UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA Five Gateway
Center Pittsburgh PA 15222
May 24, 2000
To: All Steelworkers From: George Becker Subject: A Message
From Pittsburgh
The passage by the House of Representatives of PNTR for China is
a betrayal of American workers by elected politicians in both
parties. It is a bitter disappointment for Steelworkers who wrote
over a quarter of a million letters and made countless phone calls
to their representatives expressing their opposition to it. About
one-third of the Democrats in the House joined over two-thirds of
the Republicans to give President Clinton the victory he wanted for
his legacy.
Congress had a chance to stand up for the brutally oppressed
workers in China and the hundreds of thousands of U.S. manufacturing
workers who will lose their jobs because of increased imports from
the sweatshops of China. Instead, it turned its back on Chinese and
American workers.
The vote was held in May because its backers held the cynical and
totally fallacious view that it would be forgotten by November.
Workers have not forgotten the 1993 NAFTA vote and they will not
forget this vote – not by this November, not by November 2002, not
for decades.
The vote creates issues for the Steelworkers Union in terms of
how it responds in the election this fall. When we decide whom we
will work for this fall and how we advise our members, we will look
at the records of opposing candidates. If one candidate is
substantially better than another we will so advise our members and,
where warranted, we will support that candidate. But we will not
damage our credibility with our members by trying to sugar-coat a
candidate’s record on this or any other issue. Our credibility with
our members is far more important than who wins any election.
We will not support any candidate for federal office solely
because that candidate calls himself or herself a Democrat. We will
not oppose a candidate simply because that candidate is a
Republican. Unfortunately, the corrupting power of money has caused
significant elements of the Democratic party to become far less
focused on the rights and interests of workers and their unions.
Sadly, Democratic control of the House and the Senate are desirable
for workers principally because Republican control is so much
worse.
One thing we will not do. We will not drop out of the process.
Who we elect does make a difference. We will work this fall to elect
Democrats and Republicans who support workers on trade and other key
issues. In some congressional races the choices this fall will not
be good ones. In those cases we do not intend to work for a
candidate simply because that candidate is the lesser of two evils.
In those circumstances, and particularly where we have significant
numbers of members, we will look for opportunities to improve the
choices in two years. Steelworkers are already doing precisely that
in three races this year. Ed O’Brien, Greg Goodnight and Marvin
Williams are all Steelworkers and they are running for Congress in
Pennsylvania, Indiana and Tennessee. Two of them are running against
Republicans with very poor voting records on behalf or workers. The
third is running against a Democrat with a similar poor voting
record on worker issues. We expect that in two years there will be
other Steelworkers and other union leaders running for Congress.
Hopefully, that will be another legacy of this terrible vote
today.
Workers around the world are suffering. Human rights and
religious rights are under attack by governments such as China. The
environment is at greater risk. All have gotten in the way of
corporations which are driving to maximize profits by seeking the
cheapest labor, the cheapest resource extraction, the least tax and
regulation. The trade policies of our government and of
international institutions such as the WTO have become the allies of
these corporations. This has led us to work with student
organizations and other groups with shared concerns for human
rights, religious rights, environmental rights and worker rights. We
intend to continue those associations and to strengthen them.
With the passage of PNTR for China, the struggle for global
justice has suffered a major defeat. But we will continue to work
with coalition groups and with those in Congress, currently in the
minority, who believe as we do that the way people are treated and
the principles of democracy are more important than corporate
profits. |