Union leaders push worker agenda in Vegas

Grace Leong

Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2002 | 10:56 a.m.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on Monday called for more legislation to protect workers at companies crippled by fraudulent accounting and criticized new trade legislation he says threatens U.S. workers.

Sweeney told 3,500 delegates at a United Steelworkers convention in Las Vegas that thousands of workers in companies "destroyed by the corporate crime wave face the cold reality of no severance pay, health benefits and pensions" and that the AFL-CIO is pressing Congress to "make pension reform a first order of business and put workers in the front of the line in (the companies') bankruptcy proceedings."

President Bush last week signed legislation cracking down on corporate fraud, following a wave of business scandals.

"Congress passed a much-needed corporate accounting bill but cooked books are just part of the problem and accounting reform is just part of the solution," Sweeney said. "We have to reshape our corporate priorities and put people first. ... And we have to clean up corporate corruption of politics through public financing of congressional election campaigns."

Sweeney also criticized the Trade Promotion Authority Act, also dubbed as the "Fast Track" method of making trade policy -- which passed on Aug. 1 and allows the president to negotiate trade deals without congressional approval.

He said the measure "has the weakest protections for labor and the environment ... and offers only a downpayment on health care for displaced workers."

Democrats who had voted against the bill because of concerns that liberalized trade would eliminate American jobs changed their minds after House and Senate negotiators agreed to include subsidized health insurance and job-training benefits for workers who lose their jobs to foreign competition.

Meanwhile Steelworkers' President Leo Gerard challenged delegates to combat what he called "corporate domination of political decision-making that's being used to export (union) jobs and undermine (workers') standards of living.

He said more than two million manufacturing jobs in the United States and Canada have been lost since the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 and other trade agreements.

Steelworkers Locals 4856 and 711 represent some 4,000 workers at Nevada businesses including the the Timet plant in Henderson, five cab companies in the Las Vegas area, the Flamingo Hilton-Laughlin and at several chemical companies and mining operations. There are about 650,000 Steelworkers in the United States and Canada.