Canada. Unifor's Founding Convention: The Predictable and the Unexpected

The piece below was sent to us from a retired CAW member in Canada. Not being in Canada it is hard to determine how much of a good thing this merger might be. The author points out that when it comes to organizational details, nothing has changed and women, a huge section of the working class and union membership throughout the world are visibly absent. Sister Hinshelwood points out that there was some progress in that she received 17.49% of the vote in a challenge for the union's first national president and correctly pointed out that the bosses' austerity agenda cannot be halted without international solidarity. This is not an insignificant result and shows the potential for a genuine fighting opposition developing in Unifor.The most important thing of course is whether the strategy and tactics of this new union and its leadership are going to change. What is the leadership going to do differently from what has been done in the past? Will the present world-view of the union hierarchy, that the market and capitalism is the answer to all things, be discarded and a working class offensive be built that can drive back the austerity agenda and open up a new period of struggle?

By Lindsay Hinshelwood

Over the Labour Day weekend two of Canada's largest industrial unions, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP), merged to become the country's largest private sector union, Unifor.

At this founding convention, facilitated by retiring CAW President Ken Lewenza, the new union leadership moved forward by engaging in exactly the same kind of rhetoric it engaged in the day before when the CAW held its final convention: the usual "we fought for this, we fought for that." So if we ask the question "what kind of union is Unifor likely to be?" I'm going to say it will be just a larger, more tightly controlled Old Boys' club.

I had the privilege of being a first-time delegate at this merger convention and I wasn't expecting anything more than the same words I've been hearing for the 15 years I've been a CAW member. I expected sycophants giving their orchestrated standing ovations and speeches as expected. But the unexpected happened: the delegates offered some criticism and even some democracy, rarities in these patriarchal organizations that are traditionally plagued with appointed reps, nepotism and tokenism.

A sister, Kerry Ann Taylor, from the former CEP Local 232 spoke out about the lack of women and people of colour in the presentation of the new union. This led other delegates to say that it was only the Old Boys playing starring roles, and that this was the underlying culture of this historical event: the CAW leaders, all men, were controlling the democracy. This set the stage for the elections of the new national leaders of this new union, as Dave Coles, retiring President of the CEP, opened the nominations.

The anointed prince for the position of Unifor's first National President was the CAW's Jerry Dias. He is a careerist official who has been a union representative for most of his working life in the CAW, a self-titled "rank and file man" who spent most of his time in office. Then a challenger was

nominated by Bruce Allen, militant activist and Vice President of former CAW Local 199. After a compelling introduction he nominated me for National President, not only the first rank-and-file member to contest the top position in Unifor or the CAW before it but also a woman.

Instead of controlled democracy we had democracy forced from the floor. This developed further: when Coles wouldn't allow the candidates to speak, the delegates spoke out and demanded it. I received 17.49% of the vote, a great indication that many delegates were not happy founding a new union on old guard practices. I campaigned on a platform that we must be the change we want to see, with One Member One Vote for national officials and nominations open to the rank-and-file. My leaflet stated "Lindsay Hinshelwood recognizes that solidarity knows no borders and the struggle

against the austerity agenda cannot be effectively fought just in this country. She does not endorse reducing workers to being competitors, competing for lower wages, undercutting each other and impoverishing all, rather she believes in forging international solidarity."

With the election over and the other 24 nominees acclaimed, it was time to review and adopt the new Constitution and Vision, and this is where the union remains the same. There are few changes in the policies and procedures except that the role that the Public Review Board played in the CAW, as a body to which rank-and-file workers can make appeals, becomes diminished. The new vision implies that concessions are sometimes necessary, a frightful statement coming from the collaborationist, concession- seeking CAW officials. There is a plan to somehow include workers who work in non-unionized workplaces or who do not have jobs. This is a twisted irony for the Unifor members who are low-waged supplemental workers on General Motors' assembly lines who pay union dues but are not protected under the collective agreements.

Overall, the microphones were stacked with servile officials harping on about how good the union has been for them and these performances were always met with thunderous applause. However, there were also many delegates who addressed the floor on issues which concerned workers, issues which Dias just glossed over.

The merger does come with a glimmer of hope for change, and that will come from future delegates and members who demand change, contest the tradition of appointments and acclamations for national level positions, continue to publicize their critique of the union and raise the issues which concern them. The delegates of the founding convention forced a historic election, which has been more or less ignored by the new Unifor. I fear the driving down of workers will only accelerate before any progress is made.

Lindsay Hinshelwood is a member of Unifor Local 707 (Ford Oakville). She has been referred to as "the most outspoken critic of the CAW."

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Beefed up SWAT teams sent to WalMart protests

Which elected official sent these guys along?

Left: beefed up cops turn up at peaceful WalMart protest

In response to the protests/strikes by WalMart workers and their supporters yesterday,  WalMart spokesperson Brooke Buchanan said that the protests were, just, “…another stunt to garner attention, it's the same old cast members trying to get some attention for their cause."  The protesters are just a lot of “…union activists and professional protesters - not a lot of Wal-Mart associates,'' Buchanan added.

