UAW People

CHELLIE PINGREE
UAW Member Takes on Rx Industry

Story by Jennifer John

Martha Mickles

Chellie Pingree (left) with supporters of her race for the U.S. Senate.

Chellie Pingree’s first visit to the UAW Family Education Center in 1993 was truly an education.

At a Region 9A retreat for union leaders, legislators and labor activists, the former Democratic state senator from Maine gained a new appreciation of how politics can help working families. She returned to Black Lake in 1995.

“I didn’t know much about unions, but those trips completely changed many of my opinions regarding the issues affecting working men and women,” said Pingree, a member of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981.

As Maine’s Senate majority leader, Pingree fought for social and economic justice, taking on powerful adversaries, most notably the pharmaceutical industry.

In 2000, she sponsored the nation’s first bipartisan prescription drug pricing bill. The successful passage of this legislation has provided a model for state policy makers across the country.

“If we can keep people healthy, we can reduce our long-term health costs. It’s a good return on investment,” said Pingree, 46, a mother of three children.

Now after eight years as a state legislator (she was term-limited last year), Pingree is running for the U.S. Senate. She faces incumbent Republican Susan Collins, a first-term senator who was elected in 1996 with 49 percent of the vote.

Pingree’s challenge to unseat Collins is just one of 34 Senate races next year. But with a precariously balanced Senate, the fights for those seats, 20 Republican and 14 Democratic, are shaping up as high-stakes contests.

From her home base in North Haven, Maine--population 350--Pingree actively works to combat the pharmaceutical companies’ legal challenge to the new prescription drug pricing law.

If elected, she has vowed to continue her fight for lower drug prices and a full Medicare prescription drug benefit for seniors.

“In politics, the important thing is to know what your values are, stick to them and do the right thing,” Pingree said. “When we took on the pharmaceutical industry, no one thought we could win.”

JAMES GOLDSMITH
UAW Retiree Heads VFW

Story by Mike Rosenbaum

James Goldsmith leads the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The leader of the Veterans of Foreign Wars is a busy man in the best of times. And these are not the best of times.

“It’s been really hectic” since Sept. 11, says James N. Goldsmith, who was elected VFW commander-in-chief in August.

Goldsmith is on the road about 300 days per year. He travels from coast to coast and around the world, meeting with government officials, giving speeches, attending ceremonies and talking with U.S. servicemen and women. “I meet with everybody from President Bush on down,” he says. Last year he traveled to Vietnam with President Clinton.

It all started in 1967 when his shop committeeman at General Motors’ AC Spark Plug (now Delphi) facility in Flint, Mich., signed Goldsmith up with the VFW, less than one week after Goldsmith returned from duty in Vietnam.

Goldsmith worked for GM for 35 years and was a member of UAW Local 651, where he helped establish a veterans’ committee. At the same time, he moved steadily up the VFW’s ranks.

It wasn’t easy to combine work with VFW duties. Management usually “worked with me,” he says, although some supervisors “were not very sympathetic to my cause. But I was able to get around it.”

The VFW, including its ladies auxiliary, has 2.7 million members. It focuses on community service, veterans’ issues, and assists our active military personnel.

What should the public do to support our armed forces?

“We all need a pat on the back once in a while,” says Goldsmith. “We take them for granted. I think the military people need that ‘thank you’ for doing a good job, even in peacetime because they’re certainly not overpaid.”

When his one-year term as commander-in-chief ends, Goldsmith will continue to serve the group. “I can’t see myself ever not being active.”