WGBH Journal; Boston Jobs Coalition

And good evening and welcome to GBH Journal. I'm Greg Fitzgerald and tonight legislators join the battle to guarantee more construction jobs for Boston residents. Boston School Committee members stressed the importance of upcoming city elections at a special meeting this morning. An update on the legal and lobbying efforts around an issue of abortion in Massachusetts and the price of defense. A new strategy for military spending and analysis from the Boston study group presented last night's Cambridge for all of us on the journal right after a look at the local news. About twenty five hundred General Electric workers walked off their jobs today halting the company's jet engine production. The dispute at the Lynn plant revolves around the job classification of twenty nine workers. A company spokesperson said the sympathy strike effectively stopped production of aircraft engines used in the Navy's new FAA F-18 fighters and the Air Force F five freedom fighter. Peter Thiel the business agent of local to a one of the I you we said the strike would have a severe impact on military deliveries. Those who walked off their job today will join about 800 other

GI workers already on strike. The latest walkout came after management failed to meet union demands for the reclassification of 29 employees who had been on strike since October 1st. One unidentified union member told us today that the classification issue is one which G.E. refuses to bargain on because of its legal status in the courts behind it all she said is equal pay for equal work. It would you know. Thank you. 20 I believe it's 28 people in 20 mainly women or three men on the job now but it's been at a predominantly white women's job since 1959 when it was set up in the building it's in. The they were paid at this point they're paid 640 for an hour which is about a dollar an hour less than the average wage for a job of equal skill level which is mainly mainly held by men. And because of this there was a court it was filed a discrimination

case two years ago along with other similar cases. And it's been kept out of court. Mainly by the company. For the last year and a half. And so it is it is going quite right. It doesn't mean that we can't get the oil fired Edgar power station in Weymouth may be reopened as a coal fired plant by the Boston Edison Company Edison's President Francis to be disclosed today that they are studying the feasibility of converting the plant which could cost up to one billion dollars. He stressed the plant would not be needed until the early or mid 1990s and that it would serve only as a supplement or supplement not a replacement to the proposed pilgrim to nuclear power plant in Plymouth. The coal fired plant was shut down last winter amid strong criticism from many South Shore environmental groups Governor Edward King hailed a proposal to convert to a coal fired plant as an important step away from dependence on foreign oil. More than one

hundred thousand dollars in back pay and a total of ninety five days of vacation were awarded to four Plymouth County Correctional Officers fired in 1975 for engaging in union activities. This is the second highest back pay award in the history of the Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission. The four officers were fired by share of Lynwood Snow who the commission criticized for coercive and intimidating behavior designed to prevent employees from organizing. And if organized to crush the unions the state Labor Relations Commission reinstated the four employees last year. According to The Boston Globe BMB T.A. has submitted a 300 million dollar budget request which its chairman knows it can stay within the budget request for next year for next year overspends by 40 million dollars the amount needed to stay within the state's 4 percent spending cap. The budget previously excluded Thirty two million dollars for essential parts fuel programs and wages as well as more than 18 million for mandated contracts. The Globe

reported that the TE's budget was artificially reduced in order to improve chances of getting a second supplement to this year's budget in an unrelated story. The NBA has promised additional bus service for Boston Latin School students. The promise followed a meeting yesterday between MBT and school department officials to discuss the impact of the lack of service on troubles in Boston schools. And finally a Boston Public Employees Union today endorsed Mayor Kevin White's re-election bid claiming he has been consistently fair and reasonable. The Employees Union the JF s c m e is the largest AFL CIO labor group in Boston. It's a local affiliate of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Union. Earlier today White White was also endorsed by The Boston Herald American and that's the news. As we reported earlier this week Mayor White has yet to respond on the question of a job

residency requirement for one twenty one a construction developments in Boston. The Boston jobs coalition has been pushing white to require a 50 percent Boston jobs policy for those special projects where the city has waived property taxes. White has already signed an executive order for the Boston jobs policy in publicly funded projects but the 121 a project would mean another 3 billion dollars in construction wages for Boston workers over the next 10 years. The jobs coalition got a big boost on the 1 21 Day issue today when Boston's 11 state representatives appeared before the State House to demand over the state House media to demand that white include the 1 21 day developments in the Boston jobs policy from the north end to Mission Hill. The Boston reps demanded Boston jobs for Boston workers. Here's Representative Kevin Fitzgerald of Mission Hill. We understand that it's going to be difficult as in my own case in Mission Hill when one 2020 agreements were granted the hobbit affiliated hospitals a power plant in the site. We have one hell

