Labor pickets 'gang of 73' - Unions target first term Republicans

by Les Bayless

This article was reprinted from the February 3, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

BALTIMORE - About 500 AFL-CIO members picketed House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the "gang of 73" freshman Republicans here Jan. 26. Chanting "one, two, three, four, kick the Republicans out the door," union members surrounded the entrance of the posh Lord Baltimore Hotel.

The Republicans were holding a "midterm conference" and licking their wounds over the drubbing they have taken for shutting down the government in a faltering attempt to gut Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlement programs.

Only a cordon of city cops and Secret Service agents prevented the angry protesters, among them many federal workers, from entering the hotel.

A particular target of the Baltimore protest was Rep. Robert Ehrlich from Maryland's 2nd Congressional District that includes largely suburban Baltimore and Hartford counties. Ehrlich voted numerous times for unpopular budget cuts and enraged the 20,000 workers at the nearby Woodlawn Social Security complex - many of them his constituents - by supporting the government shutdown. Government workers were particularly outraged at this desperate attempt to force President Clinton to buckle under GOP demands.

John Gage, president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 1923, the largest government workers local in the country, representing the Social Security employees, issued a challenge to Ehrlich. "Come on out Bob and defend these cuts," he said.

At that point the crowd began chanting "Bob, Bob, Bob." Gage called the race in the 2nd CD " the most important in Maryland."

"We're putting people like Bob Ehrlich on notice that he's going to have to explain some of his votes or we'll explain to him," he said. "This guy is a spokesman for issues that don't represent the working families of this district."

Ehrlich will most likely be opposed by Connie DeJulius, a former member of the Maryland legislature. She has received labor's endorsement and supporters say she has a good chance of defeating Ehrlich.

Dave Wilson, district director of the Steelworkers, said recent polls show that Ehrlich has a "favorable rating" of only 40 percent. Ehrlich's district includes Bethlehem Steel's Sparrow's Point mill and shipyard.

"You're seeing a lot of state and local feds doing things they wouldn't have thought of before," said Fred Azcarate, national coordinator of Jobs with Justice (JwJ). "Part of the reason has to do with the changes at the top [of the AFL-CIO]. Part of it is grassroots activism that has been growing for a long time. People are saying: we've tried other ways, now we got to do things differently."

Azcarate pointed to a recent rally in Seattle where 2,500 trade unionists picketed a Gingrich fundraiser. The rally was jointly organized by JwJ and the AFL-CIO. In Washington State, six out of nine members of Congress are freshman Republicans, most of them elected by narrow margins.

Robbie Stern, who works for the Washington State AFL-CIO in Olympia, said defeating the right wing extremists next fall is necessary because they have declared "class warfare on working people."

"It's absolutely essential that we pursue a new strategy," he said in a telephone interview. "This includes activating our base and getting people on the streets. It means organizing. We have a sense of urgency about the whole thing."

Gingrich and House Republicans passed a temporary spending measure the night before their Baltimore appearance to fund federal agencies at 75 percent of 1995 levels or at a rate set by new appropriations bills. Gingrich said the spending cuts, which were quickly agreed to by President Clinton, are a "down payment on a balanced budget." Both Democrats and Republicans were saying publicly that remaining budget differences would not be resolved until the 1996 elections.

The picketline proved union members can come together to defeat the right even if differences exist, said Armetta Dixon, executive secretary of SEIU District 1199 in Baltimore. Cecelia Fabula, a state representative for AFSCME, was thrilled at the turnout.

"Our people work and for that many to get here at 12 o'clock takes a real effort," she said. Republicans at the GOP meeting whined publicly about the dismal performance of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole in his response to the State of the Union address. Eleven conference participants conceded that their "revolution" is losing steam and that Dole had been squashed by the president. Al Dunlap, a right- wing extremist who serves as chief executive officer of Scott Paper Company berated the GOP freshmen.

"When you had the government down, you should have left it down," Dunlap raved. He decried the GOP for proposing to balance the federal budget in seven years. "You ought to do it in one year," said Dunlap who describes himself as "Rambo in pinstripe" and boasts of his role in terminating 10,000 paperworker jobs.

He told the lawmakers to get themselves "a CEO who believes in you - and it's not Bob Dole. Bob Dole is yesterday. The Senate is yesterday."

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney recently sent out a letter to all affiliated unions urging them to mobilize "grassroots" actions against Gingrich and the 73 GOP freshmen in their home districts.

"In all our work," Sweeney wrote, "we must continue to stress our unalterable opposition to extremist demands that benefit the well-to-do at the expense of average wage workers. And we must continue to urge the President to stick to his guns and not compromise for the sake of a budget agreement."