It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Friday, October 19, 2007
How Do You Spell Sell Out?
CAW shelves right to strike
In Alberta workers are fighting to change our regressive labour laws to allow the right to strike which was recognized this summer by the Supreme Court. In Ontario workers are being sold out by once progressive talking union leader Buzz Hargrove. All so he can increase his declining membership and assure his pork choppers their salaries. It is sending a chill through out the Canadian labour movement.
Hey maybe Buzz would like to move to Alberta, since the bosses here would love this kind of agreement. In fact thats why CLAC is so popular with employers out here. So what's the difference between CAW and the employee management consultants from CLAC....nothing.
Hargrove recognizes the need for his business union to adapt to modern business practices, mergers and acquisitions to expand the base of capital (union dues). This began when CAW raided SEIU for its members, claiming it was doing it in the name of democratic social unionism. Which got CAW temporarily removed from the CLC. AUPE in Alberta followed CAW's lead and left the AFL and CLC declaring itself an indepedent union, with support from Buzz.If workers vote in favour of the CAW and the contract at their plant, any subsequent collective bargaining disputes would be resolved through binding arbitration rather than a walkout by the union or a lockout by the company.
The fundamental right to withdraw labour is a provision that unions have protected vigorously for decades as its only ultimate power against management.
But the CAW's decision to give up the right to strike triggered criticism from other labour leaders.
"It's a pretty drastic measure and ultimately is not good for workers because they no longer have the right to withdraw their labour," said Wayne Samuelson, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour.
"It's pretty fundamental to the labour movement and collective bargaining. This is not good, especially if it's exchanged for voluntary recognition of the union. It certainly sets a precedent that working people need to be concerned about."
"Hargrove is creating CAW-employer associations," added Wayne Fraser, Ontario-Atlantic director of the United Steelworkers. "What's to stop other employers, especially Magna competitors, from rightfully asking the CAW for the same no-strike right."
Hargrove said it wouldn't be possible for other auto-parts companies with a union to demand the same provision. However, a non-union employer could get a similar arrangement, he said. "Invite us in."
Neither of these moves were not about democracy or workers rights, since both unions have hired staff and their own management structures. Rather it was about money. In the CAW's case busting a rival union and gaining its members, in AUPE's case retaining affiliation fees they could use themselves.
Now Buzz has gone even further with the potential of 20,000 dues paying workers with a forced dues check off, the Rand Formula, and no right to strike, he will be able to use those funds to balance the books as more attrition hits the auto sector and more of his members retire.
It's a cynical and shallow motive but one that should be expected by business unions that no longer see their purpose as overthrowing capitalism but as getting their members the best deal they can under capitalism.
Once upon a time unions like CAW and others called themselves Social Unions
somehow different from their American International business union counterparts. They were about fighting globalization and neo-liberalism. Buzz has repeatedly claimed he is left wing. Yep the left wing of capitalism.
Today the CAW as I predicted, is all about adapting to globalization and neo-liberalism in order to give Canadian corporations a fighting chance in the world market.
Oct 19, 2007 | Sam Gindin | The CAW and Magna: Disorganizing the Working Class | |
Through the 1980s and 1990s, as the attacks on past working class gains intensified, the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW) was widely recognized – not just in North America but abroad – as standing at the forefront of working class resistance. With the Magna-CAW Agreement signed on October 15, 2007, the CAW now seems at the forefront of working class desperation and defeat... |
This is not unlike the recent mergers of the International Transportation and Steel unions and other international unions that are facing declining memberships and lack of bargaining power.
Once again the unions show they are merely an extension of capitalism not an alternative to it.
That alternative exists and it is Revolutionary Syndicalism that was birthed with the IWW over a hundred years ago.
The employing class and the working class have nothing in common."
Preamble to the IWW Constitution
"When the working class unites, there will be a lot of jobless labor leaders."
Eugene Debs, 1905 speech to the IWW Convention
See:
Unions the State and Capital
Global Labour in the Age of Empire
WHITHER SOCIAL DEMOCRACY?
