Labor hits cut backs

by Rick Nagin

This article was reprinted from the November 11, 1995 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - In the first major AFL-CIO rally since the federation's convention last month, 20,000 trade unionists from throughout Ohio converged on the state capitol Nov. 4 in an angry protest against the right-wing attack on labor and the working class.

"Our purpose is to stand up to the corporations and their arrogance and abuse of power," said Ohio AFL-CIO President William Burga as he welcomed the huge crowd which had marched through downtown Columbus to the capitol mall.

"We had the New Deal and the Fair Deal. Now we have the 'Raw Deal,'" he said and proceeded to list Republican-sponsored bills in the state legislature to end public worker collective bargaining, reduce workmen's compensation and destroy prevailing wage laws and at the federal level to cut Medicare and Medicaid, establish company unions and stop needed increases in the minimum wage.

Burga was loudly cheered by huge contingents from building trades unions carrying signs reading "Don't Repeal Prevailing Wage" and from State, County and Municipal Employees members carrying a giant banner reading "Save Collective Bargaining for Public Workers"

The Columbus rally and a Nov. 2 demonstration of 30,000 New Yorkers opposing Medicaid and Medicaid cuts are manifestations of a growing fightback against the Contract on America and Corporate America's union-busting campaign.

"We are in a social and economic war," Leo Gerard, international secretary-treasurer of the United Steel Workers of America, said. "Our enemies are the Republicans and their friends on Wall Street.

"Organize!" he roared. "Organize the unorganized. Organize the unrepresented. Organize in the communities. Organize at the ballot box."

Citing the recent victory of steelworkers at WCI Steel in Warren, Ohio, and the continuing union-busting efforts of Bridgestone-Firestone, Caterpillar, Staley and Boeing, he promised, "We won't stand for this any more."

The business community, he said, is rightly alarmed at the united, militant tone of the AFL-CIO convention, because "we are their worst damn nightmare."

Prolonged cheers and applause greeted Richard Trumka, the newly-elected secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. Trumka said he told reporters at the AFL-CIO convention that if they wanted to see the future of the American labor movement they should come to Columbus on Nov. 4.

"You are showing America what a living, breathing labor movement is all about," he said. "We are sending a message to the nation. We're not backing down. Labor is here to stay and we'll run over anyone that gets in our way."

Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, consistent with her strong, pro-labor voting record, blasted the continual decline of jobs and living standards while corporate profits are at record high levels.

"This is political dynamite," she said. "And the explosion will come at the polls in '96. Today we draw a line in the ground. We want wealth for the many, not the few."

Other speakers included Ed Fire, secretary-treasurer of the International Union of Electronic Workers; Norman Hill, president of the A. Phillip Randolph Institute; Charles Clark, president of the Ohio Council of Senior Citizens; Donald Day, secretary-treasurer of the Ohio AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party leaders of the state House and Senate.

Bob Farrington, legislative director of the Ohio Building Trades Council, urged union members to run for public office to defeat any legislator opposed to prevailing wage laws. Participants in the rally signed petitions pledging to boycott Bridgestone-Firestone and later picketed a local retail tire outlet. Columbus news media gave full coverage of the event, which was the largest state labor demonstration in decades, but not a word appeared in the print or electronic media elsewhere in the state.