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     Current Issue Highlights Highlights Archive             Get to know your Business Agent today!  Find out how the union makes a difference on the job. |
Newsline: July 2000 AFL-CIO VICE PRESIDENT URGES MEMBER SUPPORT IN ORGANIZING EFFORTS Denouncing "slimy" tactics employers use to prevent workers from belonging to a union, Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, called on Local 237 members to fight harder, smarter, longer and wiser to combat what she called management"s "vicious secret war" to deny employees the right to be represented. The AFL-CIO official spoke at the annual Shop Stewards Seminar conducted June 5 though 8 at Resorts International Hotel in Atlantic City Chavez-Thompson told the almost 600 persons assembled at the hotel that while the media often discusses the economic prosperity of 2000, which is true, that is not the complete story. The sad fact is," she said, "that working Americans are still pretty much where they were in 1979, and African-American workers are still pretty much where they were in 1969." Despite the fact that the United States is the richest nation in the history of the world, "one in five of our children still goes to bed hungry every night," the union official pointed out. "The number of our brothers and sisters who don"t have health insurance is now up to 44 million and growing." Schools where our children are supposed to get a good start for a better future are crumbling and school boards are underpaying the teachers so badly that they are leaving their jobs, Chavez-Thompson said. And while this is going on, she pointed out, the richest of the rich are hogging more money than ever " so much so, that the average CEO makes 419 times what the average factory worker makes. They do this, she contended, "using the dirtiest, most slimy tactics they can come up with. They're even so arrogant they think they can break the law and get by with it. And you know what? A lot of the time they"re right because our labor laws are toothless!" She condemned the closed-door meetings with the boss, one-on-ones, verbal harassment and firings as a strategy by union-busting right-wingers to intimidate and frighten the workers. To combat them, she asserted, the workers need to go to the polls and elect a President and Congress who will respect working people. The stranglehold of Trent Lott, Tom DeLay, Dick Armey and their crowd of thugs and rascals must be broken, she insisted, and legislation passed "so that the freedom to choose a union is honored and enforced." "Then," she continued, "we have to bring our entire communities together -- religious leaders, people of color, women's groups, gays, lesbians, seniors and immigrants -- and enlist then in the fight to support those who wish to organize." She called on Local 237 members to make a commitment to help even more than before those seeking to organize to obtain a better way of life. I hope you always take great pride in Local 237 and all of the Teamsters union, and all of our movement," the AFL-CIO official said, "pride in who we are and the beautiful dream that we"re making come true for more and more Americans." |
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