New Haven Independent

The change is that now one-third of the members of the union (officially the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, known as UE) are public sector workers. The include the city government workers represented by Jerome Houser, president of Local 68, whose 85 members collect trash and clean New Haven streets.

His union agreed to givebacks earlier this year in order to avoid layoffs. He welcomed delegates to City Hall at a rally Monday afternoon and said it’s important to let workers know, “We’re here for them and not for the corporate.”

Ray Pompano (pictured) was the other local official who got to address the boisterous rally. The rally called for single-payer health care and reforms of federal labor law that would make it easier for workers to join unions. Those goals were touted by the rally’s emcee as the “two key priorities for working people in September 2009.”

Pompano is president of UE Local 243 at Sargent Manufacturing Company on Sargent Drive, which produces locks and similar hardware — the kind of workplace the union has long represented.

“For 60 years, UE has been in New Haven,” he thundered. “We’ve been supporting every struggle and every strike for decades.”

He continued, yelling so loud his voice cracked, “We need health care reform. We need it now! We need the propaganda that’s being spread all over this country to stop. We have to make everybody know that one illness, one broken leg, one child with an illness could cause your whole life’s work, your whole savings, to be gone, and cause you to lose your home, the American dream that you worked all your life for — with one sickness! We need…single payer health care, and we need it now!”

To get the ralliers appropriately revved up, Nathanette Mayo (pictured), a delegate from UE Local 150 in North Carolina (the state’s public service union), sang a song in the Woody Guthrie tradition written by members of her singing group, the Fruit of Labor, called “State of Emergency.” Click here to listen to the lyrics.

New Haven State Sen. Toni Harp told the crowd, “Business interests of our country control health care. They control the billions of dollars in that system. And as a result, they don’t want things to change. But we have got to demand that they change, because when things stay the same, people stay sick.”

The rally was in support of HR 676, the Improved and Expanded Medicare for All bill introduced by U.S. Rep. John Conyers.

Union members claimed the city could reduce its payment on health insurance and Medicare by more than $38 million annually — from $51 million to just $13 — if the bill became law. Under the law, employers would pay 4.5 percent of their payroll to cover health insurance, and another 1.45 percent to cover Medicare. The city currently has a payroll of $225 million.

Bob Kingsly, director of organization for UE, quipped, “If we had that, do you think maybe they could give a raise to our public employee members? I think that would be a good idea because I’m told by Jerome that the only raises being given around here have gone to the mayor and the top brass.”

In an email message after the rally, mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga wrote, “The Mayor is not advocating for a single payer system, as he believes the priority needs to be placed on driving down costs. A public option for employers and families would be a useful option as a component of driving down costs. Finally, to simply expand coverages without driving down costs would be disastrous.”

Speakers also called for an end to union-busting and support for labor law reform. They released black balloons (pictured above) representing the number of workers fired each day for trying to organize a union at their workplace. They’re supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.

The UE convention brought together leaders of 100 locals in 20 states, representing 35,000 working members (not retirees). It runs through Thursday.