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| IBEW MEMBERS JOIN "SHOW US THE JOBS" TOUR April 7, 2004 Jeff Deckard, an unemployed member of IBEW Local 683 in Columbus, Ohio, traveled to Kentucky for his last job. Boyce Christensen, Vice President of Local 354 in Salt Lake City, Utah has only had twelve months of work since 2002. Travel for both of them took a new twist in March when they joined unemployed workers from every state and the District of Columbia on the Show Us The Jobs bus tour. Deckard says: "I went on the tour because I was hoping that it would get publicity and show that President Bushs jobless recovery means that corporations are doing fine, but working people are hurting." The tour, sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Working America, an organization that reaches out to all working families, visited eight states and eighteen cities. Show Us The Jobs was planned to put human faces behind the cold statistic of 2.2 million jobs lost since President Bush took office. Many laid-off workers have taken jobs that pay, on average, 20 percent less than their previous jobs. Americas middle class is slowly disappearing as good paying jobs are being lost to economic policies that favor big business over average working Americans. Deckard and Christensen shared the bus with unemployed software programmers, students and small business owners. They attended town meetings, pancake breakfasts and addressed press conferences. They met workers who were losing jobs as plants move offshore and heard from mayors of Americas new ghost towns. In Minneapolis, Minnesota they helped bag bread for distribution by Minnesota Food Share, a local non-profit group. They attended a town meeting in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. where the towns Mayor Kevin Crawford and Craig Miller, President of IBEW Local 158 told them about the shutdown of the Mirro Aluminum plant and its move to Mexico. In Greenville, Michigan, they ate a pancake breakfast with workers who manufacture Electrolux refrigerators. Their plant is shutting down, moving to Mexico; the closing will result in 2,700 lost jobs in the community. Says Deckard: "Electrolux is making money, they say that they are just not making enough money. Its shocking to see this many people in one place who are losing their jobs. We need to look at labels and buy U.S. made products." In Des Moines, Iowa, the tour met with two young single mothers who told of their personal struggles. Says Christensen: "Their story touched every one of us...we passed the hat...we gave the donation to the women personally and there were hugs and tears galore." For Deckard, the tour was "exciting and emotional." He says: "You thought your situation was bad until you saw others facing chapter 13 and home foreclosures. We met with a sheriff near Youngstown, Ohio, who told us that his four county area has experienced 11,000 mortgage foreclosures in the last few years." Deckard wanted publicity. The tour got its share. The bus even stopped at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa, for a photo opportunity to point out that-not since Hoovers administration-has a president presided over so many lost jobs. When the bus arrived at Washington, D.C. on March 31st, tour members held a press briefing on Capitol Hill with Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senators Edward Kennedy and Debbie Stabenow, and other members of Congress in a special session on the jobs crisis. Deckard and Christensen were gratified when President Edwin D. Hill and Secretary-Treasurer Jerry OConnor personally welcomed them to Washington at a dinner at the AFL-CIO headquarters. Christensen says: "This was a life-changing event. At the start of the tour, we would get up one by one and talk in terms of I and me. But four days later, after we had seen communities pulling together [dealing with unemployment], we started using words like our and ours. We became family." In D.C., Christensen joined 1,000 unionists, including members of IBEW Local 26, who were protesting at a fund-raiser for President Bush. "Im from a pretty conservative place. I had never gone to a rally before, but I got hoarse yelling Export George Bush!"
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