Airport Screeners Get Union Representation

[RED DAVE]

Really cool.


Screeners for T.S.A. Select Union

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: June 23, 2011

WASHINGTON — Airport screeners around the county have chosen the nation’s largest federal employee union to represent them in collective bargaining talks with the government, federal officials announced Thursday.

The American Federation of Government Employees won a close runoff vote to represent about 44,000 employees at the Transportation Security Administration in the largest union election for federal workers in history.

Federal officials tallying the votes say A.F.G.E. received 8,903 votes, or 51 percent, while National Treasury Employees Union got 8,447 votes, or 49 percent. The runoff was held after neither union received more than 50 percent of votes in the first election earlier this year.

The vote came after John S. Pistole, who heads the T.S.A., agreed in February to grant screeners limited collective bargaining rights for the first time. The screeners, who inspect bags and guide passengers through security, had been among the few federal workers without a union.

“We are obviously thrilled with the election results, but more importantly are delighted that the transportation security officers now will have the full union representation they rightly deserve,” said John Gage, the president of A.F.G.E.

Republicans have widely criticized the decision to grant collective bargaining rights to airport screeners, saying the move would threaten the government’s ability to respond quickly in emergencies.However:


Mr. Pistole has said his decision to allow union representation would not compromise security because it prohibits negotiating on security-related matters like deployment, job qualifications, testing or discipline and does not change current regulations that already ban strikes or work slowdowns.

Democrats and union leaders point to other government security workers, such as border patrol agents and customs officers, who have had union representation for years with no problems.

Earlier this month, the Republican-controlled House passed a $42.3 billion budget for the government’s homeland security programs that would prohibit the use of federal funds for collective bargaining for T.S.A. workers. But that provision is expected to face stiff resistance in the Senate, which the Democrats control.(emph added)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/business/24labor.html?_r=1

RED DAVE

[Fulanito de Tal]

That's awesome! Maybe Blackwater would get a union next!

[LegendZ]

That's awesome! Maybe Blackwater would get a union next!No.

[RED DAVE]

That's awesome! Maybe Blackwater would get a union next!Would you prefer that these government workers not have a union? Are you equating these airport workers with Blackwater mercenaries?

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

Current salaries for airport screeners look like this:

Hourly Rate – $10.14 - $18.99

Overtime – $14.54 - $29.62

Bonus – $98.26 - $2,000

Total Pay – $22,164 - $42,279

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Security_Screener,_Airline/Hourly_Rate

RED DAVE

[danyboy27]

fuck those assoles, but cant blame them for getting unionised.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

fuck those assoles, but cant blame them for getting unionised.

Are they arseholes because they work for arseholes and have to be arseholes as a requirement in the work they do, or because they are somehow intrinsically arseholes by nature?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Yeah, "they're just doing their job." They heard a lot of that at Nuremburg.

It doesn't matter what their motivation was for joining. What matters is their social role. These are enforcers of capitalist rule, members of the repressive state apparatus.

Some cops signed up because they believed they were going to help people in their neighborhood. It doesn't change their social role. When you're getting your head smashed in by a cop on a picket line, it matters little why he joined the force. When you're getting handcuffed and strip searched at an airport because you wore an "inappropriate" T-shirt, it matters little how much the people doing the searching make per hour.

A number of cops are paid lower than many other workers. So what?

Would you champion a "union" of CIA agents? How about the undercover Federal Air Marshals who also work for the TSA? How about their Behavior Detection Officers who observe airport passengers and decide if they need to be questioned by police? The sad thing is that judging by the looks of the posts in the threads on cops, some probably would.

Doesn't it tell you anything that this is compared to border cops and customs cops unions by a bourgeois news outlet?

What does this amount to anyway? Is this some great gain for the working class? Will this mean that TSA agents won't keep airport/airline workers out if there's a lockout? This is not anything like the great struggles of the 20th century to organize in places like coal mines, steel mills, auto plants and trucking. This is a professional association aimed at negotiating for the best rates and nothing more, with the added 'benefit' of pumping dues money into the coffers of the Democrats. There will be no strikes, no solidarity. Get real.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Current salaries for airport screeners look like this:

Hourly Rate – $10.14 - $18.99

Overtime – $14.54 - $29.62

Bonus – $98.26 - $2,000

Total Pay – $22,164 - $42,279

Police in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma make < $14 an hour. Will you be inviting them to your next socialist workers meeting?

[Robocommie]

I'll be sure to mention how glad I am to hear that these guys are organizing when they're groping my junk.

[RED DAVE]

I can't believe the degree of ultra-leftism being spouted on this thread.

RED DAVE

[AnonymousOne]

Yeah, "they're just doing their job." They heard a lot of that a Nuremburg.

Really? Godwin's Law? Stay Classy.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I can't believe the degree of ultra-leftism being spouted on this thread.

Thanks for the well thought out responses to all the points and questions that were raised.

