How Empowering Public-Sector Workers Builds Stronger Communities

BY DAVID MCCALL

 JULY 15, 2024
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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Wayne Creasy turned the corner in his municipal work truck, saw emergency vehicles idling at the railroad crossing, and instinctively pulled over to help.

About 12 feet in the air, a railroad worker writhed in agony, pinned against his seat by a 39-foot-long, 1,500-pound slab of rail that fell from the claws of the crane he’d been operating.

Creasy—crew chief for the Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, Public Works Department and president of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1928—knew exactly what to do.

He summoned a town backhoe, moved a police car out of the way, and secured the backhoe’s chains to the piece of rail. Then he guided the backhoe operator, a fellow union member, as he hoisted the rail high enough for emergency workers to slide the man over the back of his seat to safety.

Decades of union empowerment prepared Creasy to act decisively and heroically on that summer day. Now, swift passage of federal legislation, the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, would help build the same kind of leadership, skill, and teamwork in communities nationwide.

“We try to rise above and beyond,” Creasy, a town worker for nearly three decades, said of his 10-person crew, responsible for snow-clearing, street paving, flood control, tree maintenance, the town park, an airport, traffic signals, and many other community essentials. “If you know what to do, you do it.”

Some states unfairly deny public servants—not only road crews but sanitation, maintenance, and office workers, among others—the same right to union membership that counterparts in the private sector enjoy.

A right-wing governor in Wisconsin signed legislation in 2011, for example, that essentially eliminated bargaining rights for public workers there. In 2023, Florida’s anti-worker governor signed a law aimed at bankrupting and decimating public-sector unions, costing tens of thousands of workers their labor rights so far.

And Louisiana’s Republican-controlled legislature in 2024 introduced several bills intended to strip public workers of their unions.

The Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act—backed by pro-worker members of Congress such as Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio—evens the scales.

It would guarantee public workers the right to unionize, negotiate collectively, and fight together for better working conditions. The bill also would bar states from imposing burdensome paperwork requirements on unions, as Florida has, and establish a process for resolving bargaining stalemates.

“Protect yourself. Protect your rights. Protect your benefits,” said Creasy, urging public workers to organize for their own good and that of the taxpayers they serve.

Union membership affords Creasy a say on the job and also provides him opportunities to learn new skills, take on additional responsibilities, and problem-solve. Safety trainings showed him to think his way out of perilous situations, and the union instilled in him the importance of leaving no one behind.

All of that came together to save the crane operator.

“I just had to help the guy… I represent the union, the USW, and it was the USW to the rescue,” said Creasy.

“I’ve been with this department for 26 years. You see all sorts of situations. If you’re around heavy equipment, you know how to use it properly,” he explained.

“No doubt at all. No hesitation,” Creasy said of his hastily devised rescue plan. “We knew we had to lift the rail off of him, and the only piece of equipment going to do it was the backhoe.”

The Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act would afford more public-sector workers the voice and resources needed not only to better protect the public but also to deliver services more efficiently and cost-effectively.

“The union offers training you don’t get anywhere else,” said Kevin Ziolkovski, president of USW Local 9411, who’s aided accident victims, a person in anaphylactic shock, and other stricken members of the public while working for Groton (Connecticut) Utilities.

At a recent labor conference, Ziolkovski trained on the use of Narcan, an emergency medication used to save overdose victims. Now, he plans to carry the medication with him on the job.

The USW’s broad reach enables Ziolkovski and other public workers across the country to compare notes and develop best practices for serving their communities. And unions enable public workers to speak out about service gaps or other problems.

“Because of the union, we are able to have some discussions we would be scared to have otherwise,” said Andrew Reed, president of USW Local 9187, which represents hundreds of workers in the Stark County, Ohio, Department of Jobs & Family Services.

Reed and other union members stepped up, for example, when they realized that long wait times put callers to the county’s Human Services Division at increased risk.

They spoke with county officials, juggled scheduling, and took other steps to drastically reduce the amount of time callers waited for help. In some cases, the changes shaved hours off of response times, said Reed, noting the agency provides food assistance, transportation, and other crucial services to residents in need.

