ProgressOhio

Yesterday at noon, union veterans gathered at Memorial Hall in downtown Dayton. This event was one of a number around the country that marked the kickoff of the AFL-CIO's new Veterans' Council.

In addition to mobilizing leaders at the top to develop a national strategy to make sure veterans' voices are heard this year, and mobilizing grassroots union veterans to get involved to protect veterans' interests, the Council marks its kickoff with the debut of a tv ad featuring IBEW member and Vietnam Navy combat veteran Jim Wasser.

John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, spoke at the veterans' event in Dayton today, as did Mark Ayers, President of the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, Vietnam veteran, and chair of the Veterans Council. Other speakers included Joe Rugola, President of the Ohio AFL-CIO, and Wes Wells, Executive Secretary of the Dayton-Miami Valley Labor Council, whose son is currently serving in Iraq.

Why isn't the Veterans' Council supporting John McCain, who served in Vietnam, instead of Obama, who was never in the military? Material from the Veterans' Council says:

We support the candidate who has the strongest record in standing up for working people’s and veterans issues. Obama supports seriously reforming our nation’s broken health care system. McCain does not. Obama supports ending tax breaks for companies who send jobs overseas. McCain does not. Obama supports full funding for the GI bill and increased funding for veterans health care. McCain does not.

We've got a great one-minute video of John Sweeney speaking at the event, as well as two union vets talking about John McCain available from the Ohio Labor 2008 YouTube site.

In January of this year, a Norwegian company bought an auto parts factory in Van Wert, now called Kongsberg Automotive. Now, the company is doing its best to break the union there, United Steel Workers Local 1-524. The wages provided by these union jobs in the factory aren’t sky high – most people make $14.50 to $17.50 per hour for the skilled work they do. But these wages have helped to keep the local community’s economy afloat, and now Kongsberg Automotive is trying to take that away, proposing to pay many workers a poverty wage of only $9 an hour. To make matters worse, the Van Wert Times Bulletin reports that “The company has already announced their intention to move 200 of the 320 [jobs] to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.”

In the meantime, after a hostile and uncompromising period of “bargaining,” the company locked workers out of the factory with only two days’ notice. This left 330 men and women laid off in tough economic times. Van Wert County is already suffering above-average unemployment for the state. At a rally last Saturday organized by USW Local 1-524, local union President Aaron Collins said, “the question is, how much longer can our country take this outpouring of jobs to Mexico and China before the bottom falls out?”

The callousness of Kongsberg’s treatment of its workers, and its shameless plan to outsource most of the jobs to a Mexican border town, is symptomatic of many of the problems the American economy is facing today. Our nation is struggling, and we as a people have to make a strong, collective effort to get it back on track. Kongsberg Automotive workers are waging such a fight today, but they’re up against a powerful transnational corporation with no particular interest in seeing their community or their country through these hard times. However, they hope that over the course of the coming days and weeks, they may be able to persuade Kongsberg’s management to come back to the table with them.

The rally and march on Saturday was a strong display of solidarity – over 400 people attended, and many unions presented checks to the locked out union to help them support their families while they are laid off. Individuals supported the local by buying “I Support the Locked Out Employees of Kongsberg” t-shirts and yard signs. Joe Rugola, President of the Ohio AFL-CIO pledged that the Ohio AFL-CIO and his home union, OAPSE, would support USW Local 1-524 members. The struggle continues, in Van Wert and around the country where workers are less important than corporations and thriving communities are the exception, not the rule.

You can watch an awesome two-minute video of highlights of the march and rally here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voNrMCxrV4g.

This has been cross-posted from Ohio Labor '08 Blog.

On Saturday, June 7, Working America, the AFL-CIO, and community allies like Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, and ACORN rallied in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. The rallies concluded the weeklong "We Are Working America" event, which celebrated Working America's great success with a supercharged week of canvassing and recruitment.

Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, will represent 2.5 million Americans (800,000 in Ohio) by Labor Day this year. It's the fastest-growing organization that's looking out for working families' issues.

The events this Saturday particularly drew attention to the need to work together on national and community levels to reform and improve our health care system. Working America members spoke at the rallies about their own personal struggles with getting (or not getting) adequate care.

For instance, in Cleveland, Mike McMann spoke about the difficulties of staying afloat while providing care for his child with special needs. The Cleveland event was covered by WTAM Radio.

You can read about the Cincinnati event here, and video of the Columbus rally is below: 

This Saturday, 511 labor activists at 18 sites (with four more scheduled soon) around the state of Ohio walked door-to-door to talk to fellow Union and Working America members about the issues at stake in the elections this year. It was truly an amazing occasion, one that made use of everything that makes the labor movement strong – from the great organizing it took to make these walks happen, to the fundamental love of democracy that we see in working men and women talking face-to-face with their brothers and sisters about the political issues that matter to them. You can see a video of some of the participants in the Columbus walks talking about their experience Saturday at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EmcffM6Exs.

Members who walked Saturday said that the response they got from folks was overwhelmingly positive. Over and over again, we heard that people really just wanted to talk about their lives and their issues – “they just wanted somebody to listen to them for once,” said Cynthia O’Kane of the CWA. Many thanks and congratulations to everyone who made these walks happen, especially the members who volunteered some of their Saturday to get the message out to members that it’s time for their voices to be heard.

"Get a job!" shouted a man in an SUV as he drove past demonstrators at a McCain event in Columbus this morning.

Butch Deems, a retired USW member now working on the political staff for the Steelworkers, shouted back, enfuriated. He blames free trade deals promoted by John McCain and others for the crushing job loss in Ohio. Butch says he was "fortunate enough to work until I retired," but he's seen countless of his brothers and sisters in the Steelworkers laid off as companies have moved offshore.

An AFL staffer noted, "It's not a real demonstration until someone tells you to get a job."

The demonstrators at this morning's event, many if not all of whom are employed, represented the AFL-CIO, Working America, Progress Ohio, America Votes, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the Steelworkers, and other organizations.  Reporters from The Canton Repository, Columbus Dispatch, Toledo Blade and The Wall Street Journal all interviewed members.  

Meanwhile, inside the Convention Center, John McCain said he thought Iraq would be "a functioning democracy" and that most U.S. troops would be home by 2013. As The New York Times notes, this surreal suggestion is "a striking departure from his refusal so far to set a date for U.S. withdrawal" -- what some might call a "flip-flop."

Outside the Convention Center, folks were more focused on McCain's other weaknesses -- like his poor record on the environment, and particularly his disastrous plan for health care, which would quite possibly lead to the end of employer-provided health coverage.

Photos from this event are available on our flickr page, http://www.flickr.com/photos/TakeBackOhio.