United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

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United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Thu Aug 20, 2020 3:52 pm

Link to 25 page pamphlet from UE

https://www.ueunion.org/ThemAndUs/

A taste:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Them and Us
UE’s Founders
Them: The Organized Forces of the Employers
Us: The Working Class
The Weakening of the U.S. Labor Movement
UE Core Principles
Aggressive Struggle
Rank and File Control
Political Independence
International Solidarity
Uniting All Workers
Conclusion
Published July 2020 United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Pittbsurgh, PA • (412) 471-8919 • www.ueunion.org

Design by Polina Godz

THEM AND US
UEUE WAS FOUNDED by workers who understood how the economic system we work under — capitalism — actually works, how it functions to allow bosses (them) to make money off of workers (us), and how bosses maintain their power by trying to divide workers. Profits come from the products and services that we produce with our labor. The less employers pay us, or the faster they make us work, the more profits they make. That understanding is why ue has been able to win gains for our members, resist employer attacks, and play a leading role in the broader labor movement. It is why working people need unions like ue now more than ever.

Capitalism divides society into two main groups. One is those who live by owning, either directly or through financial instruments like stocks or private equity, the factories, land, buildings, vehicles, machines, intellectual property, mineral and drilling rights, and other types of property that are used to produce the goods and services we need to live. This small group can be called the capitalist class, “the 1%,” or the billionaire class.

The other is those of us who live by working, popularly referred to as the working class or “the 99%.” This far larger group must sell our labor in order to pay for food, clothing, and the other necessities of life. Not all members of the working class are working at any given time, but those who are not — children, the unemployed, and retirees, as well as people with disabilities that prevent them from working — rely on wages earned by family members, retirement benefits or savings earned from working, or social programs won by the working class through political action.

Through creativity, skill, intelligence, and hard work, workers turn the property owned by capitalists into products and services. We are paid a wage for our time working, but the capitalist sells the product or service for more than what it costs to create and keeps the difference as profit. The lower the wage paid to the worker, the more profit made by the capitalist. This conflict of interest is a permanent feature of our economic system.

This understanding of the economic system has allowed ue to develop the key organizational approaches needed to take on the bosses and win real gains for workers. The preamble to the ue constitution contains the core ue principles of aggressive struggle, rank and file control, and uniting all workers. Over decades of experience taking on some of the most powerful corporations in the world, ue members have also learned the crucial importance of political independence and international solidarity. It is these five core principles that make ue so effective and consistent at leading struggles for justice for working people both in the workplace and in society more broadly.

Despite attacks from employers, the government, and even other unions, ue has survived because the working people who founded ue, who kept ue alive, and who make up ue today know which side they are on.

Image
Illustrations by Fred Wright, UE NEWS cartoonist from 1949 until his death in 1984.
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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Thu Aug 20, 2020 3:54 pm

UE’S FOUNDERS
We, the Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (ue) realize that the struggle to better our working and living conditions is in vain unless we are united to protect ourselves collectively against the organized forces of the employers.

Realizing that the old craft form of trade union organization is unable to defend effectively the interests and improve the conditions of the wage earners, WE THE ELECTRICAL, RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS (UE) form an organization which unites all workers on an industrial basis, and rank-and-file control, regardless of craft, age, sex, nationality, race, creed, or political beliefs, and pursue at all times a policy of aggressive struggle to improve our conditions.

We pledge ourselves to labor unitedly for the principles herein set forth, to perpetuate our union and work concertedly with other labor organizations to bring about a higher standard of living of the workers.

—Preamble to the ue Constitution
WWATCHING UE’S founders today, we might think they were crazy. Forty-three workers from as far away as Fort Wayne, Indiana and Camden, New Jersey plowed through a March 1936 snowstorm to meet in Buffalo, New York. Their goal was to set up a national union to organize the hundreds of thousands of workers in the electrical, radio, and, soon, machine tool industries into a new union, which came to be known as ue.

The workers who undertook this gigantic task were inspired by the need to build an industrial organization (meaning all workers could be part of the union), controlled by the members, with complete equality for all who worked in that industry. Many of these workers were also inspired by their experiences organizing with radical unions like the Industrial Workers of the World and the socialist and anarchist ideas that were widespread in working-class communities in the early 20th century.

ue’s founders were determined to avoid the bureaucratic, top-down control that was characteristic of the existing craft unions (where only skilled workers could belong). And, this group of workers was just as determined to bring into their movement the hundreds of thousands of workers whose need for organization had been, up to that time, ignored — or who were explicitly excluded from existing unions because of their race, gender, political beliefs or religion.

ue is now in our ninth decade, and counts among our members workers from many industries and sectors. We build electrical equipment and machines, and we run machines to make auto parts, locks, plastic products and many other goods. We are also social workers, healthcare technicians, clerical workers and education paraprofessionals. We work for schools and universities, state and municipal governments, and federal contractors. We process, distribute and market food, and serve lunch to school children. ue members repair roads, transport railroad workers, and build locomotives. ue has truly become a “Union for Everyone.”

https://www.ueunion.org/ThemAndUs/
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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Mon Aug 24, 2020 2:04 pm

FROM THE CLASSICS: WILLIAM Z. FOSTER ON UNEMPLOYED COUNCILS AND HUNGER MARCHES
Posted by MLT Editors | Aug 18, 2020 | Featured Stories | 1

From the Classics: William Z. Foster on Unemployed Councils and Hunger Marches
Unemployed Councils and Hunger Marches

Chapter 20, “The Communist Party and the Great Economic Crisis (1929-1933), pp. 282-284

The National Unemployed Council, made up of workers of all political affiliations, was organized in Chicago, on July 4, 1930, at a convention of 1,320 delegates. It was fully backed by the C.P., T.U.U.L., and Y.C.L. Local unemployed councils were set up in scores of cities all over the country. Besides the unemployed, the movement also included trade unions, fraternal societies, Negro organizations, and other sympathetic groupings. The councils fought for unemployment insurance, immediate cash and work relief, public work at union wages, food for school children, against eviction, against Negro discrimination, and so on.

They used mass meetings, parades, petitions, picketing, hunger marches, and many other forms of agitation and struggle; they formed block committees to organize the workers in their homes. The main instrument for work inside the A.F. of L. was the A.F. of L. Committee for Unemployment Insurance and Relief, headed by Louis Weinstock of the Painters Union, which won the direct support of 3,000 local unions, 35 city central labor councils, 6 state federations, and 5 international unions. This movement concentrated its general political demand on the Workers Unemployment Insurance Bill (H.R.2827).

The Unemployed Councils, in the face of widespread police brutality, conducted a mass of activities to bring pressure upon employers, local relief boards, and the city, state, and national governments. They led hundreds of demonstrations on a local and national scale. Some of the most important national mass movements were those on May 1, 1930, with 350,000 participating; on National Unemployment Insurance Day, February 25, 1931, with 400,000 demonstrators, and the turnout, on February 4, 1932, with 500,000 in the nationwide mass meetings. Three times mass petitions with a million signatures or more were presented to Congress. There were also hunger marches from the industrial centers to the capitals in many states. And then there were the two national hunger marches to Washington on December 7, 1931 (1,800 marchers) and December 6, 1932 (3,000 marchers).