THE CRISIS OF CAPITALISM, LABOUR AND THE NDP
A SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE
Will Canadian Labour Accept Free Trade?
Business Unions Sell-out B.C. General Strike
Nationalism Will Not Stop North American Union
This is Class WarCAW To Leave CLC?
Sniveling NDP
Labour Abandons the NDP
Unite the Left
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:Buzz Hargrove,
Liberals, unionization,
CAW, Canada, auto, automobile, Frank Stronach, Magna, business unions, auto parts
Friday, October 26, 2007
Labour Rally Today
October 26, 2007
There will be a rally on Friday October 26 at the Alberta Labour Board at 3PM (10808 99 ave) AUPE along with many other concerned Albertans will be presenting the Albertan Government with thousands of letters asking the government to change Alberta's antiquated Laws. Please help spread the word and most certainly bring family and friends
www.albertasolidarity.com
Abolishing the Labour Relations Board would be one solution.
"The employing class and the working class have nothing in common."
Preamble to the IWW Constitution
See:
Alberta's Padrone Culture
Temp Workers For Timmies
Labour Shortage = Union Busting
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
temp-workers, foreign-workers, labour, labor, labour-shortage, Canada, Alberta, Edmonton,
CLAC, unions, labour shortage, Monte Solberg, Canada, Alberta, tarsands, oilsands, labour, labor, work, jobs, IBEW, Merit Contractors, non-union, rat unions, yellow dog union, Timmies, Tim Hortons, temporary workers
Friday, June 07, 2019
Have you ever thought bosses need even more power over workers? No? Well, our UCP government seems to think so. 🤔
Unboxing: The Better for Bosses Act
Tuesday, January 05, 2021
Alberta has lost its first health-care worker to COVID-19, and recorded 96 fatalities over the past five days
Health Minister Tyler Shandro announced the death in an email statement Monday afternoon, saying he was deeply saddened to learn of it.
“Health-care workers are doing all they can to protect the people they care for, their co-workers, and themselves,” said Shandro. “The dedication and remarkable commitment I’ve witnessed from health-care workers throughout the pandemic has never wavered — you have stepped up for this province in a time of need.”
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees identified the worker as 61-year-old Joe Marie (Jing) Corral. Corral was a health care aide at the Bethany Riverview continuing care facility in Calgary.
“It’s always hard to lose a loved one, but it seems even harder over the holidays when we are so focused on family and friends. AUPE is a community of colleagues and we all send our condolences to the family, said AUPE vice-president Bobby-Joe Borodey.
Mike Parker, president of the Health Sciences Associations of Alberta, said news of Corral’s death was a blow to his membership.
“Our folks are heading into work every single day and this heartbreaking news that’s coming out now, at a time when we don’t have the vaccines being rolled out when our members are not getting the protections that they need from from the rollout of the vaccines, it is really, really tough to hear,” said Parker.
Alberta Health Services spokesman Kerry Williamson said the worker was not an AHS employee but their hearts go out to their loved ones and colleagues.
“Losing a fellow health-care worker impacts us all — this person is a colleague, and we think of them as part of our healthcare family,” said Williamson in an email. “Health-care workers across the province have been working tirelessly to take care of Albertans, and we are so grateful for their commitment and their dedication.”
Data provided online by the government shows 6,426 cases of COVID-19 in health-care workers have been reported since the pandemic began.
Following Shandro’s statement, Alberta Health spokesman Tom McMillan announced 96 people have died with COVID-19 over the past five days, including 54 in the Edmonton Zone. The latest online update is the first since Dec. 30.
A total of 1,142 Albertans have died from COVID-19 since March.
On Dec. 30, 1,226 new cases were identified across Alberta while 1,361, 933, 459 and 1,128 cases were recorded on Dec. 31, Jan. 1, Jan. 2 and Jan. 3, respectively. Fewer tests were completed on Jan. 1 and Jan. 2 than on the other three days.
Returning from the new year break, active cases and hospitalizations have dropped since the end of December but so did the number of completed tests. There are currently 13,839 active infections in Alberta, down from 14,555 on Dec. 29.
