'No' to company greed - labor community groups picket

by Fred Gaboury

This article was reprinted from the March 9, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

CLEVELAND - Ignoring cold winds, delegates to the 26th National Convention of the Communist Party USA, joined by labor and community activists, demonstrated against union busting and corporate greed at a Bridgestone/Firestone service center here March 2.

As they marched from the convention hall with chants of "Boot Newt" and "CPUSA - socialism in our day," the protesters drowned out feeble cries by three Ohio Young Republicans waving "Forbes for President" placards. A small group of thirty-something Republicans had been meeting in the same hotel, doping out strategy for the upcoming Republican primary.

For Joe Taylor, a mail clerk at Yale University for nearly 15 years who is out on strike, the demonstration was a "protest against union busting everywhere. We've got to stop it," he told the World, as he walked, shoulders hunched, into the stiff wind and occasional snowflake.

"We are here in solidarity with B/F workers and all those on strike anywhere in the country," Rick Nagin, chair of the Ohio district of the Communist Party, said. "But in a larger sense, we are here in solidarity with all victims of Newt Gingrich and the Contract on America.

And, Nagin said, "We are here to pledge our best effort in defeating the right wing and their 'Gang of 73' GOP first- termers in Congress next November."

Carol O'Neal, a printer on strike at the Detroit News, drew cheers when she described corporate greed as "b.s."

She said, "It's going on all over the world - and it's nothing but b.s."

O'Neal, who has been on strike since July 13 , said she was "tired - tired of all this stuff but not too tired to keep on going." She asked those in attendance to support the nation-wide boycott against USA Today, published by Gannett.

"Gannett owns the Detroit News," she said, "and they've promised that they will bust our strike. Well, they won't if you and others stand with us."

O'Neal said the first targets of the USA Today campaign would be hotels and airlines that distribute free copies of the paper to their customers. "But we're also asking individuals not to buy it," she said.

Participants booed and then laughed when O'Neal told of the "unspeakable brutality of the police in Sterling Heights, Mich. They hit one of our guys in the mouth and busted several teeth. He got a partial plate and now, when the police charge our lines, he takes it out and says, 'OK, let's have at it.'"

Jarvis Tyner, speaking for the Communist Party, warned that the ideology of the right, and especially of GOP presidential aspirant Pat Buchanan, was "Hitler's ideology." He said the American people were opposed to fascism and, instead, are demanding democracy. "And they will have their day!"

Tyner said the fight to defend democracy required a mass movement and urged people to "remember the old African saying: 'When people cross the river together the crocodiles stay away.'"

Other speakers included Frank Lumpkin, chair of the Wisconsin Steelworkers Save Our Jobs Committee that won a 15-year battle to force International Harvester and Envirodyne Company to pay more than $18 million in back pay and benefits to workers who lost their jobs when the Wisconsin Steel mill in Chicago closed in 1980.

Bruce Bostic, grievance committee chair of Steelworkers Local 1104 at the USX/Kobe plant, called the B/F campaign the "first challenge to an industrial union since [John] Sweeney became president of the AFL-CIO. So far we've been polite," he said. "But there is a limit to that. We're probably going to have to expand the fight."

Morgan Wheeler, an electrician from Baltimore, tore up his Firestone credit card. "I've waited for this opportunity," he said, shouting, "Stop the union busters!'

B/F forced the United Rubber Workers (URW) to strike on July 12, 1994. The strike, involving 4,200 URW members six states, ended in May 1995 when the union made an unconditional offer to return to work. But despite the end of the strike B/F has refused to rehire 1,000 URW members who had been replaced by scabs during the strike.

The URW merged with the Steelworkers in July and the merged union has launched an international campaign to force the company to reverse that decision. "We may have returned to work unconditionally, but we didn't surrender unconditionally," said George Becker, president of the Steelworkers union.