Mexican Teachers: "Education is Not a Class Privilige, It is a Social Right"

by Jack Gerson

The previous post on this blog, Ken Hanley's article "Mexico Teachers Strike Closes Classes in Several States", gave a partial picture of the massive and bitter struggle that has been going on across most of southern and central Mexico for nearly a year, including months-long and ongoing mass strikes of teachers in several Mexican states. The root cause of the conflict is the attempt by Mexico's new president, Enrique Pena Nieto, to impose austerity in the form of a neoliberal education agenda akin to the assault on public education in the U.S. and the UK, including tieing teachers' jobs to student performance on high stakes standardized tests, weakening union rights, and modifying the curriculum to be "business-friendly" -- as dictated by the World Bank and a cabal of multinational banks and corporations.

The best popular background article on the Mexican struggle is David Bacon's "U.S.-Style School Reform Goes South",  published last April in The Nation magazine:

http://www.thenation.com/article/173308/us-style-school-reform-goes-south#

However, since that article was published, the struggle has really heated up. Teachers in Guerrero, Michoacan and other states have walked out, joining the Oaxacan teachers (discussed in Bacon's article), mainly led by the CNTE (a large radical national grouping in the national teachers' union).

I think that the essence of the struggle is contained in the April 22 declaration of the teachers of Michoacan state stating their grievances and their resolve and their intention to strike until their grievances were resolved. I'm including it in the original Spanish, but I'll translate the heading:  "Education is not a Class Privilige, it is a Social Right."

-->

“LA EDUCACIÓN NO ES UN PRIVILEGIO DE CLASE, ES UN DERECHO SOCIAL”

A LA  OPINIÓN PÚBLICA

A LAS GOBIERNOS FEDERAL Y ESTATAL

A LOS MEDIOS DE COMUNICACIÓN:

Hoy, 22 de abril del año 2013, el magisterio michoacano, nos dirigimos a ustedes para hacer saber la determinación que hemos tomado de asumir nuestros deberes cívicos, frente a las reformas laboral, energética, fiscal y educativa, y lo hacemos una vez que tocamos todas las puertas de gobierno, que buscamos oídos para nuestras peticiones, que solicitamos  la protección de la justicia ante los tribunales, que públicamente hemos solicitado ser incluidos en las discusiones para la construcción del modelo educativo  que requiere este país, y la respuesta ha sido negativa. Pero, al mismo tiempo, el trato que nos dan es de difamación desde los medios de comunicación, para justificar el uso de la represión policiaca. Por todo lo anterior, a partir de esta fecha NOS DECLARAMOS EN PARO DE LABORES POR TIEMPO INDEFINIDO, hasta lograr respuestas satisfactorias en lo referente a:

1. La  abrogación del decreto, emitido por Enrique Peña Nieto, que reforma los artículos 3° y 73 de la Constitución, por lesionar el carácter gratuito de la educación al imponer cuotas a los padres de familia, y permitir que la educación sea un negocio de los empresarios; por lesionar los derechos sociales y laborales, legítimamente legados por los hombres que nos dieron Patria; por pretender instituir el contratismo y buscar el despido de más de un millón de maestros con un examen tramposo, que no es una evaluación; y por buscar un mayor empobrecimiento de los contenidos educativos, en detrimento de la formación integral de los estudiantes.

2. El castigo correspondiente a Elba Esther Gordillo Morales por el despojo de nuestro dinero y otros delitos cometidos contra el magisterio y el pueblo de México. Que se realice un proceso de elección de los representantes en nuestro sindicato,  donde todos los profesores participemos. Desconocemos la imposición, por parte del gobierno federal, de Juan Díaz de la Torre, miembro de la mafia de Elba Esther.

3. El respeto total a las Normales formadoras de docentes, por ser un pilar fundamental de la educación pública y gratuita, y legado de la Revolución Mexicana.

4. Que se ponga un alto a la represión física, administrativa, mediática y laboral que los gobiernos estatal y federal han emprendido contra los maestros que luchamos por nuestros derechos y por la defensa de la educación pública, científica, nacional y gratuita.

 Sabidos de los riesgos que corremos por las amenazas de un gobierno que se niega a respetar el derecho de niños y jóvenes de acceder a la cultura universal, tomamos esta determinación porque estamos seguros de la justeza de las demandas, y tenemos claro  que, si bien el Paro Indefinido reduce el número de días clase en las escuelas, no salir a luchar contra esta mal intencionada reforma, es renunciar a contar con escuelas públicas y con programas de estudio basados en el progreso de las ciencias y la tecnología, orientados al desarrollo de las facultades humanas. No salir a luchar, sería seguir aceptando programas de estudio y textos empobrecidos, que tienen al día de hoy resultados catastróficos en niños y jóvenes, y dejarle paso libre al creciente cobro de cuotas y a la destrucción del sistema educativo. Por el cariño y compromiso hacia nuestros niños y jóvenes, seguiremos luchando con la mayor organización, inteligencia y solidaridad posibles.

Echar abajo la reforma educativa no será cosa sencilla, se requiere  contar con la participación decidida y consciente de toda la sociedad en las acciones de oposición y presión política. Se unifican los ricos empresarios, el gobierno, los diputados, senadores, partidos políticos y medios masivos de comunicación para imponer la reforma educativa en contra de los intereses y aspiraciones del pueblo. Por ello, nuestro llamado a unificar todas las fuerzas del pueblo es urgente, por el presente y futuro de la Patria.

Vamos a una intensa Jornada Nacional de Lucha, al lado de los trabajadores y pueblos de Guerrero, Oaxaca, Morelos, Chiapas, Baja California Sur, Quintana Roo, Puebla, Distrito Federal, Tlaxcala, San Luis Potosí, Coahuila, Veracruz, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Jalisco, entre otros.

Informamos que en el marco del Paro, además de acciones de presión política, realizaremos actividades culturales, pedagógicas, deportivas, sobre el cuidado del medio ambiente, alimentación sana, etc., en los centros escolares y comunidades, como parte del compromiso que hemos asumido en  el Congreso Estatal Popular de Educación y Cultura, realizado los días 17,18 y 19 de abril, en la ruta de implementar un modelo educativo que responda a los intereses de TODOS los michoacanos.

