Chief California AFL-CIO Officer Art Pulaski

October/November 2001 IBEW Journal

Thank you, Ed. President Hill, Secretary-Treasurer O'Connor, and our own Mike Mowrey, who I saw a moment ago, Vice President from the Ninth District, welcome to California. California, the home of the San Francisco Giants, the Oakland A's, the 49'ers and the Oakland Raiders, all who won yesterday; Barry Bonds, three home runs, 63 in the year. It's a great, proud area for us here in the Bay Area, Northern California. Welcome to this proud area.

Now, hold on to your wallets. I’ll tell you a story about a fellow who came to a convention and wandered off into the wrong part of town. Wasn't this town, but it's a good story.

Wandered off to the wrong part of town and ran into a mugger who didn't have a very smiling face on. Now that's how you know you're not in San Francisco because we want you to know all the muggers in San Francisco, well, they've got smiling faces, they're friendly faces.

So this was not San Francisco, not a friendly face. And the mugger said, "I want all your money," and the fellow decided to fight back. He violated the rules, never fight back against a mugger.

Fought back, put up his dukes and landed on the ground, landed on the ground all scratched up, his clothes all torn up, looking up at the mugger with his pockets turned inside out.

And the mugger was about to walk away, counted the cash in his hand, turned back, and he said to the guy, "Now, why the hell would you put up a fight with me for a total of a dollar fifty?"

And the guy looked up at the mugger and said, "I thought you were after the 200 bucks I've got rolled in my socks."

Well, guess what? The mugger walked away $201 richer. As my kids would say, duh.

But I want to tell you this story about getting rolled over. You see, this year in California, they tried to roll us over, the whole state. They called it rolling blackouts, and I know in many other parts of California, you heard about these rolling blackouts. And what we found here was as a result of deregulation of the energy issue, we had energy companies coming in from out of state, many of them from the state of Texas. They decided to buy our power plants. They decided to create shortages so they could increase demand and increase prices and rip off the people of the state of California. Some of these are the same power producers who want to bust your union. AES Power was one of them.

And we fought back. We fought back to make sure these power producers are union, and we fought back to make sure this deregulation doesn't rip off the people of California. Now, please beware because it's going to happen to you too, and this is why I tell you this story. You see, they rose prices in hopes to soak this state of the budget surplus it had of $8 billion. They took that, and then they wanted more.

And we decided, we realized, you know, this energy crisis created and fabricated now was becoming an economic crisis affecting the workers of the IBEW and affecting the workers of so many other unions in this state that began to see their jobs jeopardized as a result of the damaged economy.

We also realized that while it was an energy crisis, then becoming an economic crisis, it was also becoming a political crisis because now it endangered the public officials who we worked so hard to elect, and one of them, Gray Davis, the governor who just addressed this fine convention.

We realized also our State Assembly we worked so hard to win was also in jeopardy because the public didn't understand who the bad guys were. So we organized. We organized a campaign that began with the unions, that said we're not going to take this anymore. We're going to go after the bad guys, the real bad guys, because those who created rolling blackouts -- we decided we would call it rolling blackmail, rolling blackmail against union members, rolling blackmail against the economy and against every consumer in the state of California.

We created rallies around this state and demonstrations. We wanted to let them know that the public was understanding who the true bad guys were and began to turn the heat up on President George W. Bush, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and those new power generators from out of state who meant to rip this fine state off.

Now, beware because the president said he would never impose price controls again, but after our campaign, we found out they relinquished and they backed off. And they, in fact, imposed some temporary price controls.

Beware because the next victims may be those in your state because we know those power generators -- though they have backed off a bit now, we know they're going to come back for their second bite of the apple.

But we want you to know that it was union members themselves in organizing on behalf of our members and all workers got the message across to the people of this state that said, "You know what, in this energy crisis, in this economic crisis affecting your home pocketbooks and checkbooks, it's the unions that came forward to speak up, stand up to protect all consumers of this state."

And we were proud that labor got recognized, fighting on behalf not just of our members, not just of all working people, but of every working family in the state of California. You see, we're organizing. And now we know that there's a little bit better chance. When a person who's not now a union member may be handed a union card to say, "Would you like to join the union in your place of work," they're going to think about it, and they're going to say, "Join the union. Oh, yeah. Those are the guys that have been fighting for me and my family. You bet I'll join."

And so as we organize more on behalf of our members, we realize it's on behalf of all working people. As President Hill said, we are proud, we're proud the way the IBEW came forward when we had that great fight a couple of years ago, Proposition 226, that effort to silence the voice of every union member in this state. We came forward like we never organized together in the state of California before, and we beat back the antiunion forces that were here to damage every one of your members' future.

We are proud of the way the IBEW came forward, stood strong, so big and so well, in solidarity to fight that back. And now, through our political organizing, our goal is to build political power and our goal is to build economic and bargaining power more than we ever have before in our history. And it's in large part because of the energy, the commitment, the drive, and the solidarity of the IBEW that we have been so successful in this state.

And I'm here to thank you. I'm here to thank you for every local in California. I'm here to thank you for your International Union and your leaders and, hence, every other local in the nation for the kind of way that you have acted on behalf of solidarity and strength for labor here in California.

I want to acknowledge also --

-- in this energy fight that we have had, your leaders here, Pat Lavin from Local 47, put a lot of energy in this campaign. Dave Moore from 465 down in San Diego, Perry Zimmerman now from Local 1245, Brian D'Arcy from Los Angeles 18, the kind of way that you came together to say we're going to fight, we're going to fight for our members, we're going to fight for every union member, we're going to fight for every consumer in California. And with that kind of victory, we've won. With that kind of energy, we've achieved victory. And I want to thank you for the kind of contributions this union has made.

And I want to tell you that I hope that when you go back as a result of this convention, you think about putting even more energy and commitment into your own state AFL-CIO. I want to acknowledge as one example my good friend Dennis Hughes, member of IBEW, President of the New York AFL-CIO, who I know is in this room somewhere in the center.

And I hope that you also participate with your local labor council because it is through that energy that we're going to continue to build our power, we're going to continue to win our victories, and we're going to continue to rely on and then support the great work of this great union, the IBEW. Thank you for your energy. Thank you for your success. Thank you for your commitment, and together, we're going to win even more victories for the future. God bless. Keep up the struggle, and on to more victories. Thank you.