[RED DAVE]

I can't believe the degree of ultra-leftism being spouted on this thread.
Thanks for the well thought out responses to all the points and questions that were raised.When I see some real "points and questions," and not some immature rantings, I'll respond to them.

RED DAVE

[danyboy27]

Are they arseholes because they work for arseholes and have to be arseholes as a requirement in the work they do, or because they are somehow intrinsically arseholes by nature?

beccause they work for assoles and often act like assoles.
Being an assole is part of being an authority figure has well.

[Fulanito de Tal]

Would you prefer that these government workers not have a union? Are you equating these airport workers with Blackwater mercenaries?

RED DAVE

I would prefer that all workers have unions, not just workers in social control and imperialist professions. If only they have unions, then I would prefer they not. I don't hold airport security above other professions.

[#FF0000]

When I see some real "points and questions," and not some immature rantings, I'll respond to them.

RED DAVE

"I don't wanna"

RED DAVE

[Jose Gracchus]

This is somewhere where I think the Trot canard of keep-at-it, we'll "build the unions, build the party" or whatever really shows itself for the dessicated corpse of history that it is.

The working class's struggle today is not going to be advanced by the bureaucratic business unionization of its bought-off arm subsisting in the federal security apparatus. Pay is irrelevant.

[RED DAVE]

I would preferYou would prefer? Who are you? Which revolutionary organization do you belong to. Or, failing that, which tendency do you belong to?


that all workers have unionsThat's big of you. I'm sure the working class will be eternally grateful for you preference.


not just workers in social control and imperialist professions.That's not an issue in this thred.


If only they have unions, then I would prefer they not.Nothing like solidaity in these difficult times.


I don't hold airport security above other professions.Neither does anone else, so why did you mention it. Are you tryng to establish your left creds at someone else's expense?

RED DAVE

[Fulanito de Tal]

You would prefer? Who are you? Which revolutionary organization do you belong to. Or, failing that, which tendency do you belong to?

I do not belong to any revolutionary organization. I belong to the tendency that best fits what I said at that moment.


That's big of you. I'm sure the working class will be eternally grateful for you preference. They are welcome.


That's not an issue in this thred. It is to me.


Nothing like solidaity in these difficult times.I don't form solidarity with agencies that provide more social control to the government of the US.


Neither does anone else, so why did you mention it. Are you tryng to establish your left creds at someone else's expense?It isn't obvious to me, so I stated it. I don't need to establish myself as anything to you or anyone else. No one, besides me, expensed anything as a result of my post.


RED DAVE

Your post seems unnecessarily belligerent.

[RED DAVE]

Your post seems unnecessarily belligerent.Yours seems antiworking class. If you can't stand the heat, you know where the kitchen door is.

RED DAVE

[Fulanito de Tal]

Yours seems antiworking class. If you can't stand the heat, you know where the kitchen door is.

RED DAVE

I don't understand how giving workers of the bourgeoisie's control tools the privilege of unions while the rest of the workers have their privileges removed. My opinion is not antiworking class.

I can stand the heat, but when people act aggressively when having internet discussions with people that are considered to be on the same team, it does not build solidarity. Also, it doesn't make you anymore "pro-working class" because you label me antiworking class.

[W1N5T0N]

No offense, but in enforcing the law, these guys would be the least of your problems.

[RED DAVE]

I don't understandYou don't understand.


how giving workers of the bourgeoisie's control tools the privilege of unionsSince when is having a union a privilege. It is a right of all working people. You rhetoric is the rhetoric of a boss.


while the rest of the workers have their privileges removed.One has nothing to do with the other. There are many organizing drives going on now and many antiunion actions. Should we gve up on a group of government workers because other workers are struggling.


My opinion is not antiworking class.It certainly is. Do you object to teachers unions? After all, everybody knows that teachers are the perpetuators of the reactionary system of ideological control tools over the working class.

In fact, all workers dedicate their lives to creating surplus value for the ruling class. They don't deserve the privilege of unions. Fuck 'em.


I can stand the heat, but when people act aggressively when having internet discussions with people that are considered to be on the same team, it does not build solidarity.Rejecting a group of organized workers doesn't build solidarity.


Also, it doesn't make you anymore "pro-working class" because you label me antiworking class.So one of these days, tell us what kind of workng class actions you have been engaging in and will be engaging in in the future. That's where the determination will come.

RED DAVE

[x359594]

As a matter of fact there are some dual carders in TSA. It's a mistake to assume ideological uniformity of workers in the national security apparatus.

[YSR]

Seriously ya'll? Comparing TSA to cops? Get a clue. Guess who guns down innocent people with more or less impunity? Guess who sits around for hours with shitty bosses and does repetitive, mindless, boring work at what's basically an assembly line?