Y, aunque queda claro, es necesario decirlo: es responsabilidad del gobierno federal y estatal el estallamiento del paro de labores, por su intención de acabar con la educación gratuita de los mexicanos, ¡NO LO VAMOS A PERMITIR!

ATENTAMENTE

“POR LA EDUCACIÓN AL SERVICIO DEL PUEBLO”

SECCIÓN XVIII DEL SNTE-CNTE

MICHOACÁN

Read More

BART Strike: It can be won if the Unions change course.

Tom Hock, the 1%'s man at BART.  Reason enough to support BART workers

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

At the request of California Governor Jerry Brown, a judge has stepped in and prevented Bay Area Rapid Transit workers from walking off the job. 

There is now another cooling off period, a 60 day one this time in the hope that the two sides can come to some agreement.  The judge, Curtis karnow, issued the injunction he said because the law said that he "shall" do so if he found that a strike would "significantly disrupt public transportation services and endanger the public's health, safety or welfare."   He added, "I read the word 'shall' as direction from the Legislature that I have to issue the order if the conditions are true,and I understand the parties all agree that those conditions are true."

In 60 days the unions can legally strike although as each day goes by the chance of winning one decreases.  Why the 1%’s courts wouldn’t claim a strike would,  “endanger the public's health, safety or welfare.” 60 days from now one can only wonder.

This dispute can be won but BART workers alone cannot win it and by that I mean make gains rather than slightly less aggressive concessions which has been the policy of the strategists atop organized Labor for decades. It cannot be won without the involvement of the communities in which we work and live. The power is not at the negotiating table; it is in the ranks of the trade union movement acting in unity with all workers and our communities.  As one of the prominent leaders of the 1%, George Schulz pointed out: “Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.”   He is right about that.

The power of a united movement and direct action tactics must be brought to bear on the force behind this dispute and that’s the 1% whose intention it is to crush public sector unions and privatize public services. This comes after their victories over the autoworkers with the help of the UAW leadership at the highest levels. It is part of their plan to put the US working class on rations.

Unfortunately, the strategy and tactics that the leadership of the unions involved have applied so far, along with those in the International and regional bodies to which these unions are affiliated, have actually isolated BART workers further and made victory more difficult.

My view as I explained in previous commentaries, is that the unions involved, ATU 1555, AFSCME 3993 and SEIU 1021 which represent BART, and ATU 192 which represents AC Transit workers, the bus operators, should have been meeting way prior to the deadlines.  There should have been mass meetings of the members of these locals and out of this, a strike committee formed that would not just direct picket lines but also reach out to the rest of the trade union movement and our communities and develop a program that meets our needs rather than one that is acceptable to the 1% and the Democratic Party.  City of Oakland workers who were also in contract talks at the time should have also been approached. Other public sector unions were, and some still are in contract talks.  What good is a national organization of working people if local unions are left to fight what amounts to the forces of global capitalism alone? The best way to avoid a strike is to be fully prepared to win one beforehand and bring our natural allies on board.

Instead, when BART workers struck last month for four and a half days, bus drivers at AC Transit represented by ATU 192 could have legally struck but the union leaders refused to bring them out and they worked through it. This weakened both BART workers and AC Transit workers in their struggle for a better contract after years of concessions. City of Oakland workers in SEIU 1021 that also represents BART workers were also in contract talks and went on a one-day strike at the time but all these struggles were disconnected.  SEIU 1021 settled with the City of Oakland and ATU 192 has settled with AC Transit leaving BART workers out there on their own.  You don’t have to be a labor “expert” or an academic to see the flaws in this strategy. The mood at the Transit board meeting I went to before the strike was one of unity and cooperation between the members of both ATU 192 and 1555.

I have been in a couple of meetings of a solidarity committee that union officials also attend and they actually made the point that the public has to be included, that “an attack on BART workers is an attack on all workers “ which it is. The BART workers’ message, according to Chris Finn, Recording Secretary for ATU 1555 must get out to the public. Unfortunately, that message isn’t clear other than the quote above, and even that is somewhat muted. I saw Pete Castelli, the Executive Director of SEIU 1021 representing 52,000 workers at the solidarity meeting and heard him on TV later where he pointed out that a major problem was that BART was not negotiating in good faith.  Perhaps brother Castelli mentioned the solidarity committee and urged members of the working public to get involved with it bringing their issues to the table and the media censored these comments, but I doubt it.

“Negotiate in good faith” is a commonly used term used by top labor officials as to why   contract talks are stalled or strikes occur.  More often than not, union officials take workers out on strike over unfair labor practices like this not bargaining in good faith nonsense because they accept the bosses argument that concessions have to be made to make us competitive so striking for gains is pointless; they accept that society can’t afford it.

The fact that the 1% want to undermine BART workers pensions and health benefits has nothing to do with negotiating in good faith like some character flaw. It is a continuation of this process to take back from us what we have won over a century or more of struggle. Workers should not be ashamed of defending wages we can live on and a pension that is enough to keep us form working at MacDonald’s in our later years to get by. Every labor struggle should demand such retirements for all workers.

The bosses never negotiate in good faith, never have and never will. Despite gag orders or during cooling off periods, the war against the BART workers in the 1%’s media has been ferocious and has had an effect as polls indicate.  A KPIX 5 poll two weeks ago found the public supported the management by a 2-to-1, margin. Throw enough mud at someone and some of it will stick.

In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, one of their mouthpieces, the columnist Chip Johnson points out that “..few public or private blue collar workers outside California have the kinds of generous retirement plans offered by CALPERS, the state’s municipal retirement system.”  “ Well they should have.” should be organized labor’s public response. And if generosity means being able to take ones family on a vacation and not have to go work at a fast food place at 65 to make ends meet, what’s wrong with that?

He then goes on to make the point that behind the BART workers’ motivation is that they’re blue collars workers who “like their counterparts in the private sector they have watched with disbelief and disgust as other public employees…….game the system for small fortunes.”  Among others, he gives city administrators, police and firefighters as an example.

