From: goddard+@cs.cmu.edu (Nigel Goddard)
Subject: Re: Caterpillar and the Issue of Unions
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 92 20:07:02 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

In article <17APR199211360672@oregon.uoregon.edu> cwinkler@oregon.uoregon.edu (Celia Winkler) writes:
>In article <1992Apr17.152249.152132@cs.cmu.edu>, goddard+@cs.cmu.edu (Nigel Goddard) writes...
>> 
>..
>>Now the union has
>>agreed to call off the strike and hope negotiations succeed.
>>Cat refused to take the workers back the first couple of days,
>>but now say they will take them all back next week, minus about
>>10 "troublemakers" (probably union activists but I'm not sure).
>
>Wouldn't this be an unfair labor practice?  Firing someone for
>union activity?  (Of course, they'd probably try to cloak it
>in some other language--the worker was fired for some other
>reason.)

Yes, it would be an "unfair labor practice", but that has to be proven
before the National Labor Relations Board, which is backlogged several
years.  I'm only surmising that these people are union activists, it
isn't a fact.  It is well understood in the labor movement that union
activity, especially union organizing, often leads to harassment or
firing.  I heard recently that 20% of workers who vote in elections
for union representation (whether they vote for or against) lose their
jobs.  The laws are pretty heavily stacked against organizing and the
NLRB of course is subject to Administration pressure.

>I read recently that a Swedish union won their demands through the
>use of a one-day-a-week strike.  Of course, Sweden has a strong
>right-to-work (different from the US) law--employers have to give
>lots of notice and have a good reason to fire the employee.  Of
>course, the employers could not get one-day-a-week replacement
>workers.  Is there any reason that workers in the US could not use
>this or some other type of strike?  Are sit-down strikes illegal?
>Is the all-out strike the only type of strike allowed in the US?

There are many creative ways to act other than the "stay away
from work indefinitely" strike.  One day strikes, one hour strikes,
work-to-rule, plant occupations (illegal), corporate campaigns,
sympathy strikes (illegal), community involvement.  The mainline
AFL-CIO doesn't like most of this because it has to involve grass
root activity.  But I think grass root organizing is beginning
to make the AFL-CIO behemoth move, witness the recent Teamster
election and the strength of the New Directions movement in the
UAW.  Also, unions organizing service workers, which is where the
workers are these days, like the SEIU, are being more creative
I think.

>As you say, we need *international* solidarity.  How do we do this?

Organize everywhere, educate, point out connections.  It's already
happening as a natural reaction to the globalization of capital.

>In addition, more jobs are being done in isolation.  One can think
>of software engineers as a new form of productive labor, but they
>tend to be the least organizable--many truly believe that they
>succeed or fail based on their own work, rather than on business
>decisions.

That's partly because software engineers have been like skilled crafts
people.  As their jobs are deskilled, they'll realize that there is
more to success and failure than their own efforts.

>What concepts will we have to rethink, what strategies?

I think the biggest one is the separation of work-life and community
life.  Many work issues are increasingly seen as community issues now.
For example, the demand for a reasonable work week and the demand for
time to spend with family merge a work issue with a family issue.  The
demand for health and safety at work, a clean environment for the
community, and health care for all merge.

A big issue the US labor movement needs to confront is the concept that
it should try to represent the entire working population - including
the unemployed, the non-unionized and those who do unpaid work like
raising kids.  In Europe the political parties backed by the unions
do understand this, but we do not have a party representing working
people here.  I see some movement in this direction - there is a
national organization Labor Party Advocates that I can post information
about.  In Pittsburgh we have the Alliance for Progressive Action that
is combining unionists with other progressives.  I see a lot of promise
for the future.  But people must act.

>Some folks look at TV and mass media as a cause of low worker
>solidarity--really.  It isolates us from one another, and creates
>a different form of "community."

Yes, TV is a menace.  There is a book I am reading by Jerry Mander
"In the absence of the sacred" (Sierra Club Press) that has some
very good arguments about this.

Nigel

-- 
Nigel Goddard
goddard@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu