U.S. tour touts green energy jobs

[iwasthere]

towntalk Gus hall life's story should be told at the steel museum. are you up to the task gathering the info and i will help you with this project? are you game for this cause?

[Towntalk]

Early on Hall while living in Youngstown ran for City Council 4th Ward. Was he at that time a Democrat or a Communist?

Bio

In 1934, Hall went to Ohio's Mahoning Valley. Following the call for organizing in the steel industry, Hall was among a handful hired at a steel mill in Youngstown, Ohio. He was a founding organizer of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) and a leader of the 1937 "Little Steel" strike, so called because it was directed against Republic Steel, Bethlehem Steel and the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, as opposed to the industry giant U.S. Steel, which had previously entered into a contract with SWOC without a strike.
The strike was ultimately unsuccessful, and marred by the deaths of workers at Republic plants in Chicago and Youngstown. Hall was arrested for allegedly transporting bomb-making materials intended for Republic's plant in Warren, Ohio. SWOC became the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) in 1943. Philip Murray, USWA founding president, once commented that Hall's leadership of the strike in Warren and Youngstown was a model of effective grassroots organizing.
It was also in Youngstown that Hall met Elizabeth Turner. They were married in 1935. Elizabeth Hall was a leader in her own right, among the first women steelworkers and a secretary of SWOC. They went on to have two children, Arvo and Barbara (Conway).
Hall and other rank-and-file steelworkers signed up workers who wanted to join a union:-
"This had to be a secret operation," Hall wrote in a 1972 letter to the USWA. "Any man who signed was immediately fired if it became known. As a matter of fact, I was fired. It was not until we had collected thousands of such signed cards that Lewis agreed to set up the [SWOC]. I was on the committee that presented the cards to John L. Lewis in the dugout of a baseball stadium where he was the speaker at a Miners' Day rally" in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Thus, Lewis was convinced and one of his first decisions was to hire Hall as a full-time SWOC organizer in the Mahoning Valley where he served as an international representative throughout the organizing drive and later as chairman of the strike committee during the strike. Under Hall's leadership, 10,000 workers were recruited to the steel union in the Mahoning Valley.
Later, he resigned his union post to become an organizer for the Communist Party in Youngstown.
Hall volunteered for the U.S. Navy when World War II broke out, serving as a machinist in Guam. He was honorably discharged March 6, 1946. After his return, he was elected to the National Executive board of the American Communist Party.

________

By the way, Dan Ryan interviewed Hall several times on his show when it was on WBBW, and Hall didn't sound like a fanatic.

[iwasthere]

no, gus hall did not wake up one morning then decide to turn communist after the little steel strike. what i read in past local history books that the dems turned a deaf ear and eye to the strikers after it ended and the local communist party continue to assist them to organize their own local steelworkers union.

[sfc_oliver]

He just suddenly woke up one morning and decided he wanted to be a Communist?

[iwasthere]

towntalk gus hall was a die heart democratic party  supporter and union organizer up until the little steel strike after the little steel strike that is when gus hall turned to the communist party.

[irishbobcat]

That's what FDR and Harry Truman fought for....

[Towntalk]

Dennis:

You didn't mention the fact that one of the organizers of the Little Steel Strike was no less than former Youngstowner Gus Hall who went on to be Chairman of the CPUSA.

[Dan Moadus]

Didn't our forefathers fight for justice in the steel strikes?

Dan, you are so far right you lean farther than the Tower of Pisa.......

That's cute Dennis. You know very well that when a communist refers to "class justice", he or she is referring to the confiscation of wealth, and it's re-distribution. Hardly what the steel workers were fighting for.

[irishbobcat]

Didn't our forefathers fight for justice in the steel strikes?

Dan, you are so far right you lean farther than the Tower of Pisa.......

[Dan Moadus]

The people involved with the "green" movement can be divided into two categories. Those who think it is about the environment, and those who are leading it now, and are using it to fight against Capitalism. The people who truly care about the environment are viewed as "useful idiots" by the leaders of the movement, because they know that "green" is the new red. The old communists have migrated to the environmental movement and have to a large degree co-opted it, because they recognized that a lot of the environmentalists already had "left" leanings. The environmental agenda fits in nicely with theirs, which of course is to destroy our Capitalist system.

Take a listen to Van Jones, Obama's newly appointed "Green Jobs" czar addressing a youth organization built around the so called "Green" agenda, and tell me you can't see what lies beneath: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVNtoAiOh1k then read this article: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=108441  where is says "Jones, formerly a self-described "rowdy black nationalist," boasted in a 2005 interview with the left-leaning East Bay Express that his environmental activism was a means to fight for racial and class "justice[/color]." 

[Towntalk]

Oil

[irishbobcat]

U.S. tour touts green energy jobs
   Aug 20, 2009   Akron Beacon Journal   
   Paula Schleis Aug. 20, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- A national transition to a "clean energy economy" will keep American manufacturers busy and put millions of people to work. Oh, and help the planet, too. That's the message that the Blue Green Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental organizations, is taking on the road with its "Made in America Jobs Tour," launching in Cleveland today. The educational tour, filled with rallies and technology demonstrations, will make 50 stops in 22 states between now and the end of September. "American workers and their families need jobs, and a clean energy economy is a sure-fire way to put our country back to work and on a path toward long-term economic prosperity," Maggie Fox, president of the Alliance for Climate Protection, said in a media conference call Wednesday. Northeast Ohio was an appropriate starting point, organizers said, because the modern wind turbine was engineered at the nearby NASA facility, and because Ohio's depressed economy represents what's at stake. The Blue Green Alliance believes if the U.S. instituted a national renewable energy standard, more than 850,000 manufacturing jobs at firms already in existence across the 50 states could be created in making parts for wind, solar, geothermal and biomass power industries. A Center for American Progress report also found that investing $150 billion a year in America's clean energy economy could create 1.7 million jobs, which could include retrofitting and constructing new energy efficient buildings and manufacturing next-generation, plug-in hybrid and electric cars. Lee Geisse, a steelworker from Canton, said she will be at today's rally to represent clean economy workers. She works at Allegheny Ludlum in Louisville, a plant that produces titanium, a specialty steel that has found use in new equipment making safe drinking water for third-world countries. "We have the opportunity to create 60,000 jobs in Ohio by investing in a clean energy economy," Geisse said. Leo Gerard, international president for the United Steelworkers, said in addition to production jobs, such an economy would increase demand for everything from truck drivers to electricians. Wind turbines have 8,000 components that have to be made by someone, he said. "The key is to make sure those jobs are using products made in America and we put American manufacturing back on its feet," Gerard said. Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE) was held up as an example of how green conversion can save and create jobs. FirstEnergy intends to repower one of its coal-burning plants with briquettes of wood chips, cornstalks, switch grass and grains. The plan to rely on renewable energy at the R.E. Burger Power Plant in Belmont County, which was scheduled to close, will cost $200 million, power 190,000 homes, save more than 100 jobs and create a couple of hundred jobs during the conversion process. "So you can see as we transition, there are lots of creative things that can be done and they can't be done offshore," said Michael Langford, national president of the Utility Workers Union of America. Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), said America took hundreds of years to go through its agricultural and industrial revolutions, but this latest revolution will only take 30 years. Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Newstex ID: KRTB-0006-37355867

Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party

www.ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/