Next thing you cats will be saying that I'm a reactionary cause I'm supposed to catch shop lifters at my job. Have you guys ever had a job in the service or government industries? Or hell, done anything? Very few workers are lucky enough to jobs that don't have an anti-social character, if we didn't fuck over other working people as part of our jobs, capitalism would be over. It's part of the plan dudes.

[griffjam]

:confused: I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

I thought it was well known that the brouhaha about the full-body scans was manufactured PR to create animosity towards TSA ahead of their deciding to unionize. During the height of the scandal some were even pushing towards privatization.http://bit.ly/k8xPiE

Some of the replies here remind me of the veiled racism directed at the DMV.

[griffjam]

Yeah, "they're just doing their job." They heard a lot of that at Nuremburg.

Yeah, and blindly following orders happens a lot more when the workers have nothing to protect their right to question or refuse duties.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

As a matter of fact there are some dual carders in TSA. It's a mistake to assume ideological uniformity of workers in the national security apparatus.

It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with social role.

Would you care much if you were evicted by a cop with an IWW membership card? Would you feel better if you were arrested by one with 'socialist leanings'?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Next thing you cats will be saying that I'm a reactionary cause I'm supposed to catch shop lifters at my job.That shit argument has been raised, and countered, here several times over the years.

An example:

'One part of a retail workers job (which is mainly to assist in the realization of profit), may be to watch out for people stealing things... That's only a small part of their job, the main purpose of their job is to assist in the realization of profits.'

This was also covered on Libcom (http://libcom.org/forums/thought/police-challenge-marxism) a while ago, with some pretty good responses:

Tojiah: "How is it that people, who sell their labor power for relatively low wages, who do not have hiring/firing power, and who do not usually derive an income from capital, nontheless consistently maintain, uphold and reproduce a consciousness that is almost diametrically opposed to working-class consciousness? I am talking, of course, about police officers."

Alf: "Apart from the SPGB, marxists have always argued that the police are not part of the working class. The definition of class is in general based on the criteria Tree puts forward, but it's not a tick-boxing exercise. If your job is founded on the repression of the working class, you're not part of it."

Deezer: "As to disentangling them from their role, why is that relevant to our attitude to the police and policing. Some of them may be opposed to the war in Iraq, some of them may believe that there should be investment by government in social housing to alleviate homelessness, some of them may be opposed to the running down of the health service, school closures and the driving down of wages and terms and conditions. Thats individuals, in their role they will be involved in harassing, carrying out surveillance of and beating and arresting anti-war protestors, harassing homeless people and 'beggars', policing and breaking picketlines. "

Alf: "There are many jobs where you get caught up in minor 'policing' functions, but being a shop worker who when minding the till has to look out for shoplifters is not the same as being a policeman whose entire role involves directly reinforcing the system."


Very few workers are lucky enough to jobs that don't have an anti-social character, if we didn't fuck over other working people as part of our jobs, capitalism would be over. It's part of the plan dudes. We're talking about social role. We're talking about positions in society; relations to the means of production.

The proletariat (the modern working class) has a specific role in capitalist society. So do cops, security guards, etc.

"In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed – a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce." - The Communist Manifesto

So if we're really going to discuss this, let's examine these things. We can start by addressing the questions and issues that have already been raised in this thread. Otherwise, just keep ranting about this "great victory" and patting yourself on the back (or get one of your pat down pros to do it for you).

[YSR]

NHIA, dude you got a serious problem with saying that other people said shit they didn't say. At no point in this thread has anyone said the cops are workers or that cops are good guys. Point out where they did or shut up about it. The quote from Marx effectively argues why cops aren't workers. Excellent. It also argues why TSA screeners are: they provide [laughable] confidence in air travel as a safe thing to do, which increases the value of the airline companies and the associated industry. So security guards provide that confidence in large buildings, so I provide at my job, etc.

Cops provide that confidence as an aside, their primary role is to enforce the laws of the bourgeois state. Same with the Migra. Any time these people provide "services" or other things that tend to increase peoples' confidence in them or their community, it's as a planned-out scheme to get people to identify with their oppressors. TSA agents are demonstrably different.

No one has yet responded to Red Dave's question: "Do you object to teachers unions? After all, everybody knows that teachers are the perpetuators of the reactionary system of ideological control tools over the working class."

This is the question. Who gets to decide what's the line between labor with anti-social tendencies and reactionary work? Should union staffers organize? Teachers? DMV workers, as Griffjam points out? TSA agents? Once you walk down this slope, it gets pretty slippery.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

NHIA, dude you got a serious problem with saying that other people said shit they didn't say. At no point in this thread has anyone said the cops are workers or that cops are good guys. Point out where they did or shut up about it.1. There have been many threads on this board about cops, with more than a few posters coming out to voice their support for 'our boys in blue' who they claim are exploited workers.

2. What do you think Transportation Security Officers ("screeners") are? They are a part of the Department Homeland Security, which is itself a part of the capitalist state apparatus (which was expanded after the WTC attacks in 2001), just like their TSA coworkers: Federal Air Marshals (sky cops) and Behavior Detection Officers.