WalMart has 4600 stores in the US employing 1.3 million workers, many of then part-time workers earning $8 or $9 an hour.  With no union therefore very few rights on the job, the fact that any workers walk of the job is a feat of courage in itself. Buchanan’s comments are standard from the 1%’s spokesperson’s---there’s no problems at WalMart, workers are happy, there are merely a few disgruntled folks and outside agitators.

The coalition leading these protests includes community groups, non-profits and the UFCW, are demanding WalMart pays full-time workers $25,000 a year.  Organizing one million workers would bring in a huge revenue stream for the UFCW even if these members were low waged workers that’s how the strategists atop organized labor look at it.  It’s possible that WalMart might throw a few crumbs on the table in response to these activities which would add some momentum to the movement perhaps.  The UFCW leadership, like the entire leadership of organized Labor is not willing to build a real, militant movement to unionize WalMart which would mean involving trucking (deliveries), the community, and other sections of the class that could force through direct action and strikes, WalMart to accept union recognition.

Sometimes though, mobilizations can get out of control of those who initiate them, the mood can be such that the limits put on them by the leadership are discarded and we know there is much anger and discontent beneath the surface of US society that can break the bonds of acceptable behavior at any time.

In fact what motives this short commentary is the picture included. This is how the cops turned up to one of the WalMart workers’ peaceful protests.  It is standard these days and part of the beefing up of state security forces where regular cops and SWAT teams are indistinguishable from each other. The use of drones domestically and the massive spying apparatus that Edward Snowden thankfully revealed to us is also part of this increased state security. The bosses were a little shaken up by the Occupy Movement that showed direct action and defiance of the law is a necessary part of the struggle for a decent life. The object is to intimidate workers with these thugs, terrify us in to submission.

The politicians that make the decisions to send these characters to a peaceful protest by workers earning starvation wages, no doubt receive money and support at election time from the heads of organized labor. Meanwhile, the Walton family heirs have as much wealth as 100 million Americans and Wal-Mart CEO Michael Duke earned nearly $20 million in 2012, including pay, stock awards and incentives. That works out to about $9,600 an hour. He got another $21.4 million from exercising stock options and vested shares.

But the more astute political representatives of the bankers recognize the explosive and volatile nature of the present period and their increased security measures are a necessary precaution from their point of view.  One has to think that there is no way any politician or public figure that has anything to do with sending a force like those in the picture to protect the rights of the WalMart family are anything but enemies of workers and the poor.

The ongoing crisis of capitalism and the declining influence of US capitalism on the world stage will bring more attacks on workers at home as Washington’s imperialist adventures have to be paid for.  All the gains won over the last century are to be taken back.  As we have explained many times on this blog, the refusal of the labor leaders to fight and the violent nature of the US authorities has delayed the response to this offensive of capital, has held back a movement of the working class that would introduce an offensive of our own to the equation, but the bosses will not stop, driven as they are by the nature of their system.  Our offensive will come, it will not be pretty, it will contain much confusion but it will arrive.

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Thoughts on the struggles in Northern Ireland

This description of Ireland below is very similar to the events that took place here in the US that led to the increase of the black middle and upper middle class. Meanwhile, the conditions for black workers and youth continue to worsen.

by Sean O'Torrain

I was back home in the North of Ireland a few months ago at a wedding. I was seated beside a middle class Catholic couple who has a relative who joined SF and has a local council position now. They played no role in the military campaign of the Provos. Only when it became a mass movement did they even get involved in the Civil Rights movement. They played no role in the 1969 Derry uprising. They made sure they kept their children well out of the firing line, the majority of whom got good educations and no longer live in the North. Middle class Catholics like these made some gains out of the last years .

These middle class people whispered to me in a soft voice that if it had not been for the Provos campaign they would have got nothing. This is the typical attitude of the middle class Catholic. They did get something out of the last 30 years war. They got access to more jobs and positions. For them the sacrifice made by a generation of Catholic working class youth was worth it. As an old man used to say to me back home they would fight to the last drop of another man's blood.

These middle class Catholics whom the Provisionals now represent ignore a few facts. Look at these. "According to the Multiple Deprivation Measure 2010 – which collates data on categories such as health, income, employment and education across 582 wards in the North – 14 of the 20 most deprived wards overall are predominantly Catholic. Sixteen of the 20 most deprived wards assessed on household income and employment are also mostly Catholic. A similar picture emerges from the Peace Monitoring Report 2012, which found “the proportion of people who are in low-income households is much higher among Catholics (26 per cent) than among Protestants (16 per cent).” The Provisional campaign did not end discrimination against the Catholic working class in the North.

The organizers of this blog have always opposed the Provisionals campaign. We have said it would not drive British imperialism out of the North, that it would increase sectarian division and that the working class as a whole in Northern Ireland would be further divided. This is correct.

