By The PA. AFL-CIO
– Tom Conway, Vice President of the United Steelworkers International Union offers insights from labor negotiations in metals, rubber, paper, oil, chemicals and other industries at the Battle of Homestead Foundation’s Bernard Kleiman Lecture
Pittsburgh, PA: American industrial workers face formidable challenges from voracious foreign corporate competitors, and also home-grown anti-labor forces, said Tom Conway, United Steelworkers vice president and top union negotiator in steel, oil, aluminum and other key sectors. Yet there are encouraging signs as well, with promising new alliances and young union workers increasingly leading the union charge.
Conway shared his perspective with more than 60 people attending the annual Bernard Kleiman Lecture, named in honor of the former Steelworkers Union chief counsel, who also led many union negotiations. The Saturday afternoon, July 11th, event was hosted by the Battle of Homestead Foundation at the 19th Century “Pump House” building, the sole-surviving structure of the Homestead, PA, steel mill.
Conway was a worker and elected union officer at the sprawling Bethlehem Steel plant in Burns Harbor, IN, gaining experience representing industrial workers in negotiations to maintain and improve living and safety standards. Conway is now a respected expert on international trade and its effect on U.S. manufacturing and jobs. He has testified before Congress on many trade issues.
He spoke at the Homestead event in stark terms about the “continuing threat” of unchecked imports on domestic industrial production, and resulting pressure on workers seeking improvements. The Steelworkers’ vice president expressed indignation that young people face fewer job opportunities and that plant shutdowns are “tearing the fabric of one industrial community after another.”
Corporate competitors, frequently from China, have increasingly used espionage, patent and technology theft, threats, deception, and unequal backing from their own governments to take away markets from American steel and other producers. Conway was specific in not blaming every-day Chinese workers for unethical employers. But with John L. Lewis-like disdain, Conway lambasts United States government officials for repeated failure to safeguard the livelihoods of millions of American citizens.
He laid out a vision of an economy where the interests of working families and their communities are properly appreciated and protected, and imported products are checked at all borders, with tariffs in place to make up for any unfair advantages or disadvantages. He outlined the complex and frequently ineffectual trade rules that are currently in place.
Conway captured the audience’s attention – including local students, union members, educators, retirees and history buffs – drawing comparisons between the recent actions of an Allegheny River Valley steel company that is trying to gut the union contract for thousands of workers, and the better-known campaign of Frick and Carnegie in 1892 seeking to crush the workers’ movement in Homestead.
ATI, also known as Allegheny Ludlum or Teledyne, has readied a multi-million dollar war chest for its anti-union campaign. ATI management has brought in paramilitary strikebreakers to five Pennsylvania steel towns, seeking to intimidate union workers, who nonetheless remain resilient and ready to fight back. And like the steel barons of old, ATI bosses demand a broad array of cutbacks, elimination of overtime pay and other hard-won benefits. Conway says the new “company line” from contract talks is that the steel firm no longer wants any “obligations” towards retired workers – who spent their lives making steel there – whatsoever.
Union workers at ATI are mounting an impressive campaign to defend their union and their voice in the workplace. Conway says “shame” can dissuade such belligerent employers. But “overshadowing” this dispute is the fact that “50% of stainless flat rolled steel (ATI’s main product) is imported now.” Like others, this company is facing unprecedented competitive pressure, and it’s trying to make up the difference at the expense of American workers.
Conway warned of dangers to the American people if political leaders allow the gutting of the nation’s industrial might, and also the “fallacy” of economists who think America’s economy and well-being can be sustained “by the buying and selling and trading of money.” He said the rules, or the lack thereof, causing this massive “hemorrhaging” of decent-paying jobs “are all a result of man-made laws, not an unobstructed free market.”
Even with the pressures facing working people and their unions, Conway pointed to many hopeful and positive developments. Young industrial workers are proving themselves capable and determined union leaders, as witnessed in last year’s oil industry strikes, where a new generation took command on the picket lines. He said the labor movement as a whole is “holding together” with demands for immediate action for fair trade, opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership and insisting on a level playing field. This point was affirmed by AFL-CIO Allegheny County Labor Council President Jack Shea at the event.
Conway said that labor has identified and gained many strong new political allies in recent fights. And with corporations and banks expanding from nation to nation, he spoke optimistically about the growing bonds between American unions and unions in countries around the world.
He feels the public is increasingly and rightfully outraged when unfair competition that drains America’s strength is revealed, such as last year when Chinese corporate-government-military computer hackers were discovered searching the emails of numerous local companies for industrial secrets, even vetting the emails of the Pittsburgh-based Steelworkers Union. Also worthy of indignation is the recent loss of advanced engineering innovations from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. “Once the technology and methodology was developed at Lehigh, U.S. companies transferred the technology to China which then developed the new bridge building industry and has exported it around the world.”
Even some top U.S.-based companies shy away from a strong public stand on trade issues, Conway said, for fear of reprisal by unethical foreign competitors. He feels this makes industrial unions all the more important as a reliable voice for working people on trade justice. The USW and some U.S. companies are promoting the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a group pushing for fair trade, rebuilding America’s infrastructure and the creation of a national manufacturing strategy. Tom Conway urges vigilance and solidarity on the issue of protecting good-paying American jobs and the industries that sustain them.
Howard Scott
Source – http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=6187