The number of Albertans getting treatment in hospital has also dropped as there are 905 COVID-19 patients across the province, including 136 in intensive care. On Dec. 29 there were 921 people in hospital, including 152 in intensive care.
Data shows the provincial R value, or the rate at which the virus is spreading, was 0.99 between Dec. 28 and Jan. 3. The Edmonton Zone’s R value was 0.93 during that time frame.
An R value of one typically means that an infected individual will infect one other person. Premier Jason Kenney has previously stated he wants to see the provincial value drop below one, ideally to 0.8.
© Provided by Edmonton Journal
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Sniveling NDP
The Federal NDP's defense of Buzz is not about the NDP it's all about the CLC.
A follow up from yesterdays article: Bye Bye Buzz
Layton says he wouldn't have dumped Hargrove from party
How many knives in the back does it take before the snivelling leadership of the NDP gets the message? Apparently alot.
Hargrove unrepentant after NDP suspension
Buzz violated the party membership requirement that you neither belong to nor support any other Federal Politcal party. Yes Virigina you can be a Trotskyist in the party or even a Labour Leader who is outspoken. But you cross the line even if you are a Labour Leader when you campaign for and say Vote Liberal.
What a bunch of whimps.
Wouldn't boot Buzz, Layton saysToronto Star
NDP Leader Jack Layton says he wouldn't have suspended Buzz ...Canada.com Union-boss booting has Layton buzzing
Calgary Sun -
Delivered rude shockToronto Star
Buzz cut leaves split endsHamilton Spectator Why expel Hargrove? Globe and Mail -
Layton says he wouldn't have dumped Hargrove from partyCBC British Columbia (Audio) all 61 related »
NPI founder and NDP reformer MP Libby Davis who allied with Buzz in the NPI whines that he was entitled to express his opinions. Yeah fine. But to endorse Liberal candidates and be Liberal party wall paper, well gimme a break.Why Vote Liberal When You Can Vote NDP
Dan MacLennan of AUPE and Buzz's bosom buddy, is a Liberal, and broke his union away from the CLC at the same time the CLC sanctioned CAW for raiding. And Buzz visits this breakaway union everytime he comes to Alberta, and Dan visits the CAW annual conventions as well.
The siamese twins of the Canadian Left; the CLC and NDP may not appear united at election time but in the backrooms the boys are trying to patch things up with Buzz.
Cause they are afraid of an independent Labour Federation that would compete with the CLC. One that would be composed of the CAW, AUPE, and perhaps the General Construction Union of Toronto along with some of the Building Trades that have viewed, and here is the irony, the CLC and their relationship to the NDP as too left wing.
You see Buzz's Strategic Voting position is NOT radical. It is a rehash of Samuel Gompers election strategy; Reward your friends and punish your enemies. It is a return to the bread and butter issues politics of the 19th Century, before the labour movement in Canada created its own Labour parties.
Buzz claims to be the left wing of the labour movement would appeal to some other Left unions, but they would probably be more reluctant to leave the CLC as CUPE has shown. And his non alliance with the NDP his call for Stratefic Voting would appeal to right wing business unions, especially those in the Building Trades. Who would be willing to leave the CLC, as they have done in the recent past.
The Federal NDP's defense of Buzz is not about the NDP it's all about the CLC.
My blogs on Buzz
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Buzz, Hargrove, CLC, CAW, NDP, Layton, Purge, Kicked, Out, Canadian, Election, Strategic, voting, Liberals, Liberal, Martin
Friday, January 20, 2006
Liberals Refuse To Speak To Union
And it does have blowback since this is after all Landslide Annie's file.
And there is a certain irony in all this since one of her biggest supporters is Union President Dan MacLennan of AUPE who is a provincial prison guard.
Of course UCCO has been without a contract for five years. So why would the Liberals talk to them now after not having talked to them for all this time.
I guess its ok to embrace Buzz but to offer your own union workers a fair deal, well thats a bit much to ask.
Arrogance and a culture of entitlement. These are Paul Martins Canadian Values.