The increased gains of the Catholic middle class and the Sinn Fein politicians have enraged the Protestant working class whom are still under the hammer of the attacks of capitalism in this period of crisis. They feel that some of the marginal privileges they had have been reduced and will be further reduced. They feel that the peace process has been at their expense. So we have the worst of both worlds. The Catholic working class are still exploited and more so than the Protestant working class and the Protestant working class while still having some small marginal privileges feel that they are losing these and under threat. Inevitably sectarianism will not go away.

The North is more segregated than ever before. More separate schools, more so called peace gates separating streets and areas in Belfast. The coming economic crises will see Imperialism and capitalism once again turning up the screws on divide and rule. The crisis of the North is not over. There is a real danger in the years ahead of new sectarian military conflict with the possibility of civil war and the repartition of the country.

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The Radical Tradition of Autoworkers

Andy Piascik Interviews retired autoworker Greg Shotwell

The sit-down strike by General Motors workers in the winter of 1936-37 was one of the galvanizing events in U.S. labor history. Similarly, the efforts of the primarily African-American autoworkers of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and the other RUM’s sparked the resurgence of rank and file militancy in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. In more recent years, the New Directions caucus and Soldiers of Solidarity carried on the radical tradition in the United Automobile Workers.
           
Gregg Shotwell was active in both New Directions and SOS for much of his 30 years working at General Motors during which time the UAW’s rolls fell from1.5 million members to 382,513. He published Live Bait and Ammo, a boisterous newsletter that regularly skewered management as well as official union passivity. Often hilarious, always biting and sometimes depressing, Live Bait and Ammo documented the devastating impact the collaboration between automakers and the UAW has had on workers in the factories.
           
Haymarket Books published a collection of Shotwell’s Live Bait and Ammo in Autoworkers Under the Gun: A Shop-Floor View of the End of the American Dream. In this interview, Shotwell talks about the onslaught of auto management, the decline of the UAW and the efforts of autoworkers to resist both.

Piascik: What was the situation in the auto industry and in the UAW when you began as an autoworker in 1979?

Shotwell: It was at that time American auto companies first started to experience serious competition from foreign automakers and they weren’t prepared for the contest. US consumers demanded fuel efficient vehicles and the American auto companies took advantage of the opportunity to upgrade their products by laying off hundreds of thousands of auto workers. In the best of times the companies took all the credit for success but when times got tough they put all the blame on workers and then proceeded to design some of the most notorious failures in auto history. Ralph Nader pilloried the Corvair but it didn't take Consumer Reports to bury the Vega, the Pinto, and the Gremlin beneath the irredeemable crust of US car history. 

In the Eighties GM, Ford, and Chrysler were obsolete manufacturing enterprises. Rather than retool and revamp to make more competitive products, the companies took advantage of the situation to attack the UAW and blame poor quality and lackluster production on workers. The companies never relinquished what we called "paragraph 8" in the UAW-GM contract, or "management's right to manage." That is, management reserved the right not only to hire and fire but to design both the product and the means of production. Publicly, workers bore the brunt of the blame for GM's failure, but on the inside, pencil pushers made all the decisions.

In 1981, we started producing valve lifters for Toyota and the first batch we shipped was returned for inferior quality. Toyota taught GM how to produce first time quality products at our plant and I suspect at other GM plants as well. It wasn't magic. They simply raised the bar.
For its part, the UAW responded to the crisis of foreign competition by promoting hatred of brothers and sisters in other countries and encouraging UAW members to identify with the bosses.

Piascik: Were you involved in the union right from the start?

Shotwell: No. My initial response to the sensory assault of auto production —the noise, the smell, the relentless pressure to work faster and faster— was to drink alcohol. I wasn't alone but the addiction kept me undercover. It wasn't until I quit drinking that I began to get involved in the union. I needed to feel integrated in the workplace and getting active in the union helped me to feel like I was a part of a larger and more meaningful organization. I never would have believed it was the beginning of the end for the UAW.

Piascik: In Autoworkers Under the Gun, you talk about how workers had far more control of the shop floor 30+ years ago than now. Can you elaborate on that?

Shotwell: Automation and lean production methods, which are an intensification of Taylorism, have successfully sped up and dumbed down the jobs. In the Seventies, auto production required a lot more people power. Our sheer numbers gave us a greater sense of influence on the job and in society at large. Workers had more control over the production and pace of the work because manufacturing depended more on workers' knowledge, skills, and muscle.

Today, everything is automated, computerized, and heavily monitored. As a result human labor is devalued and workers feel less important. Thirty years ago, we also had a union culture that advocated confrontation rather than cooperation with the boss. There was a clear demarcation between union and management. In the Eighties, management attempted to blur that difference and the UAW went along with this ridiculous idea that the boss was your friend rather than someone who wanted you to work harder for less. It's been a painful history lesson and one that UAW President Bob King has failed to acknowledge despite the overwhelming evidence that concessions and cooperation do not save jobs.

