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.

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Militant talk from the AFL-CIO as Obama cuts social security benefits

Politico.com reports that, "President Obama's labor allies are unhappy about cuts to entitlements and benefits that are expected to be proposed by the administration in its forthcoming budget." Politico is reporting on the AFL-CIO's response to Obama's olive branch to his friends across the aisle, an offer to cut social security benefits.

I received the AFL-CIO's response earlier today from Damon Silvers, the organization's policy director.  What we have to understand here is that the likes of Mr. Silvers and other members of the Labor hierarchy are Obama's allies, not the 12 million or so members that the organization is supposed to represent.  In the e mail to the troops, Silvers called,  the proposal "Obama's really bad idea.".  Silvers is so incensed, he even titled the e mail "Obama's really Bad Idea".

He's a militant character that Silvers. Our living standards are in good hands with folks like Silvers at the helm.

Back in 1996 the newly elected President of the AFL-CIO John Sweeney warned the bosses that continued attacks might lead to him to organize "blocking bridges." That was before the election, after it this became "building bridges", not with the members whose interests he was supposed to represent, but the bosses.

Perhaps we're now seeing a new face of the previously moribund Labor bureaucracy. Perhaps, after years of collaboration in the form of the Team Concept and prostrating themselves before the bosses and their political representatives, the folks atop the Labor movement are changing course. I mean Silvers really let's Obama have it. In one short e mail he says that Obama's attack on social security is:

a "bad idea"
"Bad policy"
"unconscionable"
"wrong"

This is some pretty tough talk.  Silvers goes further. he warns that the only way to stop these cuts is that we have to tell the President and the other millionaires in Congress that we're not going to tolerate them and Silvers has a petition all written up for us to sign. He is hopping mad and Obama better watch out. I can tell that because in the e mail he says we should sign the petition NOW. Capital letters, that's very threatening in e mail speak. Not only that, I found out today I can join the AFL-CIO's "text action team". Oh, boy! I'm gonna love this. Here's the petition:

"Benefit cuts to Social Security and Medicare are unacceptable. I’m calling on you to oppose any and all cuts to Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid benefits and focus on immediate solutions to get Americans back to work, like repealing the sequester and ending tax loopholes for corporations and the richest 2%." It can be found here

Were the consequences of the Labor hierarchy's collaboration with the bosses not so dire we could laugh at this pathetic response to a violent attack on workers' and our families as it went viral on You Tube just like Gangnam Style. Gangnam style took a little more thought to put it together but the reality is that Silvers and the rest of his colleagues atop the AFL-CI0 are traitors, are enemies of the working class. They are somewhat like the old Stalinist bureaucracy without state power.

Silvers insults us. Why would he be surprised?  What happened to EFCA, the Employee Free Choice Act.  I had paid Union staffers pushing this every chance they could get, it was the most revolutionary thing since the wheel.  It was great for the bureaucracy, they could get new members without doing anything at all. Obama shafted them on that one.  Then there was the "public option" in the health care debate. There was NAFTA under Clinton, who also repealed Glass Steagall claiming it was "No longer appropriate."

We saw 100,000 people in the streets of Madison Wisconsin, does Silvers and his chums atop the AFL-CIO think us so stupid that signing a petition asking Obama to help us will make a difference?
The minority of us that remain in Unions have to face the fact that we are in a war on two fronts.  One is against the bosses' whose goal it is to drive us back to conditions that existed before the rise of the CIO and the other is against the likes of Silvers and the stifling bureaucracy that is the bosses representatives inside our organizations.

We cannot avoid this battle if we are serious about fighting back against the austerity agenda of the bosses and their two political parties. We have said before on this blog that to do this we must openly campaign against the hierarchy's policies, against the Team Concept in all it's manifestations, and we have to build fighting caucuses around a program that demands what workers, union and non union, need and link this struggle to our community struggles and the pressing social issues of today, the unemployed and to workers internationally.

We must return to the direct action fight to win tactics that built our Unions in the first place, occupations, mass picketing, defying the law as the Occupy Movement has shown.  We must reject their realism based on the return on investments and implement ours based on social need.

That Silvers and his friends would even suggest such a worthless strategy after what millions of workers are going through shows what contempt his kind have for the people whose contributions pay his salary.  These officials, many of them Ivy League educated, are like rotten apples in a tree that appear secure.  The slightest breeze though and to the ground they fall.  Stand up and fight, there's  no other alternative.

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Fast food workers plan surprise strike

From Salon.com

Breaking: Workers in some 50 restaurants expected to walk off job, potentially shutting down several eateries today

By Josh Eidelson

 
A protester holds up a sign at a demonstration outside McDonald's in Times Square in support of employees on strike at various fast-food chains in New York November 29, 2012. (Credit: Reuters/Andrew Kelly)

New York City fast food workers this morning planned to walk off the job in what organizers promised would be the largest-ever strike against the fast-growing, virtually union-free industry. The workers are demanding that chains like McDonald’s and Wendy’s raise their wages to $15 an hour and allow them to organize a union without retaliation. The campaign expected over 400 workers from 50-some stores to participate in the surprise strike, doubling the size of their previous walkout and potentially shutting down several fast food restaurants for the day.

