Mich. labor leader: to pass labor agenda, we have to pass health reform

“We can pass a labor supported agenda in Congress, but first we must get health care with a public option. We will get this if you mobilize your members to go to the town hall meetings and show support and write our representatives urging them to pass health care reform,” said Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, speaking to 75 union leaders at the Causeway Bay Hotel in Lansing, Michigan on Tuesday, August 25. “Then we can get Employee Free Choice and bank regulation so the banks and other financial institutions and the Wall Street crowd are stopped from the speculation that got us into this mess.”

The meeting was an AFL-CIO Community Services Seminar to discuss how to out reach to laid off workers about the various services and training programs available to them. Among the new features are an outreach to laid off workers by establishing unemployed clubs that include job fairs, food banks, resume writing, networking, opportunities for training, and helping out in organizing drives. The attendees included union brothers and sisters from AFSCME, United Steelworkers, UAW, Utility Workers, Operating Engineers, CWA and UFCW from various communities in the lower peninsula of the state of Michigan.

-- Jim Ryan, Detroit

Michigan labor rally: Pulte unfair, unjust

June Rostan, representing Voice@Work, AFL-CIO, led a rally called by the Detroit Metropolitan AFL-CIO at the Marriott hotel in Pontiac, Mich., on Tuesday, August 18. The event was a shareholders meeting to discuss a merger with Centex, which will make Pulte the largest residential construction company in the United States. At the same location last May, Pulte called the police and prevented three construction workers from the southwest part of our country from speaking about the unjust and unfair working conditions they endure as employees at Pulte Homes work sites. Unions represented at this rally were the Sheet Metal Workers. Teamsters, UAW, Operating Engineers, and UOPWA. Jobs With Justice and InterFaith Committee for Worker Justice joined them.

-- Jim Ryan, Detroit

Labor Up Front

For more photos/blog: http://laborupfront.blogspot.com/

Ohio goes for Obama - with a huge assist from labor

When I saw Ohio called for Obama this evening, I called my friend Bruce Bostick, a longtime steelworker and union activist, and frequent contributer of great stories to the PWW, to congratulate him. This is a huge victory for Ohio's working class, and its union movement.

In our paper Bruce reported on Ohio AFL-CIO leader Joe Rugola's walk across his state last month, stopping at towns and cities ravaged by plant closings and corporate greed, to rally Ohio workers to vote for Obama.

At a stop in Barberton, IBEW leader and newly elected mayor Bob Genet said,

“There were 1,800 good manufacturing jobs here,” said Genet. “That’s 1,800 families that have lost jobs and a huge blow to our local tax base. But it’s more than that. That is where all of our fathers worked. They used to hire family members. It was a good union shop, part of our family here. Now it’s just an old rusty building, thanks to the policies of this administration.”

Writing from Cleveland, Rick Nagin reported on the challenge issued early on by Cleveland area labor leader Loree Suggs, who told union delegates they needed to unite behind Barack Obama. “Go back to your locals. Now is the time to unite. We cannot let any bias or racial thoughts get in the way,” Suggs declared.

Nagin reported:

In case there was any doubt, Soggs said, the building trades had learned that their longtime opponent, the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), had endorsed Republican John McCain, citing his opposition to every key issue protecting unions and working conditions including project labor agreements, the Employee Free Choice Act, the Davis-Bacon Act and occupational safety and health regulations.
“If your members have a problem with racial bias, tell them to get over it,” Soggs said. “Get over it for all time, but especially now for this election, get over it. We must put Barack Obama in the White House and, if we don’t, we are in deep trouble.”

It's clear that Ohio's far-sighted labor movement has made a huge contribution to moving our country forward.

Congratulations, Buckeye Staters.

In Working-Class Pennsylvania, Union Reps and Football Stars Make Strong Case for Obama -- and Against McCain

Originally posted on the AFL-CIO blog and the Huffington Post, and then reprinted on the Portside mailing list.

By Carl Davidson

Organized labor has set its sights on winning western Pennsylvania for Barack Obama.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney came to the Electrical Workers ([2] IBEW) Local 712 hall in Vanport on Oct. 25. He was joined by United Steelworkers ([3] USW) top officials, as well as members of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team who were scheduled to be at the afternoon rally. In between, the unions deployed more than 2,200 rank-and-file union members to knock on the doors of some 31,000 union family homes across the state in a single afternoon, an effort that will become even more earnest over the next several days.

I arrived in the morning’s gray drizzle, unlike the sunny fall days of the last month of Saturday “labor walks.” Media work was my task for the day, and I made sure a New York Times reporter quickly met all the local union officials and pro-union local candidates.