In my early years, whenever management would start to crack down, we retaliated by slowing down production. The bosses learned quickly that if they wanted to meet production goals, the best way to do that was to treat the people who did the work with respect. If I was running production and the boss gave me a hard time, I would create a problem with the machine and write it up for a job setter, who in turn would shut it down and write it up for a skilled tradesman. When I told him the boss was on my back he would ask, "How long do you want it down?" This wasn't something that we organized, it was a part of the shop floor culture. We agreed never to do someone else's job, we had clear job definitions or work rules and we adamantly refused to violate our contract. Today, the UAW promotes speed up, multi-tasking, and job definitions or work rules which are so broad they are worthless. Workers today enjoy less autonomy because they have less support from the official union and a shop floor culture of cooperation rather than confrontation with management.

Piascik: Why, after so many years where "cooperation" with management has been so devastating to autoworkers, is the UAW pushing it harder than ever?

Shotwell: Because they are getting paid by the company.  The Big Three (GM, Ford, Chrysler) set up separate tax-exempt nonprofit corporations which are managed by the company and the union but financed solely by the companies. It's a 501-c. As a result, salaries for UAW International appointees are subsidized by the company. The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) requires that unions make all financial records available to the membership, but these corporations are separate legal entities.

More generally, many unions, not the just the UAW, have lost their bearings. Union leaders don't have a world view independent of the corporations they serve. The institution of Labor is infected with opportunists who claim we can cure the afflictions of capitalism with a heavier dose of capitalism. As a result, union leaders advocate that we work harder for less and help the companies eliminate jobs. Competition between workers and cooperation with bosses is an anti-union policy, but it makes perfect sense to union leaders who have more in common with bosses than workers.

Piascik: You belong to an organization of rank and file autoworkers called Soldiers of Solidarity. What is SOS and what kind of work does it do?

Shotwell: SOS was a spontaneous reaction to an urgent crisis. Delphi hired bankruptcy specialist Steve Miller, who threatened to cut our wages 66 percent, eliminate pensions, reduce benefits, and sell or close all but five Delphi plants. The UAW didn't respond so I called for a meeting of rank and file UAW members to discuss what we should do to defend ourselves. Autoworkers and retirees from five states representing all the major automakers and suppliers came. They recognized that Delphi was the lead domino and if they took us down, the other companies would follow suit.

We agreed on the name Soldiers of Solidarity at our third meeting because we felt like we were engaged in a battle; we felt our struggle was not limited to the UAW or Delphi; the solution was solidarity; and the acronym was a distress signal. Initially, we decided not to focus on elections and internal union disputes because of the urgency of the crisis. A number of us had been in New Directions and we didn't want workers to think our idea of a fight back was electoral. We wanted to focus on direct action and work to rule. We understood that we were fighting the company, a cooperative union, and a capitalist government but we kept the focus on the company to attract as many workers as possible. We knew how ruthless the Administrative Caucus that controls the UAW could be but the Administrative Caucus was at the bargaining table and most members were pinning their hopes on them. As it turned out, the Administrative Caucus didn't waste any time attacking us anyway.

 As a result, SOS was forced into behaving like an underground movement. We were in the shadows dismantling the apparatus of profit and threatening to take down the whole edifice of partnership if our demands weren't met. I said in one of my newsletters, "Management likes to throw money at problems. Let's give them a big problem to throw money at." We did. As a result, GM and Delphi, started meeting the primary needs of a majority of the members -- safe pensions, early retirement, subsidized wages and transfers back to GM. Workers made choices based on what was best for their families and resistance deflated. The downside to this guerilla defense was that we lacked a structure that could sustain us after the immediate crisis ended. SOS continued to advocate direct action but our numbers dwindled as so many chose retirement.

Piascik:  How widespread is rank and file resistance to the union's collaboration with the companies?

Shotwell: There is a lot of dissatisfaction but actual resistance is minimal at this point. I think we have to bear in mind how fragile workers feel in the current economy. The government hasn't done anything to help create jobs, organize unions, or improve opportunities for working class people. Whenever there is a crisis for unions or working people in general, Obama is Missing In Action. If unemployment benefits are extended, it is always at the expense of the working class as a whole like with the extension of the Bush tax cuts.

I do believe, however, that momentum is building, primarily because the new generation of autoworkers doesn't have the golden handcuffs: pension and health care in retirement. The previous generation was bound to the company and the union by the promise of retirement after thirty years. Young autoworkers don't have anything to look forward to except a weekly paycheck and they are grossly underpaid for the work they perform. They have no reason to feel loyal to the company or the union that stabbed them in the back. As this new generation takes control -- and they will soon gain a majority in the UAW -- I believe we will see more resistance to the union's collaboration with the bosses.

Piascik: The 2009 auto bailout was much talked about, yet next to nothing was said in the mainstream media about how it furthered the attack on autoworkers. At the same time, autoworkers were said to be grudgingly accepting of the deal because the alternative was unemployment. Can you talk about this?

