BY BILL KALMAN
DES MOINES, Iowa - Industrial magnate Maurice Taylor, one of the candidates running for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, is not as well known in the country as other Republican contenders. But his campaign is noteworthy for what it reveals about U.S. politics today.
With demagogy reminiscent of Ross Perot, Taylor calls himself a "no nonsense entrepreneur" who can unite people of diverse interests with bold action. Appealing to workers battered by the economy as a "shop-floor populist," he rails against a corrupt Washington establishment and promises to "get things done," even if that means sacrificing some democratic rights and social gains.
Taylor, who likes to call himself "Morry," is the multimillionaire chief executive of Titan Wheel International, based in Quincy, Illinois. Titan, the world's largest manufacturer of steel wheels and rims for off-road moving equipment, controls an estimated 80 percent of the construction wheel market and 90 percent of the farm equipment wheel market in North America. Its sales surged 270 percent last year to $407 million. Taylor's personal fortune is estimated at over $30 million.
Taylor declares that "good paying jobs, getting rid of [federal government] bureaucrats, and common sense business practices will make a difference in the future of working men and women." As proof that his campaign is in the interests of industrial workers, he notes that his national campaign headquarters is on the third floor of a tire plant in Des Moines.
While running for now inside the Republican Party, Taylor poses as being independent from the "special interests" in Washington. He claims that as a businessman he knows how to deal with cutting bureaucracy and brags, as Perot did in 1992, that he will finance his campaign from his own personal fortune.
"It's time the voters tried some kind of tough sucker like me," he likes to say.
In the name of being "tough" on the budget deficit, Taylor calls for drastic attacks on workers' social gains, from Social Security to occupation health and safety. He also advocates a regressive flat tax, which would hit workers the hardest.
In a full page ad that appeared in USA Today in June 1994, which he signed "The American Grizzly," the businessman called for shutting down the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), exempting doctors and hospitals from malpractice suits, and raising the retirement age from 65 to 68. "There is plenty of time after 68 to bask in the golden years," the ad stated. In campaign speeches he also proposes freezing Social Security levels.
In the ad Taylor also advocated mandatory sterilization for workers on welfare, and no tax supported services for children of unemployed parents.
To appear evenhanded, the millionaire calls for reining in military spending. "The Pentagon? Mothball that sucker," he tells campaign audiences.
Joining the "anticrime campaign," Taylor's 1994 ad also supported televised whippings as punishment for simple misdemeanors, saying that this would bring "constructive violence to our televisions, possibly through a new cable network with advertising dollars used to pay for new solitary prison cells." He has since downplayed the ad.
`Hands-on' experience as exploiter
Many workers in Iowa and Illinois have had firsthand
knowledge of Taylor's "tough" approach as a businessman.
Taylor's Titan Wheel employs 3,000 workers in 13 plants and 7 warehouses in North America, and another 2,000 worldwide. Only about one-quarter of Titan's workforce is unionized.
In 1993, Titan bought the DICO wheel-making plant in Des Moines, which was organized by the International Association of Machinists (IAM). The plant had a history of significant environmental problems. Since 1983, DICO had been on the EPA's Superfund list due to pollution caused by the solvent TCE. DICO is located close to the Raccoon River, Des Moines's main water supply.
When Titan bought the plant, the EPA ordered Taylor to pay for additional clean up. He balked and threatened to move the plant out of state. In March 1994, state and local authorities worked out an "economic incentive package" with the company costing between $1 million and $1.5 million in public funds to subsidize a $5 million loan for Taylor to keep DICO in town. This deal was sweetened with concessions by the Machinists union, which was Taylor's main objective. The EPA agreed to back off some of their demands.
Then, in October 1994, Taylor gave DICO's 250 workers 60 days notice of his intent to close the plant, blaming the EPA, whose preliminary testing had found "very significant" levels of chemicals and pesticides in the soil around a storage pond on the plant premises. A week after his shutdown threat, the EPA relented again and the plant remained in operation. Finally, in March 1995, Taylor closed the plant for good.
In July 1994 members of the United Rubber Workers (URW) union went on strike against Pirelli plants in Nashville, Tennessee; Hanford, California; and in Des Moines to protest the company's elimination of health insurance benefits. Taylor immediately offered to buy the struck plant. Pirelli readily agreed, and Titan promptly proposed a back-to-work agreement to the URW.
Taylor's contract proposal eroded seniority provisions, cut all retirement benefits for retirees, reduced job classifications, and authorized higher pay for more skilled workers. The giveback proposals sparked resistance from workers.
After five and a half weeks, however, the local union leadership decided to end the strike and go back to work. When the union advised returning workers to file grievances with the National Labor Relations Board, Taylor retorted, "If they want to get into legalese, I'll just chew them up and spit them out like nothing."
In early 1995 the URW local voted 428 to 10 against Titan's "best and final offer," which included wage cuts and cuts in pension benefits, medical coverage, and vacation pay. But with the continuing threats of a plant shutdown, in April the local voted 343 to 140 to accept concessions.
This and other vicious attacks on unions and workers have earned Taylor the hatred of many workers in the Midwest. As one worker at the Titan tire plant in Des Moines put it, "I've seen what he's done inside the plant, so I know what he wants to do outside the plant," referring to the industrialist's presidential bid. "He's nothing but a vulture."
Bill Kalman is a member of United Transportation Union Local 867 in Des Moines.