Delegates to UE's 71st Convention in September discussed and approved a resolution entitled, “Independent Rank-and-File Political Action.” The resolution praised last year’s popular upsurge that ended Republican rule and elected Barack Obama, but urged President Obama to fight more forcefully for real healthcare reform and labor law reform, and to stand up against the obstructionist tactics of both Republicans and pro-corporate “Blue Dog” Democrats. It also called for continued and increased mobilization of UE members to fight for the legislative changes we need.
Wayne Burnett, Local 506 said he supported the resolution, but found its tone too harsh on Obama. “You can’t undo eight years of Bush policies in nine months,” he said. “The Obama administration has faced fierce opposition to everything it’s tried to do.” Marie Lausch, Local 222 president, said she was apolitical before she became involved in the union. “But I got involved, joined demonstrations, and tried to defeat the worst politician in the U.S. Senate,” by whom she meant Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT.)
Angaza Laughinghouse, Local 150, said his local has been involved in town hall meetings in North Carolina, and had encountered “right-wing protestors wearing holsters and carrying guns” to political events. He proposed an amendment to the resolution calling on UE to initiate discussions with other unions and organizations on the need for a national general strike in support of the political changes we need. The amendment was later adopted by the delegates.
Delegates then viewed a short video, prepared by Eastern Region President Andrew Dinkelaker, on the 2008 UE Political Action Conference in Washington. Pres. Hovis then called on UE Political Action Director Chris Townsend to address the convention.
Townsend started out waving a copy of that day’s USA Today, with a front page story in which Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernacke announced that the recession is over – it just doesn’t feel like it. Townsend asked several delegates by name, “Is the recession over in Erie? Is the recession over in Iowa? Is the recession over in New Haven?” All replied “No!”
He then recapped political developments and UE’s political action over the two years since the last convention. Locals and regions have been increasingly active in state and local politics, fighting back privatization schemes and attempts to balance budgets on workers’ backs. UE locals in several states have conducted political action conferences and lobby days in their state capitols, pushing legislators to adopt a pro-worker agenda.
“On the national level, we have been even busier, with several union-wide campaigns conducted by our membership,” said Townsend, in which he included UE’s campaigns for real healthcare reform, to restore the right to organize, and to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The union has pushed specific members of Congress to stand up for workers in tough organizing campaigns, and participated in the campaign to put an end to the Bush-Cheney policies of the previous eight years and elect Barack Obama.
Townsend told delegates, “...we are now nine months into the new administration and the new Congress, and it’s time that we start seeing some results, or at least more progress ...” He went on to offer “some suggestions for our Democrat friends.”
Townsend called for the arrest of “the top 1,000 corporate criminals who have looted the banks and run the country into the ditch.” Bernie Madoff is in jail, he said, but almost no one has been prosecuted for their involvement in the housing bubble and the massive subprime mortgage scam that caused massive economic destruction. Townsend saw a lesson in the Madoff case: “When you steal $50 billion from other rich people, like Bernie did, we see that the government prosecutes you very quickly. They get right on it.” Townsend applauded the arrest of former Republic Windows CEO Richard Gillman, but said that, compared to the big bankers and other executives who wrecked the economy, Gillman was a small-time operator.
On healthcare, Townsend called for Obama and the Democrats to “drop the hammer on the health insurance and healthcare companies.” Nine months of the Democrats trying to “accommodate the insurance companies,” pharmaceuticals and big hospital chains has left us with real healthcare reform looking less likely. “Worse, it looks like the insurance companies may win, by getting Congress to pass a law labeled as ‘reform’, but which is really just a scheme to make working people buy insurance.” The recent announcement by insurance companies that they will increase premiums by “only 10.5 percent” over the next year “adds insult to injury,” he said. Instead of thanking the insurers, the White House should have responded by prosecuting them “for price fixing and market manipulation.”
Addressing labor law reform, or as he put it, “the legislation formerly known as the Employee Free Choice Act,” Townsend said it is urgent that the Democrats produce some kind of legislation “that addresses the epidemic of union busting” and “makes it possible and practical for workers to join unions again.” He offered an example of a government enforcement agency that’s able to act “with lightning speed” – the joint strike force from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Comptroller of the Currency. Every Friday afternoon, this multi-agency federal team “swoops in and seizes banks that are insolvent or found to be engaged in criminal acts. It’s amazing!” Townsend asked, “Why can’t we have an NLRB strike force like this to protect workers who are unionizing?... (I)f we did we would start to see a little different attitude among bosses, I can assure you.” This suggestion drew the delegates’ enthusiastic applause.
Townsend also called for Obama to make “a U-turn on the Iraq and Afghan wars... The last time I looked we do not have very many people demanding that we keep our troops in these far-off places.”
In his final point of advice, Townsend called on Obama to stop chasing the mirage of “bipartisanship.” He pointed out that every Republican in the House of Representatives, and all but three in the Senate, voted against President Obama’s first initiative, the economic stimulus bill – even though most big corporations supported it, and at the time “it looked to everyone like the economy was about to go off the cliff.” He asked why Democrats keep wasting their time seeking “common ground” with obstructionists. Delegates stood and applauded Townsend’s report.
Also speaking on the political action resolution were delegates Annie McDonald, Local 222, and Robert Plunkett, Local 255. The resolution was adopted unanimously.