It also argues why TSA screeners are: they provide [laughable] confidence in air travel as a safe thing to do, which increases the value of the airline companies and the associated industry. So you think the TSO's are there because the government is interested in making airline passengers more comfortable? Are you kidding?

You think they're there to sell more tickets?? Or to justify an increase in ticket prices??

You've got the thing backwards. The ranks of those officially enlisted in the "war on terror" (which has repeatedly been used as a pretense for militarist adventures abroad and attacks on workers 'at home') were increased, and then the bourgeois mouthpieces did their best to sell it as something meant to make travel safer.

The odds of dying in a plane hijacking are something like 9,000,000 to 1. Does that sound like something that could rationalize the creation of a huge body like the TSA, with tens of thousands of agents and more than $8,000,000,000 in annual funding?

And in case you didn't know:

"Airports are often used as a testing ground for intrusive and unconstitutional procedures. Historically, they have helped to create public acceptance of such intrusive technology and procedures as metal detectors, X-ray scanners of bags and personal items, random searches and pat-downs, security cameras, and so on. Within a generation of their introduction at airports, these procedures and machines become a silent presence in all of society." - "Sometimes When We Touch (http://www.ucpanews.com/index.php/editorials/261-sometimes-when-we-touch.html)," Working People's Advocate.


So security guards provide that confidence in large buildings, so I provide at my job, etc.Security guards don't belong to the proletariat either. They are but direct (private) agents of capitalists, rather than agents of the capitalist state. This has been discussed in past threads on whether or not cops belong to the proletariat.

They don't play a role in the expansion of capital. They defend capital and its interests against the exploited and oppressed.

After the attacks on the WTC, the Aviation and Transportation Act was passed, creating the TSA. "Prior to ATSA, passenger screening was the responsibility of airlines, with the actual duties of operating the screening checkpoint contracted-out to private firms such as Wackenhut, Globe, and ITS." (Wiki.) The role was transferred; the methods were modified.


Cops provide that confidence as an aside, their primary role is to enforce the laws of the bourgeois state.That's the primary role of the TSA too.

"We are 50,000 security officers, inspectors, directors, air marshals and managers who protect the nation's transportation systems so you and your family can travel safely. We look for bombs at checkpoints in airports, we inspect rail cars, we patrol subways with our law enforcement partners, and we work to make all modes of transportation safe." - http://www.tsa.gov/who_we_are/index.shtm


No one has yet responded to Red Dave's question:Which is probably fitting, since he's flatly refused to address the questions and issues I've raised.


"Do you object to teachers unions? After all, everybody knows that teachers are the perpetuators of the reactionary system of ideological control tools over the working class."Public school teachers, like working class mothers, are necessary for the reproduction of the working class (variable capital); they educate future workers, thus making them more useful to the capitalist bosses in their drive for profits. A certain amount of funding for public education can thus be justified by capital, in the same way that the purchase of a $100,000,000 machine that allows for 1000 trinkets to be produced per hour to replace a $1,000,000 machine that allows for 100 trinkets to be produced per hour can be.

And private school teachers are absolutely members of the proletariat. "...a schoolmaster who is engaged as a wage labourer in an institution along with others, in order through his labour to valorise the money of the entrepreneur of the knowledge-mongering institution, is a productive worker." - Marx

That the school systems themselves are microisms of class society is but a reflection of material reality.

Now will Dave or you answer my questions?

Would you champion a "union" of CIA agents? How about the undercover Federal Air Marshals who also work for the TSA? How about their Behavior Detection Officers who observe airport passengers and decide if they need to be questioned by police?

Doesn't it tell you anything that this is compared to border cops and customs cops unions by a bourgeois news outlet?

What does this amount to anyway? Is this some great gain for the working class? Will this mean that TSA agents won't keep airport/airline workers out if there's a lockout?


This is the question. Who gets to decide what's the line between labor with anti-social tendencies and reactionary work?It's not a matter of some person standing on a mountain and proclaiming something, but instead one of examining reality. The proletariat has a specific role in capitalist society. That's what matters, not political tendencies or ideology, but material conditions; social role. The labor of the proletariat increases capital.


Should union staffers organize? Teachers? DMV workers, as Griffjam points out? TSA agents?

All sorts of people can unionize, and do. Cops and prison guards have been doing it for years. Whether or not that represents a gain for the working class or progress toward a humanity community is the question.


Once you walk down this slope, it gets pretty slippery. Not really. I've noticed that the ones that tend to try to muddy the waters the most are the ones who have a vested interest in doing so.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Some of the replies here remind me of the veiled racism directed at the DMV.This is worth addressing.

There is a history of racism leveled against public sector workers in places like the Department of Motor Vehicles. It increased markedly in the run up to the austerity campaign being carried out by capital in the aftermath of the outbreak of the capitalist crisis in 2008. I have brought this up a number of times in discussions.