While I was getting wired on black coffee and a jelly donut, Bob Schmetzer, a local IBEW official, handed me one of his home-made fliers. “Here, whaddya think of this?” he said. “I got it off the Internet.” It was one of the now-classic pieces that expose the undercurrent of white supremacy in the campaign, using role reversal: “What if John McCain graduated at the top of his class at Harvard, and Obama came in at the bottom of his class with the record of a goof-off? What do you think Fox and the right-wing talk shows would be doing with that?” It gave a dozen more examples, using irony and good humor to make a very serious point.

“Terrific,” I told Bob, “We have to get people thinking about things like this. It arms them against the right.” He agreed, and worked the hall, pulling over one after another of his key guys, giving each of them the leaflet, going over it with them. He’s thinking ahead, educating his troops, knowing that this battle’s more than just dollars and cents.

Sweeney’s arrival was low key. Hovering nearby was a young union staff woman, Yael Foa, assigned by the AFL-CIO to work with us in Beaver County. She’s talented and tireless, but stood to the side, beaming as Sweeney greeted each union member as if he or she were family. Wearing his union jacket and cap, white hair and the trace Irish lilt in his voice, he’s soft-spoken and warm with everyone and gets the same in return. People like and respect him.

But on the platform he’s a firebrand.

You’re the reason Obama is out in front in Pennsylvania. Make no mistake; each of you here is very important. Of all the things that we do—mailings, advertisements, phone banking—there’s nothing more effective or more persuasive than what you’re doing today, a personal visit from one union brother or sister to another. Beaver County is the key to western Pennslvania, western Pennsylvania is the key to Pennsylvania—and without Pennsylvania, there’s no way McCain can win!

Sweeney closed by pushing the entire ticket, from Obama at the top to Vince Biancucci and Dennis Rousseau, both local guys with a union history, for state representatives at the base. He stressed the AFL-CIO’s core message: No more nonsense about privatizing Social Security and putting it into the stock market, he said. No more notions of taxing health care benefits—extend health care to everyone. No more nonsense about de-regulation of banking and Wall Street. They’ve made a huge mess, and we need a New Deal and a new leadership to turn things around. Obama is the most pro-labor candidate we’ve ever seen, so shift into high gear and let’s make him our president.

Now everyone was appropriately fired up as they donned “Steelworkers for Obama” T-shirts and hit the streets of nearby mill towns and the back roads in the semi-rural township hills and hollows for the next four hours.

While this is a key area, it’s only one small part of organized labor’s effort in this campaign. Aside from millions of dollars spent on print and other media pushing “Green Jobs,” health care and the right of unions to organize, both the AFL-CIO-affiliated unions and Change to Win-affiliated unions like SEIU are making a common front, working together on this election. This weekend alone, more than 250,000 union volunteers across the country are on the streets going door to door. Busloads from safe areas like New York City spend weekends in the rural Pennsylvania Poconos or working-class neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Car caravans from Chicago work the factory towns of Indiana, Kentucky and western Ohio. There’s nothing quite like seeing it in motion: “Awesome!” as Obama’s younger volunteers put it, although they’ve done some pretty awesome things themselves.

The mid-afternoon sun broke through the clouds. I returned to the union hall after joining the Beaver County Peace Links event—a weekly vigil at the court house for more than five years now, with our “Bring the Troops Home Now!” banner and “Honk for Peace!” signs.

The union parking lot was filling up for “Steel Blitz for Barack” time. Soon a bus would arrive carrying Dan Rooney, owner emeritus of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team; Edmond Nelson, former Steelers star defensive lineman; USW President Leo W. Gerard; and other union officials and players.

Outsiders might not get it, but in an area where “Steelerism” comes close to being a state religion, THIS IS A BIG DEAL. Dozens of young, mostly white kids, boys and girls, were bundled up against the wind, plastering each others’ coats, front and back, with “Union Voters for Obama” and “Steelers for Obama” stickers, clutching autograph books, waiting for their heroes.

Inside, Billy George, head of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, warmed up the packed hall. George is from the tough McDonald Heights neighborhood of nearby Aliquippa, home of defunct Jones and Laughlin Steel, once the largest steel mill in the world. He was with USW Local 1211, a powerful and militant local in its day.

“What time is it?” he yelled into the mike. “UNION TIME!” the room yelled back, no prompting needed. George predicted that the Steelers will win their division, then the Super Bowl, and then he asked, “Who will be the president to greet and open the Super Bowl?” “BARACK OBAMA!” the crowd roared.

George got serious and turned to labor history. He spoke about the fierce battles by the Steelworkers Organizing Committee in the 1930s and the historical marker that sits at the old plant gate in downtown Aliquippa. The marker recalls the 1937 U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of Aliquippa’s workers in the case that finally broke the back of reaction and allowed nationwide union organization to spread and FDR’s New Deal to accelerate.

