LAS VEGAS – The 1,000-plus delegates to the 22nd Convention of the National Council of Senior Citizens (NCSC) lost no time in aligning the 250,000-member organization with the movement to defeat GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush and to elect a "pro-senior Congress" on Nov. 7.

Standing before a banner bearing the organization’s logo flanked by the slogan "Protecting the legacy, fulfilling the dream," NCSC President George Kourpias pledged that the council would do "everything in its power" to keep George Bush out of the White House. "We will not allow him to dismantle Medicare or Social Security."

Kourpias listed the issues that affect seniors: Social Security under attack by politicians and Wall Street privatizers, soaring prescription drug prices, huge increases in Medigap premiums and HMOs terminating seniors because they are not profitable enough. "This 2000 convention will be an opportunity to ... launch a our campaign for change," he said.

Kourpias said no plan to divert money from the Social Security Trust Fund to individual retirement accounts was "more deceitful than that proposed by Bush." By promising that present retirees and those retiring in the near future would continue to receive guaranteed benefits as prescribed by present law, while those who invested in individual accounts would all retire as millionaires, Bush had promised "everything to everybody."

Kourpias described the last few years as a period of "crisis and opportunity" that began with the monumental showdown over the "Contract on America" and the threat by Newt Gingrich to let Medicare "wither on the vine.

He drew laughter and applause when he added, "But it didn’t happen that way. We put Gingrich on the midnight train to Georgia and forced Bob Dole to portray himself for what he really was – the most impotent of our nation’s politicians."

Kourpias spent much of his speech explaining the recommendation of the NCSC leadership to endorse the proposal of the AFL-CIO to create the Alliance for Retired Americans. The Alliance, with a potential membership of some 2.5 million union retirees at its base, was neither "a replacement for, or a successor to, the NCSC," he said. Rather, it will be an "up-front, out-front sister organization of the AFL-CIO. We will start out with two million members and be a major player in the political arena."

Kourpias called on the NCSC to "pick up the embers of our passion" and carry them into the Alliance for Retired Americans where they will "ignite a flame that will burn brightly."

NCSC Executive Director Steve Protulis told delegates, "Our mission is much more complicated that protecting the legacy and fulfilling the dream." He said that part of the crisis stems from the fact that "hundreds of thousands of confused seniors" have begun buying into the lies about Social Security and Medicare.

"George W. Bush and every other politician say they want to save Social Security and Medicare. Your children and grandchildren believe him – now to convince seniors." Protulis warned the convention that poll after poll show a continuing rightward shift among senior voters. "This and Bush’s privatization plan are our greatest challenge in this election," he said.

Delegates from 20 states took advantage of the convention to boost a coordinated campaign to win passage of the Prescription Drug Fair Pricing Act to lower the unreasonable prices of prescription drugs. Modeled after a new law in Maine, this legislation directs states to use their purchasing power to negotiate fair drug prices for the uninsured. Price controls would be set up if these negotiations fail.

Washington is one of the states where unions, community groups and consumer organizations will hold a press conference on June 20 to announce the kick off of the campaign.

Will Parry, president of the Puget Sound Council of Senior Citizens and convention delegate, said, "Maine shows that it can be done, that something can be done for the 70 million Americans who are without insurance that covers prescription drugs."

Parry told the World that seniors are particularly at risk because they use a third of all prescriptions and often pay twice as much for these drugs as does the federal government. And the biggest scandal of all: Medications for pets can cost much less than the exact same drugs when prescribed for humans!"

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By Evelina Alarcon

LOS ANGELES – "Amnistia!" "Amnistia!" was the repeated chant of thousands who filled the Los Angeles Sports Arena to capacity on Saturday, June 10 at the AFL-CIO forum on immigrant workers’ rights.

Under the banner of "Building Understanding and Creating Change, "this fourth and largest of the AFL-CIO forums became a historic powerhouse political rally bringing together labor, community, immigrant and religious organizations to demand amnesty for undocumented workers like never before. The November elections were on people’s minds as well.

Mike Garcia, the popular president of Local 1877, Service Employees International Union, who led the recent successful janitors strike, told the World that "candidates for the House [of Representatives] and President of the United States are going to have to address these issues if they are going to win."

The Sports Arena could not hold all those who wanted to attend. The fire department had to stop over four thousand people who were waiting outside from joining the over 16,000 who had already packed the stadium.

Stomping their feet, chanting "Si Se Puede", singing in unison, and waving the American flag along with flags of their home countries, the exuberant crowd sent their message to Congress loud and clear ... grant unconditional amnesty for undocumented workers! repeal employer sanctions! and give immigrant workers the right to organize into unions!

"We in the AFL-CIO, start off with one basic idea," said Linda Chavez Thompson, Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO who chaired the forum. "We are on the side of working people everywhere ... and we support fairness and justice for all of America’s immigrants." "We know that there is a cloud of fear, injustice and inequality that hovers above immigrants from every land and we’re here – each one of us – because we know it’s time to remove the cloud once and for all! " Chavez Thompson stated to rousing cheers.

That sentiment was echoed by many prominent speakers including leader of the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese Cardinal Roger Mahony. He called labor’s demand for amnesty and the building of a coalition to fight for it, a courageous move. Mahony announced that the United States Catholic Conference has committed itself to work with the AFL-CIO in this effort.