These national hunger marches attracted tremendous attention. They were highly organized. The marchers traveled in old automobiles, which had been collected; the participants were registered, and each car, detachment, and column had a leader. The strictest discipline prevailed. Columns started from St. Louis, Chicago, Buffalo, Boston, and elsewhere, with regularly scheduled and organized stop-over places. All the columns converged upon Washington with clockwork precision The return journey was made in an equally disciplined and organized manner. Attempts of American Legion elements and assorted hoodlums to break up the marches en route failed.

In Washington the marchers were a sensation. Their band played The International on the great plaza before the Capital. Thousands of police and detectives had been mobilized from all over the country. Troops at nearby forts were held in readiness. One would have thought the marchers were going to try to overthrow the government. As the first hunger march went along Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House (and later to the A.F. of L. building) to lay its demands before Hoover (and Green) the parade was flanked on both sides by rows of marching policemen who outnumbered the hunger marchers by at least two to one. The Party concentrated its entire forces upon making these national marches successful.

The manifold activities of the Unemployed Councils, besides making a burning national issue of unemployment insurance, also resulted in securing many immediate relief concessions to the unemployed all over the country. The frightened capitalist class saw that the old game of letting the workers starve it out during economic crises would no longer work. They were dealing with an awakening working class, one which in the next few years would write some epic labor history.

_________________________________

From History of the Communist Party of the United States, By William Z. Foster, NY, International Publishers, 1952, 600 pp.

https://mltoday.com/from-the-classics-w ... r-marches/
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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:20 am

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The reviews are in! Three weeks ago UE released “Them and Us Unionism,” a new publication which outlines in detail UE’s philosophy of unionism, developed over more than eight decades of struggle (“Them and Us Unionism” is available online at https://www.ueunion.org/ThemAndUs/ Printed copies can be purchased at the new https://store.ueunion.org/ Here is what some of our closest allies, in the U.S. and around the world, are saying about it:

I commend the UE for their work in showing the path to building a stronger, more resilient and militant labour movement. I encourage all union members to read “Them and Us Unionism” for a wealth of timely ideas and principles to build the workers' movement we need to rise to the challenges of our times.

—Jerry Dias, National President, Unifor

In “Them and Us Unionism,” UE has laid out a vision and principles for unionism that, while informed by the history of one union, is relevant to all working people building unions to meet the demands of the 21st century. As Canada's largest private-sector union, with members working in every major sector of the economy, we can say with confidence that the principles of aggressive struggle, rank and file control, political independence, international solidarity, and uniting all workers are relevant to every union struggle. We look forward to continuing to work with UE to promote these principles in the North American labor movement.

—Lana Payne, National Secretary-Treasurer, Unifor

The UE’s “Them and Us Unionism” pamphlet perfectly frames what union leaders and rank-and-file workers need to understand about the relationship between bosses and workers. Decades of so called “labor-management partnerships” and “win-win bargaining” have not saved unions from concessions and decline. It really is us (workers) versus them (bosses). The UE knows it, and they know what to do about it: organize and fight back. Every worker and union leader in America needs to read this pamphlet.

—Bonnie Castillo, Executive Director, National Nurses United

We are in a new Gilded Age, facing an alliance of the capital class and authoritarian leaders. The antidote is a militant labor movement, built on real solidarity. A vibrant, unafraid labor movement like the one described in “Them and Us Unionism” can strengthen real democracy and build working class power for the 21st century. Forward ever!

—Sara Nelson, President, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA

The CTU couldn't agree more with the UE approach to class struggle, we embrace it wholeheartedly. There is no way to win the schools our children deserve if we don't tie our fates to those of the greater community, combat educational apartheid and advance the broader struggle for racial justice. It's why we strike for social workers, homes for the homeless and decent wages for those both inside and outside our bargaining unit.

—Jackson Potter, social studies teacher, Back of The Yards High and Trustee, Chicago Teachers Union

UE is undoubtedly a true democratic union and its democracy takes the form of an inverse pyramid. At the top are those who make the decisions: the workers. At the bottom you'll find the stewards and presidents who obey the decisions made by the membership. This democratic practice is fundamental for allowing the true generators of wealth, the workers, to feel that they are part of the union and that it is theirs. I recommend that all workers not only read this important booklet but carry it always and study it in order to understand why UE has stood against capitalism, is not dependent on the government, and is still alive and kicking 84 years after its birth.

—Eladio Abundiz, National Coordinator, Authentic Labor Front (FAT), Mexico

“Them and Us Unionism” is very inspiring and tells us a lot about rank-and-file trade unionism in the U.S. I am proud that we have many challenges and aspirations in common, and share many principles, particularly international solidarity. We are committed to transforming business unionism, and our solidarity will be key to transforming our outdated neo-liberal economic system and globalization.

—Keisuke FUSE, Deputy Secretary General, Zenroren, Japan

I’ve just finished reading it with much enthusiasm. I found it very easy to read, well-illustrated and full of useful information. I love the tone and the way you managed to explain what class struggle is all about in a lively manner and how it is relevant in 2020.

—Chantal Ide, Vice-présidente, Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain (CSN), Quebec

"Them and Us Unionism's" call for the labor movement to mobilize union and community members to confront corporate greed in the workplace and in the streets is the call to action we've been waiting for. The section on "Aggressive struggle" is a must-read for labor and community activists to help us dream, organize, and fight for a better world and to take on the fight of our lives. The UE shows us the way: organize, build stewards and leaders, demonstrate unity, mobilize, and take militant action. To break corporate control over our workplaces, communities, and lives, we all must commit to this aggressive struggle.

—Lily Huang, Co-Director, Massachusetts Jobs With Justice

Our two unions – UE and ILWU – have a long, shared history together going back to the 1930s and ‘40s. We organized in basic industries where it once seemed impossible, helped set new standards for organized labor, centered fights for racial justice and women’s equality, and built a powerful social movement around the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

And we suffered great losses too, relentlessly hounded and persecuted during the McCarthy period for practicing genuine trade unionism. The UE and ILWU were the first and last unions expelled from the CIO from 1949-50, and the only two to survive to this day. We made it this far by sticking to our guiding principles and it’s those same principles that are going to help rebuild the labor movement today.

That’s why this new publication is so timely and important. “Them and Us Unionism” lays out what it means to be a trade unionist and ought to be required reading for every worker.

—Zack Pattin, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 23 rank and file member

The new publication has also received press coverage. Labor historian Jeff Schuhrke wrote in the magazine Jacobin https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/08/unit ... bor-unions

> UE’s history and philosophy offer an insight into what the US labor movement could have been in the second half of the twentieth century — and what it could be today. The union is at once a reminder of a bygone, heroic era of labor history, and a prototype of the kind of movement workers can organize in the twenty-first century.
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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Mon Dec 07, 2020 12:56 pm

New Administration “No Savior,” but Offers Opportunity to Fight and Win

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Members of UE Local 150 at a November 7 “Defend Democracy” rally in Raleigh, NC. Local 150 President Bryce Carter addressed the rally.

