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Capitol
Hill Shop Steward |
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Try
These
Appetizers...
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When someone joins the Labor Party or when a union decides
to affiliate, it’s always the "main course" issues
that help them make up their minds. I’m talking about the
main reasons any working person would want to join the Labor
Party. Here’s a review of the "main course" as far
as I’m concerned:
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans supports a
national health care system. Both have fired vast numbers of
public-sector employees via "privatization" and
"reinvention." Manufacturing workers have been
slaughtered by the millions as Republicans and Democrats push
trade schemes that help corporations export good U.S. jobs.
Presidents from both major parties routinely break railroad
and airline strikes. Neither does anything about desperately
needed labor law reform. George W. Bush and Al Gore both want
government to offer "private savings accounts,"
opening the door to the destruction of Social Security. And
let’s not forget that Big Business and rich people provide
virtually all financial support for the Republican Party and
most of it for Democrats.
But these things, my friends, are only a few of the dishes
on a very big, very ugly buffet table. In just about every
newspaper I find new items to add to what I call the
"appetizers" list — all kinds of little tidbits
and snacks that would turn your stomach, if only you knew
about them. All are reminders that the Democrats are hell-bent
on imitating Republicans on issue after issue. Try these:
THE OLD SWITCHEROO
Back in April, the Washington Post reported that the
largest single donation received by the Democratic National
Committee was $350,000 from SBC Communications, the West Coast
telephone giant. And in the same newspaper, it was revealed
that a class-action lawsuit was filed against the company on
behalf of 40,000 current and former employees. It seems that
SBC pulled a switcheroo with stocks in employees’ 401(k)
plans, apparently switching valuable for less valuable stocks.
By the way, did the DNC return the donation pending resolution
of the lawsuit? Well, what do you think?
AN ENRICHING
EXPERIENCE
In mid-June, the Wall Street Journal reported that USEC
Inc. — the company that won the privatization sweepstakes
and runs two government uranium enrichment plants — is going
to close its plant in Piketon, Ohio. More than 1,700 workers,
most of them members of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical
and Energy Workers (PACE, a Labor Party union), will be out on
the street. When the Clinton Administration doled out the
sweet privatization deal to USEC in 1998, they gave the
company a loophole that allows it to close one of the plants
if company bonds ever hit junk-bond status. They did. Never
mind that such a flimsy outfit should never have been handling
such important material in the first place, or that USEC’s
CEO was paid a salary and bonus package in 1999 amounting to
$1.2 million. Has the Clinton Administration or Al Gore made a
pledge to end this out-of-control privatization experiment?
Guess.
HOW ABOUT A LITTLE DISCIPLINE?
A couple of weeks ago, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call
ran a cover article entitled "Absentees imperil GOP’s
advantage." It seems that so many Republican members of
Congress are missing work that the party is concerned about
their ability to get things done. But don’t worry. Toward
the end of the article it is revealed that Democrats Matthew
Martinez of California and Jim Traficant of Ohio have been
jumping in to prop up the Republicans on party-loyalty votes.
Fortunately, Martinez is on his way out after losing in the
primary to a pro-labor Democrat. Traficant is under federal
investigation and is rumored to be switching to the Republican
Party.
JUST IN TIME FOR THE
COOKOUT
Right before July 4, the Washington Post reported that the
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE, another LP
union) won a federal appeals court ruling stopping the Clinton
Administration from turning over most meat inspection to the
same companies that are slaughtering and packing the nation’s
meat and poultry. The AFGE case literally saves lives, since
now AFGE members will continue to check for contamination
carcass-by-carcass. The Agriculture Department wanted these
civil servants to check for germs from behind their desks. Let’s
ask Al Gore if he supports boosting the number of inspectors
checking our national food supply.
UNION BUSTERS AGREE
In late June the union-busting Gannett USA Today
"newspaper" ran a story headlined "Gore/Bush:
When it comes to economics, the differences are hard to
find." That’s as far as I got, because I don’t read
USA Today in support of our fellow workers in Detroit. The
hotel drops it at your door every day even if you tell them
not to.
RESCUE PARTIES
At the end of June, the Washington Post reported that
General Electric had hired former members of Congress Bob
Livingston (R-LA) and Vic Fazio (D-CA). It seems that GE
needed help killing an amendment to a bill that would have
forced them to hurry up with plans to dredge PCBs from the
Hudson River (GE polluted the Hudson with this deadly toxin
decades ago). In the end, GE’s bipartisan investment in
these two gentlemen paid off, with the amendment failing by
208 to 216. President Clinton likes to play golf with GE
chairman Jack Welch. I wonder if Al Gore likes golf?
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Gore’s new campaign manager, William Daley, led the
Administration’s fight for NAFTA and the China trade bill.
Photo ©2000, Shia, Impact Visuals |
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And to top off the list of goodies, let’s not forget that
Al Gore recently bade farewell to his campaign manager, the
scandal-plagued former congressman Tony Coelho. And to the
delight of working people everywhere, the Gore campaign has
replaced him with none other than William Daley, the current
friend-of-big-business Commerce Secretary. Daley, the Clinton
Administration’s chief salesman on the China trade bill and
the WTO, was architect of the 1993 passage of NAFTA.
Feeling a bit queasy? It must have been something you ate.
Maybe it was one of the appetizers. So better get busy on the
only cure I know of — go ask someone to join the Labor
Party.
Chris Townsend is political action director
of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of
America (UE).
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