Explained George:

Social Security came out of this. Our right to organize came out of this. These are the most important things we’ve ever won, and now McCain and the Republicans want to “privatize” it or take it back. Can you imagine if they put your Social Security in the stock market? No way, no way we’ll let them. I know everyone here agrees with me, but I want four full shifts out of each and every one of you in the next 10 days. Get this message out to your neighbors, relatives and everyone else around here that knows better, or ought to.

Next up was Leo Gerard, the Canadian-born international president of the United Steelworkers. Even with his north-of-the-border accent, he knows the exact language of this group today.

We’ve been getting the shaft, but this is our time, we’re going to turn it completely around. We’ve never had a candidate like Barack Obama.

After the thank-you’s and standard lines, Gerard asks the workers here to follow a thought experiment with him: to imagine a candidate born to wealth and privilege of the high officer class. Follow him as he fritters away his studies. Recognize and respect his service, but when he gets back, he dumps his first wife and marries into brewery millions. He goes to Congress with the goal of letting the banks run wild and voting against the unions 85 percent of the time. He’s so wealthy, he doesn’t even know how many homes he has.

Now imagine, Gerard went on, a candidate with a single mother, who works hard, but leaves him mainly with Kansas grandparents to raise him. They sacrifice everything to get him an education. He gets to Harvard, top of his class. Wall Street is offering hundreds of thousands of dollars just for sign-up bonuses, but what does he do? He decides to give something back. He works for a church group on the South Side of Chicago, with the unemployed laid-off workers, many of them steelworkers, helping them get retrained, helping them find a future.

Gerard exclaimed:

The Republicans want to talk about character! What does this tell you about it? What does this tell you about the difference between these two men? I listened to right-wing radio yesterday, making fun of Obama for going to visit his dying grandmother, the woman who gave everything to see him succeed. He set aside the time to see her while she could still hear his voice, and they mock it.

McCain and the Republicans have been running around like “Robin Hood in Reverse,” then dump all this slime on Obama and us, and we’re supposed to shut up and like it? No, take the measure of these two men. Take the measure of which one stands with family as we know it, take the measure of which one can benefit the working class that we’re part of. Obama is going to be a great president, and we’re going to put him there.

By this time there was not a dry eye in the house. The Steeler’s Dan Rooney took the mike to add his admiration of Obama. But the most powerful applause comes for linebacker Edmond Nelson, a huge man who dwarfed everyone else on the platform.

He shouted out:

I’m for Barack Obama because I hate this war in Iraq. I hate this war because of the lies told us about “Weapons of Mass Destruction” to drag us into it. I’m for Obama because I hate what’s been done to our soldiers and the people of Iraq.

His words brought the strongest applause of the afternoon.

But Nelson, an African American, closed with “I’m for Barack Obama because I want to see people who look like me get a fair shake and a decent chance in this society.” Again, powerful applause from a group that’s more than 90 percent white but knows exactly what he means.

As the autograph lines started forming, one of the AFL-CIO chiefs brought the room back to order, saying: “One last speaker, one of the most important. She’s going to tell you what to do.”

Kyra Ricci, a petite twenty-something with a terrific smile but also a “listen up now” sense of command, laid out the tasks of the final days. She had her young people with their sign-up clipboards stationed around the hall so they wouldn’t be gotten by without a commitment.

It was the perfect counterpoint to end the day. Three powerful movements are coming together here—organized labor, the African American fight for justice and a new anti-war youth insurgency. Given the sense of class-conscious solidarity and unity in the hall, it’s hard to see how McCain and the GOP can stop them. But it’s also clear that an Obama White House, in calling for partners for “change from below,” also will face forces that will not be easily deflected or denied.

Steelworkers, unionists hit the streets

Labor’s muscle supports Obama campaign in Pennsylvania

By Ben Sears

PHILADELPHIA--The Obama campaign got a big welcome in neighborhoods here from one end of the city to the other Oct. 11, and the labor movement put its muscle behind the effort. Hundreds of trade unionists and their family members and supporters turned out in the city and suburbs as Senator Obama spent the day going from one rally to the next.
At a local steelworkers’ union hall in north Philadelphia, United Steel Workers President Leo Gerard spoke to a crowd of over 150 activists before they headed out for their morning door-to-door walks.
Gerard told the spirited union crowd that the “McCain straight talk express is going off a cliff” as, he pointed out, the nation saw a ninth straight month of net job losses. He continued, “We have socialism for the big banks and capitalism for the rest of us … The same people who tell us we can’t have government run health care are the ones who went with their hands out for a bail out for the big banks.”
Addressing the issue of racism directly, Gerard told the racially diverse crowd, “It’s hard to imagine that you would sacrifice the future of your country, your kids and your grandkids over the color of a man’s skin. In union halls around the country, we see people of all races and backgrounds. We are the face of America.”