Also See:
Landslide Anne in Trouble
Laurie Hawn Chicken Hawk
Conservatives Turn Left
Liberals Abandon Redmonton
Redmonton Votes
Redmonton Not In The Bag for the Conservatives
Tags
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Anne McLellan
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Conservatives
Liberals
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Buzz Hargrove
Strategic Voting
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Tuesday, July 26, 2005
This is Class War
The Only Labour Relations between Workers and Bosses is Class War!
"The employing class and the working class have nothing in common."
Preamble to the IWW Constitution
It is time for the Labour Movement in
In
A disputes inquiry is being held into the
For a dozen years, Ralph says his government won't pick winners and losers in the marketplace. Then, late Tuesday, the Klein Tories pick a winner and a loser.
They use the heavy hammer of Big Government and call off a legal strike at Lakeside Packers in Brooks, a walkout slated to commence early yesterday morning.
Winner. Lakeside Packers, a slaughterhouse owned by the world's biggest meat merchant, Tyson Foods of the U.S. of A.
Losers. The employees at Lakeside Packers.
Tyson is happy. Their plant is operating. Reports surface of supervisors telling employees the union is powerless.
Doug is left to calm down his members, more than half are new Canadians and most are from Sudan, fleeing from a full-scale human slaughter by a dictatorship bent on genocide.
They don't understand what is happening. Why is the government in this democratic land not protecting them? They are also angry with the union for not fighting, not realizing the union has no choice with the province playing favourites.
Doug advises them to obey the law and go to work. The union asks Cardinal to address the rank and file. He passes.
Then O'Halloran speaks words no one with any sense of fair play wants to hear.
"I think they screwed us," he says, of the province.
Ralph Screws Workers Calgary Sun Cries Foul
"Where is the government all this time?" Ringe Lual, a trimmer of the plant, said of the lengthy negotiations that led to Wednesday's strike deadline. "Why they step in at [the] last minute? Where are they all this time?"
What a Friend Tysons has in Ralph
Mason urges arbitration to resolve Lakeside dispute
Says appointment of a Disputes Inquiry Board favours Tyson over workers
NDP Opposition Leader Brian Mason today sent a letter to Human Resources and Employment Minister Mike Cardinal condemning the government’s deliberate use of labour legislation to favour Tyson Foods over unionized workers at its Lakeside plant near Brooks.
Government 'dirty tricks' in Lakeside dispute? Would 'impartial umpire' choose sides? Asks AFL
While unions have representatives on the LRB so do the bosses and the government picks who it wants as chair.
In this case the chair is a management lawyer representing the anti-union Construction Industry Merit Shops who have sweetheart contracts with CLAC. He was appointed by the Klein Government after they fired the pro-labour Chair when they didn't like one of his rulings in favour of the union.
There is no fair or level playing field for workers in
And now we have Telus getting support from the Canadian Industrial Labour Relations Board and the Supreme Court of B.C. If this isn't enough to ring the clarion bell of class war I don't know what will.
Telus wins injunction against striking workers
Phone company Telus has won an injunction barring striking union members from blocking access to company premises in
The B.C. Supreme Court granted the injunction Friday, a day after the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) went on strike."This is a very broad and positive ruling that gives Telus the ability we need to ensure our team members can safely come to work and serve our customers," Audrey Ho, the company's vice-president of legal services, said in a statement Saturday. The decision also bars the TWU from picketing at or near customers' premises, the company said.
New contract implemented by Telus
Labour board doesn't stop unilateral move
A major work stoppage at Telus Corp. entered its second day yesterday as the company went ahead and unilaterally implemented a contract offer that its main union has spurned.
Vancouver-based Telus essentially got the green light to proceed on Thursday evening. That's when the Canada Industrial Relations Board issued a key decision that didn't order the removal of lockout measures introduced in April. This has allowed Telus to continue with plans announced last week to implement the contract yesterday. “It's an endorsement of what we've been going through,” Telus vice-president of corporate affairs Drew McArthur said yesterday. “The CIRB has found that we're well within our rights to take the approach that we have.”