I don't think that's related with what we're talking about here though.

The campaign against such public sector workers was aimed at separating them from the rest of the class; of singling them out for attack. Thinly veiled racist attacks were a large part of this, aimed at feeding into chauvinist, envious/race-to-the-bottom, and scapegoatist notions (eg. "Why are 'uneducated black workers' getting paid so much more than me and receiving such better benefits for a desk job? I'm a real hardworking 'White' American! They should make less than I do!").

The main argument against TSO's is not that they are paid too much (in fact, their low wages are often pointed to as a characteristic underlining their incompetence), but their position, their harassment, their intrusiveness... in short: their social role. The outcry that received national attention and support wasn't "You get paid too much to touch my junk." It was "Don't touch my junk."

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"You're just getting home from work // And gotta get searched and treated like dirt by a fucking jerk." - Big L "Fed Up With The Bullshit"

Sound familiar?

[bcbm]

Next thing you cats will be saying that I'm a reactionary cause I'm supposed to catch shop lifters at my job.

depends if you actually catch em or not

[black magick hustla]

laborism laborism laborism laborism laborism ... the idea that professional buisness cop associations are in the same historical continuity as brave miners unionizing coal mines in Virginia by force. it appears some of the wobblies and trotskyists should find employment in the local museum

bbbut the working class is in the unions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Fulanito de Tal]

You don't understand.

RED DAVE

This is is a helpful critique. From now on, I will say, "I understand that ... does not...."

Thanks!

P.S. I left the RED DAVE for you in the quote :*

[RED DAVE]

Would you champion a "union" of CIA agents? How about the undercover Federal Air Marshals who also work for the TSA? How about their Behavior Detection Officers who observe airport passengers and decide if they need to be questioned by police?No.


Doesn't it tell you anything that this is compared to border cops and customs cops unions by a bourgeois news outlet?The bourgeois press can compare anything to anything else and can kiss my ass.

I have been in an organizing drive (of a large NGO) in which the most militant workers and the easiest to organize were the security guards. You can ring all the changes you want with Marxist categories, but when a group of workers comes to you for organizing, and they're not wearing guns at their hips, I suggest you think twice before you turn them down.

Nothing is easier than to use our brains to rationalize any political position we want, up to a point. And then it becomes ridiculous. What would you do, Comrade, tell these workers they can't have a union?

RED DAVE

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

They can do what ever they want. Like I said, all sorts of people form unions, professional organizations, etc. Look at the cop and prison guard unions, fraternal orders, hell even your local chamber of commerce.

So it doesn't matter what I say in that regard. And it would be idiotic to try to argue to someone that accept less pay out of some sort of ideological principle. My point was that these airport cops don't belong to the proletariat and that this is not any sort of gain for the working class; it doesn't represent any progress toward independent proletarian action, the overthrow of capitalism, etc.

But yeah, I don't make a habit of giving advice to agents of the bourgeois state. Then again, I'm not looking for a new source of dues money or personal prestige.

[RED DAVE]

They can do what ever they want.Terrific attitude towards a section of the working class.


Like I said, all sorts of people form unions, professional organizations, etc. Look at the cop and prison guard unions, fraternal orders, hell even your local chamber of commerce.And these are your models for the airport screeners? That's real discerning, comrade.


So it doesn't matter what I say in that regard.That's true.


And it would be idiotic to try to argue to someone that accept less pay out of some sort of ideological principle.Also true. And it would be idiotic to deprive these workers of union protection.


My point was that these airport cops don't belong to the proletariatAnd you are wrong.


and that this is not any sort of gain for the working class;And again you are wrong.


it doesn't represent any progress toward independent proletarian action, the overthrow of capitalism, etc.And for a third time you are wrong. The fact that 16,000 previously unorganized workers elected to join a union is a victory.


But yeah, I don't make a habit of giving advice to agents of the bourgeois state.Again, that's a weird way to refer to members of the working class.


Then again, I'm not looking for a new source of dues money or personal prestige.And I guess you're not looking to do any union organizing either.

RED DAVE

[Ocean Seal]

That's awesome! Maybe Blackwater would get a union next!
Ok look.
Blackwater travels the world doing the dirty business of the US killing civilians and working with drug lords.
The TSA makes you go up to a screen which scans you and your genitals show up on the scan. Or they feel you up. From our perspective they seem like awful sex-mongerers, but those images are really the most unsexual things I've ever seen. Can you imagine how terrible that job must be?
Blackwater=killing children
TSA=Making you uncomfortable
The way I see it they don't even perform that reactionary of a role or even a reactionary role at all.

[S.Artesian]

Here's the point. Doesn't matter. Period. Doesn't matter if they are unionized or not. Being unionized is not going to make one wit of difference to the development of class struggle; being unionized is not going to make a wit of difference to the class consciousness of the TSA workers.