But even those public administrators who “game” the system as he calls it cannot be compared to the activities of the hedge fund and private equity crowd and the bankers and other coupon clippers who plunder the wealth of society, not to mention the trillions of taxpayer dollars spent in predatory wars fought on behalf of the global corporations.  Someone earning $200,000 a year is not the cause of the capitalist economic crisis, especially in California, the home to most of the world’s billionaires. The system is fundamentally flawed and in crisis.

A serious weakness in the way the union officials are conducting this dispute is that the war for the heart and soul of the public is a one sided one. The leaders of the Unions involved though they have made appeals to the public for support and made reference to the attacks on BART workers being an attack on all workers have nothing concretely to offer the public. There is nothing on the table for the public that can counter the bosses’ propaganda against the workers. (See previous commentaries for more on this issue under the BART label on this blog).

If the union leaders want to make gains in this dispute as opposed to accepting slightly fewer concessions than the bosses want, they have to change course.  If they are a serious about building community support they have to have concrete issues on the negotiating table that appeal to the public, that make the difficulties they face through a strike worth going through and that will bring them in to it as conscious participants. But nether Chris Finn of the ATU or SEIU’s Pete Castelli, who have influence in these unions that those of us who want to help from the outside, have indicated they are serious about winning.  They have not said anything that would appeal to the public and counter the bosses’ ferocious propaganda war, nor have they reflected on the present strategy and made any efforts to correct it.

Just last weekend Roxanne Sanchez president of SEIU 1021 stated "BART management must come to the table prepared for real negotiations to reach a fair resolution so that we don't have a situation where we are all sitting here on Day 59 with no meaningful effort by management to negotiate,"

What does this mean; ”real negotiations” and a “fair resolution”?  The forces that brought in the union buster and privatization Czar Tom Hock know exactly what they’re doing.  They are clear on their goals and their goal is to do to the public sector what they’ve done to the private.  Let us consider that that autoworkers wages were cut in half by these people. You can read sister Sanchez' election program here.  You won’t see opposition to the Team Concept, the most destructive union policy on it.

"As we've said all along, we want to get an agreement," said another SEIU spokesperson, which is a meaningless statement. The bosses’ want an agreement too, but it’s what’s in that agreement that is the issue.

Chris Finn, ATU 1555’s Recording secretary who says the public must hear the BART workers’ message, pointed out Sunday through the media that BART workers took $100 million in concessions and that BART has a $125 million surplus but then urged the public to contact their representatives and their legislators and get them to look at BART’s finances. But the vast majority of the public, those workers who would actually get involved in this dispute if there was reason to, have no faith in these, legislators. Pointing out that the money is there is correct but left alone, many less fortunate workers and the unorganized will see this as just limiting the issues to those workers involved. It would have been more fruitful to urge them to get involved in the solidarity committee and point out what such unity could bring them. George Poppyack, the chief negotiator for the AFSCME local made a similar statement that if BART put the money on the table they’d talk. This does not help undermine BART’s propaganda that their employees are just greedy.

Urging workers to appeal to Democratic legislators, Union officials are urging us to place our faith in a party their own members and most of the working class have abandoned.

“There’s no reason”there should be the threat of a strike, Brother Finn announced through the media.  But there is.  The bosses will not stop. The 1% will not be coaxed away from their goal to place US workers on rations and the Democrats cannot be relied upon to halt their patron’s agenda.  This is not complicated.  None of the so-called friends of labor, like Barbara Lees or Gavin Newsom and all the other Democrats that take our money when its time to get elected, have come out publicly in support of the BART workers.  Their silence is deafening. With friends like these, we don’t need enemies. 

We have seen strike after strike go down in defeat over the past period not because the rank and file involved have been unwilling to fight, but because the heads of organized labor refuse to mobilize the potential power of their members and workers as a whole.  They start from a position of concessions and damage control because of the Team Concept policy that workers and bosses have the same interests.  For them, to mobilize this sleeping giant can only lead to chaos; they must help the bosses out. This is what holds them back primarily, not corruption as so many workers believe, or the generally obscene salaries and perks many of them receive which are secondary issues.

It is not unlike the union hierarchy to take workers out on strike due to the anger that exists in their ranks and as a means to alleviate some of this pressure from below which is why they do so with an approach that has brought defeat time and time again; appealing to the Democrats rather than relying on our own strength and making every labor dispute a social one. The UFCW had its members out here in California for 5 months in 2003 as the officials bargained for concessions at the table.  This caused untold hardship for these workers and left many of them disillusioned and demoralized and new hires hating the union for selling them down the river, after all, new hires don’t get to vote on contracts they have to work under and resent doing the same work for less pay and fewer benefits which creates division and weakens the organization further.

Bart workers have tremendous potential power but the forces against them are also powerful, the media the state, the police and the politicians. We must use this power to halt the 1%’s austerity agenda here in the Bay Area but we cannot succeed if we do not start from a position of what workers and our communities need to live a decent life and reject the 1%’s propaganda that there is no money in society.  History teaches us that the heads of organized Labor will not wage a serious offensive of our own without the threat of a militant movement from their ranks that threatens their role.  This is the task facing activists in the ranks of organized labor.

A real victory for BART workers would inspire millions of workers tired of years of defeats and concessions and a strike at BART can still be won. But policies that have failed us time and time again have to be abandoned and a real offensive of our own built with the intention of changing the balance of forces between capital and labor in this country.

Read More

BART Strike: BART workers come under assault from the state

CA. governor, Jerry Brown, former left demagogue, organic farming advocate and seminarian. Uses his legal power to stop the BART strike. Who passed that law I wonder?  Do we think  for one minute they'd pass a law forbidding the closing of fire stations and health centers? Laws have a class base just like everything else. It's not against the law to throw people out of their homes. The Democrats are not our friends. Never have been.

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

The much anticipated strike of BART workers here in the Bay Area was called off at the last minute after California governor Jerry Brown stepped in and imposed a seven day break. He has appointed a three member board of inquiry to find out the facts from both sides apparently.

