Transportation Workers Rally

Friday, May 18, 2007

Thousands of transportation workers – pilots, flight attendants and machinists – rallied Thursday on the Mall to protest the Bush administration’s anti-worker policies. Amid a sea of blue t-shirts proclaiming “Enough is Enough” beneath a bright blue sky, transportation union leaders from around the world pledged worker solidarity in an industry built on globalism. President George W. Bush came under especially heavy attack, with IAM President Tom Buffenbarger charging that Bush “has failed us miserably” as the industry has laid off hundreds of thousands of transportation workers after 9/11 and abrogated pension responsibilities, while AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka, saying that “Labor 2008 is already underway,” noted that Bush has “just 614 days left” in his presidency. Photo by Chris Garlock

CANDIDATES BACK
UNIONISTS AT ‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’ RALLY
By Mark Gruenberg, WASHINGTON (PAI)--Three presidential hopefuls--Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)--hit strong pro-union themes at the Machinists’ "Enough Is Enough!" rally blocks from the U.S. Capitol on May 17.

The rally drew more than 1,000 unionists, with leaders and contingents from the IAM, the Laborers, the Transport Workers, AFSCME, AFGE, the Newspaper Guild/CWA, AFA/CWA and the Coalition of Labor Union Women, among others.

It was designed, IAM President Tom Buffenbarger declared, to send a message to Congress and to anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush that U.S. workers have had it with policies and politicians who hate unions and wreck the middle class. Buffenbarger labeled Bush the worst president in history.

"From his subterranean vantage point, he (Bush) has to look up to see" the five presidents whom historians have labeled the worst, Buffenbarger added.

Clinton, Biden and Kucinich joined the denunciation of the past years of GOP rule in Washington. Other speakers--led by AFSCME President Gerald McEntee --said that after the takeover of Congress in the 2006 elections, unionists can’t stop working because they must take back the White House next year.

"The next president will have two big tasks: To restore America’s place in the world and to restore organized labor, in order to restore the middle class," declared Biden, the first of the hopefuls to speak.

And the first way to restore the middle class, he added, is to free up money for spending on such things as children’s health and education by ending Bush’s war in Iraq. Other speakers, including Buffenbarger and McEntee, agreed.

"The main reason we have to get out of this war" in Iraq, "is because this president has waged a war on labor’s house like no other president has," Biden stated, repeating lines he has used before other union audiences. "They want to break you" he said of Bush and his minions. "You’re the only thing that stands between them" and total control, the senator warned.

To reverse that, "The first thing we need is a president who can say the word ‘union,’" the senator said--a comment that drew hearty cheers from the crowd and prompted one worker interviewed to distinguish among the three.

"Biden and Kucinich were the only ones to use the word ‘union,’" said Stanley Sanders of Laborers Local 57 in Philadelphia. "People like to say ‘organized labor,’ but that’s speaking about the officers. When you say ‘union,’ you speak of the members themselves."

Other key themes the candidates--and other speakers--hit included passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and opposition to so-called "free trade" treaties.

Kucinich, as usual, opened his speech by declaring his first move in the White House would be "to repeal NAFTA and the WTO," referring to the controversial U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade pact that has cost hundreds of thousands of U.S. factory jobs, and to the business-ruled World Trade Organization.

Clintondid not mention the trade pacts. She asked the crowd if they "are ready for a president who brings universal health care…who stands for good jobs with good incomes…who is pro-labor and who will deal with worker health and safety…and who will put us on a path to energy independence, to create millions of good jobs and free us from sending money to the Middle East to be used against us?" The crowd gave her resounding "yes" replies to each question.

"When I am president, you will not be invisible to the president of the United States," she declared.

But at least one union president warned that words would not be enough to satisfy workers, even as Buffenbarger told the crowd the rally and the hopefuls’ speeches were one part of unions’ endorsement process for the 2008 White House race. "We’re here to remind Congress that Labor 2008"--the AFL-CIO’s political plan--"is already under way," federation Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka added.

"Now let’s see them walk the walk," declared TWU President Jim Little. "We’re here to say we’re not going away. And we’ll say the same thing to corporate America," he declared. Unionists interviewed gave generally good reviews to the three presidential hopefuls, but also agreed with Little.

"Biden and Hillary were on target, but in terms of producing, we’re waiting," said Darlyne Hudson, Recording Secretary of TWU Local 100 in New York City. But she noted of Clinton that "every initiative we had in Local 100, she was there."

"The presidential candidates know they cannot be afraid to embrace us wholeheartedly," said Herbert Harris, the D.C. chairman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. "I liked what they were all saying, but they’re not going to say what you don’t want to hear. I’d like to see what they do," the Laborers’ Sanders said. Photos by Chris Garlock

 

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