With the union looking out for safety and workplace conditions, Reed noted, “workers are able to focus more on serving the public.”

In Bloomsburg, union solidarity not only enables Creasy’s crew members to work seamlessly together but fosters a greater shared commitment to the community they all call home.

“They depend on us and look up to us,” he said of the town’s residents and merchants. “We’re here for the long haul.”

This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.

David McCall is the international president of the United Steelworkers Union (USW).

U.S. War Games in Pacific Seek Global Participation in Imperialist Maneuvers

BY KAWENAʻULAOKALĀ KAPAHUA AND JOY LEHUANANI ENOMOTO

 JULY 15, 2024
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Photograph Source: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Dylan McCord – Public Domain

Every two years, the Indo-Pacific Command Center of the United States convenes the largest maritime war exercises on the planet. With over 35,000 troops participating, 29 nations, 46 naval surface ships, 4 nuclear submarines, and a multitude of air and ground forces, the Rim of the Pacific military exercises, or RIMPAC, is one of the most destructive training events globally.

Through these exercises, the U.S. consolidates its control of the Pacific. RIMPAC began as an annual training exercise in 1971 and became bi-annual in 1974. Since it began, some of the historically worst human rights abusers like the U.S., Australia, Canada, and Israel have participated in the exercise. The U.S. has a long history of using the Hawaiian islands for target practice. In 1965, the U.S. Navy detonated a bomb on the Kaho’olawe the equivalent of 500 tons of dynamite, breaking the island’s water table and carpeting the island with unexploded ordinances.

Hawaiʻi was illegally seized by American sugar planters in 1893 who were supported by the U.S. military and sought the Hawaiian harbor of Puʻuloa (Pearl Harbor) for a coaling station. In 1898, the U.S. Congress, which had actually lost the treaty of annexation, illegally took Hawaiʻi by joint resolution. Hawaiʻi has remained under illegal occupation by the U.S. and its military since then.

U.S. Militarism Destroys Our Land Through RIMPAC

RIMPAC as a symptom of the U.S. empire has immense environmental and cultural ramifications. Geopolitically, the exercises are used to control trade routes, train genocidal regimes, and posture against China. Since Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” strategy, the U.S. has shifted from cold war tactics of diplomacy and arms procurement to hot war tactics of aggressive invasion and unchecked military build-up. RIMPAC is used to test weapons and military technology for weapons manufacturers.

Between San Diego to Hawaiʻi, havoc is wrought upon both our land and sea through the U.S. military and their war games. They sink ships, carry out mock marine invasions of urban and jungle warfare, and engage in live fire training in conservation zones that cause fires across thousands of acres and threaten endangered species. All of these “routine” exercises take place in areas that are cultural and ancestral sites of deep value.

The U.S. military’s largest base in our islands is Pōhakuloa, a sacred region of Hawaiʻi Island, thousands of acres utilized as a firing range to train militaries in the tactics of warfare, suppression, and invasion. Mākua Valley was a former civilian town turned into a firing range between World War II and 2004, which filled the valley with unexploded ordinances, white phosphorus, and other forever chemicals. The U.S. Marine base at Mōkapu is built upon one of the most ancient villages in Hawaiʻi where residents were expelled to make room for the base. In addition to the massive pollution and raw sewage spills the base puts out into the surrounding ocean, it is also a sacred burial site where many iwi kūpuna (ancestral bones) are buried near the coast.

RIMPAC also threatens vulnerable and delicate ecosystems and our vast oceanic nature reserves which are restricted conservation zones except for the military. The U.S. Navy has faced multiple lawsuits for the death of whales from mass beachings to escape naval sonar, multiple helicopters and planes have crashed onto our beaches and ocean, and sea turtles lose access to their traditional nesting grounds due to the practice of amphibious assaults on our beaches. The U.S. military is the largest driver of the climate crisis and RIMPAC’s environmental impact only adds to this catastrophe by risking the livelihood of ocean nations through repeated missiles, explosions, and heavy metal waste being driven into the Pacific as a result of these exercises. Therefore, RIMPAC is in direct violation of its own Marine Species Awareness Training (MSAT) and its own Protective Measures and Assessment Protocols (PMAP) which require that the Navy be in compliance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species and ensure mitigation to prevent any injury, behavioral change, or death. Each year RIMPAC is planned, the U.S. Navy Indo-Pacific Command requests exemption to these laws from NOAA and the Department of Defense, with extraordinary requests to allow incidental “takes” (deaths) of marine mammals in the millions. There is also no limit to the number of marine birds it can take during the exercises. RIMPAC threatens no less than 12 endangered species.

