Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 23, 1992 TAG: 9202230131
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
LABOR LIKED WINNER
DAVID BOWERS won the Democratic show in large part by tapping into workers' anger.The woman working behind the counter at the Kentucky Fried Chicken on Melrose Avenue had only one thing to say when Prentiss Webb showed up Saturday morning and asked for nine empty buckets, suitable for collecting money at the Democratic mass meeting.
"If this will help David Bowers," she said, "I'll give them to you."
"I thought that was interesting," said the treasurer of Roanoke's Democratic Party, "because of all the people I'd have least expected a political reaction from, it was her."
But it was clear even before the mass meeting started - in Webb's case, even before he arrived - that Bowers had touched a chord with working-class voters in Roanoke.
Folks who ordinarily wouldn't pay attention to local politics suddenly were paying attention.
More important, they were showing up for a party meeting, turning what often is an insiders' affair into a victory for the outsiders.
The unions galvanized
Tommy Jordan sensed trouble early.
When the cafeteria doors at William Fleming High School opened at 9 a.m. for registration, the school grounds already were jammed with what looked much like a workers' Woodstock.
A huge union banner proclaiming "Solidarity" was strung over the parking lot. Big-shouldered men with union caps and wind breakers bearing the initials of their trades - IUE, IBEW, IAFF - positioned themselves on the curb and kept an eagle-eye on the people pouring in. The labor organizers carefully checked the turnout against clipboards full of names, and made sure everyone had a copy of labor's sample ballot: Bowers for mayor, Renee Anderson and Jim Trout for two of the three council seats.
Folk singer Curly Ennis strolled through the crowd, strumming the New Deal anthem "Happy Days Are Here Again" and an old Woody Guthrie tune, "Union Made."
At 9 sharp, a Holiday Express bus bearing a "Roanoke Firefighters Association" banner rolled up, and more than 60 firefighters briskly stepped off to cheers from their union brothers. It was an impressive show of force, just as it was meant to be.
Jordan, for many years a key railroad union leader before he became a Norfolk Southern supervisor, seemed to grit his teeth. His wife, Debbie, was running Howard Musser's campaign. He'd also been around politics, especially union politics, long enough to be able to read a crowd at first sight.
"The bus is gone," Jordan muttered, as he passed out Musser literature. "If they bring another bus load, I'd say we're in for it. I've never seen the unions this galvanized before in a local contest."
He added hopefully: "But it's still early."
No matter. It was too late for the low-key Musser, whose three-week campaign relied on the endorsements of Democratic office-holders while the gung-ho Bowers took a much more passionate message of class consciousness into Roanoke's working-class precincts by phone, by mail, by word of mouth.
It was a message that evidently resonated.
"The smaller-class people need to take a hold of this country," said Jim Axelsen, a retired city maintenance worker who declared himself "105 percent" for Bowers as he headed into his first-ever political meeting. "The man with the high dollar has run it long enough."
Moments before the meeting started, Bowers appeared in the packed gym. He strode down the sidelines, pumping his first in the air, a gesture that elicited raucous cheers from the bleachers. The noise confirmed Jordan's initial reading of the crowd. At that point, the Musser workers who were gathered beneath the basketball net privately admitted they were beaten.
`We've been hurt'
Bowers won the mayoral nomination by tapping into Roanoke's latent class resentment, then by channeling workers' anger toward "the big boys" through an unprecedented organizational effort by labor unions - who turned out not only union households but also many non-union working-class voters.
The point man was C.W. Toney, who heads Local 891 of the painters' union and the Southwest Virginia Building Trades Council.
And the flash point appeared to be workers' anger toward the use of out-of-town labor on the Dominion Tower and Norfolk Southern building.
"I think the whole crux was building those two buildings downtown and bringing outside labor in while our own labor sat on the bench," said John Richards, a member of Sheetmetal Workers Local 100. "That's what turned people out today. I was unemployed for four months last year."
It was a point echoed by one blue-collar worker after another - union and non-union - when asked why they were wearing their blue stickers for Bowers. Many almost snarled "North Carolina and Mexico" as if they were curse words when talking about the origin of the out-of-towners who erected the two newest landmarks in the Roanoke skyline.
"All these buildings are going up in downtown and the people here can't get jobs," Toney said. "The applications are closed before they even break ground. It's just closed to the people of Roanoke."
"The Dominion Tower was the biggest fiasco. Roanokers weren't given even a shot," said Gerald Meadows, who heads the Roanoke Central Labor Council. "The only two people who spoke out for working people were Bowers and [Councilman] William White. Musser and [Councilman James] Harvey, they're just status quo."
Most City Council members had distanced themselves from the dispute, contending they had no power to interfere with a private contractors' hiring policy. But union members - who saw the city spending $10 million on a parking garage to make the tower possible - found that stance unacceptable.
The use of out-of-town (and non-union) labor on the new office buildings especially rankles the unions when their members must drive hundreds of miles in search of construction work. Richards commutes every day to Radford; Toney has gone to West Virginia. Rodger Chatting, a member of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 491, had been driving to Richmond until he was laid off in December.
"1971, when the Civic Center was built, that's the last time I've worked in Roanoke," he said. "We've been hurt real bad when they bring in people from North Carolina and Mexico instead of hiring people here."
It's not that the unions expect Bowers to deliver anything tangible - most workers said they simply wanted a mayor who would listen to them. But working folks at the meeting were very much in a send-'em-a-message mood.
"The working-class people in Roanoke outnumber the other guys and we're just tired of the way things are," Richards said.
The anger wasn't limited to the building trades involved in the downtown building dispute, either
"I've seen railroad people I haven't seen at a meeting in 15 years," Jordan said. "These guys really deserve a lot of credit."
Firefighters also turned out big for Bowers. Ed Crawford, president of the Roanoke Firefighters Association, estimated that more than 200 present and retired firefighters were on hand - about 10 percent of the crowd.
"It's been 15 years since I've seen the Firefighters Association working to get involved like this," he said. The firefighters backed Bowers, Anderson and Trout, he said, because they were the only candidates who asked to speak to them - the firefighters' main litmus test.
"It's tough for us," he said. "We don't have collective bargaining, so we have to do a lot of individual lobbying. City Council won't let us stand before 'em - or at least the city attorney won't. He says, `We're a right-to-work state.' Brother, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I think we skinned one today."
Keywords:
POLITICS