Cleveland labor: All out to beat the Republicans

by Norm Weber

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.

CLEVELAND - Area labor leaders urged solidarity and all-out efforts to defeat the Republicans in November at a spirited May Day dinner and rally here. "What's happening here today," Bud McTaggart, administrative assistant to the executive secretary of the Cleveland Federation of Labor, told the crowd at the San Lorenzo Club, "is that the new leadership of the AFL-CIO has created an outreach to all facets of working men and women throughout the United States."

The aim, he said, is to educate and mobilize the union membership in the critical 1996 elections. "We're excited about the new AFL-CIO. We want to use our dues money to tell our people what Martin Hoke is about and what Steve LaTourette is about," he said, referring to two local Republican Congressmen targeted by the labor movement.

McTaggart hailed the presence of union retirees groups and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement which, he said, are playing a vital role in the outreach efforts of labor and must be built.

Meryl Johnson, executive board member of the Cleveland Teachers Union and chairperson of the union's Community Relations Committee, said a teachers strike in September appeared certain. The teachers, she said, are being blamed for the school system's financial crisis and are asked to take a 10 per cent wage cut and accept elimination of 10 percent of the system's teachers.

Johnson charged that plenty of money would be available if tax abatements were repealed and the county collected delinquent property taxes. The abatements, costing the school system $9 million a year, would pay salaries of 300 teachers.

A new video was shown that features the story of last year's lockout of United Steelworkers of America Local 1375 by Warren Consolidated Industries in Warren, Ohio and Communist Party Chairman Gus Hall's visit there last summer. Hall played a key role in organizing the local in 1937 and was invited by the union to address its June membership meeting.

Following the video, Local 1375 President Dennis Brubaker told the story of the successful fight the union had waged against a "military-style" attempt to break the local. He stressed the importance of the preparations the union had made before the contract expired, including having Hall speak.

Because of these efforts, he said, not one of the 1,700 members of his local crossed the picket line during the six- week battle. "Within 72 hours of the lockout, we were able to get 8,000 union people to march in front of the plant." The community support was so great, he added, that "to this day the goons say 'I don't ever want to go back to Warren, Ohio.'"

Wally Kaufman, secretary of the Painters' Retirees Club, spoke of the role of the People's Weekly World in building support for the locked out steelworkers. In response to his appeal, participants contributed over $2,000 to the paper.

Other speakers included Danny Banyard, an executive board member of USWA Local 188, who spoke about the union's fight against LTV's attempt to build the non- union TRICO minimill in Decatur, Alabama.

Frida Franyin, a retired Teamster and board member of Women Speak Out for Peace and Justice, spoke about the fight to save Social Security and the need for passage of the Martinez and Dellums jobs bills.