We're working longer for less

by Les Bayless, Dennis DeMaio & Chris Lindberg

This article was reprinted from the May 25, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

WASHINGTON - More than 200 trade union and community activists crowded Mount Vernon United Methodist Church here May 22 to applaud worker demands for a "living wage." Last week similar meetings - part of the AFL-CIO's "America Needs a Raise" campaign - were held in Denver and Seattle.

So far the AFL-CIO has convened nine of these "town hall" meetings across the country and 15 more are scheduled. Workers testified that they are toiling longer hours, often at two jobs, yet falling deeper in debt.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told the Washington, D.C. meeting, "Too many business and government leaders have lost sight of what made this country great - hard-working men and women. The American dream has become a nightmare for these workers and their families."

Sweeney charged that "right here in the nation's capital" 33 percent of all workers earn poverty wages of less than $15,000 per year. In Virginia 34 percent of workers and in Maryland 31 percent of workers also earn less than $15,000 annually.

Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, appealed to the AFL-CIO and other groups represented in the crowd to join the June 1 "Stand for Children" vigil on the Capitol Mall. She denounced the growing income inequality in the U.S., which has left two out of every five children in poverty in order to ensure obscene wealth for the elite.

"Other industrialized nations," she charged, "do a much better job of making sure that their children aren't poor. No other industrialized country does such a poor job of taking care of children as the U.S." Edelman announced that 3,000 organizations have endorsed the "Stand for Children" protest.

Charles Hayes, an African American worker, told of his personal pain at being forced to work 84 hours a week at minimum wage jobs to support his family. His young son, he said, "is a baseball player and I haven't been able to see a game because I've been working 14 hours a day at two jobs."

Esther Treminio, a Salvadoran immigrant who has lived in the U.S. since 1979, told how she toiled to support her seven children. She recently lost her job when she suffered a disabling on-the-job injury. Her employer refused to provide workmen's compensation and she was fired. Her two eldest sons were forced to drop out of school and take jobs to support the family.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the participants marched to a parking lot on K Street and joined the picketline of parking lot attendants who are fighting for recognition of their union, Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 27 and Service Employees (SEIU) Local 82.

In Denver on May 15 Linda Chavez-Thompson, AFL-CIO executive vice president, listened closely as working people took center stage to tell their stories of working longer and harder for less.

There was the story of Marjorie Adala, a widow who dropped out of college in order to go to work after her husband was killed. Now working as a painter's apprentice after sustaining an injury on a construction job, Adala said, "We have to fight and we have to fight together - or this country is going to fall apart. We want a decent wage and we want it now!"

John Fleck, a sheet metal worker who earns about $6.50 an hour as a piece-worker in a sheet metal shop, talked about the indignity of producing materials for houses which he cannot afford to buy.

After explaining how Corporate America pays lip service to the quality of its workers, Ellen Bravo, speaking for Service Employees Union's "9-to-5," noted, "My conscience is fine - it's my pay that needs raising.

After hearing the story of a worker who was fired for attempting to organize a union, Kevin Mulligan, an organizer for the Communications Workers Union, said, "The assault on the American working class is in direct proportion to the decline in the labor movement." Mulligan urged people to join Jobs with Justice "to help turn that around."

Chavez-Thompson said there was no longer "an American Dream. It's an American nightmare."

In an interview after the meeting, Chavez-Thompson told the World it would take "getting people into the streets" to win an adequate raise for workers. "We need to raise public consciousness of what's happening to American workers."

And last week in Seattle, labor and community activists met in Beacon Hill, one of the city's most diverse neighborhoods, to share with Chavez-Thompson and each other the stark reality of the hardships of living in today's economy. The participants and sponsors were as diverse as the neighborhood: garbage and recycling workers, home care workers, secretaries, healthcare and childcare workers, farmworkers, refinery workers and postal workers. All came with one unified message: "We have become a nation of rich and poor, our economy is not a family wage economy and we need a raise!"

A former shingle worker said that with the decline in the timber industry she lost her job and now works as a home care worker. Today she makes $6.38 an hour and has a paper route to supplement her income. "I love my job, it is a needed service," she said, "but it should be paid at a livable wage."

Bringing a message from the undocumented workers she works with, Jackie Rahimi from the Downtown Human Services Council said, "They want you to know they don't come to steal your jobs. They have no choice but to look for work wherever they can get it. They are here to struggle with working people of America for a better life for themselves and their children."

After the meeting, participants rallied at Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI), which recently bought a local waste disposal company, where workers are engaged in a union organizing campaign. Community groups are watching BFI closely because it has a long and bad environmental track record around the country.