MEDIATOR IMPOSES CONTRACT AFTER WORKERS REJECT IT
by Richard Mellor
Tuesday Jun 14th, 2011 1:53 PM
This is where the concessionary policies of
the Union hierarchy have led us. The Bay area Labor movement has the
potential power to turn this tide, but the leadership will not fight
until a movement from below forces them. This is what activists have to
help build.
A mediator has stepped in and imposed a contract on
the San Francisco Muni operators, the very same contract they rejected
last week. http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2011/06/muni-operators-reject-another.html
I always opposed arbitrators and mediators interfering in our contract
negotiations when I was active in my Union as a steward, official or
negotiator. Mediators are not independent players. In such a dispute
as a contract between employers and workers, the role of the mediator is
to obscure the class nature of this conflict and in fact ensure that
the dispute is settled to the advantage of the bosses.
The
imposed contract contains the same concessions as the one voted down
last week and represents, "the best resolution of these protracted labor
negotiations" says the arbitrator Carol Vendrillo, "the contract is in
the "best interests of both the parties and the riding public. " she
added. This is not true, it is in the interests of investors,
speculators and other non productive individuals. It is bad for all
workers when any group of workers have their wages frozen and their
benefits reduced.
Muni operators drive San Francisco's buses,
trams and cable cars and carry about 700,000 riders a day. It is not
likely we will hear much from the heads of the local Labor movement.
The leadership of TWU 250-A recommended the contract and when rank and
file members have rejected concessionary contracts in the past, both in
the TWU http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2010/02/san-francisco-muni-operators-take-stand.html and SEIU http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2009/05/yet-another-blatant-betrayal-by-heads.html
which represents SF city workers, the leaders of the locals with the
help of the heads of the San Francisco Labor Council eventually wore the
ranks down and forced concessions on them for the employers. SEIU
leaders suggested their members may have been “confused” when they
rejected the concessions and Tim Paulson leader of the San Francisco
Labor Council publicly stated that if the workers approved the
concessions, "the mayor will rescind the layoffs.” The Labor hierarchy
and any local leaders or activists that refuse to challenge their
policies, are like Seinfeld and his friends in that last episode where
they watched the man get robbed. Unfortunately, weakness breeds
aggression and this concessionary strategy has brought us to where we
are today.
After they rejected the contract last week, the San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/14/MNRD1JTCEI.DTL
the bosses' propaganda sheet accused Local 250's members of exhibiting
"Union power run amok”. Three individuals earning $10 billion between
them in one year---- hedge fund managers and the like, people who do no
productive work------that's what amok is. Shifting a few trillion
dollars of private debt on to US workers and the middle class is what
running "amok" is. The bosses nationalized the debt, made us pay the
debt, of the Savings and Loan fiasco some years back too; that's running
"amok" It's capitalism, their beloved free market that's running amok.
Some of Local 250-A's members were visibly angry at the
situation according to the Chronicle, "you don't represent us" one
member shouted at the Local's president Rafael Cabrera who categorized
the concessions as a "win for our members on wages, benefits and pension
issues". How a three year wage freeze amid creeping inflation is a win
on wages escapes me but this is the line from the strategists atop
organized Labor; they call defeats victories. And when the ranks move
in to a serious struggle against the employers, one where victory, where
some gains are clearly possible, they leadership become masters at
snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
After years of
defeats from PATCO to the California grocery strike and the absurd
lockout of hotel workers in San Francisco a few years ago when Union
leaders made deals with the police and the city politicians not to
impede scabs in any way and showed their loyalty by laying tape along
the sidewalk telling their out of work members not to step outside of
it*, the rank and file members of organized Labor are understandably a
little cautious, have low expectations. But the more the Union hierarchy
appease the bosses, the more aggressive the bosses become, the more
they want next time. And for Local leaders and activists that go along
with this the more difficult a hole we dig for ourselves to get out of,
the weaker we will be, the more difficult the struggle, when the average
member, backs against wall, recognizes that there is no alternative but
to fight.
Socialists, anti-capitalists, activists of all types
can play a major role in transforming the trade Unions and draw some of
the best rank and file workers in to such a struggle speeding up the
development of real oppositions, but we can't do it if we are not seen
as significantly different from the present leadership. We cannot do it
if we do not openly campaign against their policies and offer an
alternative. The present officialdom are not threatened if we belong to
groups with revolutionary sounding names or because we use revolutionary
rhetoric in our own meetings attended by our own milieu. Too often,
leftists within organized Labor orient to the left bureaucracy in the
workers' movement rather than rooting themselves firmly among the ranks,
this is what has to be done.
The average dues member will not
take that step to join an opposition group that simply has the issue of
democracy as its banner, no matter how militant they sound at anti-war
demos. Expecting someone to get involved with an opposition that claims
we have to overthrow capitalism but refuses to openly challenge the
obstacle of our own leadership and more often than not is
indistinguishable from them doesn't appeal to the rank and file worker
who knows in their gut that it means a battle, that the leadership will
fight back. The workplace is not school, your job might be at stake.
Over the last couple of years, members of the TWU 250-A and SEIU 1021
have shown a willingness to fight only to be undercut by their own
leaders. There is clearly a mood out there that can be tapped in to by a
serious opposition with a very basic program and a direct action method
for winning it. Such demands could include depending on the situation:
No concessions
Jobs for all and a $20 per hour minimum wage or $5 an hour increase whichever is greater
A massive program of public works paid for by ending all wars and occupations and taxing the rich and corporations.
Take back all the bailout money and use it for public works
Free public education---hire one million teachers immediately---class sizes of 15 in all schools
More mass transit
A thirty hour workweek with no loss in pay
Jobs for all
Cancel all student debt
An end to foreclosures, put people back in their homes, affordable housing for all
Make public the books of any corporation claiming bankruptcy---take in to public ownership bankrupt ones
No support for Democrats or Republicans, build a mass workers party-----repeal Taft Hartley
*I was on these picket lines and there were many new immigrants
involved. Myself and another supporter expressed our constitutional
rights and picketed in front of the hotel door on the sidewalk only to
be told by the cops that the Union" had agreed not to do that." We
explained that we weren't part of any agreement to give up our first
amendment rights and continued picketing. The tragic consequences of the
Labor leadership's deal with the enemy was that many of the immigrant
workers thought it was illegal to picket there.
http://www.weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com