Shotwell: The 2009 bailout was, from a UAW member's perspective, extortion. We were told to accept it or lose everything we ever worked for. The general public was given the impression that UAW members were treated like prima donnas because they didn't lose their pensions, but none of the CEOs who engineered the calculated catastrophe lost their pensions. For some reason, Americans are led to believe that workers don't deserve contracts but no CEO in the nation will work without a contract replete with a golden parachute. Tell an auto supplier the contract is canceled and see how many parts you get on Monday. Contracts are the way capitalism works for capitalists, but workers aren't included in the legal equation.

Companies take the value generated by labor, transport it overseas, and then act like their pockets are empty. Labor has a legitimate lien on Capital. Companies routinely charge the customer more for the cost of doing business, as in the deferred compensation of a pension, and then spend the extra money on themselves rather than honor the contractual commitment. Bankruptcy is a business plan and a growing industry in the USA.

It seems outrageous that the government would give the companies so much money and not require a job program making worthwhile energy efficient products. Instead, the government gets company stock which binds the public to Wall Street rather than autoworkers, their natural allies, and union members get a contract that makes non-union an attractive option. Not only did new hires get half pay, they lost pension and health care in retirement -- about 66 percent of fair compensation. Then the extortion contract included a no-strike clause during the next set of negotiations which rendered collective bargaining a charade. The only people who had the stomach to watch 2011 auto negotiations were Right to Work for Less advocates and day traders making bets on the side. In 2011 traditional workers didn't get a raise in their pensions for the first time since 1953. Their pensions were effectively frozen and, considering how quickly new hires will be the dominant force in the union, I don't expect they will ever see a raise. But no one seems to notice the effect of a frozen pension on the future prospects of a workforce that can't conceivably work the assembly line until they are 66 or older. The Obama administration revealed its anti-union underbelly. Every reason that a non-union worker had to join the UAW is gone. Now Bob King is pretending that workers want the UAW so they can have a voice in the workplace. Whose voice? A UAW nepotistical appointee who thinks the boss is his bosom buddy?

Piascik: In your book you write, "The institutions - corporate, government, union - that brokered the self-destructive contrivance called neoliberalism are obsolete and need to be replaced." Union obsolescence seems to suggest that horizontal alliances between rank and file workers from different industries, as well as with community activists such as we saw to some extent in the Occupy phenomenon, is more the way to go than, say, the seemingly Sisyphean task of reforming a union or unions as a whole. What are your thoughts about this?

Shotwell: The so-called social contract has been broken and yes, I do believe that rank and file workers will have to decide whether the unions can be reformed, or if it would be better to organize a new union, one that included all workers. But that's a vision and I am not a visionary.

The building blocks of a revitalized labor movement are not in the sky. The building blocks are work units. In my experience struggle, not elections, is the fulcrum of change. Elections reinforce learned helplessness. Direct action reinforces the power that workers have over production and services and thus, profit. Likewise, demonstrations which may be inspiring and may be an organizing, agitating and educating tool are easily tolerated. Look how quickly and efficiently the government developed tactics to corral and disperse the Occupy protests. I agree with Joe Burns, author of Reviving the Strike that the best way to organize is with a strike. But I believe in this era of precarious employment the best strike method is on the inside.
The trouble with traditional strikes today is that union bureaucrats don't play to win. They use strikes to soften resistance and encourage compromise with management. One of the best examples of this was the UAW strike against American Axle in 2008, a time when American Axle was eager to reduce inventory. I felt that workers were set up to lose.

Whether one chooses to reform the union or start a new union, one must first organize workers. People work to support families, not ideologies. If you want to organize a workplace, fight the boss and win. Even a small victory is a building block. I was notorious for my criticism of the UAW. I called the bureaucrats the Rollover Caucus, the Concession Caucus, and eventually just the Con Caucus. But that didn't prevent me from working within the union, not only by attending meetings but by winning elected positions on the Local Executive Board and working on committees like Education and Civil Rights and By-Laws. These positions gave me access to knowledge and opportunities for new allegiances and influence. I think we have to use every tool in the box. Which reminds me of my favorite line by Ani DiFranco: "Every tool is a weapon, if you hold it right."
In the end I believe workers find that solidarity is not an ideal; solidarity is a practical solution to an urgent need.

Andy Piascik is a long-time activist and award-winning author who has written for Z Magazine, The Indypendent and many other publications. He can be reached at andypiascik@yahoo.com.

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Fast Food workers call For a nationwide strike

We are not familiar with the level of organization that has gone in to this but we should keep our eye on these developments and support them when and where we can. From Chicagoist

***********

by Chuck Sudo

Retail and fast food workers called out for a nationwide strike today to take place Aug. 29. The workers and their supporters have been staging strikes in Chicago, New York, Kansas City, Detroit and other cities across the country for months demanding a hike in the minimum wage to $15 an hour and the right to unionize. Hundreds of workers and several labor organizations in Chicago recently participated in two days of walkouts and protests earlier this month.
Nancy Salgado, a single mother who has worked at a Chicago McDonald’s for the past 10 years said in a press release:

“We are united in our belief that every job should pay workers enough to meet basic needs such as food and housing. Our families, communities, and economy all depend on workers earning a living wage.”

