiative, “Not only has McCain voted the wrong way on veterans issues — such as opposing increased funding for veterans’ health care the last four years in a row — but he also doesn’t support middle class people’s issues.”

Among other things, McCain favors taxing workers’ health benefits, Ayers noted.

In addition to the national Union Veterans Council, state councils have been launched in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Ohio and West Virginia. Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan and other states are expected to form councils shortly.

jwendland @politicalaffairs.net

Paraguay enters new era

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:01:00 +0000

Liberation theology proponent Fernando Lugo, a former Catholic bishop who has never before held political office, became Paraguay’s president Aug. 15 in ceremonies attended by heads of state and foreign guests. Wearing an open shirt and his customary sandals, Lugo outlined goals for his five-year tenure, defined problems and paid homage to mentors and the nation. He delivered some of his inaugural address in Guaraní, Paraguay’s dominant indigenous language.

Lugo came to the presidency after winning 40 percent of votes in April as the coalition candidate of populist parties and social movements. His victory ended 61 years of rightist Colorado Party rule and became the first transfer of power in Paraguayan history accomplished peacefully by electoral means.

Lugo’s new cabinet incorporates disparate ideologies, representatives of social movements and business interests. Steering clear of partisan identification, he promises a centrist orientation, avoidance of close identification with leftist Latin American leaders and collaboration with entrenched political foes. The Paraguayan Workers Party’s criticism of alleged over-representation in his cabinet of ministers from the Liberal Party — read “neo-liberal” — hinted at future leftist dissent.

Yet 15,000 citizens assembled in Asuncion’s Congress Plaza chanted, “Lugo is president, the people are in power.” He proclaimed, “Today ends an exclusive Paraguay, a segregationist Paraguay, a Paraguay famous for corruption.” Its new leaders, he promised, will be “relentless against those who steal from the people.”

Recalling his dedication as a priest to “those that history has thrown off into exclusion and misery,” Lugo condemned the “oppressive rhetoric of all the dictatorships that have marked the history of our American homeland.”

Inviting colleagues to follow his example, Lugo promised to take no salary: “The poor need more than I do.” He quoted Elvio Romero, who observed: “I am here with others on my road — the just, the poor, the persecuted, and the rebellious.” Lugo reiterated: “I am here, dear Elvio.” The late communist poet lived most of his life in exile.

Lugo cited as priorities war against corruption, land reform and repatriation of energy income. He warned European-descended Paraguayans to respect indigenous land ownership and said “impunity for [inflicting] persecution and humiliation” was over.

Paraguay’s National Peasant Organization announced a 100-day grace period for the initiation of land reform, during which its activists would desist from land occupations. Negotiations with Brazil are soon to begin over bolstering income derived from the shared Itaipu and Yacyreta dams situated on the Parana River.

History casts a shadow over the new government. Oligarchic rule has prevailed since Paraguay’s independence from Spain in 1811, beginning with the 52-year dominion by the family of Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia. Dictator Alfredo Stroessner held forth for 35 years ending in 1989.

Wars have devastated the country, notably the 1865-1870 onslaught from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay that killed 90 percent of boys and male adults. War-related financial distress forced indebted landowners to transfer properties to foreign buyers, a process leading to the persisting pattern of large land holdings.

Suffering continues, much of it due to exploitation at the hands of agricultural corporations owning 75 percent of Paraguay’s farmland. Fifty percent of the adults in this country of 6.1 million people earn less than $2 dollars a day; 38 percent lack work and over one million Paraguayans have emigrated. Some 500 families own 90 percent of the land. Paraguay’s rural population fell from 67 percent in 1989 to 30 percent this year.

The culprit is soy production, up 69 percent over five years. Paraguay has become the world’s fourth largest producer. Foreign landowners and agents, mostly Brazilian, derive huge profits from exports for biodiesel fuel. Soy accounts for half the nation’s gross domestic product. Over five million acres of forest have been sacrificed to soy farming.

President Lugo’s presidency coincides with potential quickening of struggle between rich and poor, entrenched and excluded. Whether collaboration with the powerful and compromise among allies — each essential for survival — will serve to bolster his movement and mission is uncertain.

In any event, “This country deserves it,” declared Eduardo Galeano, referring to a Lugo presidency. The famous Uruguayan writer, present at the inauguration, suggested that Paraguay “could not keep on with pain incessantly.” atwhit @roadrunner.com

Listen to America...

