Labor mobilizes to defeat the GOP

by Fred Gaboury & Les Bayless

This article was reprinted from the March 30, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

WASHINGTON - It took only four hours for delegates to the March 25 special AFL-CIO convention here to approve a nationwide grassroots campaign to terminate right-wing control of Congress and keep a Republican out of the White House in next November's election.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney drew cheers and applause when he told the 463 delegates that the federation would "expose Newtie and the Blowhards. We're going to take back the Congress and we are going to take back our country," he said to a standing ovation.

"We're going to tell the truth about Newt Gingrich, and Dick Armey, Tom Delay, Randy Tate, Bill Thomas, Greg Ganske, Rick Santorum and their cronies," he said, referring to the GOP Congressional leadership. "How they tried to destroy Medicare, Medicaid, education and college loans in order to finance another tax cut for the rich."

Sweeney pledged to fight wage inequality and to "tell the truth" about corporate executives "who use downsizing and layoffs for short term stock manipulation."

Delegates approved a one-year, 15-cents-per-member assessment to raise $35 million to conduct a voter education campaign and, with two affiliates dissenting, endorsed the reelection bid of President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

The "Union Summer" campaign seeks to recruit 10,000 activists to serve on action committees in every Congressional District and establish a National Labor Political Training Center. The campaign is expressly patterned after the civil rights movement's "Freedom Summer 1964," in Mississippi and other southern states.

Sweeney, speaking beneath a giant banner reading, "America Needs A Raise," warned that the GOP leadership is frantically attempting to block the AFL-CIO.

"They will attempt to convince America that our voice should be stilled," he said. "They will take us to court and try to take us to the gutter with claims ... that election laws permit corporations, right-wing zealots, and their organizations to engage in politics and lobbying but don't permit unions to do likewise."

Sweeney's concern had been reinforced a week earlier when Dick Armey, House Majority Leader, held hearings in an attempt to "prove" that the AFL-CIO was engaged in illegal political activity.

In the first of two resolutions adopted by the convention, delegates accused conservative members of Congress of being "determined to cripple worker organizations" in order to "perpetuate their control over workers and their families."

The resolution said the AFL-CIO and its unions are equally determined. "As the only organizations expressly representing the interests of working Americans, we are [going to] mobilize working-class Americans around the issues that effect us and our children's future."

Gerald McEntee who heads the AFL-CIO Political Action Committee said the Republicans "can hear footsteps" of a revitalized labor movement that is "ready to fight and take back the political process" from the radical right.

Others speakers in favor of the assessment included Jay Mazur, president of UNITE, who called the resolution a "referendum to save the American labor movement." Teamster President Ron Carey, one of the two votes against endorsing Clinton, said the union "was proud of the fact that one dollar out of 10 raised by the assessment will be Teamster dollars."

Delegates interviewed by the World were unanimous in their enthusiasm for the programs initiated by the Sweeney leadership team. Chuck Deppert, president of the Indiana State Labor Council, said the big difference was emphasis on "membership involvement. "The America Needs A Raise campaign gives them the opportunity to get involved in fights we ought to be involved in."

Deppert said he heartily approved of the assessment. "The labor movement ought to be worth the price of a six-pack," he said.

Gloria Johnson, national president of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, sees the 1996 election as an opportunity to build coalitions of "interest, concern and involvement." She said CLUW was "working hard" to build participation in the June 1 Stand for Children at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

"Children are my primary concern," she said, pointing to copies of the letter signed by Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund urging participation in the June 1 event.

Josh Williams, president of the Metropolitan Washington AFL- CIO Council, said the convention sent a "clear message to the politicians" that the labor movement "is back with a vengeance."

Blair Bertaccini, president of the Waterbury, Conn. Central Labor Council, said he favored the early endorsement of President Clinton. "It shows that we are taking this process seriously. The early endorsement will give us a better chance to organize around the issues at the grass-roots level."

In a speech accepting the endorsement, Vice President Gore pledged that Congress would pass a minimum wage increase next year "so that everyone who works 40 hours will be able to support their families." Gore downplayed the administration's support for NAFTA by telling the delegates, "Our occasional differences pale by comparison with what we have in common."

The meeting, only the second special convention in AFL-CIO's 40-year history, brought delegates from 61 of the federation's 78 affiliates as well as representatives from 41 state federations and 81 central labor bodies.

After the convention adjourned, Sweeney invited the delegates to lunch - a ham or cheese sandwich done up in a brown paper bag with a "side" of potato chips, washed down with a soft drink.