News from US freight yerds...

[rararoadrunner]

...It's regarding the campaign by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE), a union with a long and militant history, to organise us Renzenberger drivers:

.Here's the UE website celebrating the organising of Chicago Renzenberger drivers: http://www.ueunion.org/uenewsupdates.html?news=535;

.Here's an article in In These Times which explains what drives us to unionise: http://www.inthesetimes.org/working/entry/5977/rail/;

.Finally, here's the website created by the the Chicago Renzenberger drivers themselves: http://www.renzenbergerunion.org/.

Watch this space!

Hasta pronto, y a la victoria, siempre, MKO.

[Martin Blank]

Jesus! Finally, UE gets it. All the years I worked in rail I tried to get UE to start organizing in the intermodal yards in Detroit for the same reasons you brothers and sisters turned to them (more specifically, because we were in a position similar to the folks at PTI). Nice to see them begin to move on this. Oh, and, congratulations to y'all. Please pass that on.

[syndicat]

here's an earlier piece on the UE initiative in warehousing & logistics:

http://www.ueunion.org/uenewsupdates.html?news=569

[RED DAVE]

Renzenberger Drivers Break Wage Freeze, Establish Rights in First UE Contract

Chicago
21 October, 2010


Rail industry van drivers at Renzenberger Incorporated have achieved their first union contract. Agreement was reached and ratified in late August on a contract covering 160 workers, who in September were chartered as UE Local 1177. The contract breaks a company wage freeze and establishes for the first time basic worker rights and union protections – including a strong grievance procedure, protection from unjust firings and discipline, seniority and paid time off.http://www.ueunion.org/uenewsupdates.html?news=576

RED DAVE

[the last donut of the night]

This is really exciting. It's fucking disgusting how the media will refuse to report on this. What happens is that people get the image -- especially leftists -- that there is no struggle happening in America and that American workers are hopelessly imbecile and lazy. However, it's the opposite. These small news are very important because they're showing a rise of class consciousness in American workers; this is great news.

[RED DAVE]

This is really exciting. It's fucking disgusting how the media will refuse to report on this. What happens is that people get the image -- especially leftists -- that there is no struggle happening in America and that American workers are hopelessly imbecile and lazy. However, it's the opposite. These small news are very important because they're showing a rise of class consciousness in American workers; this is great news.Unfortunately, many leftists also get the image of no struggle because either their eyes are elsewhere, on some "heroic" struggle in another country or they partake of an ideology that discounts the working class, consciously or unconsciously.

There is a difference between being a radical and being a Marxist. Unless your eyes are firmly on the working class, it's easy to fall into enthusiasms or actions that may seem fine and exciting but are actually a trap. Work within the working class is rarely glamorous, and the average experience is failure. But this has to be done, year after year, decade after decade, until the tide of working class struggle shifts.

At that point, those groups and individuals who have stood fast will have the knowledge and experience to participate in the class struggle and have the potential to be part of working class leadership.

RED DAVE

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Great news to hear Red Dave, I honestly didn't know about the Renzenberger workers struggle until this, before I honestly just saw them as 'the guys driving the van.' Good to know their getting organized, I have to say that these guys really are on call 24-7. Locomotive trouble in Las Cruces NM at 3 am with a crew thats about to go 'dead on the law' (exceed 12 hours) means they're rushing a crew out from El Paso at 3 am in the morning.

A lot goes into moving freight that many people don't realize. The Brotherhood of Railway Engineers isn't horrible considering the de-regulation in 1980 as well as the fact that to strike is illegal, and in my opinion (though I have NO first hand experience) The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is among the countrys best at representing their workers and not being afraid to flex their muscle. The 'slowdown' in 2002 had a massive effect, as trains were backed up on, for example, Union Pacific's southern line to Texas. It's great to see another link piece of what makes our economy move get proper union representation.

[RED DAVE]

The 'slowdown' in 2002 had a massive effect, as trains were backed up on, for example, Union Pacific's southern line to Texas. It's great to see another link piece of what makes our economy move get proper union representation.Tell us more about this. It was never mentioned in any press that I read.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

Great news to hear Red Dave, I honestly didn't know about the Renzenberger workers struggle until this, before I honestly just saw them as 'the guys driving the van.' Good to know their getting organized, I have to say that these guys really are on call 24-7. Locomotive trouble in Las Cruces NM at 3 am with a crew thats about to go 'dead on the law' (exceed 12 hours) means they're rushing a crew out from El Paso at 3 am in the morning.

A lot goes into moving freight that many people don't realize. The Brotherhood of Railway Engineers isn't horrible considering the de-regulation in 1980 as well as the fact that to strike is illegal, and in my opinion (though I have NO first hand experience) The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is among the countrys best at representing their workers and not being afraid to flex their muscle. The 'slowdown' in 2002 had a massive effect, as trains were backed up on, for example, Union Pacific's southern line to Texas. It's great to see another link piece of what makes our economy move get proper union representation.

Striking is not illegal in the railroad industry, it's just difficult as a result of the Railway Labor Act which mandates negotiations, then mediation, then a cooling off period, a presidential emergency board, etc. etc. then another cooling off period before the parties are "released" to seek "self help."