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:53:00 +0000

In late July and early August, Listening to America/Platform for Change hearings across the country invited grassroots input for the 2008 Democratic national platform.

Below is testimony by steelworker retiree Bruce Bostick at the Aug. 2 hearing in Cleveland, Ohio and Judith LeBlanc, United for Peace and Justice organizing coordinator, at the July 23 hearing in New York, N.Y.

Help hard-working families survive — a 30-year steelworker’s story

By Bruce Bostick

After working 30 years at Lorain Works (first US Steel, then Kobe, finally RTI —Republic Technologies, Inc.) on tough, hard jobs, working turns and working for many years as grievance committeeman, chair of that union committee for Local 1104, USWA, I took my pension, in August 2002 (hired in August 1972) It should’ve been a very good pension, close to $3,000 a month.

However, right after my 30-year anniversary, RTI called off the night turn, and stated that they had a shutdown and were declaring BANKRUPTCY!

PBGC steals our pensions!

The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. should’ve stepped in, seizing the pension plan to protect our pensions. However, at that time Bush replace the head of the PBGC (Steven Kandarian), and his first action was to MAKE UP A NEW DATE, out of clear cloth (June, instead of August), stated that this was the date the PBGC would recognize as the “date of bankruptcy/PBGC seizure of pension plan.”

THIS WAS DONE FOR ONLY ONE REASON---TO AVOID PAYING THE 70/80 PENSIONS OF THE STEELWORKERS. (70/80 pensions were negotiated by our union for exactly this type of situation — if worker has 70-80 points, seniority plus age 70-plus at the time of a bankruptcy/shutdown, worker gets an immediate pension).

For me, it meant I could never reach the 30-year plateau that I had earned for my pension.

MY PENSION DROPPED BY 1/3!

FIVE WORKERS AT RTI COMMITTED SUICIDE (including Jay Schroeder, whose older brother was killed at Kent State). Workers lost health care, pensions. Many families broke up, divorces, illnesses, everyone I knew suffered clinical depression, etc.

Federal court

USW fought it, holding rallies, marches, news conferences, and took it to federal court, where we won. However, instead of paying our pensions, PBGC appealed to a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court, Cincinatti (all GOP, two Bush appointees) — they ruled that “Steelworkers had no expectation of receiving pensions.”

Sherrod Brown

As difficult as this situation is, one bright spot has been the hard work of our senator, Sherrod Brown. He’s sponsored legislation to reform corporate bankruptcy laws so this could be stopped in the future — S 2092. He’s brought our union/workers into meetings w/the technicians at the PBGC, and he’s shown a genuine sensitivity to the workers and their families, going above and beyond the call to help us.

THANKS, SHERROD!!

Columbus and insurance hell

Meanwhile, I relocated to Columbus, in order to help out my folks, now in their 80s. Unfortunately, the job I’d been promised there fell through and I had to rely on my partial pension, without health care.

Since getting to Columbus, I’ve been trying to obtain health care. Two companies turned me down, even though I’m healthy, work out, eat well, etc—I’m 59!

Signed up with Aetna a couple months ago, thought I had insurance. However, it then went to the underwriters — first, fill out five-page information form, then, began an endless series of requests for “more information.” Then, a request for all my medical records. I said I’d sign it, but it was sent in a non-Word document and I couldn’t open it. Their answer: “IT’S THE ONLY FORM WE HAVE!”

(Never heard of the U.S. Mail, I guess!)

I called to try to discuss the extremely frustrating situation with someone, only to have the people there tell me, “It’s not my department!”

A friend in the UAW (Dave Pavlik) likes to say that “Insurance companies want to insure pig iron, in the ocean, against fire!”

I still have no health care, and I agree with Dave!

We need real health care, when we need it, not endless bureaucracy!!! MEDICARE FOR ALL — HR 676!!!

Depression

This situation, along with the difficult situation helping out with my folks, was taking its toll. My dad went into the hospital for a knee replacement, but complication after complication kept him in for over three months. I approached a counselor who was helping my dad about the possibility of seeing someone for myself. She thought she could help, and recommended three or four psychologists. However, when they found out I didn’t have insurance, they each declined to see me.

My brother suggested I check out the public networks, which I did. However, they sent me to the ONLY COUNSELOR AVALABLE — RIGHT-WING CHRISTIAN COUNSELORS, with pictures of Pat Robertson on the wall, James Dobson magazines. After talking with a young counselor and filling out an information sheet, I ran, actually terrified of what they’d do with my info.

