AFL-CIO challenges GOP at convention: Labor's message counters slick TV show in San Diego

by Marilyn Bechtel

This article was reprinted from the August 17, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - On the eve of the Republican National Convention, the California labor movement and its allies delivered a clear message to the Republican ultra-right and to politicians and voters throughout the country: U.S. workers demand an end to corporate layoffs, contracting out, destruction of their protections and benefits, and efforts to pit workers against one another.

On Sunday, more than 2,000 trade unionists and their families rallied in Balboa Park to demand, along with the national AFL-CIO, "America Needs a Raise."

The crowd heard national labor federation president John J. Sweeney declare, "Working Americans are hurting as never before and America's unions are responding as never before." Corporations are making more money than ever, he said, because productivity of U.S. workers has risen three times faster than hourly wages.

"America isn't working for working Americans who see the rich getting richer and the economy growing and the stock market growing," he said.

Sweeney said workers and their allies are organizing to back candidates who support working family issues, to hold candidates responsible once elected, and to gain "a workers' victory" in November.

Sweeney and other speakers called for a massive vote for Proposition 210 to raise the California state minimum wage and other progressive ballot measures.

Sweeney also called for the "overwhelming defeat" of Proposition 209 which would destroy affirmative action.

"It's about time that politicians listen to America's working families and find solutions to some of their problems," Sweeney told the World before he spoke.

A Republican victory would bring about "a country we won't want to live in, with wages slashed and more export of jobs," California Labor Federation President Tom Rankin told the World. Using issues like immigration, he said, the Republican ultra-right is working to greatly increase the divisions in society through "blaming those who are not to blame and diverting voters from the key issue: the redistribution of wealth from those who too much, to those who have too little."

Demonstrators agreed. J. Kahloah Doxey, a retired health worker, brought a large contingent of her grandchildren to the rally. "If Dole wins," she said, "working people's lives will deteriorate further." Doxey, formerly a supervisor in the Pathology Department of the University of California Medical Center, said workers need to stand together to save health care from destruction by the HMOs with their drive for profits.

Musicians Union member Richard Levine, a cellist with the San Diego Symphony which is now bankrupt, said the Republican campaign to destroy government funding for the arts will have a devastating effect on the arts and on cultural workers. Ending the National Endowment for the Arts and related programs will have a ripple effect, he added, because such moves also send a signal to businesses about whether the arts should be supported.

Jerry Butkiewicz, secretary-treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Central Labor Council and MC for the rally, called on the crowd to fight back against politicians in Sacramento and Washington who are trying to repeal the eight-hour day and other legislation protecting workers' rights.

"We need to organize now so that after the elections, we have the power to hold the politicians we elect accountable for their pledges to protect working families," he said.

David Valladolid, president of the home care workers union, said, "We will not be falsely divided on issues that scapegoat immigrants, that attack affirmative action and those who don't speak English as the problem in America. We will tell them that it is the decline of wages and the concentration of wealth at the top that is making our country a dangerous place to live."

Teresa Valladolid, president of the San Diego and Imperial Counties chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, told the World that LCLAA strives to project a positive image of working people, to fight back against scapegoating, and to organize LCLAA members to register and vote.

"Issues like choice, immigrant rights, English-only and undocumented workers are wedge issues that politicians use to divide us among ourselves," she said. "We need to educate our members about this."