By James Spinosa
ILWU International President
News reports and entire books have been written recently detailing the unbelievable statements coming out of the mouth of George W. Bush, from the politically motivated lies to the laughably absurd gaffes. But rarely have any of his pronouncements fused both those elements so seamlessly as his recent declaration that outsourcing American jobs is good for the national economy and American workers. Employers save so much money outsourcing, Bush argues, that they will be able to expand their operations and eventually hire more American workers.
Try explaining that logic to the people standing in the unemployment lines, or to the laid-off mother whose new job doesn't have health insurance when her kids get sick, or the family of a Midwest industrial worker that just lost their home. Economic theorists never seem to be able to figure cruelty and suffering into their calculations.
But working people see it, we feel it and we have to endure and struggle to overcome it. Sometimes we are more successful than others, but the scars of those experiences expose truths we can never forget, deny or ignore no matter how much the Bush public relations flaks spin, speculate and obscure.
ILWU members are all too familiar with the "benefits" of outsourcing. Once our brothers and sisters toiling in Hawaii's big sugar and pineapple industries fought, struck and won the best agricultural worker contracts in the world, the corporate ag companies took off for more exploitable labor in Thailand and the Philippines. Warehouse Local 6 members at the Hexcel plant in Livermore, California have been given notice that the company intends to move its operations to Japan and the right-to-work state of Utah. And our Longshore Division is constantly fighting shipowners forcing seafarers to do our lashing work and stevedoring companies using computer technology to secretly outsource ILWU marine clerks' work to non-union employees. The main issue in our protracted 2002 longshore contract struggle was about keeping employers from using technology to outsource our jobs.
Even though all the polls showed Bush was most vulnerable on domestic issues like the economy and jobs, he continues to trumpet the same failed policies as if no one is noticing that jobs continue to disappear, wages continue to drop and corporate profits continue to increase at a record pace. Fortunately for the entire American labor movement that has dedicated itself to the cause of laying off Bush, he keeps stepping in it knee-high and sticking his foot in his mouth.
But it's not just on domestic issues that Bush is making missteps and misstatements. Even in his foreign policy, in his war on terrorism and his war in Iraq, in those issues that he planned to base his reelection campaign on, he is floundering. A year after the invasion of Iraq, the occupation of that country continues to be a bloody mess, with Americans and Iraqis dying in larger numbers than in the war itself. Billions of American tax payer dollars are being spent there, using up resources so desperately needed in this country.
All the while Bush's corporate buddies are getting billion-dollar, no-bid contracts and then are getting caught overcharging the government. The Iraqi infrastructure American bombs destroyed a year ago, still hasn't been rebuilt by the American contractors, leaving the local population with miserable living conditions. Iraqi workers face 70 percent unemployment, forcing them to work for the low-wage scales imposed by the occupiers who in turn enforce Saddam Hussein's old law banning union organizing.
No wonder the conflict continues to escalate and Bush's plan to hand over power to some form of Iraqi self-rule by June 30 looks less and less like an exit strategy and more and more like an election ploy.
Meanwhile, the evidence of the lies propping up his policies pile up, showing a pattern of deception and a strategy of deceit.
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the ones we were shown U.S. intelligence satellite photos of and were an imminent danger that required preemptive war turn out to not exist. The real and higher costs of the Bush pro-pharmaceutical company Medicare bill were withheld by the Bush administration until Congress passed it. And new revelations suggest Bush ignored numerous warnings of eminent terrorist attacks by his own advisors before Sept. 11, 2001. His credibility has been blown out of the water.
Not since the Supreme Court installed him as president has Bush been so vulnerable. We must take this moment to drive an electoral stake through his political heart once and for all. That this is the program of the ILWU--the democratically elected delegates to our International Convention last year voted to make Bush's defeat the number one priority of our union--shows the wisdom of the rank and file. As long as Bush is in power working people in this country will be under attack and on the defensive.
We only have a few more months to assure Bush's defeat and our future. We have him on the ropes, but we must finish the job. That will take all of us doing all we can. You can get involved in the union's efforts by contacting your local officers and volunteering. You can also see the information on page 4 of this issue of The Dispatcher to find the way you can contribute financially to this campaign. Let's give Bush his pink slip.