Once that release occurs, it takes an act of Congress to end the strike and force the workers back to work.

Like to hear more about the slowdown in Texas.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Like to hear more about the slowdown in Texas.

Oh it wasn't just TX. Trains were backed up from the West Coast ports to Texas. I'm not joking, and you can bet that in cities like Chicago and Kansas City there was a lot of dead traffic sitting around because of the west coast longshoremen.

Some good background info:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/july-dec02/docks_09-19.html#

It wasn't as romantic as I made it seem, but still interesting:


The ILWU was accused of engaging in a slowdown of work on docks in 2002, as an alternative to a strike, to support its contract demands in negotiations with the Pacific Maritime Association (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Pacific_Maritime_Association). The union has documented that productivity was in fact stable at that time, while the employer claims to have contradictory data. The employers responded to the slowdown with a lockout (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Lockout), disallowing the workers to do their jobs. The Bush (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/George_W._Bush) administration sought a national emergency injunction under the Taft-Hartley Act (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Taft-Hartley_Act) against both the employers and the union, and threatened to move longshore workers from coverage under the National Labor Relations Act (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act) to coverage under the Railway Labor Act (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Railway_Labor_Act), which would effectively prevent longshore workers from striking. (This is a long-time goal of the PCMA and other companies whose workers the ILWU represents
(from wiki)


At the time, my dad worked with a small shippig company in AZ that did some business with the railroads. During the lockout, there were trains in every siding on the mainline through AZ as a very large % of the traffic in both directions are loaded onto container ships at Long Beach and LA. We were told the same thing was going on for other RR's mainlines and those with more direct routes to Oakland, Seattle, Portland from the east.
We're talking about crew working a 12 hour shift, without moving at all! Eventually these trains were just parked were they were, as freight yards were already above capacity.

Also, container ships were causing a traffic jam outside all of these major ports, waiting for the govt to intervene as they finally ended the standoff.


What is Important to learn from the episode:

--The Pacific Maritime Association was willing to lose billions of dollars with a lockout to try and bring the union under harsher govt regulation. That says something about the stregnth and sincerity of the union itself, in my opinion.

--A strike involving workers who work in the shipping industry has a much greater effect that those in manufacturing. I hate to say it like that, but manufacturing has declined so much many of the unions representing their workers have become shells of their former selves as they simply try to limit the bleeding ie # of jobs being shipped overseas.

The lockout did have a profound effect on me as a kid, I'd say. First time I really saw any glimpse of "labor power"



Victory!
Union Contract Highlights

Despite the Big Business and Bush attack, dockworkers won a union contract that preserves and improves living wage jobs in our community.

Preserved right to keep new jobs as part of living wage union contract. Stevedoring Services company (SSA) will have to return hundreds of living wage jobs to our community that they had sent to Utah as poverty wage jobs.
Health plan stays at no cost to workers for six years despite price-gouging by profit hungry healthcare companies.
Pensions dramatically improved by over 50% despite national trends to switch to volatile stock market accounts. Retirees and widows will get much needed increases to pensions based on pay earned during the days dockworkers were treated like farmworkers are unfortunately treated now.
The proposed contract still has to be approved by vote of the ILWU membership.
We Beat Back the Bush-Corporate Attack

With alarming boldness, corporations are teaming with the federal government to reinvent weapons against organized working people. Nothing has characterized this threat more than the big business attack on dockworkers. This is what happened:

International maritime companies created a formal anti-worker alliance with the biggest retail corporations.
Bush used the military to threaten replacing dockworkers on the job.
Using an anti-worker Federal law in a new way, Bush violated basic rights to workplace collective action.
Corporations started a campaign to divide Longshore union unity by trying to change a 70 year labor law.


http://www.wsjwj.org/news_2002/longshore_2002.asp

[rararoadrunner]

Comrades:

Just returning to Revleft and reading these posts has been profoundly educating: my thanks, and I'll see what I can pass on to my fellow Renzenberger drivers!

Update: signatures being submitted today to take Southern California to an election, in which the ballot options will be "UE," "Local 707," (A notorious wiseguy company union Renzenberger sicced on us after we began to build on the Chicago victory) and "no rep." Would that UE could have opposed Local 707 all at once and everywhere...but, given that UE will probably win the election just in time to join Chicago in wage negotiations, Local 707 won't have a leg to stand on!

More news as it develops, hasta pronto, y a la victoria, siempre, MKO.

[Victus Mortuum]

Hopefully these unions will oppose coordinator-classism and push for being participatory. At best, maybe they'll even start demanding democratic say in workplace decisions.

[Rocky Rococo]

Hopefully these unions will oppose coordinator-classism and push for being participatory. At best, maybe they'll even start demanding democratic say in workplace decisions.

UE is probably the single most radical and militant union (or was) of all the mainstream US unions, with the possible exception of the west coast longshoremen. During the Red Scare of the McCarthy period, UE refused to purge the "reds" from their union, so they were not only kicked out of the AFL-CIO, but the AFL-CIO then created the IUE as a politically purged and McCarthy-safe competitor to try to crush UE out of existence. UE survived.

[Victus Mortuum]

So does the AFL-CIO still maintain a policy of "no reds or blacks"?