And please, don't point to the police in Madison, Wisconsin "siding" with the demonstrators. When push comes to shove, and push always comes to shove the police will do what police, as an institution, always do-- union or no union.

So, sorry to say this, but this is a lot of gas being expended over something pretty insignificant.

[Fulanito de Tal]

Ok look.
Blackwater travels the world doing the dirty business of the US killing civilians and working with drug lords.
The TSA makes you go up to a screen which scans you and your genitals show up on the scan. Or they feel you up. From our perspective they seem like awful sex-mongerers, but those images are really the most unsexual things I've ever seen. Can you imagine how terrible that job must be?
Blackwater=killing children
TSA=Making you uncomfortable
The way I see it they don't even perform that reactionary of a role or even a reactionary role at all.

Ok I'm looking -> :blink:

Both accomplish important functions of a fascist government. One controls the travel and transportation of independent people. The majority of people cannot travel or transport something themselves without some type of control that keeps incrementally increasing. The other fulfills a mercenary role that provides corporations/capitalists the necessary resources to accomplish their ever-expanding imperialism while incredible benefits are granted to its employees.

TSA is about to start getting outstanding benefits, making jobs that don't directly fulfill fascist roles less attractive.

[bcbm]

And please, don't point to the police in Madison, Wisconsin "siding" with the demonstrators. When push comes to shove, and push always comes to shove the police will do what police, as an institution, always do-- union or no union.


push didn't have to come to shove very hard, the police were doing what police always do in madison.

[the last donut of the night]

Question: I haven't traveled in a while (at least in the US), so this whole discussion is a bit foreign to me. Do TSA employees get to carry weapons?

[RED DAVE]

Do TSA employees get to carry weapons?No. Only one job category carries weapons: Armed Security Officer. There are the guys who actually fly with concealed weapons.

RED DAVE

[YSR]

And please, don't point to the police in Madison, Wisconsin "siding" with the demonstrators. When push comes to shove, and push always comes to shove the police will do what police, as an institution, always do-- union or no union.


No on has done this. Straw man argument here.


Being unionized is not going to make one wit of difference to the development of class struggle; being unionized is not going to make a wit of difference to the class consciousness of the TSA workers.

You ever organized or been union? Cause otherwise I'd recommend you back off, cause you don't have shit to talk about it, all respect.

[black magick hustla]

why dont you provide an argument rather than asking retorically if someone has organized a union

[ZeroNowhere]

It seems somewhat paradoxical to attack the police by taking bourgeois law as a self-evident paradigm case.

[Princess Luna]

I firmly support this. It sounds like a really shitty job, Low pay and having to deal with people who think you are on the same level as mercarnary or even a Nazi. Really don't hate the poor worker who pats down your crotch, instead hate the asshole politician who tells him to do it.

[S.Artesian]

No on has done this. Straw man argument here.



You ever organized or been union? Cause otherwise I'd recommend you back off, cause you don't have shit to talk about it, all respect.


Likewise I'm sure. Done both. Helped organize one, and been in several. So fucking what? All respect.

[A Marxist Historian]

Here's the point. Doesn't matter. Period. Doesn't matter if they are unionized or not. Being unionized is not going to make one wit of difference to the development of class struggle; being unionized is not going to make a wit of difference to the class consciousness of the TSA workers.

And please, don't point to the police in Madison, Wisconsin "siding" with the demonstrators. When push comes to shove, and push always comes to shove the police will do what police, as an institution, always do-- union or no union.

So, sorry to say this, but this is a lot of gas being expended over something pretty insignificant.

Quite right.

Indeed, if people have been following the news, you have just this last week a scandal with racist mistreatment by screeners of a guy in California who committed the horrible mistake of flying while black.

And let's not even get into how Muslims and Arabs get mistreated in the so-called War on Terror, in which the screeners are front line troops in oppressing people.

Screeners, like cops, shouldn't be *allowed* in the union movement. That just makes it easier for them to get themselves organized and turn America further into a police state.

That's how Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American labor movement, felt about cops. One of the few things he was dead right about.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

No.

The bourgeois press can compare anything to anything else and can kiss my ass.

I have been in an organizing drive (of a large NGO) in which the most militant workers and the easiest to organize were the security guards. You can ring all the changes you want with Marxist categories, but when a group of workers comes to you for organizing, and they're not wearing guns at their hips, I suggest you think twice before you turn them down.

Nothing is easier than to use our brains to rationalize any political position we want, up to a point. And then it becomes ridiculous. What would you do, Comrade, tell these workers they can't have a union?

RED DAVE

Having scanned now over this whole thing, I have to say I am amazed at Red Dave's arguments. They definitely do give Trotskyism or Wobblyism (whichever he is into) a bad name, as some people here have said.

