1998 Labor Day Message By UAW President
4 September 1998
1998 Labor Day Message By UAW President Stephen P. Yokich
DETROIT, Sept. 3 -- The following is a 1998 Labor Day message
by UAW President Stephen P. Yokich:
Labor Day is the one day of the year when a slice of the media spotlight
briefly shifts from corporate CEOs, movie stars, and pro athletes to the
unsung heroes who make America work every day: the women and men who work
overtime, or hold down two or even more jobs, to pay for decent homes and
health care for their families, who do without that new car or vacation trip
to save for college tuition for their kids or to care for an elderly parent.
The history books talk too little about workers. They focus instead on
presidents, generals, and captains of industry. But it's working people who
built America. We pay the taxes, fight the wars, and build communities. And
we deserve a voice in the workplace and in the political process -- a little
leverage to make life better for ourselves and our families.
That shouldn't be too much to ask -- especially not in a time of
record-breaking corporate profits and CEO pay packages.
Yet these days some people think that America's workers should lower their
sights and settle for less. Less job security, less health care, less
retirement security, less of a political voice.
Corporations are rarely, if ever, criticized for trying to increase their
profits at the expense of workers and communities. But when workers and their
unions stand up for their jobs, we're ridiculed for not grasping the realities
of the global economy. In other words, we're supposed to shut up and settle
for less.
Unfortunately, the "shut up and settle for less" attitude is widespread.
In factories, offices, hospitals, stores, universities, and even "liberal"
non-profit organizations across the United States, employers routinely and
systematically violate the legal rights of workers to organize and bargain
collectively, usually with the help of high-priced union-busting lawyers and
consultants.
Dr. Paul Weiler of Harvard University estimates that 10,000 American
workers illegally lose their jobs each year for having supported union
organizing campaigns.
Now if 10,000 American workers were illegally fired each year for, say,
their religious beliefs or political views, it would be seen as a national
disgrace -- and rightly so. Yet the widespread violations of American
workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively -- fundamental rights in
any democratic society -- go largely unnoticed.
And the workplace isn't the only place where workers are confronted by
"the shut up and settle for less" attitude.
Take politics. In 1996, the new leadership of the AFL-CIO made political
action a priority, and mounted an effective issues-based campaign that
significantly increased union families' participation in politics. Union
household voters accounted for nearly one-fourth of the total vote in 1996 and
played a key role in whittling down Newt Gingrich's troops in the U.S. House.
And last year, grassroots lobbying by union members and our allies in the
environmental, consumer, and human rights communities stopped "fast track" in
the U.S. House.
One might think that increasing citizen participation in politics would be
viewed as a good thing in a democratic society. What happened, of course, is
that labor's revitalized political action efforts provoked a fierce reaction
from business groups and anti-union politicians. Not content just to outspend
labor 11-to-1, as they did in 1996, they cooked up the cynically misnamed
"paycheck protection" scheme to silence the political voice of America's
workers.
But, in its major political test, "paycheck protection" bombed in the
largest state in the country. California's union members talked to their co-
workers about the issue, knocked on doors, worked phone banks, and turned out
at the polls in unprecedented numbers. And at the end of the day, they pulled
off one of the biggest come-from-behind political upsets in decades.
Proposition 226 was defeated by a solid margin.
From Flint, from fast track, and from California the message is clear --
America's workers are not going to "shut up and settle for less."
We're going to continue to fight for good jobs and fair trade. We're
going to continue to work for good schools, decent health care, and retirement
security for every American.
And, make no mistake, we're going to fight to make the right to organize
and bargain collectively a fundamental civil right for every American.