“Obviously, it will piss off our bosses even more than before,” KFC worker Joe Barrera told Salon in a pre-strike interview. Barrera, 22, said that over his seven years in the industry, “we’ve had our complaints, but no one actually spoke out about it … I guess people were finally tired of the disrespect, under-compensation, being overworked, not having steady schedules and times, not having enough hours – basically, being played around with.” Workers from Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Domino’s, Papa John’s, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut are also expected to join the strike.

Barrera, who’s paid the $7.25 minimum wage, said that a decent raise would allow him to stop skipping meals and start pursuing college. “Maybe I could afford to have a girlfriend, take her out on a date …” he added. “All of that money goes right now to just surviving.”
Fast food is becoming an ever-larger and more representative sector of the U.S. economy. “We should think of these jobs as the norm,” said Columbia University political scientist Dorian Warren, “because even when you look at the high-skilled, high-paying jobs, they’re even adopting the low-wage model” of management. That means erratic schedules, paltry benefits, and – so far – almost no unions. “These are the quintessential example of the kinds of jobs that we have now,” said Warren, “and of the kind of job that we can expect in the future for the next few decades.”

Asked yesterday about recent labor protests, a McDonald’s spokesperson emailed a statement saying, “We value and respect all the employees who work at McDonald’s restaurants” and that the majority of its stores are franchisee-run restaurants “where employees are paid competitive wages, and have access to flexible schedules and quality, affordable benefits.”

Today’s planned work stoppage represents a major escalation by Fast Food Forward, a campaign spearheaded by the community organizing group New York Communities for Change (a successor to the now deceased ACORN). The fast food campaign’s funders include the Service Employees International Union. As Salon first reported, the campaign went public with a previous strike on Nov. 29. A parallel effort is underway in Chicago, where workers are also demanding $15 an hour and unionization without intimidation, but so far haven’t gone on strike. While New York’s and Chicago’s are the only ones to go public so far, similar organizing efforts are underway elsewhere as well.

Reached over email regarding the Fast Food Forward campaign, National Restaurant Association executive vice president Scott DeFife warned that “Any additional labor cost can negatively impact a restaurant’s ability to hire or maintain jobs.”

If the nature of the fast food industry reflects what’s happening to U.S. jobs, the shape of the fast food campaign reflects the challenges unions face in fighting back.
Since 1935, federal law has promised workers who want a union the chance to hold an election and force their boss to negotiate. But that promise has proven pretty empty. Among the obstacles: The government-sponsored election process is rife with opportunities for intimidation and delay. Companies that fire workers for organizing risk only meager penalties, after what can be a years-long process. Even when workers win a unionization election, they’re as likely as not to be left without a union contract a year later, because companies can stall or stonewall negotiations.

So even though the law says that it’s up to workers whether to bargain collectively with their boss, it’s really up to bosses whether to bargain in good faith with their employees. To succeed, union campaigns have to mount enough pressure against companies to make the costs of holding out greater than the benefits. But courts and politicians have made that harder to pull off, by making one of labor’s key weapons – the strike – harder to effectively use. Many of the most effective strike tactics – from sit-down strikes that physically occupy a workplace, to solidarity strikes that spread through a supply chain – are now generally illegal. And “permanently replacing” striking workers – de facto terminating them by refusing to let them have their jobs back after a strike – is generally kosher under the law.

“It’s important to recognize that labor law is set up to prevent exactly this type of organizing,” Joe Burns, the author of “Reviving the Strike,” said of the fast food campaign.

The Fast Food Forward campaign reflects some of the ways unions are taking on this challenge: finding alternative leverage points against corporations, and reimagining the strike. NYCC executive director Jonathan Westin told Salon that the campaign “is taking on all of the different avenues that we can, to engage workers, community, clergy, elected officials, and allies, to do everything we can to change the conditions within the industry. And if that’s through labor law, great. If it’s through other avenues, where community folks are stepping up and doing things differently, that’s great.” As Salon reported, when a Wendy’s worker was told she’d been terminated the day after the November strike, clergy, politicians and other supporters won her job back within an hour by rallying inside and outside her store.

In recent decades, as strikes have declined, unions have increasingly turned to “comprehensive campaign” tactics designed to compel companies to budge through a combination of political, consumer, community and media pressure. Tactics in such campaigns can range from digging up dirt on management, to calling on customers to boycott, to lobbying against a company’s zoning application. Each of these can pack a punch. But unless the campaign is really engaging workers, companies can often just wait out the bad press while forcing employees to attend that many more anti-union meetings. Just look at Wal-Mart, which withstood a well-funded union-backed air war in the 2000s without really breaking a sweat.

Simply put, few things engage customers, threaten management and transform workers like a good strike. And so, with organized labor nationally very much playing defense, labor organizers have been grappling with how to make strikes work for non-union workers. Today’s fast food strike, the fall strikes by Wal-Mart retail and warehouse workers, and a February strike by janitors who clean Twin Cities Target stores all share a few apparent tactics in common.

Because it’s legal to “permanently replace” workers who just strike in order to win union recognition or higher wages, workers announce that they are striking in protest of violations of labor law by management (if the government finds this to be true, then permanently replacing them becomes illegal – though that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen anyway). Because modern U.S. strikes are often more about humiliating management than shutting down business, workers go out on strike for a single day rather than walking off the job indefinitely. And rather than waiting until a majority of workers are willing to take the risk of going on strike, organizers mount strikes with a minority of the workforce, in hopes that their courage – and their safe return to work afterward – will inspire more of their co-workers to join in the next time.