of a time trying to get anybody from our community whether it be minority not a job on that site. We understand the process is one which is going to take some time but we have to take a step right in the right direction. Kevin why can't say something on the one hand and not be responsible and implemented on the other. And if you're just saying things we don't be willing to back it up. That's why we're here today to make sure that is backed up by the people of the city of Boston the residents that could possibly get construction jobs. I'm going to be left behind. And she's going to be a shell of the promise during election year. We don't want that and that's why we're here today. And I play Representative Barney Frank was probably the most articulate of the group this afternoon Frank told reporters that for years Boston has been taking risks on one 21 day developments by waving the property tax. And that while Boston residents have to face the expense of funding the lucrative business area through their property taxes. It's time that Boston residents start getting more of those construction jobs if we get in a world in which there was no problem of access to unions no problem of revenue distribution.

We wouldn't be here. We've given a state in which in my judgment I think that of my colleagues the city of Boston is in adequately compensated for the venue that turned within the city. We are the major wealth generating part of the state of Massachusetts. But the revenue structure doesn't reflect that. People in Boston on the home pay a higher property tax. And that's aside from whether this mayor that mayor should or should not lower the tax I know vulnerable were too high. And one twenty one is an example of that because one a one 21 day is granted remember we're not talking about all construction of the city of Boston. We're not insisting that purely private unsubsidized construction come on to us. What we're saying though is that if it's relevant for the 1 21 day for this reason. When a company comes up and builds a building with one twenty one a whether it's commercial or residential You don't get income tax break. You don't get a sales tax break. There are going to MIL's tax break effects for the building they don't get a hotel tax break they get a break in one thing the property tax. It's the city of Boston revenue flow that is interfered with. It's a policy that we've got where the city is granting a subsidy its city residents whose

taxes are going to go to make that up. So what I'm saying for myself I think that this is something you find most Boston elected officials agreeing on as long as you've got a situation where the city is really not fairly compensated for the economic activity takes place within it for the noise and the construction problems and the in and out that we have to put up with as long as we're not fairly compensated by the fact of the revenue being generated here doesn't stay here in sufficient amount. Then we feel justified in saying that when we're going to take the step of subsidizing from our property tax revenues construction which will be a state wide economic benefit then we want to have those benefits. What seems to be blocking those job benefits from going to Boston residents is the building trade unions which workers must go through in order to be placed on a project. Eighty percent of the membership of the trade councils are from suburban communities. And it's a strong opposition to a Boston residency requirement. Mayor White had promised to announce his decision on one 21 day developments and their relationship to Boston jobs by September 20th. But as yet has stayed clear of the issue. And if the statements of his press aide are of any significance

he probably won't make any statement until after the election. The 11 reps who demanded watch to support the jobs policy for 121 AI developments have set next Tuesday as a deadline for that support. With the end of abortion Action Week approaching Massachusetts pro-choice activists are heavily involved in organizing around the issue. Lawyers have been explaining the ins and outs of the complicated abortion court battle and lobbyist have been training volunteers statewide to work on the 1980 campaigns of pro-abortion candidates. Amy Sands has more. This week featured a forum on abortion in the law on Monday which lawyers close to the issue explain the complex contortions of the continuing court fight over a Massachusetts abortion statutes those statutes have come thick and fast in the past few years culminating this year in the most

restrictive Medicaid abortion law in the country passed by the legislature in early summer the law prohibits Medicaid payments for abortion unless a woman's life is in danger. But that law like the one before it passed in 1978 has never yet gone into effect because of a court injunction won by pro-choice lawyers working with the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union. That injunction has now ended though and the law is scheduled to go into effect in a month. Except that Civil Liberties Union lawyer Nancy Gertner thinks that Klum can stop it once again. Right now great credit for the new Medicaid limitation but it will take them at least a month. To give notice to recipients of a change in the law and to implement it during that month we have every intention of trying to get another inch or so that the bottom line is that I believe that this law is not going to be enforced medically necessary abortions will still be paid for by the state.

Goodyear is planning to argue against the law in federal court on constitutional grounds. Using a legal line of thinking which has proved successful in several other states she will maintain that restricting Medicaid for abortion violates the Equal Protection Amendment of the Bill of Rights. If you look at the Medicaid program and you look at what's covered and what's not covered there's a part of people's rights to equal protection of the laws are being violated in this way. Women who want abortion are not covered. But for people who want to hear what a riot or other kind of medical services are covered and that's a violation of equal protection. If it didn't we argued that hated women and women who want to give birth are covered pregnancy or covered whereas women have a right to terminate their pregnancy or not and that of violation of equal protection in the political arena Massachusetts pro-choice lobbying group moral has been intensively organizing for election year campaign impact 80 it's a nationwide pro-choice effort to protect sympathetic state legislators and congresspeople from defeat at