NOVEMBER 12, 2020
In August, the UE General Executive Board issued a statement declaring that “The working class cannot afford four more years of Trump,” and urging “UE members and locals to make every effort to oust Trump from office in the November elections, recognizing that the only way to do that is to elect Joe Biden.”

In an election season that often seemed to be a referendum on Trump’s personality, the GEB statement focused on Trump’s actions: “President Trump has attacked workers’ rights much more aggressively than any of his predecessors, weakening regulations and stacking the Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board and OSHA with corporate henchmen. His appointments to the Supreme Court resulted in anti-worker rulings, including the Janus decision to weaken public-sector unions, and his ongoing effort to fill the federal courts with anti-worker judges promises more such decisions well into the future.”

On November 3, in an election with record-high turnout, Biden was elected president. According to the only national exit poll (available on all major news and political websites), working-class voters made up a larger share of the electorate and voted more Democratic than in the 2016 presidential election, while households making over $100,000 per year voted more heavily for Trump. People in union households voted 57 to 40 for Biden this year, a significant shift compared to 2016, when Trump only lost the union household vote by eight points.

While being honest that Biden is no champion for working people, the GEB pointed out that “a Biden presidency offers us the possibility to fight to win the political change working people need, the only way true political change has ever happened, from the bottom up.”

“Attacks have increased under President Trump”
Biden’s victory owes more than a little to the efforts of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, whose presidential bid UE endorsed at the 2019 convention. Despite being forced out of the race after the Democratic Party establishment coalesced around Biden, Sanders brought his grassroots campaigning style to the general election, echoing UE’s message that although Biden is a flawed candidate, it was critical to defeat Trump.

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Bryan Pietrzak, Local 506

UE Local 506 member Bryan Pietrzak spoke at a late-October socially-distanced get-out-the-vote car rally with Sanders at the historic Carrie Furnace site in Rankin, PA, just outside Pittsburgh. “Over many decades now, the Republican Party has worked to undercut unions, organizing, and collective bargaining as well,” said Pietrzak. “These attacks have increased under President Trump, who has no problem with our families struggling day in and day out so long as his friends and cronies on Wall Street see the numbers in their bank accounts go up.

“As a result, we've seen inequality rise, and no matter how hard we work, it's increasingly difficult to keep up.”

Two of UE’s national officers also addressed virtual campaign events held by Sanders.

Several UE locals also worked hard to engage their membership in both the national election and state-level races. Local 150, a statewide local in North Carolina, mailed 1500 leaflets to 100 activists for them to distribute, phone-banked their members, and launched a “take two” initiative to encourage members to take two co-workers, family members or co-workers with them when they voted. They also endorsed Jessica Holmes, a candidate for state labor commissioner.

In Iowa, statewide Local 893 incorporated political action into every sublocal meeting during the fall. Local leaders emphasized the importance of not only voting to recertify their union, but also wresting control of the state legislature away from the anti-labor Republicans who passed the anti-worker legislation in 2017 that decimated their collective bargaining rights.

In California, Local 1018 endorsed Proposition 15, which would have amended the state constitution to allow the state to collect fair property taxes from commercial properties. This measure would have netted between $6.5 and $11.5 billion in desperately needed new state revenue. This would have benefitted the clients served by Local 1018 members by improving their schools and providing more resources to the Lanterman Center where Local 1018 members work. The local presented information about the proposition to their October membership meeting and encouraged members to participate in a “15 days of phone-banking for Proposition 15” effort.

Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of UE activists in all three states, all of these electoral efforts came up short.

Defending Democracy
As Election Day neared and polls showed Biden with a significant lead, both the Trump administration and Republican strategists explicitly stated that they might attempt to disrupt the full counting of ballots, and refused to pledge to accept the results. The week before the election, UE’s officers released a statement, “Labor Must Defend Democracy,” declaring that:

The labor movement has a special obligation to defend democratic government. Corporations and the wealthy already are able to buy influence on government policy. One of the few counterbalances to this is the fact that politicians have to face the mass of voters every two, four or six years. If incumbents can simply declare that certain voters’ votes don’t matter, corporate influence on our government will only increase and the working class will suffer even more.
UE also played a lead role in organizing “Labor Action to Defend Democracy,” a network of over 250 local and regional union bodies that committed to take action in the event that Trump lost the election but refused to leave office. The day before the election, UE General President Carl Rosen emceed a press conference of Chicago-area labor leaders expressing their determination to ensure a fair election. “We’re going to take whatever steps we need as a labor movement to make sure that democracy stays in place in this country,” Rosen said.

Indeed, late Tuesday night, Trump falsely declared victory based in part on his early lead in Pennsylvania, while hundreds of thousands mail ballots remained uncounted (mail ballots tended to favor Biden, as Trump had encouraged his supporters to avoid voting by mail.) In response, people throughout the U.S., including many UE members, joined “Protect the Results” rallies on November 4, the day after the election, making clear their determination that democracy be respected.

Most major media organizations called Pennsylvania for Biden on November 7, thus giving him enough electoral votes to be declared president-elect. However, Trump has yet to concede the election, and his campaign has filed a blizzard of lawsuits alleging voter fraud — with zero evidence.

Since neither candidate has conceded, the selection of “electors” by state legislatures will be what actually determines the election. (Don’t know what an “elector” is? You’re not alone! See “The Strange Career of the Electoral College.”) While states traditionally select electors pledged to vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in their state, this is not legally required in all states. A number of states in which Biden won the popular vote have Republican legislatures, who could in theory buck the voters and select Trump-supporting electors. “If that happens, that’s a coup,” President Rosen told the Western Region meeting on November 7.

No Savior
The GEB statement points out that “We are clear that Biden is no savior, and will likely seek to implement the same kind of corporate-friendly policies as previous Democratic presidents Obama and Clinton.” This outcome is made more likely by the weakness of the Democratic Party’s performance in senate, congressional and state races.

Despite polls indicating that Democrats were likely to take control of the Senate and gain seats in the House, they only picked up a net of one Senate seat, and appear to have lost around ten net seats in the House (though still retaining control). Democrats also believed they had a good shot of picking up state legislative chambers in many states, including Iowa. Not only did they fail to do so, they unexpectedly lost control of the state legislature in New Hampshire. UE members in Iowa, who have been working under a draconian anti-union measure passed by the Republican legislature in 2017, know full well that control of state legislatures by anti-union forces has a direct impact on their rights.

While control of the Senate will now be determined by two runoff elections in Georgia, Democratic victories in both races would give the Democrats only the barest of majorities (an even split, with Vice President Harris able to cast deciding votes). If Republicans prevail in either contest, Senator Mitch McConnell will retain control of the Senate, and continue to use that power to obstruct any attempt to pass pro-worker legislation.

Under either scenario, the Biden administration will undoubtedly use Democratic weakness in the Senate as an excuse not to press for the legislation that working people desperately need: an economic stimulus to get people back to work, emergency health care relief, labor law reform and action on the climate crisis.