Family

This has been a terrible extra burden on my family, already burdened with helping my father (who had been an athlete — Hoosiers). He’s been in and out of the hospital, and we’ve had difficulty getting in home help.

We’ve heard for years people talking about family values. My sister, whom I dearly love, is gay. It would seem to me that “family values” should mean something besides hating part of your family — it should mean actually helping hard-working families survive!

Stand firm for peace

by Judith LeBlanc

United for Peace and Justice/NYC appreciates the opportunity to make input into the platform of the Democratic Party. Nationally, UFPJ is encouraging peace groups and activists to join these hearings all around the country as part of our national nonpartisan peace voter engagement campaign.

We have protested in the streets, in the halls of Congress and it is fitting that we bring this issue here to the delegates to the DNC.

It is critical for the DNC platform committee to draw the proper conclusions from the atrocity of the illegal war in Iraq and to take into account the growing public sentiment for a foreign policy premised on diplomacy first!

A vast cross-section of NYers, from unions, community groups and faith-based organizations, have opposed this war from the beginning. We rallied on February 15, 2003, a million strong filling the streets of Manhattan in an international day of action to prevent the war.

Now the overwhelming sentiment is for rolling back the Bush administration’s policy of endless war. NYC peace sentiments are strong and very well organized. Senator Clinton, Congressman Rangel and a majority of the Congressional delegation have heard us and voted against funding for the war!

In NYC, we, in a very personal way, know how the Bush administration manipulated the fears and the tragedy of Sept 11 to rationalize the war in Iraq and a never-ending war on terror. An act of terror is a crime, not a call for war!

Even before they entered the White House, the Bush administration’s foreign policy was premised on first strike, preemptive war. When they took office, they sidelined diplomacy and degraded international law, international institutions and multilateral cooperation.

The country, the world, needs a 180-degree turn away from the Bush administrations foreign policy.

The platform must stand firm on diplomacy as the primary premise of US foreign policy. This political framework is not based on pacifism, it’s realism!

Senator Obama got it right yesterday when he said that General Petreaus looks at facts on the ground in Iraq, but the Commander in Chief must also look at facts on the ground in our communities, the economic costs of the war.

The time is long past for military solutions for the world’s most pressing problems. Not in Iraq, not in Iran, not anywhere.

An escalation of Bush’s war on terror will not strengthen national security.

National security is only achievable on a global basis through international cooperation, confidence-building measures. We need human and collective international security. Diplomacy, not war!

Real national security is only achievable through the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction, starting with the US adhering to international disarmament agreements. Bush has ignored the US obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty while threatening Iran with preemptive war.

Together, the peace movement and the Democratic Party must press for diplomacy, not war as a just foreign policy to begin to address the world’s complicated problems.

Thank you and see you in Denver!

Morales scores victory

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 04:22:00 +0000

The epic nature of today’s events in Bolivia flows from the long struggle between the country’s indigenous majority and a Europeanized ruling class, and from disparities between impoverished western highlands and four lowland eastern departments (states) thriving on natural gas and agribusiness. A government intent upon wealth redistribution is confronting eastern separatists for whom racism is a staple.

The face-off reached dramatic heights Aug. 10 when Bolivians voted on a referendum that, if approved, would have removed indigenous President Evo Morales from office, along with Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, and eight departmental prefects (governors). Commenting before the vote, Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel set the stage: “Today is the struggle of all people, one that demarcates Latin America’s road, whether toward liberation and sovereignty or toward darkness and dominion by enslavement through the powers of neo-liberalism.”

Preliminary results gave the president and vice president a nearly 65 percent plurality, up from their 53.7 percent victory margin in 2005, and kept in office prefects in Santa Cruz, Beni, Tarija, Pando and Potosi. The first four want Morales out. Rejected were prefects in Cochabamba, La Paz and Oruro. According to the constitution, they will be replaced by presidential appointees. In Cochabamba, rightist Manfred Reyes is refusing to go.

The Morales government instigated the recall referendum last December amidst protests after the Constituent Assembly approved a new constitution during an opposition boycott. The conservative senate sanctioned the referendum in May.

In May and June referenda, four departments approved autonomy statutes.

