Bush Is Jeered, Dukakis Heckled : Hard-Hats Boo GOP Nominee at Shipyard

George Bush carried his happy message of prosperity to a throng of ardently unhappy shipyard workers here Tuesday, and the GOP presidential nominee got a surprise earful--starting with a thunderous chorus of boos.

After that, the reaction of many of the 1,200 union workers toward Bush grew still coarser, even unprintable. Virtually each point in his 10-minute speech was hooted, hissed, heckled or worse.

The odd circumstance found the vice president delivering the praises of Administration economic policies to leathery hard-hat workers who feel victimized by these very policies.

The reaction on this day following Labor Day was the most overwhelmingly hostile Bush has experienced in the long presidential campaign.

Complains of Pay Cut

“I’d like to ask just one question,” laborer Ron Glasgow hollered, although Bush may not have heard him above the din. “You say you’ve done so much for me: How come my pay went from $13.36 to $9.50?”

At the root of the angry reception, according to many of the shipyard workers, is that every union at the Northwest Marine Iron Works has suffered a pay cut in the last five years. Moreover, the workers said they feared the growing number of non-union shipyard workers in the area.

“Under the Reagan presidency, we’ve been promised a lot of things we didn’t get. Our Navy contracts promised us a bonus, and we got a pay cut,” another laborer, Mark McDonald, complained to a reporter.

Bush first seemed taken aback by the unfriendly greeting, trying to smile as if this were just another crowd of traditional Republicans, never mind the gritty overalls and scuffed hard hats. Later in his speech, he grew feistier, pointing into the crowd and saying that some of the workers were simply too young to remember double-digit inflation during the last Administration.

With boos reverberating across the docks and profanities lacing the air, Bush continued: “Now wait for this one, now listen to this one, I know the truth sometimes hurts: In the last year alone, America has added 473,000 new manufacturing jobs.”

“George go home! George go home!” the crowd chanted.

Navy Ship Is Backdrop

Bush made his outdoor speech against a backdrop of a newly commissioned naval oiler, the Andrew J. Higgins. It may have been a case of the Bush staff’s being so absorbed with visual imagery in planning the vice president’s campaign stop that little consideration was given to the intensity of the audience’s political views.

As he left the stage, Bush called this a “very, er, interesting rally. It’s a challenge, you know . . . .

“I want to end by thanking you all--you’re exercising your rights; I’m exercising mine. The difference is (that) those who are exercising those rights for the opponent--the liberal from Massachusetts--are going to be on the losing side.”

Tries to Rebut Critics

In his speech, Bush tried to counter Democratic critics who frequently complain that behind the Administration’s glowing account of the number of new jobs in America are a lot of unhappy, poorly paid “hamburger flippers.”

“You want some more?” Bush asked. “ . . . Jobs averaging more than $10 an hour have been increased by 67%. Jobs less than $5 declined by more than 25%.”

The crowd responded with more chants: “Union buster! Union buster!”

Bush reached into his wallet and produced what he said was his own union card--showing him to have been a member of the United Steelworkers of America for six months in 1950. At the time, he sold oil-drilling equipment in California from his home on South Santa Fe Avenue in Compton.

The crowd seemed largely unimpressed. Only a few supporters in the front rows clapped, and the others again booed.

Won’t Avoid Union Crowds

Vice presidential Chief of Staff Craig L. Fuller said that, despite the reaction, Bush is not finished with union crowds. “We’re taking the campaign to blue-collar America. We’re going to do more of this.”

Bush himself tried to keep from looking rattled by the encounter.

“It’s like being a baseball player when you are out there 3-and-2, bases loaded, two runs behind and somebody begins yelling out. You can’t stop concentrating,” the one-time Yale first baseman said.

After his speech, Bush made an unscheduled stop at a shipyard lunch room, where a handful of company employees gave him a friendlier welcome.

“You can bet there are no damn Democrats here,” said safety supervisor Rene Garrett, who is a non-union worker.

Bush quipped: “Where were you out there?”

Friendlier Reception

From Portland, Bush traveled to Everett, Wash., where essentially the same speech received a friendly and uneventful response from 450 non-union white-collar electronics workers of the Fluke Manufacturing Co.

Likewise, supporters in Everett welcomed Bush with a band and flags and speeches at a small but friendly rally. That concluded two days of campaigning by Bush on the West Coast. He then left for Louisville, Ky., where he is to speak today.