“Be prepared to fight like hell”
The GEB statement concludes that after the election, UE members should “be prepared to fight like hell to hold a Biden administration accountable to the people.”

There is good reason to believe that popular pressure can be mobilized to pressure Biden and Congress, especially if labor takes a leading role. While Democrats turned out not to be particularly popular in the recent election, pro-worker policies were. In Florida — one of the few states in which Trump did significantly better than in 2016 — a super-majority of voters passed an initiative to institute a $15 minimum wage. A Fox News exit poll the night of the election also found that 72 percent of voters were in favor of switching to a “government run healthcare plan” (i.e., Medicare for All).

The Labor Campaign for Single Payer reports that “Even though the Democrats lost seats in Congress, not a single cosponsor of the Medicare for All Act was defeated. ... Even Medicare for All supporters in swing districts, like Katie Porter in Orange County California, were re-elected while swing district opponents went down in defeat.”

Building Working-Class Power
The GEB statement on the elections noted that “Our only long-term solution is to build working-class power, both in the workplace and in the political arena, independent of the Democratic Party.”

As this election demonstrated, the U.S. remains divided and polarized, and that polarization is evident inside the working class, due in no small part to very real grievances against the Democratic Party. If the Biden administration fails to deliver for working people, working-class disaffection from the Democrats will only increase.

In recent decades, the Democratic Party establishment has aspired to become the party of the urban managerial and professional class, relying on Black and Latino working-class votes to win elections. The small but significant movement of voters of color into the Republican column in this recent election, however, demonstrates that the Democratic Party can no more take their votes for granted than they can those of union members.

As delegates to UE’s 2019 convention declared in the resolution “Independent Rank-and-File Political Action”:

We continue to believe that until American workers have an independent political voice and our own political party we will be forced to struggle on an unlevel playing field. UE follows the path of independent political action. We support or oppose candidates based upon their actions, not their words or party label. We do so with confidence that many millions of working people support our cause.

https://www.ueunion.org/political-actio ... -no-savior

Given all this I dunno why the union does not withhold its endorsement and votes from the Dems seeing as all they got is 'hope' the Biden regime will be better. Wasn't the "The Audacity of Hope™" enough for them? Or do they succumb to the metaphysical propaganda that 'Trump is the Devil' that the ruling class has promulgated? If not now then when? There ain't gonna be a workers party until the Dems are utterly discredited and union endorsements ain't getting us there.

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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:27 pm

Prime numbers: Work in, work in, die!
01/13/2021
Member of the Labor Front Oleg Komolov with the author's transmission Image

(video(in Russian) at link.)

Hello everyone! We bet this video gets fewer views? Well, much less than the other episodes of the program where we criticize modern capitalism: we tell how business and the state rob us, violating the rights of an employee at every step. As a rule, the more vividly the social antagonisms of the market society are shown in the materials - inequality, exploitation, the enrichment of speculators on the general grief - the more they collect views, reposts and comments. But when it comes to the practical issues of the workers' struggle for their class interests, the audience's enthusiasm disappears somewhere.

As if out of superstitious considerations, our people avoid words like rally, strike, trade union, political party.

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Intro of the video of the channel "Bulletin of the Buri"

The Vestnik Buri channel recently released a very useful video about the history of independent trade unions in modern Russia , which had serious successes in confronting enterprise owners. People sought to raise wages, improve working conditions. Andrei Rudoy shared his practical experience of organizing a strike, described in detail the legal obstacles that the bourgeois state puts in the way of the strikers and how to overcome them correctly. In general, take it and do it. But the material turned out to be not at all popular, gaining significantly less views than exposing the blessed journalist Parfyonov on the same channel.

In this video we will also talk about trade unions, so you can turn it off immediately. Well, we will still sacrifice airtime for the sake of a social experiment, suddenly everything is not as bad as it seems to us.

The theme of the labor movement is really not very popular these days. But it's worth paying attention to. For me, the success of the working people of different countries in the organized and solidarity struggle for their rights is one of the few factors that allow me to look with optimism to the future of mankind. It may seem surprising, but strikes in the world occur daily and continue even in the face of a pandemic.

In Chile , health workers are on strike, demanding normal working conditions and decent wages for overtime during the pandemic.

Polish nurses want the same , promising the government to stop working throughout the country.

And in South Korea , workers at the Kia plant are preparing to stop production in response to management plans to carry out massive staff reductions.

Workers in other countries for whom self-esteem, collectivism and solidarity are not empty words deserve admiration. Especially against the background of Russian society, where indifference and paternalism still dominate, and truly militant and independent trade unions are still a rarity.

However, the flow of news from abroad hides the true state of affairs in the international trade union movement, which clearly indicates its crisis. It began several decades ago and is expressed in the fact that the number of trade unions around the world is gradually decreasing.

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Graph of changes in the share of workers in trade unions / Source: oecd.org

For example, in the UK in 1980 , every second worker was unionized, and in 2017 , only one in four. A twofold reduction in the membership base of trade unions also occurred in Germany, Japan, and the United States.

At the same time, the number of workers who participate in the conclusion of collective agreements with employers has also decreased - and this is one of the important signs of the effectiveness of the trade union. On average across the OECD countries, this indicator has decreased by almost 20 percentage points over 50 years.

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Graph of changes in the number of employees participating in collective bargaining / Source: oecd.org

Strike activity also fell both in the countries of the center of world capitalism and in the periphery. The statistics of the International Labor Organization provide very scanty data, but they show how in Canada, Great Britain, Korea the number of strikes has halved over the past 20 years.

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Graph of changes in the number of strikes in the countries of the "center" / Source: ilo.org

In Brazil, the value fell three times , in India - 8 times , and in Mexico , where dozens of strikes took place annually in the 2000s , not a single organized workers' demonstration was recorded in 2018 .

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Graph of changes in the number of strikes in the periphery / Source: ilo.org

What's happening? Maybe trade unions are no longer needed, and effective own
ers themselves, without coercion, improve the living conditions of employees? Are the class antagonisms inherent in capitalism a thing of the past? No, it didn't. On the contrary, over the past decades, social contradictions in the world have only intensified.

In the countries of the capitalist center, the growth of wages is increasingly lagging behind labor productivity. Those. people are working more and more efficiently, but their earnings are not increasing proportionately. And in some countries, workers' real incomes have declined altogether over the past 40 years.

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Diagram of labor productivity growth and real wages in the period 1979-2019 (%) / Source: ec.europa.eu

It is easy to guess that these funds did not dissolve in the atmosphere, they were appropriated by the owners of capital, not without the help of the state.

Thus, in the United States, along with the stagnation of wages, the share of national income distributed in favor of 10% of the richest population grew. All this happened against the background of the degradation of the trade union movement.

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US Union Membership and Inequality Charts / Source: bls.gov

On the periphery of world capitalism, everything develops in a similar way.

In a number of poor, commodity export economies with cheap labor, the poverty rate has declined slightly over the past decades, but local workers paid an unequal price for this, working in difficult conditions with minimal social protection from the state. In China, Mexico, India, South Africa, in parallel with the growth of income from foreign trade, the share of income of the super-rich minority in GDP increased.