RIMPAC: Exporting Violence

Besides its obscene show of environmental destruction, RIMPAC supports the repression of Indigenous cultures throughout the world by actively training regimes that are currently inflicting genocide or other human rights violations on its Indigenous peoples. RIMPAC plays out various “future scenarios of potential terrorists.” In 2022, RIMPAC enacted a pretend invasion of North Korea, going house to house executing a regime change operation with houses decorated with pictures of Kim Jong Un. Prior to that, in 2016, RIMPAC used the Hawaiian Islands to play out a scenario of imaginary so-called “enemy states” seeking to expand power that played counter to Western influences. And of course, there is the constant saber-rattling and escalation against China which is used as a scapegoat by the new U.S. Cold War.

RIMPAC also brings with it a significant increase in gender-based violence. Studies have shown a significant leap in human trafficking and sexual exploitation, especially of young Native Hawaiian girls every year. In 2022, a former U.S. Naval petty officer was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the sex trafficking of Native Hawaiian girls. The influx of more than 25,000 international military personnel into Hawaiʻi ensures a constant market for the exploitation of women and gender non-conforming people.

RIMPAC Exposes Enduring U.S. Military Dominance

This year’s exercises are notable given the current geopolitical context. RIMPAC is taking place amid the ninth month of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. This war has isolated the U.S. and its junior partner Israel and united much of the world in the demand for a ceasefire and in opposition to the West’s murderous violence against Palestinians and oppressed people across the world.

However, some of the voices that have been strongest on the world stage in condemning Israel and the U.S. today have sent their Armed Forces to participate alongside the U.S. and Israel in RIMPAC. Countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, and Indonesia, are participating, and have either closed their Israeli embassies or publicly renounced Israel for its ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. While the mood in the Global South is one of challenging Western dominance and hypocrisy, challenging U.S. military supremacy as its bloc leads spending at 74.3 percent, proves to be harder.

Yet, these war games are not mere pastimes and excursions, they are a declaration of national values and a statement of political intention. The strategies and tactics, weapons and technologies practiced and mastered at RIMPAC are utilized by participant nations for weaponization at home. Be it for the worst form of atrocities such as genocide or repression of any form of resistance to the state, or to control “free trade” routes to ensure capital continues to move for the benefit of the international capitalist elite. In other words, RIMPAC trains governments that have a long history of developing repressive techniques to control their colonies and are now deploying those same techniques on its citizens. As with all imperialist activities, it is up to the social and people’s movements of the respective impacted nations to take a stand and reject this continuous arming and military expansion of our collective oppressors.

The Hawaiian people stand arm in arm with the peoples of the world to demand an end to these war games and to sharpen our fight against U.S. imperialism and colonialism, which today is the biggest threat to the survival of our planet—especially those of us from island nations in the “strategic” Pacific. It is people’s movements who will mobilize to remind the governments of those participating nations that they must withdraw from this exercise, end their collaboration with the Israeli Occupation Forces, and stand firm upon their declarations at the United Nations and other various forums. Together we can build a better world.

This article was produced by Globetrotter. 

Kawenaʻulaokalā Kapahua is a community organizer with Hui Aloha ʻĀina, Honolulu branch, a leading Hawaiian independence organization. He is based out of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, is a PhD student of Political Science at the University of Hawaiʻi and is also a labor organizer.

Joy Lehuanani Enomoto is a community organizer, Pacific Islands Studies scholar, and artist who lives in Honolulu, HI. She is currently the Executive Director of the demilitarization organization, Hawaiʻi Peace & Justice, and the vice president of the Hawaiian sovereignty organization, Hui Aloha ʻĀina o Honolulu.