A Dose of Union Spirit

May 2005 IBEW Journal

In one of my first tasks as Secretary-Treasurer, I accompanied President Hill to the chartering of our new local in Puerto Rico, as reported in this issue. I’m not ashamed to tell you that I choked up a little during the swearing in of our new members down there.

You could see it in the faces of this resilient group. They meant every word of their membership oath. Our newest members displayed an intense pride and a stunning humility that spoke to me and to the others, who were fortunate enough to be there, telling us: This is what a union is all about!

If the labor movement’s adversaries have their way, IBEW members on the mainland will end up with the same situation that our new members in Puerto Rico are fighting so hard to change—a low-wage economy, where skilled trades are paid less than many service workers, where union market share in construction doesn’t even make the chart.

Senator Joseph Biden, D-Del., speaking to the Building and Construction Trades, said, "There is a war on Labor’s House, and it is real, and we better do something about it."

It shouldn’t take any of us too long to figure out how serious this war is. It will take longer to do something about it. But we don’t have a lot of time to spare.

If you are not convinced that a serious war on working people is being directed from Washington, D.C., look at what happened in Congress in mid-April. Republicans pushed through a bankruptcy "reform" bill that helps big credit card companies by hurting workers and retirees, thousands of whom, research shows, are now only declaring bankruptcy because of the exorbitant costs of medical care and prescription drugs.

Labor has never won popularity contests in our nation’s capital or in many of our state houses. In past administrations, however, Republican and Democratic leaders and agencies have tried to appear neutral in many policies affecting labor.

Neutrality was yesterday. Today is confrontation. In a war, none of us can afford to be neutral.

Take the battle for Social Security. Is it confined to widows, disabled or elderly citizens who can’t survive without it? Not when every day we see union-negotiated defined benefit pension plans targeted for extinction. How many folks do you know who have been slammed into defined contribution plans? Just when it becomes more important than ever to have guaranteed government-funded retiree benefits, the Republicans have launched a full-scale campaign to undermine it.

There are no neutrals. None of us will escape the damage of a growing deficit, driven by disastrous tax and trade policy, which sends jobs overseas and leaves our nation’s future vulnerable to the whim of investors on another side of the globe.

A few months ago in Las Vegas, the leaders of the AFL-CIO engaged in a "chicken and egg" argument over what’s more important, political action or organizing? I don’t know how we can have one without the other. They feed off each other and depend on each other. We mobilized like crazy in 2004, but when union density is way down, even in traditional union states, then we just don’t have the numbers to make the difference by ourselves.

Ultimately, the greatest damage that has been inflicted upon our union by our adversaries is our own self-doubt as they knock away gains that were only achieved by the blood, sweat and tears of millions of workers.

If we could "bottle" the courage and enthusiasm of our newest members in Puerto Rico Local 950, we would. We all need a taste. We can learn their lesson—that all of the "wedge" political issues in the book cannot stop a group of workers who know, in their gut, that they can only improve their situation when they have one another’s backs.

Jon F. Walters

International Secretary-Treasurer