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Graphs of changes in the share of the richest 10% of the population in the national income of countries / Source: wid.world

This has resulted in a skyrocketing rise in global inequality. A study by Oxfam showed that 82% of all value added created by the global economy in 2017 was appropriated by 1% of the world's population.

So why did the growth of social contradictions and even the 2008 crisis, which put a heavy burden on the shoulders of workers around the world, not revive the trade union movement? The reason is simple: the institutions of workers' self-organization, traditional for the 20th century, have largely lost their effectiveness. This happened due to a number of circumstances.

The number of unions in the United States peaked in the 1950s and then began to decline. The hard times of the Great Depression and World War II were over, life improved a little, and the least ideological and motivated workers began to leave the trade union movement. In addition to everything, against the background of the political struggle with the Soviet Union, the American bourgeoisie was forced to make some concessions to its workers, which partly smoothed out social conflicts. However, this did not lead to the extinction of the labor struggle.

Image
Dynamics of strike activity in the USA / Source: bls.gov

As you can see from the graph, the strike activity is clearly correlated with the cyclical nature of the American economy. It rose during the phase of economic growth, when workers reasonably demanded that the capitalists share the growing economic pie with them, and declined in conditions of recession and unemployment. However, since the 1980s, the scale of the labor movement has been declining.

Trade unions in the United States were hit hard by the neoliberal reforms of the Reagan administration . They were caused by the protracted crisis of the capitalist economy, which was accompanied by such troubles as oil shocks, high inflation amid weak economic growth. Then the return on equity fell to the lowest since the post-war years. We talked about this in detail from one of the previous videos .

Having stood up to protect business, the state sacrificed the interests of employees.

Image
Cover of D. Kotz's book "The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism"

As the American economist David Kotz writes in his book The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism, the government liberalized labor laws and changed the policy of regulating the labor market. If earlier the National Labor Relations Council formed by the President satisfied 9 out of 10 complaints of workers about violation of their rights, then in the 80s only every second. In the case of union campaigns, the council supported only a third of them.

In 1981 , the American air traffic controllers' union went on a nationwide strike, demanding higher wages. In response, then President Reagan ordered the Federal Aviation Agency to fire 11,000 workers, and then signed a decree banning strikes among government employees.

The activity of the labor movement in the Western world was undermined by the reduction of the traditional environment of workers' self-organization - material production. This was primarily due to its large-scale transfer to regions with low wages.

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Graphs of changes in the share of industry in GDP (%) / Source: worldbank.org

As a result, in the countries of the center, the share of industry in GDP has been steadily declining in recent decades.

As a result, the number of industrial workers, who either join the ranks of the unemployed, or find refuge in the abyss of meaningless professions that do not bring social benefit, are decreasing - we talked about them a few months ago. Who has not seen this video, follow the link .

Image
Graphs of changes in the share of workers employed in industry (%) / Source: worldbank.org

Given the opportunity to exploit the cheap labor of peripheral countries, the center bourgeoisie found a strong argument in negotiations with workers. Now, in response to the demands of the trade union to raise wages and improve working conditions, the capitalist can always completely eliminate production and move it to Mexico , China , Bangladesh , Pakistan , and Nigeria .

Well, and there, if something happens, the local police will always come to the aid of His Majesty a foreign investor and put down the careless slaves, if they suddenly dare to demand something.

For example, to renovate a garment factory built in violation of all building codes or to ensure the safety of mine workers.

But no one cares about these appeals: hundreds of thousands of people die of hunger in a country that exports meat for Arab sheikhs.

Image
The starving population of Somalia

Environmental disaster is not a problem either. Western-centric thinking will not make the world community grieve for a long time over the deaths of hundreds of half-slaves from poor countries. This is not je sui sharli .

In short, trade unions are in crisis. In the countries of the “golden billion”, being on the move becomes ineffective, and in poor regions it is simply life-threatening. But all this does not cancel either social antagonisms or the objective need to fight for their class interests. It just needs to be done differently now. It is not the labor movement that is dying, but the trade unions of the old type. They developed in the 20th century under the great influence of the October Revolution, the triumph of which forced the ruling class of capitalist countries to make concessions to the working people. After this threat was eliminated, the previous forms of struggle largely lost their effectiveness.

The response on the part of the working people of all countries must be international solidarity. It is in the 21st century that this old communist slogan takes on its true meaning. Now, if we want a better life, we really should be concerned with the struggles of the workers in India, Nigeria, Brazil and Canada. We are obliged to provide them with support and when we need to wait for help from them. The owner of the plant will not be able to get rid of annoying workers by transferring production to another country, since there he will meet the same resistance. And the police cannot easily disperse a strike if people from all over the world support it.

Image
Brochure "Hands Off Russia" by William Paul (1919)

The international campaign of solidarity between the workers of England and America with Soviet Russia during the Civil War made a great material, organizational, informational and moral contribution to the victory of the revolution. Today these tools are in our hands more and more, the main thing is to realize the importance of their use.

After all, as the Soviet academician Aleksey Ukhtomsky rightly noted , everything really valuable in this world is earned by labor and heart pain.

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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:43 pm

January 15, 2021

Class Struggle and Solidarity: What Labor Still Needs Under Biden

Kari Thompson


This article is part of our series “On the Precipice: A Progressive Agenda in the Biden Era.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage, the deck remains stacked against the working class: a faltering economy with sky-rocketing inequality; bad labor laws and an even worse business-friendly judiciary enforcing them; trade policies that cede too many rights to corporations; unchecked climate chaos; and complacency in too many parts of organized labor. The incoming Biden administration projects it’s desire to be the most labor-friendly presidential administration ever, but without organized public pressure, they quickly will be mired in merely reversing problems created in the last four years without any plan to comprehensively address the structural losses of the last 40 years. This kind of piecemeal approach will not be enough to advance the change working people need. A better future for workers and labor is possible, but only if we demand it.

Present Context
In August, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) General Executive Board, comprised of elected rank and file members and UE’s national officers, issued a statement declaring that “The working class cannot afford four more years of Trump,” and recognized that the only way “to oust Trump from office…is to elect Joe Biden.”

Less an endorsement of Biden so much as a grounded understanding of the actions the Trump administration had taken, they wrote: “President Trump has attacked workers’ rights much more aggressively than any of his predecessors, weakening regulations and stacking the Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board and OSHA with corporate henchmen. His appointments to the Supreme Court resulted in anti-worker rulings, including the Janus decision to weaken public-sector unions, and his ongoing effort to fill the federal courts with anti-worker judges promises more such decisions well into the future.”

On November 3, in an election with record-high turnout, Biden was elected president. According to exit polls, working-class voters made up a larger share of the electorate and voted more Democratic than they had in the 2016 presidential election, while wealthy households continued to vote more heavily for Trump. Of people voting in union households 57% voted for Biden this year while 40% voted for Trump, a significant shift compared to 2016, when Trump only lost the union household vote by eight points.

This is a good result for labor. It offers the opportunity for unions to put forward bold demands for what the Biden administration should do to improve both conditions for organizing and the economy more broadly.

