Delegates to the Western Region meeting on September 27 and 28 discussed the presidential election and the national financial crisis. But there was also time to discuss negotiations and other battles in their workplaces, celebrate the conclusion of Local 1008’s first contract negotiations at USCIS in California (see page 3), and to build support for the tough first contract struggle at Arc Bridges in Gary, Indiana.
ECONOMIC CRISIS
In his opening report, Region President Carl Rosen offered an understandable and insightful analysis of the causes of the economic crisis, and some policy changes that could help address it. “The immediate cause of the bursting of the housing bubble,” he said, which had driven housing prices up 70 percent from 1996 to 2006. Housing inflation was accelerated by reckless, predatory lending practices and deregulation of banking and other finance institutions. This allowed them to “branch out into riskier investments, looking to make a quick buck without any oversight,” said Rosen. Huge numbers of mortgages, including many bad-risk loans, “were bundled up and sold together from one financial institution to another.”
“Bubbles can’t last forever,” said Rosen, and rising gas prices pushed many homeowners with subprime mortgages over the edge, making them unable to keep up their house payments. Growing foreclosures caused a fall of housing prices. As the trend snowballed, financial institutions soon found themselves holding mortgages on millions of houses now worth less than what is owed on them.
“So what if the high rollers lose a bunch of money in bad investments? Why should we care?” asked Rosen. Because the financial mess they have created “is going to make the recession far deeper,” and cause tremendous pain for working people. Some of the measures needed to address this crisis, said Rosen, are strict new regulations on banking, speculation, and executive pay. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the special mortgage banks that were originally set up by the federal government to encourage home ownership, and later privatized, “should remain publicly owned. That’s a good role for government.” People in defaulted homes should not be evicted, but instead allowed to pay rent and perhaps buy the house later.
BATTLE OF ARC BRIDGES
Delegates were moved by reports from two workers at Arc Bridges, a private agency in Northwest Indiana serving developmentally disabled adults. Kim Washington described workers’ dedication to serving the needs of their clients, despite abusive treatment by management. Florence Basemore, who works in residential services, said the company’s “arrogant” attorney “is getting $250 an hour just to get smart with us at the bargaining table. He calls us ‘uneducated.’” She added, “The woman we work for is a control freak who makes $118,000 a year.” The company is abusive to employees and, “They’ll fire you at the drop of a hat.” But she voiced a determination shared by her co-workers when she said, “I’m going to keep the focus. I’m going all the way.” Delegates conducted two raffles over the two-day meeting that raised several hundred dollars to aid Local 1123 members in their first contract battle at Arc Bridges.
Three workers from the new Southern California Local 1008 at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Center – Chau Bui, Quy Ngo and Laura Guzman – reported on the late August conclusion of their tough first contract struggle, and ongoing work to consolidate their local.
UE Secretary-Treasurer Bruce Klipple reported on UE victories around the country, as well as setbacks such as layoffs and closings. “Bosses are more hostile than ever,” said the UE national officer. “It takes boldness to stand up and organize.”
Klipple denounced the proposed Wall Street rescue plan as “$700 billion of our money to bail out casino capitalists. This is craziness. We need to fight back.” Klipple offered his assessment of the presidential candidates. “McCain voted with Bush 95 percent of the time in 2007 and 100 percent so far in 2008, the few times he’s been there to vote. He ain’t no maverick. It’s time to throw this bum out.”
While Obama’s healthcare plan is not what we view as the real solution, “it’s a step in the right direction,” said Klipple. McCain, on the other hand, wants to tax our benefits “to push people into the nongroup market.” He concluded, “McCain’s answer to everything is deregulate. Look where that’s gotten us in the financial markets. We can’t endure more of the same. It’s time to clean the rats out!”
LOCAL REPORTS
Shawn Keefe, chief steward of Local 855 at Hawkeye Community College in Iowa, said enrollment at the school goes up when manufacturing goes down; laid off workers come to the college for retraining. Members are upset because the college president was recently given a big raise – “Now he makes as much as a university president.”
“We lost a lot of power when Marianne retired,” said Brian Barrington, speaking of Marianne Hart, former UE Local 1421 leader at Graham Packaging in California. “But when we had a contract support meeting the other day, some new people stepped forward. That’s very encouraging. The motor oil industry, for which the plant manufactures containers, has declined 10 percent a year, said Barrington, and the company is trying to promote fears of closing until negotiations are concluded.
Armando Robles filled in the delegates on some of the colorful details of Local 1110’s contract fight at Chicago’s Republic Windows and Doors, where agreement was reached in late May. “We had 95 percent of the people sign a petition to the company president.” And when management put up a fence to show they were ready for a strike, “we put up porta-potties outside the fence.” With tactics such as rallies and T-shirt days, the workers defeated the company’s take-back demands and bad-faith bargaining and won a contract they are proud of.
Vice President Lorne Pearman of Local 1103 reported on union struggles at Tramont in Milwaukee. New Chief Steward Jason Arms seems to have mastered UE tactics for dealing with management. “He runs them out of Human Resources as fast as they bring them in,” said Pearman. A few months ago the local temporarily reduced the workweek to prevent layoffs, and then stopped a company plan for a permanent workweek of four 10-hour days. Workers realized they’d lose vacation, holiday and overtime money.
Francisco Caceres reported on developments at United Conveyer, another Local 1123 workplace that came into UE this year as part of the American Federation of Professionals. A dispute over swing shifts is headed for arbitration. Delegates found a lot of humor in Paul Bergles’s report for Local 1172 at Everbrite in Milwaukee – particularly when he described the company’s effort to get the union to negotiate the contract by e-mail, and how quickly the local killed that idea.
POLITICAL ACTION
Guest speaker Wes Davies from the Minnesota chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War told his personal story and described the problems of veterans. He engaged members in a lively question-and-answer session on the current wars and veterans’ issues. He urged members to visit IVAW’s website, www.ivaw.org.
Delegates viewed a video on last April’s UE Political Action Conference in Washington. The biggest state delegation, Rosen noted, was from Iowa. Locals discussed plans to use UE leaflets on the election to engage members in discussion and increase voter turnout. Becky Dawes said Local 893 has a member and a former member running for seats in the Iowa legislature. Tom Michalski, Local 1111 chief steward and the region’s secretary-treasurer, is also a town council members in Oak Creek, WI, where he helped place a universal healthcare referendum on the ballot.
The delegates filled two vacancies among the region’s trustees, choosing Lee Ellis of Local 1123 and Larry Wineland of Local 770.