If organizers’ estimates (400 to 500 strikers today) hold true, that’ll suggest that such “minority unionism” is paying off for NYC fast food workers, at least so far. McDonald’s employee Stephen Warner told Salon that when he heard about other workers going on strike in November, “it gave me hope for a better future … I was very surprised.” He’ll be out on the picket lines himself this time, he said, “hopefully to set an example for the rest of the people in fast food, so that they know that change is possible.”

But can these efforts ever develop the clout to compel a company like Wendy’s to foreswear union-busting? Labor campaigns have won some victories against fast food giants before. As I reported for the Nation last month, a strike by 15 immigrant guest workers led McDonald’s to cut ties to a franchisee that had allegedly subjected them to shifts of up to 25 hours straight. Consumer pressure campaigns by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (a non-union labor group) have gotten chains like Taco Bell to sign agreements requiring improved conditions for Florida tomato workers. And members of the Industrial Workers of the World, a union that generally eschews legal union recognition, say their workplace has forced improvements in discipline, scheduling and pay in some Minneapolis Jimmy John’s stores. But getting industry giants to drop their opposition to collective bargaining would be a tall order, one that would likely require much larger strikes, in many more cities, to even be conceivable.

“The franchise structure makes it easier for McDonald’s or the other food chains to just cut a franchise loose and say they’re not responsible,” said Kate Bronfenbrenner, who directs labor education and research at Cornell. That’s because it’s the thousands of individual store franchisee-owners who legally employ workers, but it’s the corporate headquarters that actually calls the shots. On the other hand, Bronfenbrenner told Salon, “unlike Wal-Mart, McDonald’s is much more vulnerable to consumer pressure, in that they have competitors.” While some labor campaigns focus all of their firepower on making an example of a single company, Bronfenbrenner said that this campaign’s strategy of mobilizing against all of the major fast food industry players could pay off if one chain decides to make a deal with the union in hopes of getting a competitive advantage by escaping labor strife.

Burns, a negotiator for an airline union, called the fast food workers’ willingness to walk off the job “a very positive sign” of “a major shift in organizing strategy” after years in which unions largely neglected strikes. But he predicted that the constraints of labor law — including the laws limiting “representational strikes” designed to win collective bargaining, and repeated “intermittent strikes” against the same boss — will come to pose a major obstacle. “In the long run,” Burns told Salon, “it’s hard to see a successful strategy organizing fast food that doesn’t involve violating labor law.”
While that hasn’t happened so far, the fast food strikers are drawing inspiration from a group of workers who famously mounted an illegal strike. Today’s strike date was chosen because it marks 45 years since Rev. Martin Luther King was gunned down in Memphis, where he was supporting striking sanitation workers who were demanding union recognition. At a New York City meeting last Thursday, two veterans of that strike met with fast food employees just before a secret meeting where workers voted to authorize today’s strike. “In order for you all to win anything, you’re going to have to stand up,” Memphis striker Alvin Turner, now 78, told the crowd. “You’re going to have to stand up and be counted … If you don’t stand up, you can kiss it goodbye.”

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Labor hierarchy abandons macho defense for shared sacrifice.

Boston cops help scabs drive thru. Greyhound strike 1983

by Richard Mellor

AFSCME Local 444 retired

What seems a lifetime ago I was on the picket lines during the Greyhound strike. It was the early eighties and the strike began to take on somewhat of a national character as a few of the strikes did during that decade.  Local P9 UFCW, the Eastern strike etc. I was in San Francisco and we had attempted to get in to the Greyhound building which had padlocked doors and a couple of cops stationed outside. 

I remember about 1000 of us marched down to the building, tired of listening to Willy Brown, San Francisco’s Democratic mayor and friend of the Labor hierarchy promise us he was with us and all that nonsense. I recall it as a spontaneous action, the bursting out of pent up anger.  The cops were taken by surprise at a sight of 1000 angry workers surrounding the building they were supposed to protect.

In the end, the Labor officials derailed the attempted occupation along with some not so bright characters at the back of the crowd who threw rocks at the windows which rained glass down on us.

But another incident also stuck in my mind; one of the top Labor officials, Walter Johnson dragging his foot across a sidewalk declaring Labor’s line in the sand. Unfortunately the line has moved so far back that we are standing up to our knees in water.  The bosses’ laughed at such threats by the Labor hierarchy and 30 years later, empty threats and macho posturing in the face of a very serious offensive of capital has driven living standards closer to those in what we call low waged countries.  The Labor officialdom’s philosophy of, “if it doesn’t work do it again and again” is still the way to go.  It’s getting harder for them though as the offensive is becoming so fierce that there is little room to maneuver and the Labor hierarchy cooperates openly with the bosses in the elimination of gains made over the last century.  It is harder to play the macho card, especially among the ranks of organized Labor who have heard it so many, many times before.