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Healthcare workers with Cook County Health picket outside of Stroger Hospital as they stage a one-day strike on December 22, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Unfortunately, it seems that so far, labor leaders are focused on who will head the Labor Department, not what that person should be doing and how it should dovetail with other economic policies. That it took Biden so long to nominate his longtime friend Marty Walsh for the position is somewhat discomforting, and it suggests Biden’s own lack of clear vision for what this person should accomplish.

Ultimately, organized labor must have a more programmatic approach to improving its power through advancing workers’ economic interests. While the dramatic unemployment numbers from early in the pandemic have subsided, the Economic Policy Institute points out that more that 25.7 million U.S. workers are still impacted by job loss or reduced hours. And of course, those hardest hit by these job losses are those who already had the fewest resources. Wealth inequality has increased, while Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, the Waltons, and others have reached previously unfathomable levels of wealth. The emergency relief bill that Congress passed at the end of 2020 is far short of what working people need to heal from COVID-19 and end the economic suffering the pandemic has unleashed.

What the Working Class Needs
Before we limit our goals based on political realism, it’s important to be clear about what the working class really needs. The first priority must be correcting the course of the economy. Any new stimulus program must provide funds to state and local governments to prevent mass layoffs and budgets cuts. Beyond that, we need a comprehensive jobs guarantee program geared towards meeting people’s needs and addressing the threat of climate change and any future public health emergencies — a “Green New Deal.” This will require massive investment in infrastructure, healthcare and education. That investment should come with requirements that the jobs created be quality, union jobs, targeted toward the communities and populations that have suffered the most from deindustrialization, the climate crisis and systemic racism.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it starkly clear that the federal government must do more to provide healthcare for all, regardless of employment. To permanently fix our nation’s broken healthcare system, we need the kind of Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare system that UE has supported since the 1940s.

Workers also need better rights to organize — our lives depend on it. A recent study found that unionized nursing homes in New York had 42% fewer COVID-19 infections and 30% fewer deaths than non-union nursing homes. Worker action has been crucial to winning personal protective equipment and safety policies across the country. This is taking place not only in UE and other union shops but also in unorganized workplaces. We need Congress to pass comprehensive labor law reform, such as the Workplace Democracy Act and the PRO Act, to give workers full rights to organize, bargain collectively, and strike.

What We Can Expect
There are likely to be some pro-worker improvements out of this administration, especially in areas that they can link to controlling the pandemic. Early among them ought to be an “Infectious Disease Standard” from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Such a rule would require healthcare facilities and potentially most other workplaces to proactively implement infectious disease control protocols. Organized labor also anticipates the reversal of unfavorable National Labor Relations Board rulings, and filling vacant OSHA investigator positions.

These measures, while helpful, only tinker around the edges of federal labor laws that favor employers, not workers, and are also antiquated under present working conditions. Simply reversing a number of bad rulings will not advance organized labor, which now represents fewer than 10% of U.S. workers. A Labor Secretary Walsh will not provide much inspiration.

Furthermore, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell’s success at packing federal courts with corporate-friendly judges will have a long-term impact on workers’ rights, regardless of Democratic control of the Senate. The labor movement will experience continued fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision to allow public sector workers to avoid paying union dues while benefiting from union negotiated contracts. Labor should be prepared for the possibility that the Court could expand that ruling into the private sector too.

Working people cannot rely on the courts to protect them. The judiciary has always prioritized protecting the institutions that preserve the status quo, from Dred Scott to new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Seventh Circuit rulings upholding racial discrimination at work, conceding new rights only when the public demands them.

Additionally, activists will need to be prepared to mobilize swiftly to prevent new trade deals that favor corporations. Biden was an architect of the ultimately failed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), and he may try to revive it. That said, his nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, is a positive step. Tai led negotiations over NAFTA 2.0 for the Democratic majority in Congress. There she helped to strengthen provisions in the new agreement that protect Mexican workers’ ability to form independent unions and negotiate for better pay and benefits. Improving the wages and working conditions for workers in other countries is the best way to prevent U.S. firms from moving production overseas and provide opportunities to reinvest in domestic manufacturing.

Tai’s nomination demonstrates that the old “free trade” model, embodied by NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, and the proposed TPP, and embraced for decades by both Republicans and corporate Democrats, is no longer viable. However, it remains to be seen how much Tai, and the Biden administration, are committed to policies that raise the wages and working conditions of workers, especially manufacturing workers, in all countries. Those are the only kind of policies that will truly protect our jobs from globalization. Working people will still need to stay alert and be ready to keep the pressure on.

So far, Biden’s choices for his Cabinet and advisors largely favor predictable corporate centrists and cronies from the Obama administration. Three of his picks are employees of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager and proponent of corporate deregulation. His nominee for Defense Secretary is on the board of Raytheon, one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers. The working class should be suspicious of their warmongering.

However, a surprisingly positive counterpoint to these centrist voices is Deb Haaland, Biden’s nominee for Secretary of the Interior. In addition to the significant impact of having a Native American woman lead the department that governs the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Haaland is from the working class and has been an outspoken activist both before and during her term as a Congresswoman.

Centrist Democrats, including Biden, have thus far remained unwilling to even consider the Green New Deal. Labor should seize any opportunity to enact GND’s proposals, even in a piecemeal fashion, while recognizing that this approach alone will not achieve full climate or economic justice.

With the Georgia Senate runoff races completed and a Democratic Senate confirmed, the Biden administration will have a brief two-year window to push forward bold proposals.

How We Get What We Need
The dramatic economic downturn induced by the pandemic presents opportunities for the working class, but only if we are united enough to advance a plan that benefits the long-term interests of workers, not those of corporations. That can only be won through visible actions that disrupt business as usual — literally.

There is good reason to believe that popular support can be mobilized to pressure Biden and Congress, especially if labor takes a leading role and builds a broad coalition that includes Black Lives Matter and environmental activists. While Democrats were not particularly popular in the recent election, pro-worker policies were.

In Florida — where Trump did significantly better than in 2016 — a super-majority of voters passed an initiative to institute a $15 minimum wage. The Labor Campaign for Single Payer said in an email sent to supporters that, “Even though the Democrats lost seats in Congress, not a single cosponsor of the Medicare for All Act was defeated. … Even Medicare for All supporters in swing districts…were re-elected while swing district opponents went down in defeat.”

Organized labor should be prepared to think and act creatively with the opportunities available to them. We’ve inherited a federal government decimated by underfunding and privatization. We can rebuild trust in our institutions by using them to put people to work building more resilient communities, and we should start where we find a friendly audience. For example, with Haaland as Interior Secretary, what kinds of green jobs programs could we create to enhance our natural resources, rather than exploit them? Perhaps she can shape a new Civilian Conservation Corps whose members replace lead water lines and remove coal ash, while earning a living wage.

