LABOR PARTY in the COMMUNITY:

Dave Cohen, Western Massachusetts LP 

Dave Cohen, an international rep for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) talked to us about the work the Western Massachusetts LP has done to bring the 28th Amendment campaign door-to-door in this sparsely populated area.

"We've taken the 28th Amendment Campaign petition out to two housing projects in this area -- in Greenfield and in Holyoke. And we had a really good time with it.

In Greenfield it was a small housing project, and the people there are going through the process of buying it from the owner through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Most of the people are very low-income, a mix of black and white.

It was a good night. There were a lot of people sitting out on stoops or barbecuing outside, and they were inclined to chat. We found a number of people whose parents had been members of the UE, but who had lost their jobs in one of the big factory closings that happened here in the 1980s [mostly tool-and-die plants]. We ran into whole families of people who had been high paid industrialized workers and who were now driving taxi cabs.

Photo: ©Paul Felton

People were real interested in the petition. I think in part because people were going through the process of buying the building, they were very activated. They asked a lot of questions. Some people asked, "Well, do you think people can really get this passed?"

But more than that, we just had long discussions with people about their situations -- the different places they'd worked, the kind of jobs they had. A lot of people had part-time work. People told us they couldn't unionize at work because their coworkers were afraid they would be fired. They thought that maybe if we had something like the 28th Amendment, then they wouldn't be afraid to organize.

Photo: ©Paul Felton

Labor Party leader Adolph Reed, Jr. talked about the 28th Amendment Campaign at a public meeting sponsored by the Detroit Labor Party on Sept. 10.

It was funny, people didn't ask that much about the Labor Party -- they just seemed to take it for granted that there was one. We got a bunch of names of people who were interested in it. The few who didn't sign in Greenfield were very loyal to the Democratic Party.

In the Greenfield project, probably 85 or 90 percent of people signed the petition. In Holyoke it was probably 65 percent. The housing project in Holyoke is huge. About 80 of the people there are Latino, mainly Puerto Rican. We got a good response there, but not as good as in Greenfield. It may be because fewer people there had ever had good-paying jobs or been in unions.

We've been out three times, and we have collected close to 700 signatures. And about 15 or 20 people indicated a real interest in the Labor Party. We plan to have a meeting in October to figure out how we go back in these areas. We plan to have a meeting in the area, and we'll do a  mailing to everybody who signed the petition. We're also trying to find a way to get more of the unions around here involved."

LABOR PARTY in the UNION:

Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union member Ray Stever at this union convention in August. One hundred OCAW delegates joined the Labor Party during the convention.

Photo: ©David Cherkis
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Larry Adams, president of Mailhandlers Local 300 in New York and New Jersey, has been leading an effort to build the Labor Party in his union. The Local Union Council (which includes the executive board plus officers from each of the local's 20 branches) has voted to endorse the 28th Amendment Campaign. And some on-the-ground work has begun to bring the campaign -- and the Labor Party -- to rank-and-file members. Larry pointed us in the direction of JFK International Airport, where union vice president Jim Freely and other LP members have been circulating the 28th Amendment Campaign petition.

Jim Freely, Mailhandlers Local 200:

"There are about 500 Mailhandlers members out here at JFK Airport, and what we do is basically the heavy labor -- we load and unload trucks, we deal with trays of mail. The individual mail processing is done mostly by members of APWU [American Postal Workers Union].

There are about seven Labor Party people out here, and what we did is, we went out and beat the bushes. We have about a couple hundred signatures so far -- that includes both our members and APWU members. We've taken it around to people in the cafeteria and break area, when we're not on the clock, like on our lunch hour. We just tell people about the campaign and ask them to sign the petition. And for the most part, we get a positive reception.

What I've found is, it works best if you can really initiate a conversation and hold it at length. When you go through it, and you explain it, then people tend to get more enthused. Or if you show people the whole Labor Party platform -- sometimes people really get into that. And most people do sign the petition.

One of the big issues for our members is that the Post office is trying to privatize doing the mail. and my argument with our people -- who start at about $11 an hour -- is, Look, if we had a guaranteed minimum wage where everybody's getting at least $10 an hour, the Post Office isn't so likely to go out there and get other people to do this work. People seem to really get that.

We're doing this one-on-one, and that takes time. We'd like to do a big hit-the-floor campaign. And what we want to do soon is to have a few of us get together and sit at the picnic tables just outside the facility, and catch people coming in and out work. Then we can maybe reach a few people at a time and really engage them."

We're growing! LP's new affiliates:

In the past few months, three international unions have formally affiliated with the Labor Party: the American Federation of Govenment Employees, the Brotherhood of Mainenance Way Employees, and the United Mine Workers' of America. Together these unions represent hundreds of thousands of miners, railworkers and public employees.

All three unions had endorsed the Labor Party. But by affiliating, the unions pledged their financial and organizational support for the Labor Party.

AFGE members voted over-whelmingly to affiliate at their national convention in August. The resolution they passed called on the union to develop an overall recruitment strategy to build the Labor Party internally, and to encourage all he union's local affiliates to build the Labor Party as well.

AFGE members are also moving to build the Labor Party in the state of Georgia. On August 6 AFGE vice president Ken Blaylock chaired a gathering of local and state union leaders and organizers to begin organizing for an Atlanta Labor Party and, eventually, a Georgia LP.

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