Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland:
‘Time to stand up for working families’
Last year saw Ohioans elect many working family-friendly candidates to statewide office and end a Republican-led culture of corruption and hostility to labor.
Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, one of those candidates elected with the help of UAW activists, said it’s now time to change the direction of the nation.
Strickland, who spoke the first day of the Special Convention on Collective Bargaining, told delegates that most Americans are just trying to maintain what they have while corporate greed goes unchecked.
“They want the basics,” said Strickland, the son of a union steelworker. “They want to be a good citizen. They want a government that keeps its word to them.”
The plant where Strickland’s father worked in southeastern Ohio is now shuttered, with 6,000 decent-paying union jobs lost. Going up in its place, he said, is a Super Wal-Mart, with its always low-wages and scant benefits.
“It’s time to stand up for working families,” Strickland, a former congressman, said. “Ohio now has a governor who stands on picket lines. Ohio now has a governor who believes in the right of working men and women to organize.”
Strickland said he understands the distress of working people tried of a “government that seems not to care for you or your loved ones’ but asked union activists to work even harder in 2008 to put a worker-friendly president in the White House.
FROM THE FLOOR
David ‘Skip’ Angles
UAW Local 533 president
Fostoria, Ohio
Who they are: These Honeywell workers have manufactured spark plugs since 1936. They 680 members – who make 800,000 spark plugs a day -- supply Ford Motor Co. and General Motors.
His issues: “Definitely trade and the outsourcing of jobs. In 2004 Honeywell announced they couldn’t compete globally and planned to send half of the Fostoria plant’s work to Mexico beginning in April. They’ll retain their premium spark plug work. Our morale is in the basement, and this kind of business will never stop in manufacturing until our unfair trade laws are changed.”
Daryl Peterson
UAW Local 12 vice chair
Toledo, Ohio
Who they are: The 3,400 members at DaimlerChrysler’s Toledo Jeep plant produce the Jeep Liberty and Wrangler, and the Dodge Nitro.
His issue: “Both of my parents – my late father, Sam, and 81-year-old mother, Ruby – worked for Jeep. They are my heroes. And one of the most important issues to me is health care. We’ve made some changes to our health care to retain what we have, especially for retirees. I have a lot of friends who are retired, and I’m hoping we preserve health care and pensions for active and retired members. It’s going to be tough.”