Organizers say the strikes will hit fast food chains like McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King, as well as retail outlets such as Sears, Macy’s and Dollar Tree Stores. Chicago’s protests at the beginning of the month saw walkouts at some of those locations along with Whole Foods, Sally Beauty Supply, Walgreen's and others. Supporters of the strikes say that large corporations can afford pay increases for rank and file employees when the industry sees $200 billion a year in revenue.
"It’s time for these big fast-food and retail companies to pay up. They can afford to pay us more and have a responsibility to ensure the workers who keep their businesses booming don’t live in poverty," said Latrice Arnold, a Wendy’s employee from Detroit. Recent data has suggested low wages from big box retailers and fast food chains hurt American taxpayer’s—regardless of whether or not they’re a low wage worker—because thousands of employees are also on government aid. CNN Money reported in June that one study showed 3,216 Walmart employees, America’s largest private employer, were enrolled in public health care programs in Wisconsin.

Additionally, demographics of low wage workers has changed over the years. While the assumption might be fast food chains are staffed with younger people looking for some extra cash, the Economic Policy Institute released a study that showed 8 out of 10 workers making $7.25 an hour are older than 20, and half those work 40 hours a week. Researchers from the EPI told the Washington Post “It is clear that the bulk of minimum wage workers are mid- or full-time adult employees, not teenagers or part-times.”

 

Contact the author of this article or email tips@chicagoist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

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Egypt. Worldwide. Yeats. Joyce. Homesick.

by Sean O'Torrain

In my home country (Ireland) the old way is to make out you know as little as possible. Like African Americans came to learn showing your were too smart could get you killed by the ruling elite. So like many others of my background I will say "You know you might be right there, by God your are not so slow, I will have to think about that now." As I said, the rule tended to be whatever you say say nothing.

I am only rambling on here. Well maybe not. I am a wee bit homesick today, missing the grey mist of rain, the grey rocks sticking up through green grass, the grey Atlantic crashing on to the western shores. While here I am in in Chicago, a flat ugly city where if you go over a bump on the road it threatens to give you an erotic experience.

So anyway where was I?  I had a wee read of Yeats there to keep me going, I know he was influenced by fascism towards the end but he was a poet of great genius. He also had a bit of humor. He wrote:"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through periods of joy." I am laughing here.

He also wrote: "Things fall apart the center cannot hold." This brings me to today. I am getting old and this is a factor. I have some health problems and this is another factor. But this not the full story. The full story is that I just cannot keep up with all the gigantic uprisings and wars and civil wars climate destruction, the rising of the women, the movements against sexism and racism,  and new issues with which we are being confronted. Never has there been a time like this. Yes it for sure is right. For capitalism things fall apart the center cannot hold.

But for the working class thing are not so good either. The center is not holding together too good there either. The big issue is this. What force will arise or will a force arise that can overthrow capitalism and take society forward to its new phase  of international democratic socialism before all is destroyed by climate change, mass starvation and nuclear war. The union and labor leaders control the organizations of the working class and should do this job. They should be providing the aggressive offensive center. But they will not. Cowardly, intellectually duller than ducks, with their badly designed suits huddling beside the Obamas and the rest of them, they are terrified. Only if a movement is built below them that threatens all their privileges and positions will they do anything.

So new forces will have to be built. We see the youth and workers and women in Egypt forcing the overthrow of Mubarak, then making the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood untenable, and now taking on the military. It is heroic, beyond heroic. We see them taking on the US armed military with only rocks and their bare hands. I cannot see the steps forward that are necessary internationally being taken without such steps.

I do not think that what Marx said that capitalism could be changed peacefully is any longer accurate. Look at the richest of the major capitalist countries the US. Before the working class are even rising the capitalist class have armed its state to the teeth, are spying on just about everybody. They are ready to put the workers movement down in blood in every country. Is the Egyptian  military's decision to put down the Muslim Brotherhood come hell or high water not the music of the future?

Unless.

Unless, that is, fighting forces are built in the working class. Not just amongst the courageous youth.  But also amongst the big battalions, the working class, in the factories, the transport industries, the energy sectors, the huge retail chains and so on. And fighting forces that take on the divisions, the sexism, the racism,  and are prepared to fight and literally fight, that is not just by giving out flyers. This will be important of course in the struggle for the consciousness of the working class but serious combative measures will be necessary.

I remember being at a meeting of auto workers in Detroit some years ago. I think it was around the Delphi struggle. There were about a dozen workers around the table talking tactics. I made the point that the bosses would win unless the factories were taken over and physically defended, other forces mobilized on the outside to fight and an all out battle such as the 1930's waged, such as the youth of the black revolt waged. I remember so clearly how the eyes of the workers turned away. They were not ready to hear that. The Delphi bosses won. The working class will have to stop turning away, will  have to face this reality, will have to be ready to hear this, or face defeat.