The drama quickened when various judges ruled for and against the Aug. 10 referendum, opposition leaders engaged in hunger strikes, racist demonstrations proliferated, boycott rumors spread, threats kept Morales away from Independence Day celebrations in Sucre, and accusations mounted of U.S. meddling. (Reports claim separatists received some $4.1 million in USAID support in 2006.)

The Bolivian Labor Federation (COB, in Spanish) muddied the waters by demonstrating and blocking highways before the vote in response to stalled government negotiations over pensions. An Aug. 5 melee that left two unionists dead and dozens wounded served opposition propaganda, including Santa Cruz Mayor Percy Fernandez’ claim that President Morales “still has not learned to govern.” Fernandez called for the army to overthrow the government. The situation eased after the government and strikers agreed to resume negotiations following the referendum.

Some 3,500 vote monitors, including 300 international observers, testified to four million citizens having voted peacefully and efficiently. International “Intellectuals for the Unity and Sovereignty of Bolivia” had met beforehand in La Paz in support of the government. Left South American heads of state lent their solidarity. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement appealing for a “peaceful climate.”

President Morales greeted victory by calling for unity and for progress toward approving last year’s national constitution through a referendum. He prioritized income from natural resources to serving needs of the poor and signaled his desire to negotiate autonomy within the constitutional framework. He warned that his government would be tough on “sabotage and sedition.”

Santa Cruz reasserted its customary leading role toward other separatist departments as wealthy landowner and Prefect Ruben Costas told a congratulatory rally of plans under way for a new legislative assembly, a police authority and local control over taxes on natural gas revenues.

Analysts attribute Morales’ victory to achievements over two years due to nationalization of petroleum and mining resources. Urban unemployment dropped from 8.15 to 7.66 percent, minimum salary increased almost 25 percent, foreign debt is down 45 percent, international reserve funds more than doubled, and 700,000 elderly Bolivians each receive annual pensions of $422.

Under Juancito Pinto vouchers, 1.4 million children each receive $25 toward enrollment in 13,000 schools. Morales’ defenders point to the building of 40 secondary level hospitals and 18 eye care centers, a quarter of a million eye operations, and half a million literacy graduates — advances brought about with Cuban and Venezuelan help.

Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera outlined three post-referendum government obligations. They are: “social equality, the colonial wound we must repair; decentralization of power, the autonomists’ agenda; and the distribution of wealth.”

atwhit@roadrunner.com

Labors fight against racism has impact

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 03:57:00 +0000

Obama holds 10 pt. lead among lower income white workers

CHICAGO — The leaders of America’s labor movement are calling upon white union members to put aside any racial biases that could undermine Barack Obama’s labor-supported effort to become President of the United States. The AFL-CIO, at its executive council meeting here Aug. 5, echoed similar calls put forward recently by leaders of the Steelworkers and the Miners unions.

If recent polls are indicative the effort is working. Obama has a 10-point lead over McCain among white workers earning less than $27,000 per year and a two-to-one lead over McCain among all workers in this category. An Aug. 4, Washington Post poll shows Obama out-performing both John Kerry who lost the white vote by 17 points in 2004 and Al Gore who lost the white vote by 12 points in 2000. The last Democratic candidate for president to win a majority of the white vote was Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Poll numbers are not lining up with pundits’ interpretations that Obama was weak among “blue collar whites,” particularly in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. In each of those states local polls also show Obama doing much better among white workers than either Kerry or Gore. In the overall head-to-head matchups with McCain in those states, Obama also leads.

Not coincidentally, observers note, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan are states where unions have been particularly active.

Every miner in Pennsylvania has received a brochure from the United Mine Workers entitled, “Which Side Are You On?” In the brochure Cecil Roberts, the union’s president, says, “We must pull together and support the candidate for president who is on our side – Barack Obama. This is at the core of what it means to be a member of our union.”

Even before its executive council meeting, the leadership of the 10 million-member AFL-CIO plunged into the fight against racial bias.

“There’s not a single good reason for any worker – especially any union member – to vote against Barack Obama,” federation Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told the Steelworkers Convention in Las Vegas last month.

“There’s only one really bad reason to vote against him: because he’s not white,” he said.

In Indiana, the AFL-CIO has identified 30,000 unregistered union members who it plans to register as voters and talk to about Obama.

Pundits who minimize the importance of union activity in the election by pointing out that only one in eight workers are unionized ignore the fact that high voter turnout rates among union members gives them disproportionate strength.

