Howie Hawkins for Governor
Green Party - www.howiehawkins.org

For Immediate Release:
June 3, 2010

For More Info:
Howie Hawkins, 315 425-1019
Mark Dunlea, 518 860-3725

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor and a member of the Teamsters Local 317 in Syracuse, will join with other labor activists in picketing in support of the IUE /CWA 81359 workers at Momentive Performance Materials in Waterford. The picket line will be on Friday June 4th from 2 to 5 PM in front of the plant at 260 Hudson River Road, Route 32.

The union has filed charges against Momentive with the National Labor Relations Board, after the company in January 2009 violated its labor contract by unilaterally cutting the wages of two-thirds of its 600-member blue-collar work force by an average 25 percent. IUE/CWA Local 81359 also say that many of the cuts were far deeper.

"What good is a negotiated contract if it is allowed to be broken?" asked Hawkins, echoing concerns of local labor leaders. "This only means millions of dollars in losses and lowering the standard of living for workers and the community. Meanwhile, the wealthy owners and upper management are left untouched while the workers struggle to pay their bills!"

Hawkins, the only union member running for Governor, said, "We need solidarity among working people to defend our living standards from the assaults of predatory private equity firms (the case here) and the general assault on workers. This includes the recent assault on public workers by Gov. Paterson, Andrew Cuomo, and the Republicans with their austerity budgets paid for by cutting public workers' pay, benefits, and job security and the public services used by working people, and refusing to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes."

"Whether Democrats or Republicans hold power, the policies are essentially the same, bailouts for the rich on Wall Street, austerity, job and wage cuts, endless wars, and environmental catastrophes for the working people. These policies are the same because both parties are wholly owned subsidiaries of Wall Street and the corporations," added Hawkins.

Hawkins and other union activists point out that slashing or withholding workers pay in both the private and public sector has become a serious trend with employers who want to shift to working people the costs of the Wall Street crisis. Recently, Governor Patterson violated the state contracts with CSEA and PEF by withholding their negotiated raises and attempting to unilaterally furlough 100,000 workers. IUE/CWA 81359 members at Momentive Performance Materials are only too familiar with these wage theft tactics. For 16 months, they have been fighting back against their contract being broken in mid-term. Now Mott's workers in Williamson, New York are on strike over demands for a $1.50 per hour wage cut and other concessions demanded of them, Hawkins noted.

Labor activists also believe that the new computer chip fabrication plant being built in Saratoga with a billion dollar plus state corporate welfare subsidy may be encouraging Momentive to attack the pay standards of its unionized workers. Much of the computer industry is already anti-union. Union jobs at Momentive, paying far more than the chip fabrication standard, would both be a competitor for workers and an inspiration for union organization at Global Foundries.

Hawkins has been a long time advocate for repeal repressive labor laws such the Taft-Hartley Act, the Hatch Act, and state Right-To-Work Laws which have crippled labor's ability to organize by outlawing or severely restricting labor's basic organizing tools: strikes, boycotts, pickets, and political action. "Politicians from both major parties have given hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare to their corporate campaign contributors while CEO's have awarded themselves with obscene compensation packages as they slash jobs for Americans workers through mergers, runaway investments, subcontracting, and outsourcing abroad to countries where labor is repressed and cheap. What we need to do instead is win to labor law reform, fair trade rules, and a policy of full employment that would create millions of new living-wage jobs directly and indirectly through public investment in a sustainable green economy featuring infrastructure restoration, public works and services, and conversion from nuclear and fossil fuels to solar-based renewable energy," Hawkins added.

Hawkins plans to make publicizing and solidarity with workers' struggles a central feature of his campaign. Next Monday, June 7, Hawkins will join a labor demonstration at Syracuse City Hall called by the Greater Syracuse Labor Council for 12 noon to protest a recent decision by the Mayor and Common Council to forgive a $217,000 bill that the Chamber of Commerce owes to the city for utility bills. Labor activists are outraged that the bill is being forgiven while the Chamber's CEO made $260,000 last year and the city just raised property taxes and water fees and cut the school, police, and fire department budgets.