the hands of anti-abortion groups in the 1080 Aleck sions right to lifers have reportedly prepared a hit list of pro-choice elected officials including Massachusetts congressperson Robert drawn in and morals Jean Weinberg says her group is preparing a strong defense by teaching volunteers how to work effectively in political campaigns that through political skills workshops a political skill Workshop we're calling them the nuts and bolts of a political campaign. I basically meant to demystify. Politics there are a lot of people who'd be more than willing to go spend an hour or two working in a campaign office if they weren't afraid. I for one have never worked in campaigns until last year and when I walked in the door what hit me was that there was a special language a structure materials being news that everybody else seemed to know was going on but me and I realized that in order to encourage people to become politically active one really needed to break down that barrier and explain what did the terms mean. What is the structure. What is the response been to the political skills workshops. There's been an incredible response I sat in one the other night

Tuesday and there was over 50 people. The room was about 90 degrees and I was the one most ICI in the entire room people sat there. It's a two hour workshop with one break and there was just excitement and attention throughout the entire workshop. Five workshops were held this week in Massachusetts including one in Western Massachusetts one in Danvers one on the south shore and one in Brookline. At least five more planned in a few months. Weinberg says the workshops represent round two of the impact 80 campaign impact 80 actually is a national program being done by name around the National Abortion Rights Action League I am the director around the country. We have organizers right now in six different states and we're looking to hire for five more. The goal is to take people as they sit in active in their living rooms believing that abortion should be safe and legal. Through a series of activities one being a house meeting where they learn about the seriousness of the challenges to abortion rights and the first thing is that they can do to help meet those challenges too is to a lobbying visit so that they begin to learn their

political address so that they know who represents them and that in fact they do have the right to tell those people what to do. Three is a political skills workshop and four is the voting booth in 1980. Its slogan is I am pro-choice and I vote. And we ask people round one signed a postcard put a bumper sticker on buy a T-shirt ran to register to vote. Choose a candidate and make sure that as a viable working majority will be able to hold onto those abortion rights elsewhere in this Abortion Rights Action Week plans are in the works for an abortion rights fair and rally on Saturday at the Grover Cleveland school in Dorchester featured speakers include Boston municipal court judge Margaret Burnham for GBH Journal. I mean the sands. Are just about two weeks from now voters in Boston will be heading for the polls choosing city officials

ranging from the mayor members of the school committee and the City Council. The mayor's race has been publicized heavily lately but given the racial climate in the city's public schools the school committee election has been a sleeper but has great significance. That was the premise of this morning's meeting called by school committee president David Finnegan Henrietta Davis was there and she prepared this report for you right here. For the past several years you would have liked them creating a safe educational environment. We would just do it in peace and harmony. Today Boston School Committee president David Finnegan said that the children of Boston had been robbed of the peaceful education they deserve at a special meeting he asked leaders in business athletics academics and the cultural community to stay involved with the schools because they needed now more than ever. Finnigan also stressed that the upcoming school committee election is the most crucial in the history of the city school committee member John Bryant

agrees this is without question the most important election prize of schools a concern because. I think over the last 22 months we have established the tone we have established an attitude. We have said we have stablished of a form of behavior that must continue if we're going to have a pull out of the doldrums within a number of years. And if the citizens of Boston I'm really serious about the schools and they'll take care. To look over the field and only vote for those candidates that they feel will do the job. What do you think. What are you looking for in their school committee what kinds of things. Would you. Well you know every time I meet a that will continue to pay. Support to the superintendent. And to content continue compliance with the court and with the state in terms of all the state legislation in a committee that that has a firm commitment to the kids into the city of Austin. The people I think can do that job are the two incumbents himself and John Jay McDonough

and three newcomers. Jean Sullivan MCKEAG Jean McGuire and Kevin McCluskey. But the most important person in reducing racial tension the city says O'Bryant is the mayor. The mayor has got to demonstrate that he in fact is running this city. And that he's not going to tolerate. Violence. He's not going to permit people to. Abuse one another and not be held accountable. In the police and in the court say you know one of the big problems is that the courts. For too long have been slapping people on the wrist if they're white. In jailing them if they're black and it's been on equal justice and that's got to stop. Also at today's meeting was Patriots owner Billy Sullivan. Sullivan responded to Finnegan's request for help from the athletic community by pledging to send players into the Boston schools the hope is that athletes as heroes will be particularly effective in getting across a message about teamwork in the schools. I've talked to our coach and they will send you know their names of black and

white players so I mean going to a pair of athletes at a time to the schools. And talk to the kids on the value of teamwork you know idea of nurturing the you know the good ideas phases of life rather than the fun of it rather than the bad ones so I think this is a place to be able to go in say one day a week and write yes and I think we will we'll start out with the high schools. You're going to probably go to some of the larger. Junior high school. And live the general program would be that I thought they were just going to assembly. We'll talk a little bit about football so that it doesn't look like just a sales pitch and then let them know that this is the opportunity to be good citizens. It is enhanced if they level rather than pay. They try to preach the doctrine that. When a football team. LIKE I WAS know an architect like A is really a black and white the only question is do you put those

