Colorado Union Members Get the Word Out on McCain

Mike Cerbo, executive director of the Colorado AFL-CIO, reports on worksite leafleting held last week in Denver.

Rain nor sleet nor snow could stop up us from our appointed rounds this morning. We began the day at 5:30 a.m., leafleting members of Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA) Local 9, Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA) Local 208 and Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 68, who were refurbishing the Denver Health Facility. John Fleck, the president of the Denver Area Labor Federation, and Neal Hal, president of the Colorado Building and Construction Trades, were joined by SMWIA Business Agents Eric DeBey and Jason Wardrip and SMWIA Local 9 President Scott Jourgensen. UA Business Agent Bradley Bloom, IBEW Local 68 release staff Tom Rutherford and Jeffery Clark, Union Plus mortgage coordinator, rounded out our crew. 

The skilled craftspeople asked us what we were doing out in this weather. We let them know that the issues and economic stances espoused by the candidates in this campaign necessitated immediate action. The members agreed with the urgency to define Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) regressive economic positions and his lock step votes with President Bush (95 percent in 2007), but were nonetheless surprised and amused with the leadership showing up so early in such inclement weather.

They weren’t so amused with what they learned about McCain, however. They were incensed to hear that, if McCain had his way, their employer’s contribution to their health and welfare fund would be taxed as income. One fitter commented:  

I respect McCain’s service to our country, but I am a veteran, too. I fought to keep this country the land of opportunity, and four more years of “McBush” economic policies that reward the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us, and that promote the agenda of insurance companies and multinational corporations instead of an agenda to preserve the middle class…that leaves no opportunity for our children.  

A fourth-generation sheet metal worker let us know he was “ready to knock on doors and phone union members anytime we needed” because he owed it to the folks who came before him to fight and preserve their way of life.  

Our next worksite visit was snowed out, but we joined the union leadership at a groundbreaking ceremony for Homes for Our Troops, where the Democratic National Convention Committee and America’s Credit Unions joined with organized labor to build a home for a veteran who lost both legs in the war.

We then went to Hulstrom Elementary School to leaflet the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters and Sheet Metal Workers at lunch at the gutted school. We not only had time to leaflet, but we also held discussions with the craftspeople as they ate their lunch. They were very concerned about the outside corporate interests pushing the so-called “right to work” for less ballot initiative in the state and were well aware of the progress being made by Colorado’s labor movement to confront the outsiders.   

One sheet metal tradesman commented: 

I must have worked at over a hundred different job sites over the years and I’ve heard complaints about health care and safety concerns and fair bidding, but I’ve never heard—even from the employees working for the rat contractors—that we need to reduce the power of unions on the job or weaken the labor laws. 

Another tradesman said: 

We have to get information to the nonunion workers on the job, they just don’t know where McCain stands on economic matters and only see a nice guy. We have to show them that a nice person may have cockeyed economic views. Just look at this guy in the White House. 

We ended our visit and planned to hit some of the fabrication shops next week and a big construction job the following Wednesday.

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Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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