But Labor officials can still impress young people and ranks of the unorganized who correctly see the benefits of organization and that these leaders rest on real a real social force with the potential for real power. I commented on this in a previous blog about a rally I attended in San Francisco last week. An AFL-CIO official was speaking to a crowd of mostly young people whose college is being savaged as part of the austerity program being instituted by the two parties of Wall Street. The official announced that “The Labor Council stands behind this institution”.  Unfortunately this doesn’t mean much if anything at all.  Labor leaders at the highest levels have promised union members through bitter defeat after bitter defeat that they were “behind them.”.  The reality is of course that they should be in front of us.  That’s where a leader should be, in the front not in the rear. As one person put it, they’ll fight to the last drop of your blood.

Experience has taught the bosses that they need not worry; they have friends in the Labor movement. They were very confident in their ability to take from the autoworkers the gains they made over 80 years. UAW officials “were realists who understand the problems facing the industry” the Wall Street Journal confidently boasted at one point. It’s nice having friends like that.

In Michigan, the governor has appointed a bankruptcy lawyer Kevyn Orr, to rule over the 700,000 souls who call Detroit home. The governor picked this lawyer, at a nice annual salary of $275,000, because of his “Interpersonal skills, legal and financial acumen..”.  He’s a man that can relate to all the coupon clippers, contractors, bankers and other scavengers that will benefit from Detroit’s demise and what it will take to fix it up.  The “elected”leaders of Detroit have no say in the running of the city although Mr. Orr says he will work with those elected leaders that agree with his plan.

Detroit borrowed a lot of money to cover its liabilities which included the pensions and health care for retired city workers.  These are now singled out as the main cause of the economic crisis US capitalism finds itself in. What do the heads of organized labor in Detroit have to say about this? The macho defense has been rejected by Albert Garrett, president of AFSCME Council 25 he’s got nobody’s back, he’s not even behind anyone except the enemies of working people as he’s one of the realists like his counterparts atop the UAW, “What we’re hoping for is that there must be concessions for more than just the workforce, that those who hold bonds or debt (moneylenders) take a haircut.”

Hope on Albert; a “haircut”, it’s a bit silly isn’t it. But the consequences of his role and others like him are dire.

I remember being at AFSCME International Conventions when then president Gerald McEntee used to call us the “lean green fighting machine.” He took his half a million a year salary and the retirement it bought him after being in the same position for some 30 years and kept his hair to boot.

The trade union leadership has completely capitulated in the face of the capitalist offensive and abrogated their right to lead, but they won’t leave without some help.  They have cooperated with the bosses in driving us farther and farther in to the quagmire that has increased our pain and suffering and made the climb out unnecessarily difficult, more difficult than it need have been.

One small life’s lesson that comes out of this is to beware those who are in leadership positions, who should be on the front lines, who have access to resources and the levers of the apparatus and announce to us proudly that they are “behind us” or “have our backs”

We’re not stupid.

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CCSF rally against the cuts. Tim Paulson, Labor Council leader speaks

by Richard Mellor

I went to a rally in San Francisco tonight that was called to protest the cuts in education and the cuts at City College of San Francisco in particular.  I don’t know too much about the details of this particular assault but I did hear one speaker say that $53 million in CCSF funding was cut by the state government in Sacramento.

I didn’t stay too long as it was very much the same old stuff. There were lots of young people there and that was positive.  But I have been to so many of these rallies that it gets a bit depressing after a while.  I was at the protest against the Iraq war in London in 2003 and some reports said there were over two million people there which is amazing in a country with a population of 53 million. Not only that, they weren’t the “usual suspects” leftists, anti-capitalists, anarchists and members of one left group or another. They were ordinary working folk and middle class people.

As exciting as it was, that demo didn’t stop the slaughter of the Iraqi people.  And it becomes crystal clear that simply demonstrating will not stop wars or the austerity measures being introduced in the aftermath of the present capitalist crisis that arose in 2007. Let’s face it, the Greeks have had who knows how many general strikes and it has not driven the capitalist assault back.  Not only have the Greeks protested, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Irish have all had mass demonstrations against the austerity measure forced on them by what they call over there the Troika, the European Central Bank, the IMF and the European Commission. These are all isolated actions, which is why the 1% don’t fear them like they would Europe wide stoppages and disruption of business as usual.

I’m sorry for this but I am digressing.

What bothered me tonight is what always bothers me at these events.  A lot of well-intentioned, (particularly the youth) speakers get up and assail the attacks.  Some of them though are seasoned leftists types who belong to one or another of the umpteen left groups that exist in this area who are very familiar with these events and speaking at them.  On the platform also was Tim Paulson, the head of the San Francisco Labor Council, the county arm of the AFL-CIO. This body has affiliated to it 150 local unions and 100,000 workers.  It exists in a city that had a general strike in 1934 and San Francisco, many of the Labor glitterati will tell you, is a “Union town.”

The head of the SF Labor Council spoke for a few minutes and commented mostly on various electoral measures that would produce some funds for education.  He made a few other empty comments about how good it was to be here etc.

So what were the electoral gains?  The two he mentioned were Prop 30, which increases the sales tax and adds a permanenttax on the wealthy to offset education cuts. This has, as many have said, “stopped the bleeding” and after sending out 20,000 reduction In force notices to teachers last year, school districts in California only sent out about 2,400 such letters this year so far according to the Huffington Post.   We certainly wouldn’t oppose that but we have to look at it in perspective; according to a White House report, 300,000 jobs in education have been lost since 2008.