School Committee president Finnegan hopes to encourage other members of the community to visit the schools and to talk to kids rather than have the kids out in the streets trying to get their message across to them for GBH Journal. I'm Henrietta Davis. Well the Strategic Arms Limitation treaties are salt to picked up more support last night at the Cambridge forum from Dr. Martin Morey D. Randall Forsberg and Paul Walker all members of the Boston Study Group. This group of scientists and researchers

from Harvard and MIT spent four years studying U.S. military spending strategy. Dr. Paul Walker spoke on the study group's conclusions in relation to sell to. First of all it leaves us with an enormous debate. You know one side says salt is good for detente. Kissinger argued that for a long time until the last few days when his memoirs came out the second side says Salt is a sellout. Now the New York Times for example a few months ago said if the Russians wanted it must be bad for us. The third side says Salt is not arms control it's rather regularized is racing. And that's essentially the position that we would take. It allows bargaining chips. It allows too much technological advance. It's a step in the right direction but really a very small step. I would say in conclusion that Seoul. Should not be seen as a great panacea at all. It's not the result we want. It's a strategic stability. It's only a part of a complex equation which must take many things into account. U.S. and Soviet intentions perceptions of

each other. The relative capabilities their relations elsewhere in the world and their domestic political and economic constraints I think we all here tonight should support salt. I don't mean to be overly critical of it but we should support it very critically and I would argue and we argue in the price of defense that the United States is in the position and should be willing to have the courage to take some unilateral measures which will not endanger our own national security. And see if the Soviets reciprocate. I think given the chance they will reciprocate if they don't reciprocate. We haven't lost anything we've probably saved some money and we've created a more stable balance. I would also argue that a more trusting relationship be developed between the United States and the Soviets one that is based on understanding rather than on blind assumptions. One that is based on mutual interests rather than brute force one which recognises not only our competitive differences but also the positive similar goals and responsibilities. Essentially what I'm arguing is let's take the white

and black hats. Put them on the closet shelf and put on the gray hats which really belong on the Soviets and the Americans. Salt can be one step in this development. Group member Dr. Martin Moore read stated the group's conclusions. He said that a better stronger safer defense for the U.S. and its allies could be bought for fifty billion dollars less than is now spent on the military. He spoke on how the cuts recommended by the group would affect Japan Western Europe NATO for the defense of western Europe and Japan the Boston Study Group recommended an undiminished U.S. commitment. The NATO's commitment however only justifies about half of the conventional spending of the United States military. Indeed our proposals would result in an even greater. Ability to support a war in NATO's should it occur. The cuts we recommend will not weaken the security of the United States or our major allies visa be the Soviet Union United States or

continue to help deter war in Europe which is the main regional conventional Soviet strength. In fact Soviet conventional forces were nane outnumbered when one considers the combined arms of potential enemies around the periphery of the USSR. Clearly in the USA West Germany France Britain Noto countries and China are in the east. More read then explain what this 50 billion dollar card could mean to the U.S. economy and the job market. Let's think about the social and economic implications of the 50 billion dollar a year cut. We propose this transferred in the civilian economy would mean a gain of 2 million more jobs. New jobs can open up for the unskilled in fields of health care education construction Public Works For example perhaps even more important the return of 100000 to 200000 skilled employees a year. Presently in the defense bureaucracy and workforce will

strengthen the industrial and technical logical base of the American economy. We've recommended budgeting 4 billion dollars a year to smooth this transition and lay off pavements retraining programs and benefits to impacted localities. Our changes are phased in gradually and indeed the proposed proposals would take 5 to 10 years for completion. However what we will be doing is that we will be turning this country from the military industrial complex to peace time production and prosperity. The group's conclusions by the way has been published in appears in a book entitled The price of defense. And that's to be a journal for tonight. Our producer and director this evening was Marshall Hertz

our engineer was Stephen Colbert and we had a lot of production assistants tonight we have Bob nerd Luke Walker Orna Feldman Anita McFadden and Bob Rudolph all chipping in as much as they could. For GBH Journal. I'm Greg Pitts Gerald. Good night.