Unions in
A hostile legal and regulatory climate explains much of the disjuncture between provincial macroeconomic success, and the ho-hum economic condition of Alberta' workforce. Rules regarding union organising, certification, strikes, and picketing are the toughest in Canada. This is at least as important as the much-vaunted "free enterprise" culture of the province in explaining the low level of unionisation. Alberta's low provincial minimum wage also helps keep wages from getting out of hand.
In this context, economic progress for working people will not descend upon their hands like manna from the free-market heavens. Workers will get what they demand and what they fight for. All of which brings us to the Herald strike.
It's no accident that this bitter strike is occurring in Alberta. The issues being confronted by the strikers will rear their heads across the country, as the Southam chain is restructured and reoriented. Indeed, if the strikers lose, the employees of newspapers elsewhere in Canada can expect to face demands for the elimination of seniority protection and other concessions. Calgary is a great place for Southam's management to test-drive its new policies.
In this sense, then, Alberta's anti-union institutions clearly promote the sorts of bitter conflicts that they are purportedly designed to prevent. A tilted playing field does not stop workers from fighting for their rights; it only makes those struggles more difficult and violent than they need to be. The determination of the Herald strikers is simply more evidence of that historical finding.
But playing on the reformist ideals of the trade union movement, that it is a partner in capitalism, the state and the bosses created Labour Relations Boards and the Labour Relations Industry. A whole new profession for left leaning progressive lawyers and members of the NDP.
It is the Management’s Rights clause, the recognition that Capital dominates the workplace and is the owner of the means of production that solidified the AFL/CIO industrial unions, as the handmaidens of capitalist production in the post war era. Workers Power was now not a revolutionary power to overthrow the capitalist system, but a form of fixed capital to be bargained with for the crumbs of an expanding capitalist system.
The strength of the IWW was its refusal to give up the right to wobble the job, no contract was signed that ever gave up the right to walk off the job over grievances. This development of the Management’s rights clause is key to the development of a whole legal, labour industry of paid reps, service or insurance model unions, labour and employer lawyers, mediators, arbitrators, all the functionaries of the state. The growth of the labour law industry and labour relations boards, etc necessitates the unions and management being part of the capitalist state. On the shop floor the post WWIi unions bargained away their members rights for a guaranty of increasing wages and benefits, while at the same time the unions recognized the State as arbitrator of the social contract, one which created a tripartite relationship between the state, capital and labour. This social contract was the realization of the dreams of the second international, social peace replaced class war.
Unions, the State and Capital
Unpublished Paper by Eugene Plawiuk, 2003
By giving up the right to take direct action on the job, that is to 'wobble' the job over grievances, leads unions into the morass of labour relations games.
The idea of eliminating the management rights clause in collective agreements was raised not by radical syndicalists, but by the outgoing chair of the Industrial Relations Society in the
A learned judge he saw management's rights as the clause which not only limits union’s abilities to represent their members but restricts union members from getting immediate satisfaction over their grievances. There is no level playing field for workers with collective agreements that allow for management rights and for a grievance arbitration procedure.
There is no justice in the courts or the labour relations tribunals. They are there to enforce LAW AND ORDER. To make sure production is not disrupted by strikes. Even short two hour strikes that would resolve an immediate grievance on the shop floor.
They exist to limit, restrict and make illegal direct action by workers. And to have our unions sit on these boards, and play tripartite footsie with the bosses is what drives workers mad, as in angry. Cause we always lose.
Alberta Workers Angry at Government and Union
The process of grievance arbitration is long and drawn out, and can take years to resolve. And if it is a case of being unjustly fired from a job, the cash you get will be far less than the non-union worker who can take the issue to court under common law as constructive dismissal and get a settlement for more money faster.
Business Unions act on behalf of the company, not on behalf of their members. They promise to make their workers tow the line; they act as agents of Law and Order on the shop floor. What’s good for GM is good for CAW.
It is only when workers strike and run their own strike committees, can workers take power over their lives and away from the union hacks.
