Pa. AFL-CIO leaders plan to endorse Unity 2000. The rally is set for the eve of the convention in Phila. By Thomas Ginsberg INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Leaders of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO have endorsed a large protest march on the eve of the Republican convention, and other unions are expected to follow suit next week, union officials and rally organizers said yesterday.
The union endorsements, particularly the support of the one million-member state AFL-CIO, could help boost participation and financial support for the Unity 2000 rally, set for July 30, the day before the four-day convention begins in Philadelphia.
Rally organizers had said before the union endorsements that they hoped to attract at least 10,000 people.
The rally is not aimed solely at the Republican Party but is meant to bring together, in front of TV cameras, scores of disparate “progressive” groups for the biggest protest event surrounding the convention.
The rally is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
David Wilderman, the AFL-CIO’s legislative director, said the group may not exhort all of its one million Pennsylvania members to attend.
“This is really going to be a regional action in Philadelphia,” Wilderman said. “Our involvement is really behind the scenes. We’re not taking any leadership role.”
It was unclear whether the state AFL-CIO president, Bill George, would speak at the rally.
The unions will be joining scores of groups endorsing the protest, ranging from the NAACP and National Organization for Women, to the HIV/AIDS activist group ACT-UP and gay-rights group 2000 Queers.
The AFL-CIO leadership privately endorsed the rally last month in a resolution that organizers planned to make public Wednesday.
“The gap between the very rich and the expanding ranks of the poor widens every day,” said the resolution, which was provided to The Inquirer by a protest organizer.
“Fewer and fewer multinational super-corporations and the super rich are controlling more and more of the wealth, the information we receive, and the political process,” the resolution continued.
The resolution laments the cutback in welfare benefits, a lack of health care for millions of workers, and what it calls “substandard wages” for workers overseas.
The resolution does not pointedly criticize the Republican Party, saying only that the march and rally will take place on the eve of the convention.
“It’s not against the convention, it’s about issues,” said Wilderman. “There may be some issues in the party platform, but this is about raising public awareness . . . of the agenda for working families.”
Unity 2000 organizers have put out a call in recent weeks for help in raising roughly the $100,000 needed to pay for the event.
Rick Bloomingdale, secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO, said the union would contribute financially to the march but that officials “have not yet determined how much further involved we will be.”
A spokeswoman for the national AFL-CIO, based in Washington, D.C., said officials were in discussions with the state union and rally organizers over a possible national endorsement.
Michael Morrill, a Unity 2000 organizer, said the AFL-CIO endorsement would be announced publicly next week along with the endorsements of other unions, which he declined to identify.
“It’s a combination of union locals, district councils and nationals,” Morrill said.
The cooperation between union members and anticorporate protesters began to take shape last November in Seattle, when thousands of people turned out to protest the World Trade Organization.
Although the WTO rallies turned violent after police clashed with some protesters, many union members marched peacefully alongside protesters in what some activists consider a watershed alliance.
Other Unions Join
The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, USWA, AFSCME DC 47, UNITE Mid-Atlantic Region, UFCW 1776 and other labor organizations will join together at a news conference tomorrow (Wednesday, July 12) to announce their support of the Unity 2000 March and Rally on July 30 in Philadelphia. All labor allies should plan to join us.
The news conference will be held at UNITE, 35 S. 4th St., Philadelphia at 11:30 AM.
Speakers will include Rick Bloomingdale (Sec-Treas PA AFL-CIO), Wendell Young III (UFCW 1776), Kathy Black (CLUW, DC 47) and other.
For more information, please call the Unity 2000 office (215-627-5007)
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