Union households are expected to account for one in four votes cast in November – and one in three votes in key states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

At the AFL-CIO executive council meeting, the union leaders approved deployment of 250,000 volunteers and spending of $250 million for grass roots campaigning on behalf of Obama and 500 other candidates vying for national, state and municipal posts.

The 2008 elections have served to unite unions that have, at times, disagreed on other issues. The two large federations, AFL-CIO and Change to Win, are coordinating their efforts. The Service Employees International Union, growing rapidly as a result of organizing campaigns among low wage workers, is spending $85 million and dovetailing its efforts with those of the AFL-CIO. SEIU, which together with several other unions left the AFL-CIO in 2005 to form Change to Win, is now working for Obama alongside AFL-CIO unions in many locations.

Union leaders are saying they are proud of the racial diversity of their organizations and that confronting members about biases is, essentially, their special responsibility.

“We’re going straight at our people and talking to them about the differences between McCain and Obama and the fact that race could be an issue – you go straight at it,” said Gerald McEntee, head of the AFL-CIO’s political committee.

Beyond the presidency, labor aims to achieve a Democratic sweep, increasing the party’s majority in both the House and Senate. Unions expect that the bigger majorities will enact more favorable tax policies for workers, some form of universal health care, reconsideration of trade agreements and measures that will slow the export of American jobs.

The AFL-CIO executive council says it will draft a post election program to hold labor backed candidates who win

accountable.

The signature measure labor hopes to enact is the Employee Free Choice Act, a law that would reduce the ability of employers to block union organizing efforts. Obama supports the EFCA while McCain opposes it.

Wal-Mart and companies like it are particularly worried about the EFCA. The retail giant has already forced its employees to attend propaganda sessions against the EFCA and against the election of Obama. The AFL-CIO executive council noted that Wal-Mart’s 1.2 million employees are a potentially huge pro-EFCA and pro-Obama voting block.

Based on the upsurge of union activity, it appears that labor sees the result of these elections as critical to ushering in a new era for the labor movement.

“You get somebody like Obama in there and I think it’s a different side of the coin,” McEntee said.

jwojcik@pww.org

FDR grandson: Happy Birthday, Social Security!

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:44:00 +0000

Groups take on McCain privatization plan

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Aug. 14, marks the 73rd anniversary of the day the Social Security Act was signed into law by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In recognition of the program’s 73rd birthday, Americans United for Change was joined today by James Roosevelt, Jr., grandson of FDR; Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D - FL); Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO; and Edward Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans to celebrate 73 years of what has been called the most successful government program in the world and that has been credited with lifting America’s seniors from poverty and providing critical financial security for surviving spouses and people with disabilities.

'It's hard to remember now, but before Social Security, nearly half of America's seniors lived in poverty,' said Roosevelt Jr. 'After a lifetime of playing by the rules and working hard, there was no guarantee of a secure retirement. My grandfather, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and a majority of Americans thought that was wrong. They believed that lifting our seniors out of poverty is a reflection of our nation's core values. That's why my grandfather signed the Social Security Act 73 years ago today. One of the great successes of the 20th century, today Social Security lifts nearly 13 million seniors and 1.3 million children out of poverty.”

Americans United for Change, the group that led the successful national campaign to beat back President Bush’s effort to privatize Social Security in 2005, noted that while there is much cause for celebration today, Social Security as the nation has known it and depended on for 73 years is once again in the crosshairs of the anti-Social Security forces in Washington.

Senator John McCain, who has emerged as the poster child for a third term of President Bush’s policies and who last month called Social Security as FDR conceived it 73 years ago 'an absolute disgrace,” was urged to abandon his calls to revive the same Bush privatization proposal that was overwhelmingly rejected by the American public in 2005 – a risky investment scheme that would turn Social Security from a guaranteed into a guaranteed gamble and slash guaranteed benefits for millions or seniors, survivors and the disabled, all while not adding a single day to the life of the program.

The new report from the Institute for America’s Future: “The Perils of Privatization; Social Security Privatization Cuts Lifetime Benefits; Makes Senior Citizens Vulnerable to Poverty” is available at

http://www.ourfuture.org/report/2008083204/perils-privatization

“Like President Bush, John McCain wants to privatize our Social Security, turning it into a gamble with our futures, and making 8.6 million American seniors vulnerable to poverty,” added Roosevelt. “John McCain has even said Social Security is 'a disgrace.' I couldn't disagree more. Our Social Security isn't a disgrace; it's a compact, a trust between generations of Americans. It's a reflection of our values. On the 70th anniversary of Social Security, Americans stood together and said no to George Bush's attempt to privatize Social Security. On this anniversary, let's make sure John McCain hears the same message. Tell John McCain to keep his hands off of our Social Security.'