Organizing drive of an NGO including security guards. Now let's forget for a second just how many "NGOs" are really "GOs" on the government payroll, funded by the Rockefellers or whatnot for reactionary purposes, and assume that this is a good one.

You want to "organize" the security guards? Why do they want to join? Well, stands to reason not to go out on strike, because if you do go out on strike, their job is to prevent you from doing that, and they would be instantly fired if they didn't do their jobs, and the union wouldn't even be able to defend them.

They just want a pressure group to increase their pay a little. They aren't going over to the workers' side. If they really were, they wouldn't want to join the union, they'd want to be the union's spies, slipping you information on the sly, and maybe whacking their fellow security guards over the head with their clubs when nobody's looking when the shit hits the fan.

(That is not an abstract example, I happen to know of one security guard who did exactly that during a student strike in college I participated in long, long ago.)

And, in case you wanna know if I have any union experience or on picket lines and know anything about this sort of thing, well the answer is yes, about twenty years of it, including picket line battle situations with blows traded, serving as a shop chairman and other low-level union posts, etc. etc. I got into grad school with a scholarship from my union.

-M.H.-

[YSR]

why dont you provide an argument rather than asking retorically if someone has organized a union

Because the quote I was responded to was based on assumptions that I'd like to see proven and have seen proven in the labor movement.


Being unionized is not going to make one wit of difference to the development of class struggle; being unionized is not going to make a wit of difference to the class consciousness of the TSA workers.

It's pretty hard to argue about class consciousness in the abstract. I ask if someone has organized before because if you haven't, then it is pretty easy to just say shit without having anything to back it up. The process of organizing is pretty much the definition of class consciousness, but to someone who has never organized workers at their jobs, it might be easy to pick up some rhetoric about union's being the death of class consciousness without actually examining it.

[black magick hustla]

It's pretty hard to argue about class consciousness in the abstract. I ask if someone has organized before because if you haven't, then it is pretty easy to just say shit without having anything to back it up. The process of organizing is pretty much the definition of class consciousness, but to someone who has never organized workers at their jobs, it might be easy to pick up some rhetoric about union's being the death of class consciousness without actually examining it.

dawg, the staunchest "anti-union" folks i've met had a strong history of participating in unionism. i think it is arrogant and presumptous to think that only big union fans have been in unions

[YSR]

Yeah fair enough. I just get really tired of armchair leftists talking about how unions don't have shit to do with radical organizing or whatever when often their work is based on handing out newspapers and having educational events or being a punk or whatever. [edit: and the opposite is true. I've met tons of wannabe anarcho-syndicalists who love unionism and talk about how freaking great it is but have never talked to another worker about how their job sucks cause they're too afraid.] I've seen unionism change people into radicals and that transformative moment is something that we should seek to replicate however we can.

[black magick hustla]

lets be honest here, its not that "unions" are militant, but the members within it are. the most interesting strikes in the U.S. have been wildcat strikes, from the black workers in DRUM in detroit, to the postal worker strike. even recently, what happened in madison with teachers calling sick was a sort of wildcat strike.

[o well this is ok I guess]

having educational events Um
Is this a bad thing or something

[S.Artesian]

Because the quote I was responded to was based on assumptions that I'd like to see proven and have seen proven in the labor movement.



It's pretty hard to argue about class consciousness in the abstract. I ask if someone has organized before because if you haven't, then it is pretty easy to just say shit without having anything to back it up. The process of organizing is pretty much the definition of class consciousness, but to someone who has never organized workers at their jobs, it might be easy to pick up some rhetoric about union's being the death of class consciousness without actually examining it.


Yeah, and I answered that and so fucking what? What rhetoric. The process of organizing is pretty much the definition of class consciousness? Really? Do you know a single thing about the history of union organizing in the United States?

Do you know, for example, the history of the San Francisco Labor Council, its union origins in direct attempts to exclude, and expel, Chinese laborers from California?

Do you know a thing about the anti-class consciousness involved in organizing almost every union in the AFL? The expansion of racism into attacks on all immigrant labor?

The capitulations to racism in the consolidation of the CIO?

[YSR]

Yep, and unfortunately even that racist anti-immigrant organizing in the West back in the day was still based on organizing white workers as workers and being conscious about their role in society. Class consciousness isn't some perfect element of revolutionary truth, sometimes people can be class conscious and be racist (this is pretty much most white workers I've ever talked to). If revolutionaries aren't involved in the process of doing radical organizing, how can we be surprised that opportunistic elements of the labor movement take control of our workers organizations and do reactionary things with them?

Hey, guess what? Sometimes unions have played into the hands of the systems that divide us. Are unions some perfect vehicle for struggle? No, of course not. Every working class organization has the potential to be moved towards reactionary ends, that's part of the process of good politics for revolutionaries: pointing people back to the right direction. Organizing amongst our fellow workers against racism and other things that divide us and make us weak, that's what the job of revolutionaries should be in the first place.