As I pointed out last week there are some important lessons that arise in situations like these, one of them being the class bias of the mass media. In US society there is a massive and permanent ideological war waged by the mass media that Wall Street controls aimed at obscuring and actually denying the class nature of society, and indeed, that class struggle even exists, but when workers are forced to defend our interests in the way the BART workers are presently doing, the class nature of society is laid bare for all to see.

Jerry Brown, a politician representing the interests of the bankers, hedge fund managers and other coupon clippers----in short, the US capitalist class-----claims he stepped in to this dispute to save us all hardship.  If the dispute cannot be resolved in this seven days through the intervention of the board of inquiry, then “Brown is expected to make a swift decision on seeking a 60-day cooling off period.”, the San Francisco Chronicle reports this morning. Brown will ask the courts to impose this 60-day cooling off period and if the court decides that a strike “Will significantly disrupt public transportation services and will endanger the public’s health, safety and welfare.”, a strike will be illegal.

But Brown’s justification for stopping the strike at the last minute Sunday night was that the strike would, “significantly disrupt public transportation services and will endanger the public’s health, safety and welfare.”.  Why would the courts reverse that? Is it likely that a strike deemed by the state through one of its major representatives a threat to our health and safety last Sunday, will be declared fine and dandy a week later or 60 days later?

We are not stupid.  In our communities, Brown and other representatives of the 1% are ordering fire stations closed because we can’t afford to keep them open they say. Might this be a tad dangerous for us; put us at risk?  Might closing fire stations, schools and health care facilities in a society where national health care is dismal,  “..endanger the public’s health, safety and welfare.” We know it would.  Brown knows it does but it is a political decision Brown and his class colleagues make as a necessary part of their agenda to put the US workers and middle class on rations. It is necessary to shift the crisis of capitalism in a global economy on to our backs and take back all the gains that have been won by working people over a century and a half of struggle. It is part of the declining influence of US capitalism on the world stage.  We have to be more competitive and that means, work cheaper, faster and without unions that actually go on the offensive to oppose this strategy. Profits come before safety in capitalist society.

The BART workers have been demonized daily in the mass media. They’re lazy, greedy, get paid too much etc.  But they don’t want to go backwards like any of us. They want to keep at very least their pensions, benefits and wage rates. Workers should support this as their loss will simply increase the downward trajectory Wall Street has for all of us. The 1% uses the most extreme violence to protect their interests.  But for the 1%, a strike is mass terrorism because it hurts their profits, the public’s health and safety be damned.

The 1%’s public voice, the San Francisco Chronicle, reports that the strike earlier this month “plunged the Bay Area into a morass and congestion.”  The strike cost $73 million a day “…in lost time, productivity and wages.”, the Chronicle adds.  But what about profits?  It is profits that are the issue and profits are severely affected when workers cannot be brought to the workplace where profits are born or to the stores where we are to buy stuff. So in a society where profits are everything they are left out of this equation. 

We only have to stop and think for a second to remind ourselves amid the mass of lies and propaganda that their claims of public safety are a smoke screen. Every American worker knows that the people in power in this country don’t give a damn about the rest of us. Everything we have in this country, every social benefit, every political advance, every material gain, has come about by doing what the BART workers are doing.  The capitalists have capital, the media, the police and the courts, and the military when they need to call on troops to fire on their own kin, ( a risky business) but we have labor power.  Without the ability to strike we are left to the mercy of the institutions of the 1%. 

The 1% is using all their “legal” tricks to halt the possible success of a BART strike.  It’s profits yes, but there is the effect on morale as well as after years of defeats and declining living standards any victory by labor over the forces of capital would inspire all of us, would show us that we can win, that we can make gains, that we can drive back this offensive and austerity agenda of the bankers, the hedge fund wasters and all the coupon clippers who plunder the wealth of society. 

The US bosses actually fear the potential power of the US working class, fear that the stifling bureaucracy at the helm of the trade union movement might not be able to control their members and derail and undermine every movement from below as was done in Wisconsin, the strikes of the 1980’s and the Occupy Movement and its attempts to build strong links with organized Labor. This is what’s at stake here for them.  It was to stem that power that Taft Hartley legislation was introduced after the mass strikes of the 1930’s and the huge strike wave of 1946. We have to have a mass defiance of these anti worker laws.

The Chronicle in today’s editorial warns that “shutting down this transit lifeline will send shock waves throughout the region” and appeals to Brown to ensure that he must use his political power to ensure a strike is prevented. 

As is always the case the strategists atop organized Labor (and lets not kid ourselves, the bigwigs at the AFL-CIO and the CTW coalition in Washington are in on all this behind the scenes) are doing what they can to ensure that things don’t get out of hand.  Our power lies in our ability to stop production and draw the rest of the working class and our communities in to this struggle. I was at a solidarity meeting for the BART workers over the weekend and when I left that meeting with 7 hours to deadline, representatives of the union representing BART train drivers and Station Agents as well as the Executive Director (Sounds a bit like a business doesn’t it) of the Union representing other staff like custodians for example, stressed that they were in strike mode. They were going to strike at midnight as management was not showing any effort to negotiate in good faith.

In fact, this is what the Executive Director of SEIU 1021 repeated on the TV news a few hours later; management was refusing to negotiate in good faith.  These are two major themes that arise, the bosses won’t negotiate in good faith and we want a contract. He nor any other official had anything to say about workers needing to fight for more at the expense of the 1% or the public’s needs and how the union was fighting for more transit, free fares for seniors, half fare for the unemployed, more jobs, 24 hour trains or increased routes and transit for the disabled and how this can be paid for by the rich and ending trillion dollar wars. 

He certainly never mentioned any solidarity committee and how the public could get in touch with it to join organized labor in our struggle for a better life for all. This is because the official union strategy doesn’t include an agenda for the working public so they have no intention of broadening this struggle to include the communities. The appeal to the community is merely a tactic to get some (normally well meaning leftists and some not so well meaning ones) to help organize a few rallies and such here and there to pressure the bosses to be a little less aggressive. Many seasoned leftists/activists know this but refuse to point this out so the left bureaucracy can play this game safe in knowing that the strategy will not be challenged.

