Throw the bums out!
From a war based on lies to attacks on Social Security, Republicans in Congress deserve to get pink slips on November 7

October 2006

It’s been six long years of one-party rule in this country—a Republican in the White House matched by Republican majorities in the House, in the Senate, and in the federal courts. Six years of President Bush getting a green light from Congress every time he wanted to start a war or break international law; six years of “Yes, sir” whenever he wanted to cut taxes for the rich or bail out wealthy corporations.

Finally, on November 7, voters have a chance to change course. “This is the first generation that is going to do worse than their parents,” says Local 1180 member Alan Goldblatt. “That’s why we need a dramatic change in Washington.”

The Republican effect

The Democrats are hardly consistent supporters of working people. But on crucial votes, such as Bush’s $70 billion tax cut for the rich and his efforts to eliminate the inheritance tax, the tally has closely followed party lines, with Republicans taking Bush’s side and Democrats opposing. Meanwhile, when Democrats try to push legislation to aid workers, whether it’s a minimum wage hike or the Employee Free Choice Act, which would expand the freedom to unionize, the Republicans have outvoted them—or simply blocked their bills from coming to a vote.

If just 15 seats change hands in the House or six seats in the Senate, that dynamic would change overnight.

“Our bread and butter issues are not on the radar screen of the Republicans in Congress,” says Local 1180’s Political Action chair Jerry Brown. “Affordable health care, affordable prescription drugs, funding for the public schools and
higher education—these issues are just not Republican priorities.”

Of a dozen Local 1180 members interviewed for this article, every one passionately expressed reasons for why Republican rule needs to end in Washington.

The war and the world

“One thing that’s on everyone’s mind is the war,” says Chris Walker, a shop steward at the Administration for Children’s Services. “When they sold us on
the war it was ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and ‘evil empire’ and it was all lies. So we entered a war that’s costing us billions of dollars with no end in sight. Now our soldiers are coming home in body bags.” With 2,700 U.S. soldiers dead, another 20,400 injured, more than 100,000 Iraqis killed, and at
least $300 billion spent on the war, even families of soldiers are questioning
the wisdom of the war.

“Our government doesn’t support its workers or its soldiers,” says
Lachaune Hackett, a shop steward at the Department of Environmental
Protection (DEP). “I have a niece that just came back from Iraq, and thank God she came back in one piece.” As Maureen Rodney,a shop steward in the Human Resources Administration, points out, the money being spent on the war could be going toward health care, housing, or education instead.

The Republicans’ latest salvo in the “war on terror” was the passage in September of the Military Commissions Act, which allows the administration to use torture and indefinite detention against suspected terrorists. “It speaks to the larger trend in American politics since Bush has been in office, this
idea that international law does not apply to the United States, the belief that we can do whatever we want and get away with it,” says Assef Ashraf, a shop steward at Human Rights Watch. “This sort of policy not only discredits us in the eyes of the rest of the world, it hurts the international legal norms
that Bush claims we’re fighting for in Iraq. And I don’t think that bill would have passed if we’d had a Democratic majority.”

Shredding the safety net

“Affordable housing is one of my main concerns,” says Rodney. “Public sector workers are required to live in the city, but can’t afford to with the salary we make.” Republicans in Washington have only worsened the housing crunch.
Just in the last two years, Republicans have cut off 100,000 people from housing vouchers and slashed housing funds for the disabled. “We desperately need more federal monies for affordable housing,” says Brown, “but the Republicans keep cutting it.”

Again and again, Local 1180 members expressed concern about Republican attacks on Social Security—and Republican complacency in the face of a growing health care crisis. “I lived in London, so I know what a universal health
care system could be like,” says Antoinette Drago, a coordinating manager and newly elected steward at Metropolitan Hospital. “There is no reason on earth that we have more than 40 million uninsured. And there is no leadership in Congress to tackle this problem.” The only health care reform produced by the Republican Congress was a Medicare drug benefit designed to serve private insurers and drug manufacturers; the law even bars Medicare from negotiating price discounts on medicines.

Chris Walker recalls the Republican effort in 2005 to convert Social Security to private accounts and raise the retirement age, measures blocked in part by labor union activism. He suspects that after the election Republicans will try again. “They still want to privatize Social Security,” he says, “even though we all know it’s based on economic gain for powerful financial institutions and a great loss for average citizens.”

Immigration and workers’ rights

“We are more divided now than at any time in the country’s life,” sighs Thamar Quiñones, a member of the union’s Hispanic Committee. “In my mind, the Republicans are to blame. They tried to say 9/11 was the fault of Hispanics, because we’re here illegally, even though the hijackers came in on legal student visas. Most people who come illegally come to work, and work hard. Who else would wake up to be in the field at 6 a.m., in the sun, in the rain? But the Republicans want to divide us. To improve this, we have to take control of the Senate and the House.” In fact, after a year of hostile rhetoric toward immigrants, Republican leaders were unable to agree on a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Instead, they mandated construction of a 700-mile high-tech fence along the U.S.-Mexico border that will cost at least $2 billion.

While many Republicans in Congress blame immigrants for unemployment
and stagnating wages, Local 1180 member Regina McGrann sees it differently. “The Republicans are trying to undermine and abolish unions completely,” she says, keeping wages down by allowing companies to bust unions and revoking unionization rights for millions of employees. “The Department of Labor has been decimated,” says Goldblatt. “Labor laws, occupational safety and health, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act—there’s no funding to enforce compliance for any of this.”

A particular problem, according to Hackett, is the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), whose members are appointed by the president, but require Senate approval. “They have made a string of decisions that are anti-union,”
says Hackett. “The new definition of supervisor will not affect just the private sector. It may someday affect us.” Goldblatt suggests that Democratic control of the Senate could stop Bush’s worst appointments to the NLRB. “Maybe if there’s a change,” he says, “we’ll see a rebirth of organizing among poorly paid workers.”

Mobilizing union members

In the face of these onslaughts, some union members have taken a “hands-off approach,” says Walker. “We forget that unions are us, the members, not a group of five or ten people who sit down to make decisions. It’s every able body. With numbers we can swing an election or a Congressional vote.”

Several members of Local 1180’s Political Action Committee, including those pictured on the cover of this issue, have taken this message to heart, traveling by van outside of New York City’s safely Democratic districts to knock on
doors in the Hudson River Valley. There Democrat John Hall is in a tight contest against incumbent Republican Sue Kelly in a race that could help turn the tide in Washington. Kelly, who was chair of the Congressional Page Board while Rep. Mark Foley was harassing program participants, has become even more vulnerable in recent weeks. “My grandmother always told me that to make a change you have to get involved,” says Velma Dixon, a committee member who plans to go upstate on October 28. “Now I’m a mother and a grandmother, and I’m doing this for my children.”

Charlene Dunham, a Local 1180 member at DEP, says, “Everybody has an excuse. Everybody is busy. But we need to elect officials that are accountable to workers.” Brown points out that union members have an opportunity to do far more than just vote on November 7; the union will be running phone banks almost daily leading up to the election (see box, top right).

Maureen Rodney, an immigrant from Jamaica who only became a citizen in 2000, recalls that she used to be envious of those who could vote. “Now, as a citizen, I never miss an opportunity,” she says.

–Esther Kaplan
Research assistance: Talia Reyes

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