And what about the left and the radical forces here and internationally. I agree with putting forward a program for a new society and also using the transitional method. but I do not agree with leaving the issue of strategy and tactics aside. We have to tell the truth. The bosses will massacre the workers in their millions if they are allowed to in their effort to keep the power. I believe the bosses would be prepared to drop tactical nuclear weapons on their own cities to keep the power. Not only do we have to prepare to fight but we also have to tell workers they have to organize to fight and this also means winning over sections of the state apparatus. The gains of the thirties were won by fighting, the gains of the 60's also. They are all being taken away.

And back again to wee Yeats and also Joyce. Yeats said "Do not wait to strike when the iron is hot but make it hot by striking." He said "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." He wrote :"Think like a wise man (woman) but communicate in the language of the people."  Wee Yeats  was not so slow.

Then there is the man himself wee Joyce. But before quoting him. The revolutionary left and this includes all of us, including myself, have achieved the most pathetic of results in this period of worldwide upheaval with the center not holding. I believe this has been because of a combination of left sectarianism, ultra leftism and opportunism. I may be wrong on this. But there is some reason more than the objective situation for our pathetic failure. We have to stop this what we used to call at home :"whistling past the graveyard." That is pretending that all is well when anybody with an eye in their head can see it is not. And when the proof is there for all to see. There are no mass forces moving to the revolutionary left.

So to Joyce. He wrote: "A man's (woman's) errors are his portals of discovery." What do I mean by putting this here. I mean that the revolutionary left have made mistake after mistake in the past decades. Myself included. We have to face up to this. And dialectically turn these mistakes into their opposite that is "portals" which if we enter can allow us to correct our ways. This means openly recognizing and articulating publicly our mistakes. I do this regularly. What makes me worry more than anything else is that most of the small forces which claim the mantle of revolutionary socialism continue to go on as if they have never made any mistake, as if they are still correct on everything. This is a recipe for disaster. We have to as wee Joyce said see that our errors are made into portals for discovery. This means openly and publicly articulating our errors and discussing these in the working class movement in as Yeats says the language "of the people.

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A no vote by AC Transit workers has the potential to usher in a new era for the labor movement.

BART and AC Transit workers show unity at board meeting

by Richard Mellor

Afscme local 444, retired

For the last few months here in the San Francisco Bay Area we have been subjected a barrage of anti-worker, anti-union propaganda in the 1%’s media.  The reason their media has been paying so much attention to worker and labor issues rather than which Hollywood star has abandoned Scientology or the child of those royal wasters in Britain, is the ongoing back and forth between transit workers and the state.

There in no doubt in my mind that there is a bit of a shift in the mood here and this is being manifested in increased strike activity or the threat of it.  Bay Area Rapid Transit workers (BART), members of ATU 1555, Afscme 3993 and SEIU 1021 struck for four and a half days in early July and have been in a back and forth struggle to stave off concessions with the state intervening to keep them on the job. 

City of Oakland workers, also members of SEIU 1021 struck for one day about the same time and have since settled (I do not know if the members have voted) and Alameda County bus drivers, members of ATU 192 have also been in negotiations.  Unfortunately, despite the tremendous unity and desire to fight together the ranks of ATU 1555 and 192 displayed at a Transit Board meeting some weeks ago, the leadership of 192 refused to make joint strike action a priority.  They had their members work in the first BART strike.

 

AC Transit drivers will be voting on a concessionary contract this coming Saturday that their executive board is recommending they accept.  The vote by the leadership to recommend the contract was not unanimous; it passed by a vote of 8 for and 5 against according to reports I’ve heard. It is at times like these that mass consciousness can be broadened as the real nature of our relationship with the boss becomes more apparent. 

Part of the reason we are seeing this increased activity in my opinion is due to the nature of the period. The bosses are feeling very confident after years of successful attacks on wages, benefits and conditions in the private sector in particular. The victory over the autoworkers cannot be underestimated, as these workers were a benchmark for the entry of what many workers here in the US refer to as the middle class, basically, decent paying union jobs with good benefits, pensions and lifetime employment. 

We should not underestimate the level of the decline either.  Caterpillar shut a plant down in London Ontario and moved to the US Midwest where wages are 50% lower. Even the head of Fiat threatened his workers he would move production perhaps to the US if they didn’t accept concessions. Who would have dreamed it 40 years ago? 

This war on workers has produced results. “Manufacturing in the US is more and more attractive,” an economist for the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation tells the Wall Street Journal, by attractive he means wages have been driven significantly lower. Bloomberg Business Week.  pointed out that US bosses get almost 25% more goods and services out of us than they did in 1999 with the same number of workers and as wages have declined.  “It’s as if $2.5 trillion worth of stuff---the equivalent of the entire U.S. economy circa 1958—materialized out of thin air” this sober magazine of the 1% adds.Did we get any of that?

The shift now is to the public sector with its much higher union density. Some 35% of public sector workers are unionized compared to around 7% in the private sector. We have seen savage attacks on teachers, and municipal workers and the reduced services that go along with them. Public expenditure crowds private capital from the marketplace and reduces opportunities for profit. 

