The April 24 blitz was just one facet of the union\'s three-day Rapid Response legislative conference, which also featured speeches from several lawmakers, an outdoor pep rally--and the promise by participants to take the info back home and use it to energize their union colleagues, families and friends.

The Steel Workers hit D.C. as lawmakers face issues of concern to workers and their allies. Topping them all is the war in Iraq: The Democratic-run Congress approved $124 billion in funding, conditioned on a phased withdrawal of U.S. combat forces. Democrats told the USW they support removing the troops, as the legislation demands.

GOP President George W. Bush plans to veto the bill, which also includes the first increase in 10 years in the federal minimum wage, from its present $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour in just over two years. That\'s accompanied by $4.8 billion in tax breaks for "small business."

But the war was not at the top of USW\'s legislative list. The Employee Free Choice Act was. Health care and unfair trade treaties followed close behind. Bush wants to push through trade pacts with Colombia, Peru, Panama and Korea and renew his "fast track" authority to bargain such pacts, without worker rights. Fast track expires June 30.

"It is important to pass the Employee Free Choice Act so that workers who want to join unions won\'t face harassment and coercion by union-busters. Fewer people are joining unions because irresponsible employers have perfected the art of union-busting," Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) told USW on April 23.

The bill (HR 800) passed the House 241-185 on March 1 but faces a Senate GOP filibuster threat and a promised Bush veto. HR 800 would attempt to level the playing field between workers and bosses by legalizing card-check recognition of unions, after verification that they got signed election authorization cards from a majority of all workers in the unit they target in organizing drives.

It would also increase penalties for labor law-breaking to $20,000 per violation plus triple back pay for injured workers and mandate mediation and arbitration if the two sides can\'t reach a first contract within 120 days. "This is the best attempt in 30 years to fix a broken system" of labor law, USW Organizing Director Mike Yoffee said.

Greeley, Colo. resident Earl Hohrein retold the story of how he--a Vietnam vet, former high school teacher and longtime Boilermaker--helped organize Front Range Energy Co. USW won 12-11, and Hohrein was illegally fired on trumped-up charges days later.

"They browbeat workers in the back rooms and told them ‘You\'re going to lose your job if the union wins.\' And people were written up for talking to each other about health care," he said by way of example.

"I\'m a historian," Hohrein said of his teachers\' job, "230 years ago a bunch of Americans came together to fight the tyranny of King George. People are coming together today to fight the tyranny of King George," Hohrein added of Bush\'s planned veto of HR 800.

Before their outdoor rally, many Steel Workers helped pack a congressional hearing room for a briefing on HR 676, the single-payer government-run universal health care bill USW backs. That would build on Medicare, but extend it to all.

The legislation, drafted by veteran Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), would also eliminate the private insurance companies and their overhead costs, which range up to 40 percent of total health are spending, speakers said.

Other speakers at the conference and the outdoor rally, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-Vt.) and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), concentrated on unfair trade treaties. Their prime focus was beating fast track.

"George W. Bush tells us the economy is on the move. It is--overseas. And he doesn\'t get it," Durbin said. He not only vowed to beat fast track, but also said congressional Democrats would push for tax breaks for firms that keep jobs and production in the U.S., while penalizing those who close up and move abroad.

"There are a lot of reasons people are slipping into poverty, but one we\'ve got to address directly is these unfair trade policies," said Sanders. Besides fast track, that includes cheap goods from China, via subsidies and undervalued currency.

After pointing out that even his small, rural, lightly industrialized state has lost one-fifth of its factory jobs in the last five years, Sanders added: "Some of my colleagues up there"--gesturing to the Capitol looming behind him--"talk moral values and family values. But it is not a moral value or a family value to shut a plant and move to China, where they (workers) make 30 cents an hour."

Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used with permission.