"We can’t ask farm workers to put food on our tables, ask garment workers to put clothes on our backs – ask cooks, maids and janitors to make the tourism industry strong and then exclude them from the decision making table where the terms of their employment are negotiated," Mahony said.

In 1986, amnesty was adopted in the Immigration Reform and Control Act for about three million people who entered the U.S. before Jan. 1, 1982.

Those immigrants who arrived without documents after that are vulnerable to abuse by employers, police and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The estimates are that there are about six million undocumented immigrants who live in the U.S. today.

A panel of over a dozen national labor leaders including Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union; Elizabeth Bunn, vice president of the United Auto Workers; and William Lucy of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, heard moving testimony from immigrant workers from Mexico, Central America, Thailand and Trinidad.

Rojana Cheunchujit, a Thai former garment worker in the infamous sweatshop in El Monte Calif., told of how 71 workers were kept as virtual slaves from April 1994 until August 1995. Trapped behind barbed wire, they were forced to work seven days a week from 7:00 a.m. until 1 in the morning. Employers made them sleep in unsanitary conditions with rats and cockroaches.

The Union of Needle Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) discovered the sweatshop and freed them. "For the sake of my children," said Cheunchujit, "my dream is that the garment industry will be held accountable to provide its workers with a living wage and decent working condit ions."

Carmen Colin, a 17-year-old farm worker born in Mexico, described how she was forced to go with her parents to the fields as a child because they didn’t have enough money for child care. "I don’t want my son to have to go with me to the fields because I can’t afford a babysitter!" she said in Spanish.

Colin broke down in tears as she told of how much she wants to go to college but can’t because she doesn’t have legal papers to be in this country. When it seemed as though she couldn’t continue, the crowd of thousands encouraged her to go on as they burst into chants of "Si Se Puede."

The rally repeated that encouragement whenever workers emotions made it difficult to continue their testimony. That included, Jose Juarez Falcon, a carpenter from Seattle Washington who described the terror of an INS armed raid at his workplace. Some of his fellow workers were so terrified that they jumped from the second floor of the building injuring themselves. The audience roared with "Si Se Puede" when Falcon said, "The fact that I want to fight for a better life is not illegal."

Also testifying was Dr. Lorraine Williams, an immigrant from Trinidad who came to the United States on a student visa in 1986 and is now a practicing surgeon at Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center in South Los Angeles. Williams spoke of the irony of the fact that she is literally saving lives but has faced mounds of bureaucratic red tape in her efforts to become a permanent, legal U.S. resident. "Our contributions are ignored," she said, "merely because we are immigrants."

Immigrant workers and their families from over a dozen nations attended the forum including from Bangladesh, Korea, Peru, Thailand, Taiwan and India but the overwhelming majority were from Mexico and Central America.

But pride in living in the United States also came through. Miguel Contreras, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor who convened the forum, called on immigrant workers to hold up their U.S. flags. And they did by the thousands. "We belong to America," said Contreras as they cheered.

The recent janitors strike in Los Angeles and labor organizing successes of hotel, restaurant, farm worker, construction, garment, home care and other workers – many of whom are undocumented immigrants – was clearly the backdrop for the new position of the AFL-CIO. Huge sections of the L.A. Sports Arena were filled with thousands of new immigrant union members. But it was also filled with thousands of members of community and church organizations and they were militantly in agreement with labor’s demands.

The Los Angeles forum, perhaps more than any other, represented the coming together of immigrant rights groups that have been working for decades on this issue.

Bert Corona of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, Juan Jose Gutierrez of One Stop Immigration, Isabel Garcia of Derechos Humanos in Arizona, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles (CHIRLA), the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, the Central American Coalition and others have been at the forefront of fighting for immigrant rights. The merging of this new labor/community/religious alliance is historic and powerful.

Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, told the World that hundreds of Asian-American community leaders came together for a pre-rally event to talk about the labor-initiated program and they enthusiastically joined in support. Rev. Leonard Jackson, representing the First AME Church, told the rally, "We stand with you in calling for amnesty, we stand together. Together we are the backbone of America. Walk together children. Walk together!"

Maria Elena Durazo, president of HERE Local 11, told the World. "When there is a community infrastructure that supports you ... we have a better shot at winning!"

While not the focus, the impending November election was clearly lying just beneath the surface of this historic rally. Many referred to the growing political clout of Latinos and new immigrant voters. Immigrants are naturalizing into citizens more than ever. Immigrants who are new citizens make up a large section of new registered voters and they are voting.

In California, it is estimated that one million of the states 1.1 newly registered voters are Latino, with new immigrants composing 44 percent of them.

"This issue is on the political map and national agenda. Presidential candidates have to debate it," Eliseo Medina, international vice president of SEIU told the World. "Candidates have to do more than talk to us in Spanish; they have to talk to us about issues that matter and if they don’t we’ll deal with it accordingly in November."

As Juan Jose Gutierrez, a veteran leader for immigrants’ rights and current SEIU organizer of the forum told the World, "immigrants are finally going to get their place at the table so that we can share our ideas with everyone else on what is in the best interests of working men and women in this country."