The response to these two points the officials raise should be obvious: (1) the bosses never negotiate in good faith. (2) They want a contract too.  The difference is what is in that contract.

This is at the heart of the matter. This particular dispute is not about the right to a contract but what’s in the contract.  The problem is that the Union officialdom from all three locals immediately involved do not want to discuss this issue in depth.  Like the leadership of organized Labor as a whole, they accept that some concessions have to be made, or more accurately they have no intention of doing what needs to be done to make gains, not just for the BART workers but for workers as a whole including those that have to use BART every day and who will be adversely affected by a strike. The president of ATU 1555 made that clear when she told the SF Chronicle earlier this month the Union“would sign a contract today if it keeps up with the cost of living in the Bay Area and gives us health and safety protections.”

Yet a short while after that as the intransigence of management became obvious, the solidarity committee was formed to help draw in the rest of the labor movement, the communities that BART serves and working class and poor communities in particular. I attended the first meeting of this solidarity group at ATU 1555’s hall where 1555’s Recording Secretary made it quite clear that “We have to get our message out to the public”.

When I asked what that message was, it amounted to this: “An attack on BART workers is an attack workers.” This is a good start but if we are to build a genuine union rank and file/community support network that actually gets involved in this historic struggle between capital and labor we must offer something in return.  We cannot be seen as we so often are as simply at the table with the boss defending only our own narrow interests.

The reality is this.  We cannot counter the massive propaganda war against the BART workers in the media if the Unions aren’t fighting for those workers who depend on BART as well as those who work for BART.  We have given many examples of some issues that can be raised. But not only must these issues be raised in the media, they must be raised at the negotiating table on behalf of the communities and with real rank and file community activists involved which they can be through a real solidarity support committee. I say this as when the Union hierarchy talks of linking with the community, they generally mean with leading business or religious and pro establishment figures in these communities rather than the folks at the grass root level who are serious about changing the present situation.

At the rally for the BART workers last week we heard the same generalizations but no specifics about what we must be done to win.  Leaders of unions as far away as Wisconsin and even Danny Glover talked of the need for solidarity with the BART workers, but what does this mean without a program and strategy to win it?  It’s empty rhetoric and I’ve heard it for 30 years.

Here are some examples suggested on a flier we published on this issue, some issues the the unions should fight for and what steps that can be taken to build something real:

* Free transportation for all senior citizens

• Half fare for the unemployed and all those on public assistance, welfare etc.

• Increased and free transportation for the disabled.

• A massive increase in bus routes and in areas where seniors live, shorter distance between stops.

• Job training programs in conjunction with the unions to be set up in each community and a $20 an hour minimum wage

• End the Team Concept, no more labor/management cooperation--peace through strength. Start by firing consultants Cornu and Mooney as their negotiators (both are big players in the California Democratic Party)

• A shorter workweek with no loss in pay to create jobs

• No to austerity----end all wars and occupations bring the troops home

The bosses are serious about taking away from us as all the gains made through the great struggles that took place with the rise of the CIO in the 30’s and the Civil Rights movement. We cannot defeat them alone, no one local can stop them in isolation nor can individual communities.  We have to start where we are, if in a union by building rank and file opposition caucus based on a program and strategy that demands what we need rather than what is acceptable to wall Street and a “fight to win” strategy for accomplishing these goals. In the communities we do the same and in each case we link these struggles together as well as reach out to workers internationally.

The AC Transit drivers (also in ATU but a different local) contract ends at midnight on Wednesday and they are threatening a strike if their issues are not resolved although there is no reason to think they would strike when they refused to at the time they were strongest.  When BART workers struck, under the direction of the leadership, the AC Transit drivers union weakened the strike and their own member’s interests by picking up some of the slack. Only a short time before, the unity and mood between these two groups of workers was strong and there was no doubt in my mind they would have used their united power to win a better contract for all had the leadership been willing to lead. (We should not discount the role of the International leadership in these instances as they undermine any local leadership that violates the relationship they have with the bosses based on Labor peace by going on the offensive.) The leadership atop these organizations are deathly afraid of their own members.

We cannot win if we blindly obey laws that are made by politicians of the 1% in the interests of the 1%.  Mass violation of the law is unavoidable if we want to stop this assault on workers and the middle class.  We all want a peaceful life, but they won’t let us have a peaceful life, unless we passively agree with their agenda which is to drive us down to the wages and conditions of third world countries.  They’re already on the way to doing that here in many industries especially the service sector and industries that employ women and minorities.   But they have also successfully cut wages in half in auto with the help of the leadership of the UAW leadership.

If they are successful in defeating the BART workers especially if they successfully deny them the right to strike which Governor Brown is doing temporarily but is on the cards in a more permanent fashion, it will be a huge setback for all Bay Area workers.  A strike is disruptive, not just for the public but for the workers involved, and it is obvious that I am critical of the how the heads of organized labor conduct these affairs as well as their role in general. But we must sift through the rubbish we hear and read in the 1%’s  media and support these brothers and sisters.

Read More

Greece still bust, Spain depressed, Italy paralysed

by Michael Roberts

As the summer rolls on, it is increasingly clear that the depression in the southern Eurozone economies is not going to go away any time soon.  Sure, the latest PMI data would suggest that the pace of decline in the Eurozone peripherals is slowing and, overall, the Eurozone may have stopped contracting in Q2 2013.

But the southern states are still deep in depression.  The most revealing news came from the latest IMF report on Greece (http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr13241.pdf).  According to the IMF, Greece is still bust and will not be able to get its huge public debt burden down sufficiently to sustain government finances or repay the loans it has received from the Euro leaders.  Despite the largest decline in living standards and real GDP of any European country since the Great Depression of the 1930s and all the austerity measures insisted by the Euro leaders and imposed by the right-wing coalition government, the government budget will still have a shortfall next year and need yet more funding if it is to close the gap.  Also, Greece won’t be able to meet the IMF’s target to reduce public sector debt from 176% of GDP this year to 124% by the end of the decade.  And remember 124% of GDP would put Greek state debt at a higher ratio than any other European country and way higher than can make debt servicing sustainable.