“Social Security is the most successful social program in the world because it has lifted millions of seniors and children out of poverty. It is the most important leg of the retirement stool,” said Rep. Schakowsky. “I strongly disagree with Sen. John McCain who has repeatedly called Social Security a ‘disgrace.’ If it wasn’t for Social Security, half of all seniors would be living in poverty. Social Security has provided a guaranteed benefit for millions of Americans.”

“As it currently stands, Social Security will be solvent until 2041 and could continue to pay full benefits until that time even if we make no changes,” said Wasserman Schultz. I will be 75 years old when that happens. As the child of a baby boomer and the mother of small children, I am deeply concerned about the future solvency of Social Security. However, Senator McCain’s privatization scheme is not the answer and does nothing to fix the problem. Senator Obama has a plan to strengthen Social Security through changes to the payroll tax system that protects middle-class families while simply extending current payroll taxes to earnings above $250,000 a year. I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress and the next President of the United States to protect Social Security. Happy birthday Social Security and many happy returns.”

The AFL-CIO and the Alliance for Retired Americans each highlighted a recently launched campaign to reach more than 1 million seniors in the coming weeks with information on John McCain's plans to put Social Security at risk.

'Make no mistake, John McCain would eviscerate Social Security as we know it and leave millions of seniors hanging out to dry,' AFL-CIO’s Trumka said.

“We are reminding retirees that Senator McCain continues to support President Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security,” said Coyle of the Alliance for Retired Americans. “This would create Social Security accounts tied to the roller coaster of Wall Street. With all the turbulence in the stock market, and the rising prices of gas, groceries and health care, this is a gamble few retirees can afford to take. Privatization would hit the next wave of retirees as well – those currently in their mid-to-late 50s – particularly hard, as the massive amount of borrowing needed to create these private accounts would drain the Social Security Trust Fund and reduce benefits just as they approach retirement. The best way to celebrate Social Security’s 73rd birthday is to fight to ensure that Social Security remains strong and successful for generations to come. Happy Birthday, Social Security.”

Cuba: 55 years after Moncada

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:49:00 +0000

What does a victorious revolution do after a half century in power? “We shall continue to analyze with the people, particularly with the workers, with the same transparency and confidence we've always had.” Speaking July 26 in Santiago de Cuba at the former Moncada Barracks, President Raul Castro pledged, “We shall continue to care for, prepare and listen to our youth.”

The occasion was the 55th anniversary of the attack that launched the current phase of Cuba’s long revolutionary struggle. The fact-based, pragmatic tone of Castro’s remarks was appropriate to a national agenda of repair and adjustment.

Castro shifted from citing Communist hero Ruben Martinez Villena’s reference to the “tenacious scab of colonization,” to former President Fidel Castro’s 1973 condemnation of waste and depletion of resources, and to cataloguing ongoing water and road projects in Eastern Cuba aimed at renewing storm-damaged infrastructure.

Castro covered oil refineries and fertilizer factories, direct distribution of milk from producers to stores, coordinated truck availability, reduced tourist industry costs, and the return of retired teachers to the classroom, with pensions plus salaries, in response to Cuba’s shortage of 8,000 teachers. He reminded listeners that Cuba and the entire global south are endangered by food shortages, rising prices and climate change.

The president touched upon pressing problems he has dealt with in other settings, particularly in his July 11 speech to the National Assembly. Government leaders and the media have reviewed origins and potential impact of problems and summarized reams of data with the object of securing people’s understanding and a coordinated approach to solutions.

Food import costs, for example, are up 30 to 40 percent this year, to $2.5 billion. Cuba imports 70 percent of its food. Half its agricultural land lies idle. Under Resolution 259, recently passed by the National Assembly, landless farmers may on their own use up to 33 acres, and those with land up to 99 acres, both on a renewable basis. Under the legislation, the agricultural ministry was decentralized and credit made available to farmers for equipment and materials.

Another area of major uncertainty is support for retired workers. Those older than 60 make up 16.6 percent of the population now, but in 40 years that number will have risen to 30 percent. In 2025, there will be 2.3 active workers per retiree; there were four in 1990. Who will pay, asks José Alejandro Rodríguez, writing in Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth).

