Autoworker runs for Congress in Buffalo

by Eileen Reardon

This article was reprinted from the May 11, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

BUFFALO, N.Y. - The race for U.S. Representative in New York's 27th CD offers an opportunity to defeat an influential member of the Gingrich Gang on Nov. 5. Tom Fricano, regional director of United Auto Workers (UAW) Region 9, is challenging four-term Republican Bill Paxon.

Paxon chairs the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee which recruits GOP candidates and funds their campaigns. He played a key role in the 1994 takeover of Congress by the "Gang of 73" and is a strong supporter of the Contract on America.

Speaking to the more than 400 supporters at his kickoff rally on May 1, Fricano said his election is "doable" despite the fact that the district is heavily Republican in registration. "Republicans who are working hard everyday are no different than Democrats who are working hard every day. They're not Newt Gingrich or Bill Paxon kind of Republicans. They're people who are trying to feed their families every day," Fricano said.

Fricano said his campaign theme would concentrate on "what is right and what is wrong." Some of the things he thinks wrong are: corporate mergers that lay off thousands of workers and the economic insecurity this is creating; the $270 billion that the Republicans want to cut out of Medicare to fund a $245 billion tax cut to the wealthy; gutting environmental regulations; cutting veteran's benefits by $400 million; subsidizing corporate farms but not protecting family farms and the 38 percent tuition increase at the state's universities. "That leaves a lot of working class families out of the picture as far as educating their children," he said.

"America needs a raise," Fricano said as he listed the $4.25 minimum wage as another "wrong." He said that Congressional salaries have increased substantially over the last few years and criticized Paxon, whose salary is $133,500, for not supporting an increase in the minimum wage. "We need to stop balancing the budget on the wrong people's backs" and put "compassion and caring back in Washington," he said.

A UAW retiree told this reporter, "Tom Fricano knows what it's like to be a worker. He started on the shop floor and worked his way up through the ranks." Fricano started working when he was 12 years old at a bowling alley and picked berries at the farms in Silver Creek, N.Y. where he grew up. He went to Erie County Technical Institute and then worked at the "Chevy" Forge, starting as an apprentice electrician.

Fricano said he wants people to know there is a real difference between him and his opponent and he wants people to " feel that the democratic process is worth participating in." The 27th Congressional District includes all or parts of nine counties and includes three media markets -- Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester -- making a congressional campaign very expensive.

With Fricano in the race, voters in the 27th CD have an opportunity to elect someone who will represent their interests rather than the corporate interests that Paxon protects and defends.