No developed country going through such a depression has experienced such an increase in taxes and other levies as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in order to close the budget gap.  The economy shrank below €194 billion in market prices last year to a level last seen in 2005. This represents a drop of about 17% from the nominal GDP’s peak at €233 billion in 2008.  The economy is expected to shrink further to around €184 billion in 2013, representing a drop of 21% since the 2008 peak.  In 2005 Greek public debt stood at €212 billion, when the size of the economy was equal to last year’s, before skyrocketing to €355 billion in 2011 and the falling to €304 billion in 2012 thanks to the largest-ever sovereign debt restructuring (PSI).

But that ‘restructuring’ (debt default) has not been enough.  And the IMF report admits that more will be needed.  The IMF reckons the Euro leaders must provide €11bn more and Greece be relieved of debts already owed to Eurozone governments totalling 4% of GDP, or about €7.4bn, within the next two years.  The Euro leaders are avoiding grasping yet again this nettle until the German elections are over in September and have said they will not discuss further debt relief for Greece until April 2014 at the earliest, when Eurostat is due to rule on whether Athens has for the first time reached a balanced budget  when debt payments are not counted – a so-called “primary surplus”.  EU officials have indicated there may be ways to fill the immediate cash shortage – which the European Commission has estimated at €3.8bn for 2014, though the IMF puts it at €4.4bn – without forcing eurozone lenders to put additional cash into the €172bn joint EU-IMF programme. One EU official said there may be leftover funds intended to recapitalise Greece’s banking sector that may no longer be needed and can be reprogrammed, for example. However, the IMF report makes clear that the funding gap, which opens up in August 2014, goes beyond next year and into 2015, where it estimates Greece will need an additional €5.6bn.

In the meantime, the situation on the ground for Greek households is only getting worse.  The government published the names of more than 2122 primary and secondary school teachers who will be transferred to the new mobility scheme, including, (surprise!) the head of the Federation of Secondary School Teachers (OLME), Themis Kotsifakis.  A teacher in Larissa, central Greece, reportedly died of a heart attack earlier this week after learning she would be transferred.  Next to be published are some 3,000 municipal police officers, 1,500 administrative staff from universities and technical colleges, 1,500 public healthcare workers and 600 staff from various social security funds and the OAED manpower organization. The government has promised the dreaded troika of the IMF, ECB and the the EU that it will have 12,500 civil servants in the scheme by September and 25,000 by the end of the year. The public sector workers will receive 75% of their salary for eight months until another position is found for them. If no position is found for them, they will be dismissed at the end of eight months.

Spain’s depression is also worsening.  In another report (http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2013/cr13244.pdf), the IMF forecasts that Spain’s unemployment rate will stay above 25% until 2018 at least.

Ignoring the 1.6% downturn that the IMF expects the country to suffer this year, average real growth for the Spanish economy between 2014 and 2018 will be just 0.6%.  GDP growth will remain below 1% until 2017 and thereafter only begin to expand beyond these levels. The IMF’s answer to all this is ‘more flexibility’ in the labour force – in other words, workers must take a reduction in pay and conditions in order to ‘price themselves’ into jobs at rates of profit acceptable to the owners of capital (see my post, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/spain-the-return-of-the-inquisition/).  The IMF calls for wage cuts of up to 10% over the next two years, along with higher VAT for consumers and lower payroll taxes for employers!

In some ways, Italy is in the direst position.  Its rate of profit and real GDP growth continue to slide (see my post, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/goodbye-monti-hello-the-three-bs/ for a fuller account of Italy’s economic state).

But the real pressure over the summer has been political.  After right-wing media mogul and former PM Silvio Berlusconi was finally convicted of tax fraud and faces imprisonment, fines and, above all, a ban from public office for five years, Berlusconi launched a tirade against the judges and threatened to withdraw from the fragile all-party coalition formed after the paralysing general election.  He even talked of the risk of “civil war” if the “injustice” of his sentence is not addressed!   So the government remains in power on the whim of a convicted tax fraudster.  At the same time, the Democrat party, supposedly on the left, is engaged in a leadership battle between those who lean towards the unions and an openly Blairite, neoliberal wing led by Enzo Renzi, the mayor of Florence, who wants to introduce privatisations and other ‘reforms’. The anti-political Five Star movement that did so well in the elections seems to have disintegrated into faction fighting.   So Italy will stumble on until the autumn and then we shall see.

Read More

BART Strike: BART workers must not be left to fight the 1% alone.

by Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

I attended last nights “solidarity”rally with BART workers in Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland.  Amalgamated Transport Union 1555, the union that has done the most organizing for it and that had initiated it, had the most members present from what I could see. I shot some video as you can see above but couldn’t stand listening to the speeches for long.  While many of the workers there attending such an event for the first time would naturally feel inspired and hopeful, I have heard it all before and if we take time to think about what was said form the podium we see clearly it amounts to empty rhetoric.

I was also at the first planning meeting for the rally when Chris Finn, ATU 1555’s Recording Secretary talked of the need to “get our message out to the public” but when I rose to ask him what that message was, he was reluctant to open up a discussion on the subject. In fact, there was no message to the public except to announce repeatedly that an attack on BART workers is an attack on all of us. From the podium last night the president of the ILWU whose officials remind us time and time again of 1934’s General Strike struck the same message telling the crowd that “An injury to one is and injury to all”and other speakers including the actor Danny Glover continued in the same vein.  I could stand it any more as no one raised what we must do to win this historic struggle between capital and labor that is taking place before us.

We are only two days away now from another strike and the war being waged against the BART workers in the 1%’s press is heating up as I write. The main offensive is to turn the public against the BART workers through their media. Today’s San Francisco Chronicle attacks the BART workers because of their benefits.  “Most public employees in the Bay Area contribute far more for their medical insurance and pensions than do BART workers..” the Chronicle reports, adding that they,  “…pay nothing toward their pensions and a flat $92 a month for medical care for workers and their families.” .  Why would we oppose that?  We need to be defending it and extending it and more, to all workers. It is not in workers’ interests to help the 1% attack those of us that are somewhat better off, have higher pay and better benefits or benefits at all. We want to raise us all up not help the 1% push us all down.

