Posted Oct 28, 2008 at 07:55pm
Waiting here in Allentown
ALLENTOWN, PA- Billy Joel sang about changes in this Pennsylvania town twenty six years ago.
Well, we’re living here in Allentown.
And they’re closing all the factories down.
Out in Bethleham, they’re killing time.
Filling out forms.
Standing in line.
The lyrics still ring true today, especially after the last eight years of losing manufacturing jobs, the struggle of the middle class, the knowledge that your children’s generation will be worse off than you, and the decline of organized labor.
Although the union presence in Allentown is not what is was decades ago, the labor movement there is still alive and well. This was evidenced by the crowd we had for our event on Tuesday. Members of numerous local unions filed into the IBEW hall to hear the speaking program and see our bus and the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Billy Bus. The Billy Bus is a coach that travels with the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George and several other PA labor leaders. The Billy Bus gets out information about the issues that are facing union and non-union workers in Pennsylvania.
The Billy Bus
After a press conference in the hall, we opened up the bus to the public. The stop was not only to introduce the Bill George bus to the George Bush bus, but to highlight the voting record of local conservative Representative Charlie Dent, who supported Bush’s policies close to 80% of the time. He voted against the Employee Free Choice Act which would give workers the right to join a union without interference. Dent did not support equal work for equal pay legislation for women. He has also voted repeatedly to keep our troops stuck in Iraq.
Dick Cheney and Charlie Dent
Julie and Kathryn: unprepared for the snow.
Although we missed snow in Buffalo, it caught up with us on the way out of Allentown. We were in the middle of a mini-blizzard that dropped a few inches just outside of Wilkes-Barre.
