A look at G.W. Bush's Texas Labor record

The following is an abridged version of remarks made to the Town Hall Forum by Texas AFL-CIO President Joe D. Gunn in Philadelphia, June 29, at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) national convention.

By Joe D. Gunn

It's a pleasure to address Brothers and Sisters in a great union city and great union state, a place where freedom in America got its start. As you might guess, I have been in the union movement a while. For our purposes, I'll admit to more than 40 years. I've been asked to tell you the truth about Gov. George W. Bush, and here it is: The Bush candidacy is the most dangerous to labor unions of any I have seen.

If you liked the Reagan-Bush Era, you will love George W. Bush. But the danger reaches beyond Bush's right-wing, anti-union policies. The danger is that he puts the right-wing, anti-union policies in a pretty package. Bush has a magnetic personality. People like him. He'll talk "compassionate conservatism," while he fights for the crowd that says, "I Got Mine." If you swallow his line, it may take a while for you to realize what's happening, but "You'll Get Yours."

At the start of his governorship, Bush and I were friendly. I had supported Bush's father in the 1960s when he ran for Congress as the more progressive of two candidates. George W. said to me, "Joe Gunn is a household name in the Bush family." Only later did I realize I was a household name as in "What the Joe Gunn do you think you're doing?"

The Texas AFL-CIO wished George W. Bush luck. He invited us to his office several times and treated us like buddies. But within a few months, the honeymoon was over. The problem was, he was telling us one thing and doing another. He told us that Texas' workforce agency - an agency that had looked out for working people "was doing fine," and then he went about dismantling it. He told us that he would work to win Senate confirmation for the best workers' compensation commissioner labor ever had, and then he did nothing.

And, in the straw that broke the camel's back, Bush won our support for the new workforce agency by sending word through his staff that he would appoint our choice to the agency's new governing board. Instead, Bush appointed a UAW outcast who sold out the union movement in his application to Bush, telling the governor, "My goal for the last 21 years of working as union official has not been for the proliferation of organized labor, but for creating a relationship in the workplace that would eliminate the need for unions."

That appointment spelled disaster for working people. It allowed Texas employers to write all the rules for job training and unemployment benefits. So in late 1995, I commissioned a portrait of George W. Bush as Pinocchio. Bush and I haven't spoken since then, but his stream of anti-labor appointments has continued.

Let me talk about Bush's pro-employer, pro-Chamber of Commerce, anti-worker record on a few issues that figure in the presidential race:

On Paycheck Deception, Gov. Bush wants to force every union and labor federation in the country to get annual written approval from each of our members just so we can conduct voter registration campaigns, get out the vote, lobby our lawmakers and publish our views. Business outspends labor by more than 11 to one in elections, but for George W. Bush, the problem is how to put a bureaucratic nightmare on our "one" and protect the other side's "11."

Unlike Pennsylvania, Texas has had a Right-to-Work Law since 1947. We can organize unions, but when we do, we are plagued by "free riders" who don't join and don't pay dues, but are legally entitled to representation. Gov. Bush loves the right-to-work law. In fact, he vetoed a dues check-off bill for municipal workers because he said it was "contrary to the principles of right to work."

On pay for the working poor, Gov. Bush says he might support a raise in the federal minimum wage, but listen carefully: He also wants to let states "opt out" of any increase in the minimum wage. Think about that. If states can undercut the minimum wage set in Congress, then we really wouldn't have a federal minimum wage any more.

Gov. Bush loves privatization. He tried to let private companies like Lockheed Martin take over the entire welfare intake system in Texas. Fortunately, the Clinton Administration told Texas that it couldn't privatize the welfare system. But Gov. Bush isn't giving up. His campaign is chockfull of privatization gurus who believe private companies, beholden to shareholders, will put the public interest ahead of the bottom line.

Gov. Bush opposed a bill that would have toughened penalties for hate crimes in Texas. The Texas House passed the bill with substantial bipartisan support. But the Texas Senate killed the bill after Bush opposed it and said, "All crimes are hate crimes." Bush is also no supporter of affirmative action.

On gas prices, Gov. Bush sometimes seems to forget that he is no longer in the oil business. In the 1999 Texas legislative session, the top priority emergency item designated by Gov. Bush was a 45 million tax break for oil companies. You might remember that oil prices were low back then. Well, look at the gas pumps now. Instead of moving the top problems to the head of the line, Gov. Bush did the equivalent of spotting Tiger Woods five strokes.

You will hear from other union members about other key issues like Bush's support of school vouchers and his attempt to set what became a 3,000 teacher pay raise at a lower amount, Bush's effort to minimize the number of children covered under a program that brings health insurance to the working poor, Bush's veto of a bill to stop HMO's from unfairly denying health benefits and Bush's attempt to privatize Social Security. But how many clear examples do you need? Any committed union member who studies Gov. Bush's record cannot help but conclude that Bush is no friend to working people.

In the 2000 elections, we can trot down Memory Lane, toward an even meaner version of the Reagan-Bush Era, and spend the next four years fighting Paycheck Deception, Right-to-Work, privatization of Social Security, the TEAM Act, softening of overtime laws, an anti-labor U.S. Supreme Court and an anti-labor NLRB. Or we can move forward on our issues: Better education, better health care and laws that allow working people to organize free of one-sided rules and intimidation.

I never thought I'd say this: I want George W. Bush in office. But I want him to stay in the Texas governor's office. Most Texans are not going to help us, so I appeal to you, Brothers and Sisters of Pennsylvania: Don't let George W. Bush do to working people in America what he has done to working people in Texas. Thank you.