Making the 1%’s arguments like a good propaganda outlet should, the Chronicle whines about how medical insurance costs have increased and how pensions have risen 126% in the last 8 years. “This next contract must address the skyrocketing cost of employee benefits…” says a mouthpiece for the agency, “…and we have to have employees share in some of that risk.”

Many workers have chosen to seek the easy life, the line of least resistance as workers throughout the country have had their wages and benefits savaged over the past period. The auto-workers went from $28 an hour to $14.  The US is becoming attractive as a low waged economy and we reported on this blog about the Caterpillar factory that shut its doors in London Ontario and moved production to LaGrange Illinois where wages are 50% lower. The US “has become much more efficient, making it more attractive for global manufacturers.” the Wall Street Journal reported.

We must not kid ourselves, the bosses are serious about crushing the public sector and the Bay Area is in the eye of this storm. 

The bosses have brought in Tom Hock who is president of labor negotiations for Veolia transportation. Veolia is the largest operator of private public transit in the world and a major privatizer. Its is also connected with MV transportation, the private outfit that operates transit for the disabled.  The Teamsters represent these workers and where were they yesterday? These workers earn less with fewer benefits than MUNI or BART. They need to be brought in to this struggle to strengthen it and raise their wages and benefits to the higher level.  Hock has been on a 10-day vacation as negotiations have continued. He is expected to return to the bargaining table Tuesday, which is an indication of the contempt the bosses have for the workers and the public and further illustrates their strategy which is to force the BART workers in to striking, isolating them from the public making their defeat certain.

Veolia’s has its origins in the French water company Vivendi Universal that had a third of its directors under investigation for corruption in 1996. It has been notorious for corruption, fraud and putting profit before the public in its global privatization spree. 

Veolia settled out of court when sued under the Clean Water Act for dumping more than 10 million gallons of wastewater and untreated sewage over a 5-year period into the San Francisco Bay after creating an inadequate improvement project. You can read more about Veolia here.

This struggle is about privatizing our public transit system. We have written numerous pieces about this strike over the last week or two and I recommend people read them.  But let’s keep the right perspective here. The Chronicle doesn’t remind the public day in day out of the massive increase in corporate property values due to the BART system that is a publicly built and funded system.  Less than 5% of BART’s revenue comes from property taxes but corporate property and real estate values have sky rocketed thanks to BART.  I have given numerous examples of other sources of waste and funds. We know in our gut that there is plenty of money in society and plenty of thieving at the top.

The trade union leaders involved have asked the BART Board of Directors to investigate Hock and threatened a lawsuit if Hock is not removed.  And here is where I have to be blunt as the stakes are so high.  We cannot win by asking the very forces that are in the forefront of the war against us to help.  We have suffered defeat after defeat, setback after setback not because we are weak, but because of the failed and what have become, catastrophic policies of the heads of organized labor that have led to these defeats.  Individual locals are left fighting what amounts to global capitalism alone.  We cannot win that way.  The labor officialdom is asking the Board of Directors to help them?  They are appealing to the courts?  This doesn’t scare the 1%. They own the courts and the judges and the politicians in the two Wall Street parties represent their interests not ours. The power of workers to stop their system from functioning is what will bring them around. Force matters.

The problem is that the bosses don’t fear us because they know that the labor leadership from the top on down will not bring the power of labor and the working class as a whole to the table. We explained that if we want to win the unions must put on the table issues that affect the public. In the interests of space I won’t repeat it but I commented on this here.  The Unions must fight for the public, not talk in abstract phrases about us all being in this together and how we need to have solidarity.  Solidarity around what issues? What is the union movement offering the public concretely for their support?

At yesterday’s rally as our flier said, instead of empty phrases the union leadership should have been announcing the formation of a joint strike committee including members of the public and community and youth organizations.  It is my guess that the AC Transit bus drivers who are also in ATU but different local will not strike with the Train Operators. This is a huge mistake and the reason for it is the leadership does not want to wage a real war.  They are terrified of a victory as they have, like all of them, built a relationship with the employers based on cooperation and Labor peace. They see nothing but chaos coming out of a real victory that will inspire their members to get more and question the obscene salaries and perks that the heads of organized labor receive.

I was at the board meeting when AC Transit drivers, station agents and train operators packed the room and the feeling of unity and fighting together was strong. But the leadership refuses to lead. But a strike can be won; we have the power in the workplace and the community.  ATU 1555, SEIU 1021, ATU 192 representing AC Transit drivers, AFSCME representing supervisors and the Ferry operators should all come out together.  Mass meetings should be held to discuss tactics and build the strike for a victory. People can be sent out to other workplaces like the city of Oakland and other corporation yards and encourage workers to get involved, whole families should get involved around offensive demands, jobs, free transportation, 24 hour trains etc. Mass meetings can be held in the communities. The line against their austerity offensive can be drawn here in the Bay Area.

It was clear from the speeches at the rally that the present leadership as is always the case has no intention of launching a real fightback, the bosses know this which is whey they are so confident and are taking the opportunity to crush the BART workers.  We don’t need solidarity in the abstract in this situation; we need concrete and militant direct action, not letters to our Congressperson. They only listen to us if we hurt their bottom line.

Brothers and sisters that pay the dues in the unions, you cannot sit idly by and allow the leadership of these organizations that were built over a century and a half of sacrifice to continue their disastrous concessionary policies of cooperation and appeasement, of calling a defeat a victory because we lost slightly less than the boss wanted. The days of us paying dues and them producing the goods are over. We have no alternative but to fight. We owe it to our ancestors, to our children and to ourselves to drive back this offensive of the 1% with an offensive of our own. The money’s there, we know that in our hearts.  We are dealing with some ruthless people but we have been in worse situations before.
 

It’s time to seize the time.