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People protest working conditions outside of an Amazon warehouse fulfillment center on May 1, 2020 in the Staten Island borough of New York City. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

Another possibility: the choice of Xavier Becerra for Secretary of Health and Human Services is odd, considering his lack of experience in public health. He has previously supported calls for Medicare for All, but has agreed to go along with Biden’s desire not to advance that plan. Becerra’s wife, Carolina Reyes, has made a career in advancing maternal medicine in medically underserved communities, and perhaps she can be a positive influence. As the U.S. struggles to control the pandemic and administer vaccines, labor should support a robust investment in the existing but underfunded National Health Service Corps, which is administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. Let’s pay union wages to thousands of workers to be trained on testing and vaccination protocols and also pay for their future college education in the healthcare field.

We should also be prepared to advance bold proposals even where our allies are more limited. For example, UE Local 506 members make locomotive engines in Erie, Pennsylvania, earning solid wages and benefits through their years of union struggle. UE members there would love to be on the forefront of making electric locomotives powered by clean energy for a national high-speed railway. It is unclear whether Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s nominee for Transportation Secretary, has the vision to advance a plan that could so positively impact many aspects of our economy and climate change, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t advocate for this ambitious idea.

Workers must make our struggles visible in the streets in order to push for the policies we need, using tactics such as mass marches, strikes, and civil disobedience, including occupations of workplaces. This will be the only way to compel capitalist structures to concede to our demands. Those parts of the labor movement that still know how to execute these actions should pass on their knowledge to a new generation of activists. Given recent events, such actions will need to be carefully organized to target capital’s interests, not just create theater on Capitol Hill.

By focusing on issues that directly impact working people and their families, the labor movement can begin to heal divisions that have been amplified during the current administration. While Biden’s victory is clear, Trump received tens of millions of working-class votes. As UE’s officers noted in a statement following the January 6 insurrectionist violence at the capitol, “The growth of far-right and white-supremacist groups is not only a danger to our democracy, and to the lives and safety of people of color, it is also a roadblock to the working-class unity that we need to win economic justice and a decent standard of living.” Neither the election results nor recent turmoil mean that either Biden or unions should pander to Republicans. Rather, this increases the necessity of putting forward a bold program that will unite people around our common working-class interests.

Kari Thompson is Director of International Strategies and Co-Director of Education at UE. Prior to joining UE staff, she was a rank-and-file UE member in Iowa.

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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 27, 2021 1:05 pm

Hunts Point Teamsters win strike through solidarity
Julie NorrisJanuary 26, 2021 117 3 minutes read

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Workers celebrate their victory with champaign after ratifying their contract on Jan. 23. Liberation photo.

A significant victory for the workers’ movement was won on Jan. 23. After six days of striking in freezing temperatures, the warehouse workers and drivers at the Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx, NY, ended their strike with 97 percent vote to ratify a new three-year contract that reflected workers’ demands for a higher wage. These workers, represented by Teamsters Local 202, then celebrated the new contract with a toast to their united struggle.

At the celebration, Leonardo Perez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who works and lives in Hunts Point told Liberation News,”I’m happy because this is what we’ve been fighting for all week, for a better future for ourselves.”

This was a major gain for the workers’ movement, showing that unity and solidarity is the way to win gains even during the COVID-19 pandemic

The Hunts Point Produce Market is the largest wholesale produce market in the United States, and workers process an estimated 60 percent of New York City’s fruits and vegetables. Since many of the meals eaten by New Yorkers pass through these warehouses, the strike could have impacted grocery stores, restaurants, and residents throughout the city. Yet workers were offered only a $0.32 an hour raise, an insultingly low amount after 10 months of dangerous work during the COVID-19 pandemic. So they voted to strike for the first time in 35 years.

Strategic union and community solidarity

The strike of 1,400 workers lasted six days and received wide support from across the city. When six striking workers were arrested for blocking trucks from entering the market, hundreds of supporters joined the 24-hour picket lines until the end of the strike, according to the union, many bringing hot food, firewood and hand warmers.

Crown Heights Service Industry Workers, the Transit Workers Union, members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Democratic Socialists of America and workers’ families were among the many who stood in solidarity through the bitter cold days. The staff at a high school that brings in students from all over New York City raised $500 for the strike solidarity fund.

Workers from Ohio operating one train loaded with 21 cars of produce refused to transport the goods from Hunts Point, stating that they too were Teamsters union members. Disrupting the normal inflow of produce was an essential strategy for the striking workers, using the loss of merchandise and the threat of rotting produce as leverage to force management to hear workers’ demands.

Hunts Point Market opposed the union’s demands even though it had received $15 million in forgivable PPP loans from the federal government. Management even relied on riot police to break the strikers’ picket line and bring trucks and scabs into the market. But the united strikers and the strong show of union and community solidarity became the powerful force that brought management back to the bargaining table. Owners had to scramble to barely stay open, recruiting non-union workers, supervisors, and even family members to try to fill in the essential labor that the strikers withheld.

Workers were able to negotiate an immediate $0.70 raise, as well as increased health benefits and future annual raises. These increases are crucial for workers making between $15 and $22 hourly, many of whom struggle to support their families on stagnant wages.

Corporate disregard for essential workers‘ lives

Over 70 percent of the Hunts Point Produce Market workers are residents of the Bronx, a borough deeply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Bronx residents, who are 90 percent people of color, are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 due to a long history of redlining, low-wage work, negative environmental health factors and more. At the Hunts Point Produce Market, hundreds of workers have been infected, and at least six have died from the virus so far.

“It’s not fair that these companies didn’t want to recognize that we are essential to New York City,” Tomas, one of the workers celebrating on Jan. 23, told Liberation News in Spanish. “Here, many of our coworkers fell … died in this struggle because of the pandemic.”

The pandemic has made it clear that workers — nurses, teachers, delivery drivers, warehouse workers — are the ones who keep society running. Now, struggles like those at Hunts Point point the way forward by showing that these workers have power.

During the celebrations on Jan. 23, Danny Kane, president of Teamsters Local 202, said: “Regular hardworking people can do miracles. They’re the people who do the living, fighting, dying and building in this country. And I think they deserve, particularly [what] these workers have earned by their struggle. It’s through struggle that we make change; change will come if we move our feet.”

https://www.liberationnews.org/hunts-po ... rationnews

It took not finding their favorite 'organic' coffee on the shelves of The Fresh Market for the petty booj to discover that workers are 'essential'. How soon will they forget?
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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Thu Feb 04, 2021 12:52 pm

The number of working hours is increasing
02/04/2021
This is a global trend
The duration of the working day increased by 2-3 hours on average. This conclusion was reached by foreign experts after analyzing the data and network traffic before and after the mass transfer of workers to remote work due to the pandemic, Kommersant reports .

Image
Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of October 30, 1917 "On an eight-hour working day"

Four time periods were analyzed: January 2020, March-April 2020, and January 2021. The statistics are valid for the USA, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and Austria.

The results of the study showed that in all countries except Italy, the average working day increased from the standard eight or nine hours to ten or eleven, i.e. increased by an average of 2-3 hours.

The most "surprising" thing is that upon returning to the office, the number of hours spent at work did not decrease and remained within nine or eleven hours, which is also much more than the norm.

There was no trend towards a decrease in working hours in any country. On the contrary, researchers believe that increased working hours will soon become the norm. So not long and until twelve o'clock working day.

