Across the countryalmost without exceptionbargaining on our contracts
means defending against cuts in job security, health care or other
benefits. And every day, not just at contract time, we have to defend
against layoffs and permanent job loss.
In California, working people now face an effort to repeal last
years re-election of Gov. Gray Davis. The October 7 recall election
makes a mockery of the democratic process. Anybody could enter,
and 135 did. If a majority votes for the recall, the person with
the most votes, even if its only 15 percent, is the new governor.
Well be urging Californians to reject the recall and respect last
years real election.
In national affairs, the many areas we have to defend are spelled
out in painful detail in this issue of The Journal. To ease the
horrors of unemployment, we want direct government investment, but
were told tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy will spur
business investment and presto! jobs will spring up all around.
That rationale has been disproved at least since President McKinley,
but its still used. Another phony story"free trade"
is a panacea for the developing worldis used to justify still more
agreements that export our jobs and strip North America of its essential
manufacturing base.
Anything that increases employer costslike protecting workers
from repetitive motion injuries or adequate funding of pension fundsis
called unnecessary and just another example of big government trying
to run our lives.
And perhaps no disaster would be as great as enactment of the current
outline of a prescription drug plan benefit under Medicare. As every
retiree in IBEW knows from our mass mailing, those bills have horrendous
flaws we will seek to get fixed in conference committee. Both versions
cost beneficiaries too much in premiums and deductibles and would
strip some 4 million retirees of their employer-paid prescription
drug coverage. We urge everyone in IBEW to join that campaign by
visiting the Congressional Action Center on our web site www.ibew.org.
The Labor Department is attacking the overtime standard that has
made life more livable for wage earners for the past 65 years. Employer
groups have wanted for a long time to change the standard eight-hour
day and 40-hour week in order to squeeze as much work as possible
from the employees without paying for it. This is a little more
ambitious than the multiple initiatives that go after union members
only.
The attacks on unions are, of course, still there. The Labor Department
seeks wasteful additions to your locals LM-2 filings and, the NLRB
has new initiatives on behalf of employers.
In short, theyre chipping away at workers legal rights. Unfortunately,
those "rights" have to be defended and even re-established
at every turn. Places in America where rights are permanently inscribedlike
the Constitutiondont include the marketplace. Despite our democratic
political structure, democracy on the job is still a work in progress.
And were the only ones working on it.
What rights we have come only through standing together employer
by employer and job by job. Protecting them in times like now means
we have to play defense against the greediest employers and their
lackeys.
Inevitably, we look toward next year, an election year when we
get to take the offensive, and I hope our members and all workers
will remember the assaults of 2003. Scoringor settling the scoreis
more fun.
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