Paulson, who is on the executive board of the California Democratic Party also mentioned Measure A. Measure A is a $79 annual property tax, that voters were blackmailed in to supporting that will last for eight years.

In other words, Paulson said nothing that would inspire anyone.  But that’s his intention.  Maybe the rich will pay more taxes, maybe they won’t.  But the rest of these electoral measures places further burden on workers and the middle class.  They don’t make the rich pay for their crisis; they make us pay. We have to pay more for the education of our youth.  You can’t expect much more from Paulson as he is but an agent of the Democratic Party, in the workers’ movement; a party of Wall Street funded by the likes of Goldman Sachs.

Many of the young people are impressed that a major Labor leader comes and speaks at a rally about education and in opposition to the cuts. But Paulson isn’t opposed to cuts. He wants slightly less severe cuts.  Like students and the youth, workers rights, wages and benefits are being savaged under the guise of “shared sacrifice”.  Workers are working longer hours and the pace of work is intensifying. In auto, new hires, mainly younger people are expected to work for half the pay of older workers. We reported here about the Chrysler worker who was suspended and since terminated for protesting on his own time about a new shift schedule that eliminates overtime after 8 hours. In fact, 10-hour days are becoming the norm, a schedule that hurts older workers in particular. Then there’s there grocery workers whose pensions are under attack and who are earning $21 an hour after 41 years service.  What sort of future does this mean for young people?  The Union hierarchy has all supported these developments.

When SEIU local 1021 members rejected a concessionary contract in 2009  their leaders claimed they were “confused”.  (similar story here) Tim Paulson agreed and joined with the SEIU leadership in forcing a concessionary contract down the members’ throats. He told the media that he was“hopeful that if it’s approved, the mayor will rescind the layoffs”.  In other words, concessions or layoffs, these are the alternatives presented to workers, never an offensive strategy, never make the rich and the 1% pay. Never shut down the economy, stop the wheels from turning and Labor can do that, organized and Unorganized together. If they workers reject this strategy, the likes of Paulson and other Labor officials at the highest levels combine to wear them down, force the bosses’ concessions on their members

The same is true of education. 

But here’s what irks me the most. At gatherings like these there are numerous socialist and leftist groups. More importantly, some of them share the platform with supporters of austerity measures like Tim Paulson. Some of them did tonight. Some of them even have positions in the Union movement or, in some cases, the Labor councils.

But that a Labor leader that refuses to mobilize or at least have a strategy to mobilize the potential power of his/her members and instead actually functions to suppress any movement from below that attempts to launch a real fight back against the employers’ and their austerity agenda, can speak on the same platform as socialists and activists and no one points this out or alludes to the contradiction in any way is shameful. A young speaker before him in his innocence alluded to how militant this man was. The young people in the audience are not aware of the potential power of organized Labor even in our weakened state.  They are not aware that the rank and file member that pays the dues would have no clue who this person is for good reason and that his role has been to suppress any attempt by his the rank and file of the Labor movement to fight back.

They are not aware that the average member hates the Labor hierarchy for the right reasons, that they take money in the form of dues payments yet cooperate with the bosses’ austerity agenda.

Could you imagine being on a platform with someone you know is a racist, him speaking on the need for unity and you not mentioning it?  Or with a vicious misogynist speaking on women’s rights and you saying nothing, refusing to alert the audience to the truth. It’s one thing if such an individual publicly admitted their mistakes and had changed course’ we all make mistakes.

--> When Tim Paulson said to the thousand or so young people that attended the rally that the San Francisco Labor Council “stands behind” you; every socialist, every seasoned activist and trade Unionist present knows this is meaningless; it's not true, so do those who shared the platform with him and they said nothing; they allowed him to con the youth, give them false hopes.

We do not have to call these people names.  But to say nothing is criminal.  It helps to delay the movement. It is to let down the working class.

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Pakistan Garment Factory Lays off 1000

Garment Workers protest in Pakistan

Press Statement by National Trade Union Federation Pakistan (NTUF)

From Nasir Mansoor Deputy general secretary National Trade Union Federation Pakistan (NTUF

International exporter renders 1,000 workers jobless

‘Joe’s Fashion’ likely to render 4,000 more workers jobless by closing anther factory 

A garment factory, Joe’s Fashion Export situated in Korangi Industrial Area (KIA) has shut down business and rendered around 1,000 employees jobless without taking labour department functionaries on board which was mandatory formality to be fulfilled.

Most of the workers had served this garment factory for more than 20 years and they are getting panicky now as to how to get their legal dues. Out of these 1,000 employees there are 650 female workers who have served this factory for so many years.

This is pertinent to mention here that all these workers were registered with Social Security Institute and Employees Old-Age Benefits Institute (EOBI). These workers have factory’s cards but their appointment letters are in possession of the factory’s management and they were never handed over these letters. However, the factory had no labour union in it which might have pleaded the workers’ case to get them justice accordingly.

The factory was closed on January 17 without fulfilling legal procedure. For closing down any factory the management is required to inform the workers besides intimating Labour Department about it letting this institute know the reasons of closure.
Afterward the owners are required to submit the details of dues in Labour Court which it owes to the workers. In the labour court final settlement is made but nothing like it was done before locking the factory.