The increase in working hours is associated with another feature of 2020: an increase in income for the rich and a decrease for the poor.

Against this background, one recalls the "fabulous" statements of Russian politicians about a four-day working week, albeit on the condition that no one limited the working day.

We must remember: an eight-hour working day is not a prize won in a lottery, not a handout from the authorities and not luck, it is the result of long collective work.

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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:05 pm

Hold the Biden Administration Accountable to the People
JANUARY 29, 2021
Pittsburgh
STATEMENT OF UE GENERAL EXECUTIVE BOARD
Our nation is at a crossroads. Forty years of continued assault on working-class living standards have eroded working people’s faith in government. Corporations have attacked wages and benefits, destroyed good jobs, busted unions, and devastated whole communities through plant closings. Meanwhile, politicians of both parties have pursued privatization and deregulation, doing their best to turn government from an instrument for the public good into an opportunity for private gain — for themselves and their wealthy friends.

One response to this ongoing economic crisis for working people has been the growth of right-wing populism. The attacks on our nation’s capitol on January 6 were a direct outcome of this. Trump and a shameful number of other Republican politicians repeated, with no evidence, the “big lie” that the presidential election was stolen. The willingness of a significant section of the U.S. working class to believe this big lie reflects the culmination of decades of lies told to working people in the U.S. about our economic problems: that globalization is inevitable, that unions are to blame for job losses and high taxes, that Black communities are to blame for crime and that immigrants “steal” our jobs.

Another, more hopeful response to the economic crisis has been the increased willingness of many people, particularly young people, to question what has been the economic orthodoxy of the last forty years and demand that their government serve the people, not profit. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020, the wave of teacher strikes across the country, racial justice protests and youth-driven climate activism have helped consolidate a movement behind a broad, positive set of policies to help working people. Creating millions of good, union jobs through a Green New Deal, providing universal health care through Medicare for All, taking concrete steps towards racial justice, fixing our broken immigration system, and strengthening the labor movement by restoring our right to organize are all now on the agenda.

The Biden Administration and the Democratic majority in Congress must embrace this vision and put forward a bold program that can draw broad support from working people by addressing our urgent needs. Our duty as a labor movement is to mobilize to pressure them to do so. History, and our own experience, tells us that politicians will only lead when a mobilized working class forces them to, through aggressive struggle and non-violent direct action.

The first thing working people need from the Biden Administration and Congress is an immediate relief program to prevent the pandemic-induced economic depression from getting any worse. We need a bill that includes enhanced unemployment, direct payments to individuals to maintain purchasing power, and funds for state and local governments to prevent mass layoffs and budget cuts. In addition, working people also need relief on the healthcare front, such as that provided by the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act. This bill would leverage the existing Medicare payment infrastructure to ensure that everyone can get the healthcare they need for the duration of the pandemic.

We also need a strong, federal led effort to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control, instead of the current patchwork efforts of states, local governments, and employers. Vaccines will be an important part of this effort, along with public health measures such as sick and family leave, but they must be distributed in a way that recognizes the suspicion of forced medical procedures in many communities, especially communities of color. We urge the Biden administration, along with state and local health departments, to ensure a strong role for community organizations, unions and workers’ centers in the vaccination campaign, to build trust with working people who are often rightly suspicious of their employers and the government.

Beyond that, we need a comprehensive stimulus program to rebuild the economy and put people to work meeting the people’s needs and addressing the threat of climate change and any future public health emergencies — a “Green New Deal.” This will require massive investment in infrastructure, healthcare and education, and that investment should come with the requirement that the jobs created be good, union jobs, and be targeted towards communities and populations that have suffered from deindustrialization, climate change and systemic racism.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it starkly clear that the federal government must do more to provide healthcare for all, regardless of employment. To permanently fix our nation’s broken healthcare system, and remove healthcare from the bargaining table, we need the kind of Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare system that UE has supported since the 1940s.

Workers also need stronger rights to organize — our lives depend on it. A study in New York state found that unionized nursing homes had 42 percent fewer COVID-19 infections and 30 percent fewer deaths than non-union nursing homes. Worker action has been crucial to winning personal protective equipment and safety policies across the country, not only in UE and other union shops but also in unorganized workplaces. We need the Biden Administration to appoint strong worker advocates to the Department of Labor, the NLRB, and OSHA, and we need Congress to pass comprehensive labor law reform, such as the Workplace Democracy Act, the PRO Act, and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, to give workers full rights to organize, bargain collectively and strike.

In response to the January 6 attacks, some have suggested that we need stronger domestic anti-terrorism laws. We disagree. Such measures will end up being used against workers’ struggles. The January 6 attackers got as far as they did not because police lacked the legal authority to stop them, but because of a lackluster response to a violent attack. The gentle treatment of the overwhelmingly white crowd of Trump supporters was in stark contrast to the heavily armed response to multi-racial Black Lives Matter protests last summer. At best, this represents a tragic mistake; at worst, it raises very real fears of the infiltration of our police and military by white supremacists who sympathize with the insurrectionists.

We also have reservations about the responses of big tech companies to the January 6 attacks. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms have become, for better or worse, central to how we communicate with each other. They are also unaccountable, profit-driven companies, and should not have the power to remove individuals from their platforms at their whim. At a minimum, they should be subjected to the same kind of regulation and oversight that the Federal Communications Commission exercises over television and radio, and Congress should consider turning them into public utilities.

The solution to the kind of divisions we have seen during the past four years is not suppression of civil liberties, but rather more democracy, in all aspects of our lives. We need to reject the “common sense” of the past forty years that all decisions should be left to markets, and reclaim our democratic rights to shape society according to the needs of people, not profits — including our democratic right to form unions free of employer interference.

There is good reason to believe that popular pressure can be mobilized to move Biden and Congress to pursue an agenda that both speaks to working people’s material needs and expands democracy. This will require labor to take a leading role, build a broad coalition that includes Black Lives Matter and environmental activists, and be willing to take militant action and challenge the Democratic Party.

As we said in our August statement on the elections, after a Biden victory working people “should then be prepared to fight like hell to hold a Biden administration accountable to the people.” This is exactly what we intend to do, guided by our core principles of aggressive struggle, political independence, and uniting all workers.

https://www.ueunion.org/political-actio ... e-the-wage

With all apologies to the union workers 'in the trenches', this idea of "hold their feet to the fire" after you help them get elected is a totally failed concept, as illustrated during the Obama regime.

Saying that the 'techs' don't have the right to remove anything or anybody for any reason they conceive is absurd. What part of private property is
not understood here? Without addressing the problem of the ownership of the means of production it is futile to complain.

Most of the world, while disgusted and appalled by Trump's behavior also realize that his regime murdered considerably fewer people than the previous, even looking a one term. They are greatly apprehensive that Biden will pick up where Obama left off and that does seem to be the case. We can expect some 'feel-good' domestic policy, however hollow, while the imperial machine resumes cranking out corpses in an industrial manner. Will progressives and the official left again go to sleep, as the anti-war movement did in the Obama years? Is we internationalist or ain't we?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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