The end of American capitalism?

That's the headline on a Washington Post article today.

Well no, it's not the end of capitalism. But as this and many other commentaries are noting, it's the end of an unbridled "free market" phase.

Joe Klein of Time magazine observes that

the public seems ready to turn to the government for protection. In a collapsing economy, government regulation ... sounds more comforting than stultifying.

The desire for more government activism is true across the board. All of a sudden, government-provided infrastructure programs — and that's what most of McCain's despised "earmarks" are — don't sound like such a waste of money ...

We're moving into a phase where the questions are going to be: what kind of government action, determined by who, and for whose benefit? That is going to be the shape of struggles for the coming period. Already, what we call the all-people's coalition that is emerging in the current presidential campaign, led so dynamically by the labor movement, is putting forward a framework for every progressive American to work on in the coming period, as a new administration and new Congress confront this situation.

No capitalism isn't dead, but the struggle is shifting to a majority movement challenging unfettered corporate greed in a new way.

Mine workers talk race in Virginia

Go mineworkers!

http://www.truthout.org/100608L

Labor Day in Milwaukee

A very nice account of the impression Obama made at Milwaukee's Labor Day here. I haven't seen any reporting of this event in the corporate media.

In particular:

He spoke about the things which have come about due to the impact of labor unions. Things that were not given to individuals, but were fought for by organizing and working together. Some of the victories of labor he mentioned were a 40 hour work week, health care benefits and worker's compensation for those that are injured on the job.

He also spoke of the quiet storms that many Americans are facing today.
He talked about the hard times and the difficult choices for all Americans. He mentioned that inner city kids that work hard in school cannot go to college, because of the cost of school and the lack of support from our government.

The entire speech was only fifteen minutes long. It was very thoughtful and sincere. One of the blogs I read today contained a quote from a NYT reporter that has been following Obama all campaign. This reporter said that yesterday's labor day speech was Barack Obama's finest speech of the campaign.

Union delegates and friends

A new political realignment is taking shape before our eyes

Notes from Denver on day two:

I had never been to this beautiful city with majestic
mountain views, friendly welcoming people and a proud working
class history. It is a privilege to be here now as history
unfolds and political shifts open up new possibilities to
raise the quality of life and living standards of working people.

I came to participate with labor and people's organizations who
are fired up to finally defeat the ultra-right. This varied movement
goes beyond the confines of the Democratic Party and the campaign. It
reflects an expansion of the electorate and a good understanding
of the urgency to defeat the ultra-right this year. It is a product
of years of work to create a broad, all peoples front against the
ultra right.

The labor movement is front and center here. A wonderful labor unity rally
got all the union delegates, a quarter of the whole convention, prepared.
The labor caucus, as well as big caucus meets of women, youth and Latino
voters, engaging around the platform, all report that more requests
have been incorporated than ever before.

There is a lot of passion and clarity on why it is so important that
John McCain not become president. At a celebration of the 88th anniversary
of women winning the right to vote, one speaker put it plain: Do you want a zero or a hero?

That means McCain's voting record on women's health issues is zero and
Obama's is 98.

Michelle Obama's speech on the opening night of the convention captured
the journey of her African American working class family and its hopes and
dreams, made possible by struggles since our nation's founding. It showed that her
struggles are the same as many families', and touched deeply.

Both the Latino and the women's caucus meetings were big rallies
with hundreds participating. Music and other cultural aspects have
reached out to young people.

An important venue during the convention is Progressive Central sponsored
by Progressive Democrats of America around the theme Health Care not
Warfare. It organizes at the grass roots to get support for the most
progressive members of Congress. In just four years it has gained official recognition
from the House leadership for opposition to the war and other issues.

I enjoy distributing the Peoples Weekly World / Nuestro Mundo. It givea a
chance to get reactions from the public a little bit. We are getting a
great response to the paper and our election program.

A new political realignment is taking shape before our eyes as many
ordinary people become activated for the first time and embrace more
radical solutions to meet their needs.

As John Conyers said in a panel on universal single-payer health care,
"The majority of people in our country want HR 676. It's just a matter of
time and organizing as to how much longer it will be."

The speech by Barack Obama on August 28, the 45th anniversary of the
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Martin Luther King Jr. gave
his famous I Have A Dream speech, will be a new milestone for our country,
a passing of the torch. The outcome of the election will be determined by
each and everyone doing their part to outfox the Rove hate machine.
Spread the word and get out the vote. That's the message on day 2.

- Joelle Fishman