By Edwin Hill
IBEW International President

We're in the middle of what might be called the patriotic season.

In early July we celebrated Canada Day and Independence Day, and on we move to Labor Day.

This year, of course, September will also mark - with mourning and resolve - the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

In the closing months of 2001, I was heartened by the surge of unity and patriotism across this continent. All elements of society seemed to be putting aside normal squabbles for the greater good. Thousands of members of the IBEW and other unions literally joined the fight through their military reserve duty. Hundreds of thousands of other union members are working at home in related efforts to keep our nations strong.

But the unity has cracked. Working North America has upheld its end of the bargain. Corporate North America and their political puppets have betrayed us.

What kind of country will our military reservists come home to? Following Sept. 11, members of both parties acted with haste to use our money to bail out the airline industry that suffered such tremendous losses in the shutdown of commercial aviation caused by the attacks. You and I helped make sure that airline executives continued to make millions. But when it came to providing relief for industry workers, Congress could not free up a single penny. In the following months, corporate welfare flowed like water, but relief for the unemployed was a mere trickle.

Then came the renewed drive for fast track trade negotiating authority for the President of the United States. Taken away in 1994, this provision gives the administration the power to negotiate trade deals with other nations and then send them to Congress on the "fast track" for an up or down vote with no amendments.

Taking this authority away from Presidents was one of the few weapons workers had available to help fight for their interests as corporate powers carved up the global economic pie.

But fast track is just a short step away from being back, having passed both houses of Congress after some tortuously close votes. And this comes as the loss of jobs due to NAFTA and other trade policies is at an all-time high. The destruction of our industrial base - even those parts that keep our national defense strong - has ripple effects that are felt by every worker in every occupation.

And now comes the seemingly endless trail of corporate scandals and with them the near collapse of the financial markets. The contempt that corporate executives have shown for the middle class, for lawmakers, and for any bounds of decency and fair play is nothing less than obscene.

When organized labor tried to sound the alarms, right-wing forces in politics and the media accused us of waging old-fashioned class warfare.

Brothers and sisters, there is class warfare, all right-the wealthiest and most powerful in this country have declared all out war on the middle class and the poor. They have systematically attacked and attempted to dismantle every safeguard, every advance and every bit of security that North American workers have fought for, earned and built over seven decades.

We are not powerless. Another season is almost upon us in the United States - election season. It is time for a little accountability on the part of those who claim to represent us. Our job is to sort through the cheap rhetoric and the attempts to drive wedges between workers through issues like guns or school vouchers or whatever.

The issue is jobs. The issue is social trust. We need to have faith in God, faith in our nation, and faith in each other as fellow trade union members. And our immediate task this fall is to call the roll, take names, and keep score. Are we a society that lives by its own rules and allows true freedom and opportunity? Or are we descending into the jungle where only the strongest survive and the rest fight over crumbs? Those in power who hold public office can't duck these questions.

Our situation is that stark, brothers and sisters. Not in my lifetime have the choices been so sobering. Let's get to work.

Edwin D. Hill
International President
(From July/August, 2002 issue of IBEW Journal)