Canfor workers back on the job in Prince George after wildcat strike
A case in point is the
Doug is a deal maker, he wants a contract, he wants a deal, he's looking after his and UFCW's best interests. Yep but both he and UFCW don't care about their members interests. Because whatever happens they have a pool of dues paying members who fatten their bank accounts.
To what end? Well to buy a million dollar house as a retirement gift to their outgoing International President as they did in the 1990's.
You'd think with all their money and lawyers, UFCW and O'Halloran would have the guts to challenge an unfair anti-worker ruling on behalf of the folks who pay his lucrative salary. Nope, not a chance.
You would think that the labour movement, that so called house of labour would organize their members to join mass pickets during strikes. Instead they make a toke show on the picket line.
To really shut down Telus, right now would take thousands of workers marching the picket line in solidarity with TWU workers.
And is this likely to happen? Nope. Most unions are lucky to mobilize two or three well paid reps to attend the picket line. And they always have excuses. After all its summer time and the union reps are off on paid vacation leave.
UFCW INC. BUSINESS UNIONISM AS USUAL
The other excuse is that the strike is strictly the union’s affair. This is the biggest crock of BS ever. The strike is the weapon of the class; it is the fundamental tool of class war. Even the bosses know this. For a strike can be the match that lights the prairie fire of the General Strike. When a union wins a strike it is a victory for all working people when they lose it is a defeat for all working people. As Jim Stanford points out in the quote above, the Herald strike which was lost, was not just a loss for workers at the Calgary Herald, but for newspaper workers across the country.
A case in point is when UFCW struck Safeway’s in the early part of the 1990's they accepted a roll back in wages in particular for first time employees . UFCW is no small union, they are one of the largest private sector unions in Alberta and their acceptance of a roll back contract impacted the whole labour movement in the province.
Loblaws, a Canadian grocery and retail chain, opened Real Canadian Super Stores (RCSS) in Canada several years ago. RCSS combines food and discount retail under one roof, paying wages that are typical of the discount retail industry, as do Supercenters in the United States. RCSS entered the market in Alberta in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Safeway has been the primary unionized supermarket in Alberta for years, and Safeway wages in Alberta were considerably higher than RCSS. By the early 1990s, competition with the lower labor-cost RCSS began to have a dramatically negative impact on Safeway profits.
Safeway executives estimated that the wage gap between their employees and RCSS workers was between $8.00 and $12.00 per hour in Canadian dollars.10 In 1993, Safeway concluded it could no longer compete without drastically cutting pay and benefits. Management presented employees with two choices – either Safeway would cut its losses and leave the Alberta market, or cut pay and benefits by the equivalent of $5.00 per hour (Canadian). Eventually, the unionized employees agreed to the pay and benefit cuts. Safeway implemented the pay cuts both by reducing pay and benefits and by buying out the contracts of 4,000 experienced employees and replacing those workers with persons earning approximately $6.00 per hour with no benefits.11 In 1997, Safeway employees went on strike in an effort to restore wage and benefit concessions that were part of the 1993 agreement. The strike ended without the union regaining the wage and benefit concessions that were part of the 1993 agreement.
The Impact of Big Box Grocers on Southern California: Jobs, Wages, and Municipal Finances
Examples Of The Labor Market Impact Of Wage Differentials – Cases From Canada
This allowed the Klein government to use this as an excuse to bring in wage roll backs for public sector workers. Klein cleverly pitted private sector workers against public sector workers, saying that what was happening at Safeways should apply across the province. He also had the NDP government in Ontario to use as an example of another provincial government trying to get public sector unions to accept roll backs.