The factory in question is one of the major exporters of garments to European Union and some known international brands like H&M, Tom Tailors, C&A, Zara, ST-Magor, Orchestra and some others had been buying finished products from this company.
This factory was also certified by ISO 9001 and Bureau Veritos had awarded it with the certificate of Quality Management. 

Generally international brands claim to buy merchandise from only those manufacturers who fulfill all standards including provision of due rights of workers at their workplaces. However, in this case they did not bother to probe whether the manufacturer, Mohsim Ayoub Mirza was fulfilling his duties or not. The factory in question is situated in the sector 27 of KIA and currently its finished products, raw material and machinery is being shifted to some other factory under the supervision of armed guards. The products and machinery is being shifted to Rija Fashion, a factory which is owned by the brother of Mirza.

Uzma is affected employee who has served Joe’s Fashion for around 31 years as helper whereas Abdul Jabbar has worked as storekeeper for nearly 25 years in this factory. Likewise, another worker Hanif has served this factory for 23 years as Fabric Incharge.
All these workers are running from post to pillar to know about their dues’ clearance and their status at the moment.

The owner of the factory has many more branches of the factory under different names in international cities like Madrid, Paris, Sharja, UAE and in Sri Lanka besides owning three subsidiaries branches in Karachi.

The same owner is also shutting another of his factory today (January 31) which is situated in Export Processing Zone (EPZ) where the livelihood of around 4,000 workers is associated.

The representative of workers, National Trade Union Federation (NTUF) has moved an application to Labour Department on Wednesday and sought justice for the affected employees. The NTUF is of the opinion generally the industrialists shut down some industry to get rid of their debts or to wave off banks’ loans. THE NTUF has demanded from the government to seal the assets of the owner of the factory due to his noncompliance of labour laws and ditching them thoroughly. The NTUF also demanded from international brands to take notice of the situation and make the owner bound to follow international labour standards.

This move of the owner has also disturbed the local suppliers and they are also wandering where to get their pending dues. A female Chinese supplier is also looking here and there to about the whereabouts of the owner to get clear her dues.       

Nasir Mansoor
Deputy General Secretary
National Trade Union Federation, Pakistan
03003587211
ntufpak@gmail.com
www.ntufpak.org       



"Like" the FFWP page of Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/FactsForWorkingPeople

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AFT, NEA, and the Privatization Drive Against Public Education

By Jack Gerson

Last weekend I spoke in San Francisco on a panel that addressed the topic:  "Public Education, Privatization and The NEA/CTA, SEIU and AFT/CFT-What Can Education Workers, Students & Parents Do To Defend Public Education?"   My presentation was recorded by the Labor Video Project and it's now up on YouTube:

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ILA strike averted, contract extended 30 days

by Richard Mellor

It seems a strike by East and Gulf Coast longshoremen has been averted temporarily through the intervention of federal mediators from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS).  The major sticking point has been the employers attempt to eliminate or cap payments made to longshoreman that were to compensate for job losses through automation, and containerization.

The payments are known as Container Royalties and the bosses are claiming these costs now amount to $15,000 a year for each worker at the ports.  The federal mediator announced today that, “The container royalty payment issue has been agreed upon in principle by the parties, subject to achieving an overall collective bargaining agreement.” 

So now the bosses and the Union leadership have agreed to extend the ILA Master Contract 30 days beyond the December 29^th deadline.  The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that the bosses wanted to place caps on the payments and also eliminate them for “newer workers”.  Whether “newer”refers to those with low seniority or new hires is not clear the way it is phrased.

As they always do as some sort of reverence for confidentiality that prevents the members from knowing what is being discussed in detail as it happens, , the federal mediator stated that “….negotiations will be continuing and consistent with the Agency's commitment of confidentiality to the parties, FMCS shall not disclose the substance of the container royalty payment agreement. What I can report is that the agreement on this important subject represents a major positive step toward achieving an overall collective bargaining agreement.”

The contract term under negotiations is six years as contracts become longer and longer in order to maintain Labor peace, and negotiations began in March.  In the last ten years container cargo at ILA operated ports has grown to 110 million tons from 50 according to the WSJ. Almost half of the country’s containerized maritime trade amounting to some $454 billion a year passes through Gulf and East Coast ports.  Retailers would be hard hit as would trucking companies as well as exports of manufacturing goods and agricultural products.

Not being in the industry it’s hard to tell but the usual procedure in these situations is that new hires get screwed, as I have mentioned many times before, they are in the unfortunate position of not being able to vote on contracts that harm them---they have no voice. The Union leadership generally presents the new deal that denies future workers the gains that took 150 years to win as a fait accompli and that’s that.  We have to be “realistic”.

The key language in the short announcement made public is “…subject to achieving an overall collective bargaining agreement.”   What are the bosses demanding for their agreement to royalty payments “in principle”.

We all know through years and years of experience that the Union leadership comes to the table cap in hand seeking a fair and harmonious deal and with the understanding that concessions have to be made.  The issue is where the ax falls and new hires are generally the sacrificial lambs as well as younger workers with less seniority.

The Obama Administration has refused to say whether the President will invoke Taft Hartley if a strike occurs but we can be pretty sure he would.  US capitalism is not about to allow such an economic disruption to an already fragile economy.   Nations like China that export to the US would also feel the pinch.

