Touring labor group raps Bush in LV stop

Jeffrey Libby

Friday, Aug. 4, 2000 | 9:44 a.m.

While GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush made his case for a new era of responsibility before a national audience Thursday night, a group of union workers calling themselves the "Texas Truth Squad" disputed his message at a meeting in Las Vegas.

"Nobody but nobody can tell you better than the people who have lived through the nightmare of having Mr. Bush as chief executive of the place they call home," Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, told the group of about 100 union workers gathered for the town hall meeting at the Sheetmetal Union Hall Local #88 on Marco Street.

As part of a 10-stop tour leading up to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles next week, a teacher, a sheetmetal worker, a retired food service worker and a corrections officer all told personal stories of how Bush's policies have ravaged the lives of working families in Texas.

Teacher Minnie Sanchez said Texas pays its teachers one of the lowest rates in the country. She attributed recent gains in education and salaries for teachers not to Bush, but to the hard work of teachers and the reforms set in place by Texas governors preceding Bush. She said Bush fought raises for teachers but was defeated by legislators.

"Fifty percent of Hispanics don't graduate from high school," Sanchez said. "Yes, (Bush) talks in Spanish. We understand him. But he hasn't done the right thing."

Sheri Cagle, a corrections officer, said that Texas prisons remain dangerously understaffed despite a prison population that has grown 200 percent since 1990. According to Cagle, from 1990 and 1999, violent incidents in prisons have jumped from 1,434 to 14,669.

Cagle said that salaries for corrections officers start at $21,744, rating Texas 46th in the nation. She said many officers qualify for food stamps.

Danny Thompson of the Nevada State AFL-CIO urged workers to vote for likely Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore, and to spread the word among family and friends.

"To me, word-of-mouth means more than all the rhetoric and trash you hear on TV and in the newspapers," said Pat Hanley, a member of the local sheet metal union. "I don't think they'd travel all that way to lie."