Another case is when UFCW led their worker’s out on strike at Gainers, instead of occupying the plant, and demanding the plant be put under workers and farmer control. Since it was originally owned by the Alberta government. But it had been sold off to Burns, owned by Tory bagman Arthur E. Childes, at a fire sale price. Burns then sold it to Maple Leaf foods. Even the leadership of the
All this was done under the leadership of Doug O'Halloran who speaks not in the interests of the workers but in the interests of UFCW Inc. And he cries crocodile tears when the government halts the
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LABOUR
If the local labour councils and the Federations of Labour as well as the CLC is the so called house of labour, then it is a dilapidated slum. The leadership is terrified of losing their jobs. They suffer bureaucratic senility. They will always prefer the backroom deal with the bosses or the government to the idea that this is class war and that the purpose of unions is to overthrow capitalism. They oppose plant occupations because well they are illegal; they oppose the wildcat strike because it's illegal too. But isn't that why we have high priced labour lawyers, to get the leadership out of jail. Nope that can't be the real reason either. The reason is that these actions are taken by the rank and file 'out of the control' of the paid reps and leadership. And if such ideas spread, it might lead to, horror of horrors, a General Strike.
Even the most militant leader or leadership in the labour movement accepts their role in upholding Law, Order and Good Government. And once they do, it will always be the workers who get screwed.
The reason is simple workers who do take strike action realize they have given up all to win the fight. Including the fight over the day to day grievances that have usually piled up until the strike. Not so their leadership who see it as just another moment in collective bargaining. This is why workers on the line are always more militant than their union leadership.
Professional union reps and paid hacks are not capable of challenging the bosses or their government cause well they are paid not to. They can't organize the workers who pay their salaries; because they are out of touch with the rank and file. Or worse yet they are opposed to rank and file control because it threatens their job security.
They promote local union executives to political positions in their unions, offering them careers and lucrative jobs as reps, as long as they tow the line. They often take the best and brightest, activists who really care about workers interests and put them into the union machinery to become another cog in the wheel.
If workers organize themselves, the first to attempt to squash them aren't the politicians, or cops, or lawyers, it’s their own union leadership, fearful for their 'jobs'.
IT'S TIME TO TAKE BACK OUR UNIONS
The only way this can change is if members of a union mobilize to take back their unions for themselves. To eliminate paid full time representatives who earn $100,000 salaries off the backs of part time workers who get $8.50 an hour.
Replace these reps and union business agents with elected rank and file reps who serve two year terms and are up for staggered election, with their pay and benefits being no more than the highest paid worker on the job.
Rank and File strike committees shall be directly elected by the members. These delegate committees during strikes are the only ones allowed to negotiate with the bosses, not the paid reps or union executive and leadership.
Union locals will have democratically elected executives and committees of members, and any regional, national, or international reps will answer to the local membership.
All union locals must be politically and economically autonomous from their national union.
Locals will not give up the right to strike in collective agreements, and in fact will further enforce this basic right with a further clause that states that members of the local will not cross other workers picket lines.
Unions will not participate in Labour Relations Boards, arbitration or Industrial Relations. Any action taken by the state whether it is an injunction, or attempts at arrest will be met with mass action not only by the union affected but by all unions in the region.
Fines against the union will NOT be paid to the state. If such fines occur it will abrogate the Rand Formula and the union will implement a direct dues collection off the shop floor.
Union locals will be autonomous and form not for profit societies to hold their funds in escrow in order to protect their autonomy.
Union locals will affiliate with whom they please in the labour movement. If their International or National organization fails to adapt to direct member democracy the local has the right to federate with whom it pleases according to a democratic vote of the members.
Union locals will form flying picket squads of all members, to make sure that all strikes or lock outs are kept short and effective. Based on the principle of An Injury to One is and Injury to All, and The Longer the Picket Line, the Shorter the Strike.
All grievances will be solved as quickly as possible on the shop floor, or in the institution where they occur by a meeting of the union steward and management. Should management not resolve the issue, workers have the right to walk off the job until there is a resolution to their satisfaction.
The union has the right to use any and all tactics to solve their grievances, these include the sit down strike, rotating strike, wildcat strike, and plant occupation the use of the standard strike tactic will be reserved as a weapon of last resort. If it is applied the union will mobilize for sympathy strikes, hot cargoing and building a call for a general strike.
These are just a few suggestions on how we can take back our unions from the labour hacks and well heeled, well paid bureaucrats. Who see the labour movement not as a class struggle but as their career opportunity, economically and politically.
A career they make off our backs.