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AFL-CIO Industrial Unions Roar onto Capitol Hill
Thousands of voices representing CWA and 11 other AFL-CIO unions demanded this week that Congress take immediate steps to reverse erosion of the manufacturing sector.
More than 3,700 workers, members of the unions that comprise the federation's recently created Industrial Union Council, came to their first legislative conference in Washington, D.C., Feb. 4 and 5, angry about the highest level of unemployment in eight years, international trade policies that erode jobs and wages, crushing increases in health care costs and labor laws badly in need of reform.
"I hope you will translate your anger into action," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, flanked by CWA President Morton Bahr, IUE-CWA President Ed Fire and other union leaders, urged.
"Public policies and practices that have all but destroyed our manufacturing base weren't accidents of history. They were created and perpetuated by the men and women we elected to office, and they can be changed by those same men and women," AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told the enthusiastic delegates.
The United States has lost 2.4 million manufacturing jobs since April 1998, accounting for 90 percent of the jobs lost in the past four years. In the past six months, every state has lost manufacturing jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As a share of total U.S. jobs, manufacturing peaked at 40 percent just after World War II. It declined to 27 percent in 1981 and now stands at about 15 percent.
IUE-CWA has lost thousands of jobs in auto parts manufacturing, and at one company alone, General Electric, 50,000 jobs as the company moved work out of the United States between 1982 and 2002.
The Associated Press quoted Fire explaining the ire of unionized industrial workers who see more and more jobs exported to low-wage countries. "China is the new Mexico," Fire said. "That's exactly what's happening. Who gets it in the neck are industrial workers."
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) praised the AFL-CIO and its industrial unions for taking a stand against what he called President Bush's "tax and budget follies" including a proposed budget full of tax breaks for the wealthy. Speaking on behalf of the congressional Democratic leadership, Miller reaffirmed the party's commitment to working families. "We have to speak out for the 90 percent of Americans who are left behind by the Bush administration," he said. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, originally scheduled for the event, were called upon to help lead a memorial service for the astronauts lost in last week's space shuttle disaster.
Economist Jeff Faux, a founder and now fellow of the Economic Policy Institute, prepared conference delegates with a presentation on how wages have stagnated over the past 25 years due to U.S. trade policies and an increasing trade deficit.
"We owe 23 percent of our Gross Domestic Product to other countries, and that will soon be 40 percent," Faux said. He pointed out that Argentina's trade deficit hovered around 40 percent when that country's economy collapsed. "America needs to expand its manufacturing. Unless we make more goods, we will never work our way out of this problem."
He urged delegates to seek from Congress a freeze on new trade agreements, the elimination of corporate tax credits for overseas investments, requirements for American manufacture of products for national defense and labor law reform to make it easier for workers to form unions.
"When all else is said and done," he said, "you need to make sure that your brothers and sisters have the right to collectively bargain."
A panel of AFL-CIO staff briefed the delegates on other issues.
Among about 80 IUE-CWA members who lobbied Congress this week was Claretta Allen, vice president of IUE-CWA Local 86782 in Tyler, Texas. One of 1,800 salaried workers at a Trane air-conditioning plant, Allen asked Rep. Ralph Hall (D-Texas) to hold the line against Bush administration attacks on overtime pay, and she echoed the message that IUE-CWA's two-day strike against General Electric brought national attention last month. In her local's last round of negotiations with Trane, "We had to pay a higher premium for health care, and that affects all of us," Allen said.
As far as visiting her state's two Republican senators, Allen took a pass. Past experience has taught her, "It doesn't do any good to talk to Kay Bailey Hutchinson."
In addition to IUE-CWA, the IUC includes the Bakery Workers; Electrical Workers; Graphic Communications; Machinists; Mine Workers; PACE International Union; Steelworkers; Teamsters; Auto Workers; and Food and Commercial Workers.
More than 3,700 workers, members of the unions that comprise the federation's recently created Industrial Union Council, came to their first legislative conference in Washington, D.C., Feb. 4 and 5, angry about the highest level of unemployment in eight years, international trade policies that erode jobs and wages, crushing increases in health care costs and labor laws badly in need of reform.
"I hope you will translate your anger into action," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, flanked by CWA President Morton Bahr, IUE-CWA President Ed Fire and other union leaders, urged.
"Public policies and practices that have all but destroyed our manufacturing base weren't accidents of history. They were created and perpetuated by the men and women we elected to office, and they can be changed by those same men and women," AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told the enthusiastic delegates.
The United States has lost 2.4 million manufacturing jobs since April 1998, accounting for 90 percent of the jobs lost in the past four years. In the past six months, every state has lost manufacturing jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As a share of total U.S. jobs, manufacturing peaked at 40 percent just after World War II. It declined to 27 percent in 1981 and now stands at about 15 percent.
IUE-CWA has lost thousands of jobs in auto parts manufacturing, and at one company alone, General Electric, 50,000 jobs as the company moved work out of the United States between 1982 and 2002.
The Associated Press quoted Fire explaining the ire of unionized industrial workers who see more and more jobs exported to low-wage countries. "China is the new Mexico," Fire said. "That's exactly what's happening. Who gets it in the neck are industrial workers."
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) praised the AFL-CIO and its industrial unions for taking a stand against what he called President Bush's "tax and budget follies" including a proposed budget full of tax breaks for the wealthy. Speaking on behalf of the congressional Democratic leadership, Miller reaffirmed the party's commitment to working families. "We have to speak out for the 90 percent of Americans who are left behind by the Bush administration," he said. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, originally scheduled for the event, were called upon to help lead a memorial service for the astronauts lost in last week's space shuttle disaster.
Economist Jeff Faux, a founder and now fellow of the Economic Policy Institute, prepared conference delegates with a presentation on how wages have stagnated over the past 25 years due to U.S. trade policies and an increasing trade deficit.
"We owe 23 percent of our Gross Domestic Product to other countries, and that will soon be 40 percent," Faux said. He pointed out that Argentina's trade deficit hovered around 40 percent when that country's economy collapsed. "America needs to expand its manufacturing. Unless we make more goods, we will never work our way out of this problem."
He urged delegates to seek from Congress a freeze on new trade agreements, the elimination of corporate tax credits for overseas investments, requirements for American manufacture of products for national defense and labor law reform to make it easier for workers to form unions.
"When all else is said and done," he said, "you need to make sure that your brothers and sisters have the right to collectively bargain."
A panel of AFL-CIO staff briefed the delegates on other issues.
Among about 80 IUE-CWA members who lobbied Congress this week was Claretta Allen, vice president of IUE-CWA Local 86782 in Tyler, Texas. One of 1,800 salaried workers at a Trane air-conditioning plant, Allen asked Rep. Ralph Hall (D-Texas) to hold the line against Bush administration attacks on overtime pay, and she echoed the message that IUE-CWA's two-day strike against General Electric brought national attention last month. In her local's last round of negotiations with Trane, "We had to pay a higher premium for health care, and that affects all of us," Allen said.
As far as visiting her state's two Republican senators, Allen took a pass. Past experience has taught her, "It doesn't do any good to talk to Kay Bailey Hutchinson."
In addition to IUE-CWA, the IUC includes the Bakery Workers; Electrical Workers; Graphic Communications; Machinists; Mine Workers; PACE International Union; Steelworkers; Teamsters; Auto Workers; and Food and Commercial Workers.