America Needs a raise: AFL-CIO launches campaign to raise minimum wage and create jobs

by Fred Gaboury

This article was reprinted from the February 24, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

BAL HARBOUR, Fla. - John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, told reporters Tuesday that America's unions must take responsibility for closing the wage and wealth gap and restoring respect for workers and the jobs they do. "The gap between the rich and the rest of us is becoming a sink hole of social and economic conflict, and if we don't fill it in, it is going to swallow us all," he said.

A resolution adopted by the federation's executive council on the second day of its annual mid-winter meeting said, "With workers and their families hurting as never before, the labor movement must respond as never before. We must create a new and powerful voice for America's working families. Then we must use that voice powerfully and persuasively to restore respect for workers and the work we do through increased wages, more secure jobs, affordable health care and improved retirement income."

Sweeney said the AFL-CIO would launch an "America Needs a Raise" campaign that would see the federation holding "town meetings" in 27 cities across the country between mid-March and Memorial Day. He said the campaign "is an expression of concern on behalf of millions of workers and their families" and would provide workers an opportunity to speak out publicly about their lives and their jobs.

Our goal is to transform individual concerns into a compelling national cause," he said, adding that the campaign would be aimed to motivate and educate organized and unorganized workers alike.

The town meetings will be held in cities where the income gap has been most pronounced and where changes over the past several years have created greater numbers of poor and working poor families. Sweeney said the labor organization would work with all of its allies and develop new relationships with new allies in planning the meetings.

He said AFL-CIO would seek out and work with "folks who are seriously concerned about the wage gap and the effect it's having on American workers."

Among the cities are Baltimore, Buffalo, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Durham, New York and Chicago. Sweeney also said the federation will use America Needs a Raise to evaluate the political candidates who "want our support and to help them campaign on this most important issue."

Sweeney said the AFL-CIO will "seek out" and support candidates who pledge themselves to:

* Restore respect for workers and just rewards for work;

* Defend programs from Medicare and Medicaid to education, college loans and environmental protections;

* Stop tax giveaways to big business and reverse job- destroying trade policies that benefit only multinational corporations;

* Preserve workers' health and safety protections, as well as wage standards guaranteed by Davis-Bacon and the Service Contract Act;

* Fight to raise the minimum wage and to guarantee affordable, high-quality health care for everyone;

* Stand up for policies that protect the rights of workers to freely organize and join unions;

* Insist on low-interest rate policies instead of job- destroying high interest rate policies.

George Becker, newly-appointed chair of the Executive Council's Economic Policy Committee, said the AFL-CIO will use the issue of income inequality to "drive our grass roots lobbying against cuts in programs working families depend on. And it will fuel a nationwide organizing drive to bring union wages and benefits to workers who need and deserve them."

Becker, president of the Steelworkers Union (USWA) and a leading force in the campaign that brought Sweeney and his team to the leadership of the AFL-CIO, told the World he "looked forward" to leading the campaign. The USWA will be bargaining with the giants of the basic steel industry over wages and other economic issues later this year.

The executive council statement concluded by saying, "America Needs a Raise. And through a reinvigorated labor movement, the AFL-CIO accepts the responsibility for delivering it."

The America Needs a Raise campaign marks a strategic shift for the AFL-CIO. Instead of emphasizing "pure and simple" trade union issues, the federation has embarked on a long- range strategy of creating what Sweeney calls a "culture of organizing" that emphasizes the need for a broadly-based social movement.

He said the America Needs a Raise campaign was meant to link the federation's legislative, organizing, bargaining and political efforts under a "single, powerful theme."

On Wednesday, the executive council adopted a "reclaim America" program that builds on the grassroots lobbying that repulsed efforts by the radical right to tear up the social safety net. Sweeney said the federation would oppose proposals on Medicaid and welfare reform being advanced by the National Governors Assoc., would opposed efforts to repeal Davis -Bacon, the 40-hour week and the minimum wage.

"We are going to resist efforts to establish company unions and we're going to attack corporate welfare and immigrant bashing initiatives," he said.

Sweeney said the federation's political action efforts in 1996 would be of unprecedented scale. The council authorized a special convention - set for March 25 - to consider a presidential endorsement and a per capita increase of 15 cents to raise the $35 million needed to finance this campaign.