What stands out is the tremendous potential power of this section of the working class.  Both the ILA and the ILWU could bring this economy to a complete halt.  The problem is that the Union officialdom cannot see any advantage going down that road.  We have had since the onset of the Great recession an uptick in Union activity and general social struggle from the Occupy Movement to Wisconsin events and independent struggles around housing, education, health care and in other areas. A strike of this nature that had an offensive as opposed to a defensive strategy could kick off the beginning of a national movement that would transform the situation and change the balance of class forces in this country.

But to do that would mean to confront this capitalist offensive, challenge it.  It would mean rejecting their view of the world and the idea that society cannot provide a decent living and secure existence. It would mean rejecting the “realism”of the bosses, a realism that leaves people homeless, without health care, without jobs and without a decent public education system. It would mean defying their laws that maintain this inequality and punishes those that oppose it. It would mean relying on the strength of all workers as opposed to their courts and their judges and their mediators.

It would mean refusing to shy away from the term class war, a term the bosses like to use only when we fight back but a war that exists day in day out with the 1% as the aggressors.  It would mean putting an end to $5 and $10 billion a year paydays for coupon clippers. It would mean recognizing that a class war already exists and having a strategy and tactics for winning it as we end wars that set us against other workers who have done us no harm, wars fought for the profits of the global corporations.

It would open the path to a democratic socialist society and it would certainly begin to reduce the alienation and despair that drives people to annihilate their entire family and themselves.  Fighting back always pays.

The short statement is here.

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Workers pepper sprayed as Union rights under assault in Michigan

Michigan State Legislature toda

by Richard Mellor
"Union busting is a field populated by bullies and built on deceit.  A campaign against a Union is an assault on individuals and a war on the truth.  As such, it is a war without honor.  The only way to bust a Union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack."

Martin jay Levitt, Confessions of a Union Buster.

The heads of organized Labor will be whining about the Right to Work legislation that the Republicans just shoved through the Michigan State Legislature.  Workers were pepper sprayed by the police today and others were arrested as they protested and tried to disrupt the proceedings. "At one point, a man shouted, 'Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! That's what you people are.' ", the Associated Press reported.  "We will remember in November." others shouted.  But what can we do in November?  Vote Democrat? The bosses have a monopoly in politics, they hold a dictatorship in the political arena and they don't fear their "other" party.

The Right to Work measures passed in the House will mean that private unions will not be able to charge employees fees. The Senate also voted to impose the same requirement on most public unions, reports say.  When an employee objects to paying union dues for whatever reason, they were required to pay the equivalent to a charity or agency that in the case of my former workplace was offered as an alternative. The bosses claim this is to give workers more "freedom" to choose.   No worker believes this. They claim that if they can get rid of costly Unions they will create more jobs. Michigan officials point to Indiana which has wages and conditions of many third world countries. Caterpillar just closed a plant in Ontario to move to Indiana where wages are 50% less.  A spectre is haunting the US I would say.

There's a few lessons to be learned here.  The first is an easy one and that is that the Democratic Party is not a political party that represents workers' interests and we cannot rely on it to defend what took us decades and heroic sacrifice to win.  Even when it has a majority as it did nationally during the Carter years holding both Houses and the presidency, not one piece of legislation of major importance to Labor was passed, the same with Clinton's first two years. We must build an alternative working people's party in this country.

The other important issue is that the blame for this situation, the increasingly successful assault on workers and our organizations, lies squarely on the shoulders of the heads of organized Labor, those folks that run the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coalition. When he was seeking a role in the leadership of the AFL-CIO after the exit of the moribund lane Kirkland Richard Trumka, now president of that organization said:

"While we are always willing to negotiate as equals, the era of union busting, contract trashing and strike breaking is at an end.  Today, we say that when you pick a fight with any of us, you pick a fight with all of us! And that when you push us, we will push back." Oct 1996.

John Sweeney, who Trumka succeeded as head of the AFL-CIO talked of blocking bridges as a   direct action tactic in our struggle against the bosses and their offensive on Labor.  These were just election campaign rhetoric as Sweeney's "blocking bridges" became building them, not between the rank and file and the leadership of the Unions but between the bosses and the leadership of the Unions. This is done through the Team Concept on the job with the numerous Labor/management committees, Quality of Life circles and other such euphemistic terms for class collaboration and betrayal and through the Team Concept in politics with the blood bond between the Union hierarchy and the Democrats.

You can go to any Unionized workplace these days and it would be impossible not to find two sets of workers.  The older hires whose benefits, wages and conditions have been cut and the new hires, mostly younger workers whose wages, benefits, conditions and chances of retirement are ten times worse. 

Talk to grocery workers here in California. Talk to the new hires in any of these situations and they'll tell you they got a raw deal from the Union.  They pay dues yet do the same job for less money and worse benefits.  The Union officialdom with their position of damage control which means pleading with the bosses' for slightly fewer concessions than they're asking for, cast the future workers, the new hires to the wolves. It's very easy to do as not yet being hired, the new young folk can't vote on a  crappy contract that in many cases pays them 50% less.  This causes animosity on the job and animosity to "the Union" for not putting up a fight.  The greater victory for the boss, greater than the money saved even, is the weakening of solidarity on the shop floor.

