Public Employee Press


Living history
Right-wingers attack the American dream
Three DC 37 activists hope a union fightback will prevent the destruction of the organizing victory they helped to achieve in Ohio in the 1980s.

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

"We are one" is the nationwide rallying cry of unionists showing solidarity with public employees in states like Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio, where right-wing governors are trying to destroy collective bargaining.

Those aren't empty words for Local 1320 President James Tucciarelli, Retirees Association Associate Secretary Bill Fenty and former Blue Collar Division Director John Toto.

Back in the 1980s, the three worked with DC 37's national union on a major organizing drive to bring thousands of Ohio public workers into the union family.

As they watch events in the Midwest unfold, the DC 37 veterans worry that if the right-wing union busting prevails, their work will be unraveled and the solid middle-class standard of living they helped build for their brothers and sisters in Ohio will be lost.

They say the American Dream is under attack in Ohio. "And if they win in Ohio and the other states they are hitting now, they will come to New York," Fenty said.

35,000 new members

The DC 37 activists helped convince 35,000 Ohio public employees to choose union representation by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. All told, organizing elections added 100,000 members to AFSCME, which has three statewide affiliates in Ohio, representing state employees, public school workers and municipal and county employees.

Toto headed up the Ohio project for AFSCME. Tucciarelli had recently won election as president of Sewage Treatment Workers and Sr. STWs Local 1320, a position he still holds, and Fenty was president of Traffic Employees Local 1455.

Fenty and Tucciarelli were stationed in Columbus. They recall waking up at dawn and driving up to 125 miles a day to meet with Transportation Dept. workers to convince them to vote for AFSCME, which in 1983 convinced the state legislature to pass a law letting public employees unionize.

"We held grassroots meetings with Ohio workers, at a pizza place or bowling alley," Tucciarelli recalled. He and Fenty regularly put in grueling 12-hour to 16-hour days.

Tucciarelli also met with sewage treatment workers, showing up in their plants or other meeting places with his New York City paycheck and information about DC 37 benefits to show the value of union membership.

A big part of AFSCME's appeal, Toto said, was that the union could point to its strong track record in other states. The campaign's theme - "Every worker deserves the right to dignity" - appealed to the workers who had never had a union, according to Toto. With a strong public relations push in addition to the grassroots outreach, the campaign resonated with the Ohio workers, Toto said.

Today, the AFSCME affiliates are running a petition drive to repeal the anti-labor law backed by Republican Gov. John Kasich. If the drive succeeds, the law will be subject to a vote in November.

A reactionary governor

"The governor is trying to take us back to the past," said Kathy Stewart, secretary-treasurer of the Ohio Civil Service Association, who worked on the organizing drive in the 1980s. Kasich's law eliminates step-pay plans and longevity increases, makes privatization easier, severely restricts union bargaining power and ends automatic dues deductions.

Corporate and conservative interests have succeeded in crippling unions in the private sector, where representation is down to 7 percent of the U.S. workforce.

"Now public employees are in the bull's-eye, and if we lose, what will become of the middle class?" Tucciarelli asked.

Governors claim they need to restrict or eliminate collective bargaining to gain better control over their budgets. But they are using the fiscal issues to cover up their true motive - undermining unions' political power so there will be no organized force to prevent their domination of U.S. politics.

"That will bring us toward a dictatorship," Fenty said. "It's what happened in Germany in the 1930s."

Indeed, as they attend fight-back rallies around the country, AFSCME activists carry signs with a key message: "It's about freedom."