Labor united against the Bush agenda

Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:39:00 +0000

Opinion

“While our candidate, John Kerry, did not win, we are proud that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, along with the entire family of labor, united in an historic effort to fight for the interests of working families. … November 2 was not the end of our fight to take back this country for working families. It was the beginning. This effort was never about one candidate, one political party, or a single election. It is about moving forward a pro-worker agenda at the national level.”

–Statement by Teamsters President Jim Hoffa and Secretary-Treasurer Tom Keegel on the 2004 elections.

Labor was at the heart of an incredible people’s coalition to defeat George Bush and the ultra-right wing of the Republican Party. And labor remains at the heart of keeping that coalition together and fighting back against the Bush agenda.

Not in my lifetime has labor been more energized and more mobilized as it was in this election fight against Bush. Local unions, central labor councils, regional and national offices of unions became “campaign central” for vast coalition efforts. Phone banking, labor walks, mailings, forums, plant gate distributions, concerts, rallies and demonstrations were organized out of these union halls.

Labor put more than 5,500 union members and full-time staff to work in the battleground states. More than 225,000 union volunteers participated in the Labor 2004 program. The AFL-CIO estimates that volunteers made more than 100 million phone calls and passed out more than 32 million leaflets at workplaces and in union neighborhoods. Hundreds of union members got on buses to travel to battleground states to help campaign in a first-of-its-kind effort. In short, labor spent millions in its own independent efforts and mobilized a mighty labor union army for change.

Then we suffered a terrible defeat. There is no other way to describe four more years of a Bush administration. Most expect a renewed and vicious assault on labor — national right-to-work-for-less legislation, outlawing card-check union recognition, further weakening health and safety labor law, and a new round of rotten trade agreements that further hasten the race to the bottom, just to name a few.

Yet in the face of defeat and attack, the dominant mood in labor is well described in the quote from the Teamsters above. As John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said, we emerge “bruised but unbowed.”

Labor comes out of this battle with broad new ties, influence and coalitions, and with hundreds of new and experienced union activists who have new skills and methods of organizing.

Still, it is inevitable and good that a spirited debate will open up on how best to move forward. The great experience of this heroic election effort, and the defeat, will both add new energy to the debate that has already begun in labor about how best to change and grow the labor movement.

For me, there are three important principles that have to inform these discussions and debates.

• Unity and maximizing the strength of labor and strengthening the broad, labor centered coalitions must be front and center. Debate that leads to splits or structural divisions in the labor movement from either the left or the right will only get us killed.

• Debate and discussion have to be centered in the rank and file, in the union halls, workplaces, and central labor councils. This is not a question of top-down or bottom-up. It is a question of basic union strength. Only when the best ideas for change are the mass property of the big majority of union members will real, constructive change move us forward.

• And lastly, the debate and discussion must take place in action. Changes have to be worked out in the process of fighting back against four more years of an anti-union and anti-working class administration bent on labor’s destruction. Some in labor have suggested that the fight for universal and comprehensive national health care is an overriding fight that can unify all of labor as we debate change. Surely experience building such a broad, labor-led, social movement would serve as a concrete test bed for change. Thousands of working families lose their health care every month. And, as they say, sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

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.

Hotel workers pick up the pace in Los Angeles and San Francisco

Fri, 19 Nov 2004 06:55:00 +0000

Leaders from UNITE HERE Local 11 and officials from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor announced Nov. 12 a boycott of nine upscale hotels, members of the Los Angeles Hotel Employers’ Council. The hotels include the Biltmore, Hyatt Regency, Beverly Wilshire, Westin Bonaventure, Wilshire Grand, St. Regis, Sheraton Universal, Hyatt West Hollywood and Century Plaza.

A Nov. 11 community meeting at the UNITE union hall brought together community and union leaders to help plan strategy for the fight-back.

“We need to have labor solidarity across the city,” said Jubilee Shine, one of the meeting organizers from Roofers Local 36. “Wherever there is a labor dispute we need a rapid response in numbers from the community,” he added.

In an e-mail message to meeting organizers, state Sen. Sheila Kuehl emphasized that “it is public policy of the state of California not to patronize businesses where there is a labor dispute.” She said she is looking for alternate sites for state meetings that had been scheduled at the boycotted hotels.

Joe Hancock from the L.A. Workers Center said, “We need to fight for a national health care plan for all workers,” while Ricardo Zelada, also from the center, said he would take the issue back to his church.

A representative from the First A.M.E. Church promised to “bring the matter of the boycott to be endorsed by the Social Concerns Committee of the church.”

On Nov. 12, some 200 workers and supporters rallied in front of the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, and another protest was set for Nov. 18 in front of the Wilshire Grand Hotel.

On the same day, Miguel Contreras, head of the L.A. County Federation of Labor, announced, “We are going to ask all of our unions, all of our allies in the political field, to stay out of these hotels. Do not attend any banquets or functions there.” He added, “We are very serious about this fight.”

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, management at 14 major downtown hotels escalated their war on locked-out workers by blocking a union proposal to extend health coverage beyond the present Dec. 1 cutoff.

UNITE HERE Local 2 had proposed using $4.4 million — part of the surplus in a joint union-hotel trust fund — to extend coverage to the 4,000 locked out workers for an additional two months. The emergency trust fund, which is available to both sides, now totals some $22 million.

At a Nov. 11 news conference, Local 2 President Mike Casey called the hotels’ decision to end the health benefits “unconscionable,” and “perhaps the cruelest turn.” Workers affected by the cutoff, including a hotel doorman whose 13-year-old son suffers a chronic brain disease, testified about the severe hardships they face as a result.

In a surprise move which delighted the union and the workers, health care giant Kaiser Permanente then stepped in Nov. 16 to announce that it will continue coverage for some 3,500 workers enrolled in its plan for the two month period. Casey said Kaiser’s action was largely due to the work of SEIU Local 250 President Sal Rosselli, whose union represents a large part of northern California Kaiser workers.

Spirited picket lines continued at the 14 hotels, including one at the Sheraton Palace Nov. 13, where elaborately dressed patrons arriving for an event benefiting the Philharmonia Baroque orchestra were greeted with fliers telling them to “Take your cue from the orchestra — the organization for which you are raising money refused to cross our picket line.”

On Nov. 16, a delegation organized by Local 2 visited Bank of America and the Japanese Travel Bureau, calling on them to join in signing a pledge to boycott the 14 hotels.

The union plans to continue the delegation visits on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

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

People Before Profit blog

Labor united against the Bush agenda

Hotel workers pick up the pace in Los Angeles and San Francisco