Union agenda for 2000: Elect friends of labor

Staff photo Jerry Messer of the Quad-City Federation of Labor escorts Vice President Al Gore during an appearance here this year. Electing labor-friendly officials is high on the agenda of union officials.

The quality of working people's lives in the new millennium hinges on electoral politics at the local, state and federal levels, according to the president of the Quad City Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

``The bottom line is to get our friends elected,'' Federation president Jerry Messer said. ``We must get people elected who will address working families' issues.''

Among those issues are a living wage, workplace safety, affordable health care, the freedom to organize labor unions without company interference, the ability to strike without fear of replacement and the achievement of equal rights and dignity in the workplace.

Organized labor will continue striving for these goals for all working people and their families -- the majority of the nation's population -- not just those who belong to labor unions, Mr. Messer said.

If labor is to succeed, he said, union leaders must keep their members informed and involved in electoral campaigns.

Technological changes, including fax machines and the Internet, will make communication with members quicker and easier, Mr. Messer said. The Quad City Federation will develop a Web page, he said, as some of the international unions have done.

New technology, however, does not mean unions will drop their historic practice of taking to the streets and peaceful demonstrations to spread their messages.

When thousands of workers traveled to Seattle late last year to protest corporate-sponsored globalization and corporate dominance of the World Trade Organization, they showed their concerns had expanded beyond a single company or this nation's borders.

The political picture will expand even further during the new millennium, Mr. Messer predicted, as working people continue to care about international labor and environmental standards.

``We'll have to change the way we negotiate contracts by communicating with people in different countries,'' he said. ``Seattle was a shock to workers around the world about what the WTO was doing. We can be in real trouble real quick because everything we negotiate in a contract can be taken away with the stroke of a pen.''

U.S. labor unions must educate working families about large, discount retail chains that Mr. Messer says are not good corporate citizens. People should not shop there, he said, because these companies are making a lot of money without paying decent wages or providing adequate health benefits.

To the minimum-wage workers who say they cannot afford to shop elsewhere, Mr. Messer recommends a closer look.

``I believe you can find bargains just as cheap elsewhere,'' he said. ``By shopping at those stores, you're doing nothing but hurting yourself and your neighbors. You're saving a penny and losing a dollar. They pay lower wages and charge less until they drive the local pizza man, the dry cleaner and the florist out of business.''

The nation that boasts its workers have the highest education and productivity should match those achievements by offering them the best health care, Mr. Messer said.

``You'd think those corporations that are unionized and the chambers of commerce would join in the battle for national health care,'' he said. ``It makes economic sense to put U.S. workers on a level playing field with other workers. The chances of that happening depend on what party and which candidate gets elected in Washington, D.C., but I'm not sure it won't take a complete upset in the House and Senate to get that through.''

Increasing the number of working people who become involved in electoral politics goes hand in hand with organizing new workplaces. Health-care workers and nurses are being abused when they must work 10 to 12 hours a day and do their best to provide quality care while short-handed, Mr. Messer said. Some of them cannot even afford the services they provide, he said.

Besides health care, he expects unions will increase their organizing drives in other service jobs, including retail, restaurants, the hospitality industry and casino riverboats.

Elected officials can pass laws making it easier or more difficult for unions to organize people in these jobs, Mr. Messer said. Companies that interfere with workers' rights to join a union, he said, should be heavily fined and prevented from landing government contracts.

Organizing those workplaces will continue to bring more women and minorities into labor unions, a diversity that parallels labor's necessity to think internationally.

``You see diversity in a lot of industries already,'' Mr. Messer said. ``Skin color and nationality -- all that is are ways to keep workers separated and divided. Once people see they've got one thing in common as workers, it solves the problem.''

Recognizing common interests as workers takes education, the way it always has, Mr. Messer said. That education is expected to continue in local as well as national electoral campaigns, he said.

``We have to continue to recruit labor candidates -- working families' candidates -- to city councils in Rock Island, Moline and Davenport,'' Mr. Messer said. ``If we don't involve union members in organizing and politics, we'll lose what we've gained. People are seeing you can't put Realtors, lawyers and even in some cases bankers and heads of corporations on city councils and expect to have working families' needs be their main issues.''

One way to elect labor's friends is to form coalitions with neighborhood groups, religious organizations, retirees, veterans, other labor bodies and various other organizations, according to Mr. Messer. So long as labor unions create alliances with other groups, he said, it will win.

``We must inform our members and others where the candidates stand on a range of issues,'' he continued. ``The endorsements for Gore for president in the Iowa caucuses brought out three times as many union members as non-union people.''

Over the past couple years, Mr. Messer said, many non-union people have thanked him for what the Federation has done for them.

``We've kept them informed, for example, regarding the threats to Medicare and Social Security,'' he said. ``Those battles are not over because they're on the anti-workers' agenda. We're going to have to rise and defeat them every time they come up.''