Are you arguing that because some explicitly non-revolutionary trade unions unions, indeed many of them, have been involved in sketchy reactionary shit, that all unions are reactionary? Cause that's a pretty easy foundation to set up and then argue for. I'd be surprised if one only limited their horizons to AFL-CIO and CtW unions if anyone found a different conclusion. "Wow, Sam Gompers was a dick? You're blowing my mind!"

It's in organizing, the process of coming together with coworkers to stand up to the boss and change the balance of power at the shop and in the industry, where class consciousness is expressed most powerfully and where it's (in my experience) easiest to turn people into revolutionaries. After all, the point of production is the easiest place to see how clearly the capitalists run our lives.

PS S.Artesian, your wannabe badass "I don't care about my bad attitude" doesn't make you cool, it just makes you look like a jerk and makes people less interested in what you say.

[S.Artesian]

Yep, and unfortunately even that racist anti-immigrant organizing in the West back in the day was still based on organizing white workers as workers and being conscious about their role in society. Class consciousness isn't some perfect element of revolutionary truth, sometimes people can be class conscious and be racist (this is pretty much most white workers I've ever talked to). If revolutionaries aren't involved in the process of doing radical organizing, how can we be surprised that opportunistic elements of the labor movement take control of our workers organizations and do reactionary things with them?

Like I suspected, you don't know anything about that history, because class-consciousness is exactly what was not being manifested or organized, but being suppressed and canalized into patriotism, chauvinism, nationalism, racism, and religion-- "Our Christian, white, American democratic way of life."

And if you did know something about that history you would know that so-called socialists, and so-called revolutionaries were intimately involved in organizing those unions.


Hey, guess what? Sometimes unions have played into the hands of the systems that divide us.

Sometimes? More often than not is much more accurate. How about you show us where the unions haven't "played into the hands of the systems that divide us"?


Are unions some perfect vehicle for struggle? No, of course not. Every working class organization has the potential to be moved towards reactionary ends, that's part of the process of good politics for revolutionaries: pointing people back to the right direction. Organizing amongst our fellow workers against racism and other things that divide us and make us weak, that's what the job of revolutionaries should be in the first place.


Except I haven't argued against organizing anybody. I'm just pointing out that the organization of unions is not and does not equal class-consciousness, unless of course you consider Gompers' "More!" to be class-consciousness.

Thanks for the sermon about organizing amongst our fellow workers. Let's flip the script: where have you organized a union and what were the results, class-conscious wise?


Are you arguing that because some explicitly non-revolutionary trade unions unions, indeed many of them, have been involved in sketchy reactionary shit, that all unions are reactionary? Cause that's a pretty easy foundation to set up and then argue for. I'd be surprised if one only limited their horizons to AFL-CIO and CtW unions if anyone found a different conclusion. "Wow, Sam Gompers was a dick? You're blowing my mind!"


Well, since most workers organized into unions in the US are in unions that are or were members of the AFL-CIO, that's kind of the history I'm drawing on. Maybe you think there's a real history of strong, revolutionary unions in the US. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to the history of strong revolutionary class-conscious unions in the US.



It's in organizing, the process of coming together with coworkers to stand up to the boss and change the balance of power at the shop and in the industry, where class consciousness is expressed most powerfully and where it's (in my experience) easiest to turn people into revolutionaries. After all, the point of production is the easiest place to see how clearly the capitalists run our lives.


Really, is that what it is? Or is it at best a defensive position, designed to stabilize the conditions of the workers by trading off productivity for compensation, a trade-off, BTW that has been absolutely abandoned in the last 30 years as productivity has soared while compensation has, at best, stagnated? And, throw in, an attempt to separate, fractionalize the working class into unionized, unorganized sections and break class solidarity?



PS S.Artesian, your wannabe badass "I don't care about my bad attitude" doesn't make you cool, it just makes you look like a jerk and makes people less interested in what you say.


Are you capable of saying anything without sounding like a sanctimonious, self-righteous, class room monitor?

I'm too old to want to be anything, other than even older. I provide those quotes because those were remarks made to me by a forum moderator who neg repped me because of my "bad attitude," which revolved around me having the audacity to refer to someone who was obviously an idiot as precisely that, an idiot. I found it to be hilarious. Perhaps I'll add the moderator's name, just so nobody misunderstands.

[YSR]

Are you capable of saying anything without sounding like a sanctimonious, self-righteous, class room monitor?

Naw dude I'm not going to respond to attitude. Seriously more than anyone's political analysis, that kind of bullshit is what's wrong with the Left today.

[S.Artesian]

You haven't answered the question: are you a member of a union; ever tried to organize one?

[YSR]

Yes, and yes. IWW, helped organize workers at Starbucks, Jimmy John's and multiple other campaigns that are not public yet.

[S.Artesian]

Good. IWW does not exactly qualify as a trade union. It is an industrial union with a revolutionary past. Quite unlike all other unions in the US.