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:: Saturday, April 24, 2004 ::

      

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Sweeney comes out swinging
Labor leader criticizes efforts to solve America's job crisis




George Raine, Chronicle Staff Writer



Saturday, April 24, 2004



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AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in a speech Friday in San Francisco
assailed President Bush's response to the American job crisis, one in which 15
million unemployed and underemployed Americans are competing for good jobs
that are rapidly moving overseas.

"What are we doing to help workers who've been folded, spindled and
mutilated by the 'new global economy?' " he asked in a speech before the
Commonwealth Club of California. "What are we doing to make sure our returning
troops have good jobs? To make sure our children have good jobs? The answer is,
'Not much,' " said Sweeney.

Sweeney, in his third term as head of the group of 66 affiliated unions
that has endorsed Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the presidential race, said
that American families worry they'll lose their grasp on the middle class.

"Wages are falling as costs are rising. Unbalanced trade policies and
misguided tax policies fuel the export of good jobs, wreaking havoc on workers,
families and entire communities,'' said Sweeney.

A White House spokesman did not return a call Friday, but Ken Lisaius, a
White House spokesman, has previously responded to Sweeney by saying that
Bush's campaign for job creation and economic growth are working. The
administration has also been vocal in opposing protectionist measures against
the outsourcing of jobs, arguing that free-market trade ultimately benefits
the United States with lower prices for consumers and higher profits for
corporations, which will ultimately lead to better domestic jobs.

"This president will not be satisfied until every American who is looking
for work can find it, every business has a chance to grow, and prosperity
reaches every corner of America,'' Lisaius said last July when Sweeney made
similar criticisms of the president in a speech at a union convention in San
Francisco.

Bush has sustained criticism for failing to create jobs, although last
month's employment figures showed an increase of 308,000 jobs nationally.
Those numbers were widely interpreted as a sign of a turnaround in the
moribund job market.

Sweeney has seen labor lose its grasp on political power as the number of
union members has declined year after year. There are now some 13 million
workers represented by unions, lower than any time since the early 1930s, and
Sweeney acknowledged there's organizing work to do.

He said a million workers were organized in 2002 and 2003, but two
million manufacturing jobs were lost in steel, autos and their industries
during the same period. He said that if unions can organize one million
workers annually, "We can stop the turn-around, and the trend will start to
slowly but gradually build a stronger labor movement.''

With Sweeney on Friday were two workers who had lost their jobs, one a
Silicon Valley software quality-assurance engineer who lost her job after
training her replacement in India, the other a 40-year veteran crane operator
from Littleton, Colo.

Natasha Humphries, 30, of Santa Clara, said she had been employed by Palm,
the handheld-computer maker, with a salary of $90,000, as a senior software
quality engineer.

She said she was terminated eight months after training her replacement.
She said Palm management had assured her that a change in duties "would free
us for a great opportunity to learn new professional skill sets, in line with
new business objectives soon to be revealed.'' Marlene Somsak, Palm vice
president for public relations, said that Humphries' work is still being done
in Milpitas. "She did train some Indian engineers, but they were not her
replacements," said Somsak.

Joe Mustalo, 57, the laid-off crane operator, said he is completing
training to be a bus driver for the Littleton School District, at half the
salary he had as a crane operator. He said he and his wife have spent his
401(k) money and savings and have declared bankruptcy to keep their home.

"At a time we were supposed to be focusing on retirement ...'' said
Mustalo, unable to complete the sentence.

The labor movement received some good news from Inglewood (Los Angeles
County) voters this month, who rejected a proposal to waive formal zoning and
allow construction of a Wal-Mart superstore. The big retailer is anathema to
organized labor because it's anti-union and pays significantly less in wages
and benefits.

"I believe taxpayers in Inglewood decided they didn't want to underwrite
Wal-Mart,'' said Sweeney. "Everywhere Wal-Mart opens with a staff of more than
200 people, the community gets stuck with a yearly tab of nearly $500,000 in
additional health benefits.''

He said business rejected the plan because merchants would have been
uprooted, and shoppers rejected Wal-Mart "because they weren't seduced by the
prospect of paying a few pennies less for goods made in countries like China,
where production workers, mostly millions of young women, are forced to work
in bondage for pennies a day, so Wal-Mart can pay its CEO $12 million a year.''

Sweeney noted that two weeks ago in Charlotte, N.C., Bush said there
would be an emphasis on job training in his administration. But Sweeney said
the White House proposed budget for training and employee assistance is almost
$1 billion less in real dollars than was included in a similar budget under
former President Bill Clinton.

He said the current Trade Assistance Adjustment program provides tuition
and income to workers who have been displaced by trade, but nothing for
displaced white-collar workers and nothing for the community colleges that
provide the training.

E-mail George Raine at graine@sfchronicle.com.

©2004 San Francisco Chronicle |
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