Even when we had 100,000 workers in the streets of Madison Wisconsin, both Democrats and the trade Union hierarchy accepted concessions, agreed to all the cuts. Only dues check off and a seat at the table mattered.  The Democrats for the  money they get from our dues at election time and the Labor heads in order to have a job at all.

As working conditions continue to deteriorate and wages decline as Union dues go up, the anger at "the Union" increases.  Workers built and join Unions because they improve our material well being, the same with voting.  Neither are an exercise in civics.  When your dues go up and wages go down, the Union doesn't appeal so much any more.

I was talking to a young leftist the other day and like many leftists they use all sorts of excuses for not waging a struggle within their Unions.  In my experience, many of them that do attend meetings do not openly challenge the leadership and their concessionary policies and wage a campaign among the rank and file for an alternative.  They have their "private" meetings outside the workers' movement for their militant side. They often argue that you have to play the game, or that the leadership won't do anything so why place demands on them? "Why confront them when the members aren't even there?" one socialist in the movement told me. These are excuses.  It's more important to defend anyone when they are not there than when they are.  It's the harder thing to do but it also is part of building an opposition as workers hear that there's division taking place at the meetings.  They hear that someone's speaking up for them and the leadership will talk crap about them which will spark interest among the ranks who want to know what it's all about.  And it's also important for oppositionists to mark their turf whether the ranks are there or not, it helps hold our feet to the fire.

If we are active in Unions we have to wage an open campaign against the concessionary policies of the present leadership.  We are in a struggle for the consciousness of the members, of the working class as a whole.  This is part of building rank and file oppositions around a fighting program and direct action fight to win tactics.

Most workers recognize that they're better off with a Union, even a bad one.  But years of class collaboration and concessionary contracts forced on members by a bloated bureaucracy that does not have to work under them,  have made it a lot easier for the bosses and their politicians to undermine the Union and attack Union rights.

As myself and others on this blog have stated many times, this logjam will be broken at some point.  The police are getting more aggressive as the bosses are becoming overconfident. But we are suffering undue hardship due to the refusal of the leadership to fight which means we we are forced to start from a much deeper hole than necessary when these small clashes like in  Michigan today become generalized and take on a national  character.

But we have the power, this is indisputable.  We just have to use it and openly fight all the bosses' divide and rule tactics, racism, sexism,  blaming immigrants etc. aimed at weakening our unity.

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South Africa: Activists arrested for supporting striking farmworkers

This article was written by Helga Jansen-Daugbjerg. She is a member of the Rita Edwards Branch of the New Women’s Movement.  Please send messages of support or inquire about donations or other solidarity actions you can take by contacting them here: ritaedwards.nwmbranch@gmail.com

Mercia Andrews and Denia Jansen are among more than twenty people arrested this week for their role in supporting striking farm workers in the countryside of the wealthy Western Cape Province. Both women are long-time activists in the land and agrarian sector and have been at the forefront of supporting the work of the farm worker strike committees.  They were arrested and charged irrationally with intimidation and incitement to violence.

Are we months away from our world-class stadiums holding those who oppose a regime bent on breaking its bond with its people? Four years ago, my words would have had a ring of the overly-dramatic. A year ago the, workings of state, albeit ineffectual, served as a placebo against the realities facing us. South Africa is a country at a cross-roads for whom destiny now calls. Change must come.

2012 will certainly be remembered as a year of revolt by the poor who have nothing left to lose, and for repression by a state more out of touch with its people than ever before. The Farm Worker revolt is no different to the Marikana miners awaiting death on the mountain, or school children left illiterate by a system that deserted them before they were even conceived.  An echo from the past rings in every burning farm, in every witnessed killing of a Marikana miner, in every child who will repeat the poverty and anger of her parents 20 years from now - unless irrefutable change happens in South Africa.




The change that must take place is beyond the tragi-comedy of Manguang and the ANC. Beyond the Animal-Farm-like characters of those who believe that leadership is a god-given place at the trough. It is even beyond the reality of those of us living this moment. Change must take place for the clichéd ‘future of South Africa’. We are the ancestors our descendants will mock and rail against for not doing what should have been done – bringing about the change.

It is no small irony that the poor work in the most economically successful industries in our country.

Twenty-two years ago descendants of slaves worked the wine and fruit farms of the Western Cape, and migrants came from all over Southern Africa to dig up the minerals. Nothing has changed in their lives except the extreme levels of poverty – and if we do not act, nothing will change.

News of the arrests of those supporting the striking farm workers were met by activists in the close-knit NGO community in Cape Town with a numbing finality. It is as if we have been expecting this - first the Marikana Massacre and now the Farm Worker Strike repression. While Mercia Andrews and Denia Jansen, and the many others arrested this week will have their day in court inJanuary 2013, having spent a night in jail, the reality of the arrests can only mean one thing – we are in the thick of a dark and hard period in our country. 

Like the struggle against the inhumanity of apartheid, the struggle against the inhuman system of inequality requires all our energies. It is being led by those for whom restitution and dignity are the first prize. For the rest of us, we must heed their struggle in the name of change. Change, like a storm, will wreak destruction and pain and loss. But this too will pass and mark the time for a change we can be proud of, for it is of our making.

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