7,000 Boeing strikers rally with new AFL-CIO leaders

by Will Parry

This article was reprinted from the November 18, 1995 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

EVERETT, Wash. - Thousands of cheering, sign-waiving Boeing strikers and their supporters from other unions and the community, got a taste of the new AFL-CIO leadership at a chilly outdoor rally Sunday Nov. 12.

Repeated roars of approval shook the concrete tiers of Everett Memorial Stadium as AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Executive Vice-President Linda Chavez-Thompson and Secretary-Treasurer Rich- ard Trumka roused the crowd, estimated at 7,000, in the biggest support action yet in the strike of Machinist Lodge 751 against the Boeing Company.

"This is a strike against a company that squeezes the last ounce of production out of workers and then throws them out in the street," Sweeney said, citing the 18,000 jobs Boeing has "shipped to South Korea, Mexico, China and low wage contractors here at home."

Sweeney nailed the company for handing out $12 million in executive bonuses last year and then, in its last-minute contract proposal, trying to "steal $914 a year from every worker in reduced health benefits." He told the strikers, "We are ready to help in every way to expand your struggle to the national community and the world community.

Chavez-Thompson, the Texas-born sharecropper's daughter who rose to national leadership in the State, County and Municipal Employees Union , said, "You are going to bring Boeing all the way down to the ground" and pledged, "We will be with you for as long as it takes."

Trumka sounded the same theme. "You have always been there for the Mine Workers, and John and Linda and I and the new fighting labor movement are going to be with you today and tomorrow and next week and for as long as it takes because solidarity isn't going to be a slogan we dust off once in a while, but a way of life in this country forever and a day!"

A third generation coal miner and, until recently, president of the United Mine Workers of America, Trumka brought tears to many when he talked about the realities of a long, bitter strike -- the worry about car and house payments, the juggling of bills, the inability to buy little treats for the children, the long winter time picket shifts.

"But you go out there on the line the next day because you know that hard as it is, it will be a hell of a lot harder tomorrow unless we win this strike," he said.

Machinist's President George Kourpias expressed a dramatic difference in the quality of the federation's leadership when he pointed out that "I didn't have to ask John and Rich and Linda to come out here. They asked me -- and that's what the change is!"

Kourpias denounced the "industrial warfare" being waged against workers everywhere by "a global capitalism that knows no national, ethical or moral boundaries."

"We are not the enemy of the German worker or the Chinese worker," he said, "Every worker around the world should be united in solidarity because we all have a common enemy -- the multinational corporations that pit worker against worker." With the strike well into its second month, Lodge 751 continues round -the- clock picketing at locations in the Puget Sound area, Portland, Oregon and Wichita.