Social Security, transport, utilities like water, are all in their sights as there is money to be made here and there is less public control if these vital industries are privatized.  Education is a billion dollar industry which is why the teachers unions have to be crushed.  This is a war on the public sector which is why the negotiations with the BART workers are so contentious. They are not going along with it

ATU 192 and the bus drivers vote Saturday and these brothers and sisters are faced with a decision. I had a similar decision some years ago in 1997 when I was a rank and file negotiator for my local, AFSCME local 444 at EBMUD, the water district. We had been in negotiations for months.  The bosses were determined to eliminate our COLA clause and we went round and round about that. 

We had formed a solidarity committee that went to other locals in the area as well as the welfare and unemployed offices as we had demands for 50 union jobs on the table and other issues. We worked in areas of high unemployment and felt it crucial that we fight for jobs for the communities in which we worked. We urged the community to join our solidarity committee and help fight for more jobs for the community.

At one point we realized we could win no more at the table, as in the last analysis it is the potential power and intervention of the rank and file and our allies that gets results.  Three of us on the negotiating team believed we could get more and we planned to recommend against the contract. But we realized we could not recommend a no vote without putting forward a plan.  We had to make it clear that simply sending us back in to negotiate was pointless as nothing more could be won through bargaining, the members themselves had to become active.

We recommended the no vote when it was our turn to speak to our members at the contract ratification meeting.  We made it clear though that if they vote no, they can’t go fishing.  We can win more we told them but you have to join the solidarity committee and build it.  You have to become an activist yourself, help coordinate visits to others union's rank and file, workplaces and where workers congregate.  They had to start with our sister local the white-collar union and its members who were our co-workers.

In short, we said that we have a plan, that we rely on our own strength as opposed to mediators or Democratic politicians who are often brought in by the heads of organized Labor in these instances but are worthless. And we become involved in mobilizing the rest of the labor movement and the community.

As it was, they chose the contract as the line of least resistance and voted it up. It was a good contract by most standards but they have, like all workers, been sliding down the concessionary road leaving an uncertain future for the younger workers. The bosses won't let up.

If I were a member of the ATU going to vote on Saturday I would vote against the contract which is concessionary; we have to put a stop to this at some point. But I would have to explain to my co-workers that we cannot vote no and hope more is forthcoming at the table.  The employers mean business here. A no vote would give a boost to BART workers who are under a major assault and give AC Transit workers an opportunity to reach out to them and return to the mood of unity in action that was likely derailed by the leadership during BART’s strike in July. I would argue for a rank and file strike and solidarity committee to be formed that would do this and that could leaflet BART work areas and wherever BART workers congregate including their union hall.

Rank and file committees like these could be set up in each workplace and unions under any name that explains they are serious about winning, ATU 192 for a stronger Union, SEIU 1021 for a stronger union etc.

The leadership will likely oppose such developments as so far, every step that could have strengthened the workers and win a victory has been avoided.  These committees can call for demands to be put on the table that take workers forward, absolutely no concessions, more jobs, free transportation for seniors, increased bus routes, half fare for people on state assistance or welfare and the unemployed. 

The demand for a $15 an hour minimum wage linked to more jobs will have a tremendous affect on the low waged and youth.  Rally’s can be organized to help build the intra union unity and solidarity with the community so that a successful strike can be won in 60 days and further attempts by the state to deny the right to strike can be challenged through  sheer numbers.

There is also a solidarity committee that has been formed to assist transit and any workers in this major struggle going on in the Bay Area and rank and file union/workplace committees should link and integrate with this group.  We can win here but it means every worker must become an activist and we must reject the idea that we can only demand what the bosses, the Democrats, the media and most of the Union officialdom deems is realistic. We must demand what people need to lead a decent and fruitful life, society can afford it, it’s just a matter of priorities; money for wars and bankers instead of for social need. We cannot continue to operate in the old way as union members, pay our dues and leave it to someone else.

I hope the brothers and sisters of ATU 192 vote against their contract and take some of the steps I think could deflect this attempt to drive us further backwards. We owe it to our youth, those who fought before us and whose sacrifice gave us the benefits we have today, and we owe it to ourselves.

We have the power; we have the numbers.  Society has the money.  The move to coordinate action between AC Transit workers and BART workers would send a message to management that they’re faced with a fight and send shock waves through the corporate boardrooms and shake their friends in Congress. Motions could be made at both unions for their leaderships to call a press conference to announce the introduction of new demands at the table due to management's intransigence and union busting and to announce that the 1%'s austerity agenda is going to be halted here in the Bay Area with this dispute. The present leadership will no doubt oppose such a motion but the struggle for it will clarify what needs to be done and rank and file committees can take these steps.

There is much anger out there and many unions are involved in contract disputes at the moment.  With the right approach, we can make some history here in the Bay Area.

But to vote no on a contract that a leadership recommends is a serious decision with serious consequences. We can’t vote no and go fishin’.

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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.

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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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