The need, he suggests, is to “energize the still insufficient work productivity in Cuba, by spurring deep transformations in our economy that come closer to offering a system of pay commensurate with appraisable results.”

Other commentaries stress that solutions will occur incrementally, over time. Stopgap legislation envisioned for later this year would gradually advance the retirement age for men to 65 and for women to 60 between 2009 and 2015. President Castro said, “The process of study and consultation with all of the workers will begin next September.”

Cuban leaders have introduced the notion of salaries based on productivity and work quality, with determination potentially at the work site, especially by cooperatives. Discussions on salary are ongoing in workplaces and unions throughout Cuba.

It is necessary to explain difficulties, President Castro said, “So we can be better prepared to face them. We must get used to receiving not only good news.” He pointed out that “We cannot spend in excess of what we have, [and] to make the best of what we have it is indispensable to save everything, foremost fuel.” He called for “efficiency in the use of our economic and human resources [and] the courage to rectify the mistakes made on the side of idealism in the management of our economy.'

The socialist thread in the current phase of Cuba’s development is evident in state planning, popular participation in decision-making, universal and equitable sharing in the benefits and pain of policies, the factoring out of profit and corporate power, and the promotion of international solidarity. And farmers use land, not own it.

atwhit @roadrunner.com

Anti-McCain campaign

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:46:00 +0000

CHICAGO (PAI)--Even as the Democrats continued their now-finished presidential campaign, the AFL-CIO launched its “define John McCain” campaign to disabuse popular notions about the presumed GOP presidential nominee. The results so far, according to federation Political Director Karen Ackerman:

* “Hundreds of flyers” in the federation’s McCain toolkit, tailored to specific issues important to each individual union. “What teachers want to know about McCain…What industrial workers want to know about McCain” and so on. The toolkit is on the AFL-CIO website. * “The fact that his plan taxes health care benefits. That resonates deeply with our members.”

* McCain’s support of a national “right to work” bill. The senator’s state, Arizona, is a right-to-work state.

Teams of unionists trailing McCain at campaign events, starting Feb. 25 and continuing since then. They raise uncomfortable questions, challenging him on everything from health care to energy, and hand out literature about his positions.

“We’ve done about 125 public events, exposing him an asking him the hard questions which the progressive community has focused on,” she says. They include health care, his stands with anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush and Bush’s War in Iraq.

* Mobilizing union veterans--there are about 2 million of them--to honor McCain’s Indo-China war record and then point out that he votes against increasing veterans benefits. The federation’s veterans council has established affiliates in key swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Colorado.

* “We’re not denying his service to the country,” Ackerman says. “But we’re point out he’s not the right person for president.”

USPS cuts impede We Deliver promise

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:17:00 +0000

CLEVELAND -- Protesting another attempt to cut government services, 60 postal workers and their supporters picketed the Cleveland Airport Mail Center July 31 responding to a threatened shutdown by the U.S. Postal Service.

“Save Our Airport Post Office!” the protesters, strung out along the highway leading to the facility, chanted as drivers of vehicles waved and honked in solidarity.

If the facility, one the three most efficient airport mail centers in the country, closes, parcels and priority mail would have to be shipped to Pittsburgh or Columbus for processing and then shipped backed to Cleveland for delivery, Danny Pride, President of Cleveland Area Local 72 of the American Postal Workers Union, explained.

This would only delay mail delivery and increase costs, he added. No jobs would be lost because of a no-layoff clause in the union contract. But the reduced service would encourage customers to shift to private parcel delivery companies.

Due to the intervention of Cleveland Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the post office has agreed not to close retail operations employing about 20 workers at the airport. However, it has refused to commit to continue processing mail involving up to 150 workers at the center.

“I remain concerned over a nationwide effort outlined in the Postal Service Network Plan to close airport processing facilities across the country,” Kucinich said in a statement distributed at the rally. As a member of the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Post Office and the District of Columbia, Kucinich said he had secured agreement from Deputy Postmaster Patrick Donahoe to keep retail operations open at the airport “for the foreseeable future.”

In addition, he said, the Subcommittee Chairman, Danny Davis (D-Illinois) “agreed to investigate the prudence of these closings and the role of privatization.”

Curtailment of customer services to encourage privatization has also been charged at other government agencies including the Social Security Administration where, as reported in the People's Weekly World May 9, federal employees have protested the closing of centers and reduction in staff.