Gerald H. Deneau

With the backdrop of host local Philadelphia 16N's 100th anniversary banner at the North American Newspaper Conference, GCIU Secy.-Treas. Gerald Deneau asked delegates to imagine what it was like to try to organize, to survive, to work in a plant a century ago.

"You were really outlaws at that time because there were no protections for unions or any rights that you had," Deneau said.

But despite the restrictions and harsh working conditions, Deneau said, there was a world-wide movement to better workers' living standards. "People had had enough, whether it was steel, the mines, the railroads, they were fired up. And they were pressing the issue all over the world at the same time," he said.

In the United States and Canada, Deneau said, workers and unions set an ambitious agenda that ran counter to the agenda of the prevailing political parties of the time. "We were part of something that was bigger at that time. We were a movement, really the leadership, the push, for all working people, whether they were organized or not."

Unions earlier in the century set their sights high – free public education, an end to child labor, living wages, safer working conditions, and a shorter workweek, with the slogan "eight hours of work, eight hours of rest, and eight hours of what you will."

The agenda seemed impossible to achieve, Deneau said, but it was – after a long fight and with the help of other socially conscious groups.

"Today, we sometimes miss the boat," Deneau said. "We seem to think that working people aren't entitled" to basic life necessities, like a living wage, a safe workplace, education, health care, and child care.

Deneau said the United States is one of the only industrialized nations without a single payer health care system. There are an estimated 40 million people without health care in the nation, and in New York City alone, an estimated 40 percent of children are living in homes below the poverty level with no health care. When plants close, people lose their health care.

"I think the labor movement has to set its own agenda and keep insisting on it, not waiting for the Democrats and Republicans," Deneau said. "We need to do more work so that people in our locals can understand about the importance of a national health insurance program. That would be the greatest reform we could give in modern times. People are scared to death. We say it's hard to organize. One of the things they're afraid of is, if they're out of a job, their families are without health care."

"Right now it's a problem time," Deneau said. "But there's never been an easy time. Working together within your cities, merging where you can merge, that's where your strength is. Our highest priority is we have to organize."

"The struggle goes on, and we have to think of as many new strategies as we can. . . . We have to work with other unions and we have to do everything we can to keep working people together because our strength is with each other. It's certainly not with political parties. They can be a help but we have to go with our own base."