Read More

What Needs to be Added to My SF Chron op ed piece on BART struggle

by Jack Gerson

Today's San Francisco Chronicle is running an opinion piece by me on the BART struggle  (it's on the op ed page, page A8 -- if you're an online subscriber, you can read it at sfchronicle.com, and I'm including the full text at the end of this post). I wrote the piece to try to get facts out and build Thursday's BART support rally (5pm at Oakland's Ogawa Plaza). But more needs to be said than could be said in those 451 words.

The op ed piece opens with a paragraph on Wisconsin. But while Wisconsin was a massive upsurge, the fact is that the Wisconsin workers lost. The union leadership – including the state president of the Wisconsin teachers’ union, the head of the Madison-area labor council (Kevin Gundlach’s predecessor as head of the South Central Labor Counci), and most of the rest – told  protestors to clear the streets and go petition to recall Republican state legislators and campaign for their Democratic opponents.

As the opinion piece says, ILWU Local 10 did shut down all Bay Area ports in solidarity with Madison on April 4, 2011. That graphic statement of solidarity resounded around the country. But much as another one-day port shutdown during the next BART strike would be welcome, it alone won’t be sufficient. More than one day will be needed, and more militant labor-community solidarity will be needed. That won't happen by putting faith in Democratic Party politicians and going back to business as usual, as happened in Wisconsin. How can we win? I don't have a blueprint, but I do have some thoughts:

First: a very big turnout by rank and file workers  and community at Thursday’s rally can be an important first step. So I think that it is important to really work at mobilizing for the rally. It’s important to get the word to rank and file workers, and to get it out to the whole working class community – employed, unemployed, and underemployed – and explain why the BART strike is in all of our interest. That’s what the op ed piece tried to do.

But that rally will just be blowing off steam unless the rank and file of key unions insist that their unions honor the picket lines in a next BART strike -- especially ATU 192, the AC Transit bus drivers. ATU 192 really ought to walk out with BART workers. 

There simply is no excuse for not honoring the lines.  Rank and file of AFSCME 3993, a smaller BART worker local, just set the example for that: they removed their president as their chief negotiator because she had told them to cross picket lines during the 4-day BART strike, and yesterday she resigned as their president. That's real rank and file solidarity, and that together with mass community support is what will be needed to win the BART struggle. In fact what's needed is a coordinated strike by all the BART unions as well as the AC Transit unions, and a joint strike committee to facilitate coordination and cooperation and to maximize the control of the strike by rank and file transit workers.

Further, the BART unions really need to embrace demands in the interest of the whole community -- employed, unemployed, and underemployed -- starting with free transit and more service to low-income communities. As my op Ed piece explains, the money for that is there, from the developers and corporations that rake in super profits from BART expansion raising their property values while paying virtually nothing in additional taxes and zero to BART.  This really is about the attacks on all of us. And that means that the strike committees need to work closely with the community and incorporate community militancy and militants directly into the strike.

A working class surge can stop austerity in its tracks right here in the Bay Area. That will have to come most of all from the rank and file, who in the unions and in the communities need to be prepared to do what AFSCME 3993 did -- hold their leaders accountable and throw them out when they act like sellouts. And more: they have to construct rank and file organizations -- caucuses, in the unions -- ready to lead in action. Joint strike committees are essential to  a winning strike, and they ought to provide a basis for real class struggle caucuses emerging from the strike that work with and embrace classwide social issues as well as union struggles.

Here's the text of my SF Chronicle op ed piece:

Labor makes a stand - first in Wisconsin, now BART

Jack Gerson

Two years ago, Wisconsin public workers and services were under assault. Hundreds of thousands of workers converged on the state capital, Madison, to fight austerity cuts proposed by Gov. Scott Walker.

The International Longshore Workers Union Local 10 shut down Bay Area ports in solidarity with the Wisconsin struggle. Now BART workers and the Bay Area are in the crosshairs of the national labor struggle, and Wisconsin South Central Labor Council President Kevin Gundlach has pledged solidarity with BART workers.

The BART unions' temporary work agreement ends Sunday night and a new strike is likely. During the BART strike in early July, media coverage suggested these were "greedy workers" making life miserable for the public and jeopardizing the economy. That's not what I found.

Workers told me, "We're fighting for all of us, to say 'No more cuts.' "

I'm convinced they are.

Four years ago, the unions agreed to wage and hiring freezes that saved BART about $100 million. Compared to 2009, BART has fewer workers; work-related injuries have increased. Those concessions were made in bad times. Now times are good (BART projects a $125 million-a-year surplus for 10 years). But management demands more concessions, seeking cuts to pensions, health care and compensation. BART management wants to jeopardize rider safety by cutting vehicle safety inspectors.

BART unions want a three-year contract with better safety conditions, no more cuts to pensions or health care and modest pay increases to keep them on par with the Bay Area's cost of living. The money's there, more than enough to improve safety and increase pay. Even a modest levy on developers and corporations, whose property values soar when BART expands, could reduce or eliminate fares.

Transit strikes make getting around a pain in the neck. But who's causing the pain? BART spent $399,000 on negotiator Thomas Hock, who has provoked strikes in several cities.

Wall Street and banks want to privatize and squeeze profits out of everything Americans have won through generations of struggle. We must fight back.

It will take solidarity from AC Transit and port workers, City College of San Francisco workers, teachers and students, city and county workers, nurses and postal workers, the unemployed and the underemployed. All of us.

The Bay Area has a proud tradition of labor and community unity going back to the 1934 general strike. The rank-and-file of AFSCME 3993, angered by their president, who directed them to cross BART strikers' picket lines, removed her as their chief negotiator in the BART dispute.

Let's turn the tide on austerity. Business depends on BART to deliver their workers and their customers. If BART workers shut it down and win a decent contract, it'll be a victory for us all.

Rally to support BART workers

Who: Called by Amalgamated Transit Union Locals 1555 and 192, Service Employees International Union 1021, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 3993, International Longshore Workers Union 10

Where: Frank Ogawa Plaza, at Broadway and 14th St., Oakland

When: 5 p.m., Thursday

Jack Gerson, a retired Oakland public schoolteacher, lives in Oakland and rides BART.

Read More