Nothing Human Is Alien
15th August 2011, 21:37
Since August 2, some 45,000 workers belonging to the Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in the northeastern United States have been on strike against Verizon, a global broadband telecommunications corporation.
Despite raking in $10 billion in profits in 2010, Verizon is attempting to force the workers to give up nearly all the gains they've won through years of hard struggle. The multimillionaire executives who head the corporate giant want to slash wages, lower their contribution to employee healthcare, cut pensions for current workers and eliminate them completely for new hires. They have pointed to the auto industry, where workers have seen their wages and benefits ground down to next to nothing in recent years, as an example of new standards. Like their counterparts in auto, they want to use the capitalist economic crisis and mass unemployment as a battering ram against the workers in their employ.
These parasites have also made clear that they intend to do away with the union presence in their company completely. When the leadership at the top of the CWA and IBEW cravenly offered to keep workers on the job under the old contract during ongoing negotiations, Verizon forced a strike by rejecting the unions' last offer.
This strike takes place around the 30th anniversary of the history defeat of the PATCO strike, when the the same Ronald Reagan that the air traffic controllers' union has endorsed in the previous presidential election fired all 11,345 strikers and destroyed the union.
This time around, Verizon is looking to the capitalist state to assist it in its drive against the working class, just as the air industry did with the Reagan administration and the auto industry did with the Obama administration. Today, the government has increased its arsenal with a plethora of expanded powers enacted in the “War on Terror.”
Already, Verizon has pointed to supposed acts of sabotage to bring in the enforcers of law and order. Court injunctions against strike actions have been won by the company in Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware. They are now being sought in New Jersey and Massachusetts. Verizon has cited “reprehensible actions” on the part of picketers, which include claims that strikers have prevented scab “replacement workers” from entering Verizon facilities. This is how far the war against the working class has advanced. Strikes are meant to shut down all operations!
The forces of the federal government are also being unleashed against the Verizon workers. Obama's Justice Department is now intervening in the dispute, with Special Agent Bryan Travers stating in an email that “the FBI is looking into this matter from a security standpoint as part of our security efforts leading up to the 9-11 anniversary.”
And where is the union leadership? The CWA and IBEW leaders have been pleading with the Verizon bosses for peace since before the strike began. Rolando Scott, the president of CWA Local 1109 in New York, says his union is “willing to negotiate on all items,” meaning they are prepared to give into any and all of the company's demands.
The CWA has previously accepted demands for give-backs at AT&T, something Verizon knows very well. As the company noted in a letter to Congress, their demands are “similar to what the CWA has already agreed to with other companies.”
And in spite of its huge reserve of dues money, and the countless millions it hands over to politicians every election cycle, the AFL-CIO that both unions belong to has not even suggested financially assisting the strikers. What's more, the Verizon strike, which is one of the largest in recent history, is not even mentioned on the federation's website! With this level of disregard it's unimaginable that they would call out other union workers to strike in solidarity.
“Well,” some may say, “such activity may violate the law.” Whose laws? The Verizon workers, and indeed all workers, are now battling the same class of bosses and owners those laws were written to defend! And let's not forget that strikes and even unions themselves were once illegal in the United States! In some industries they still are! That stop workers from fighting for their livelihood. What other choice did they have? What other choice do you have?
The 1966 transit workers strike in New York City was banned by a court injunction. The local leadership was ordered to jail. At a press conference, local president Mike Quinn famously said “The judge can drop dead in his black robes and we would not call off the strike!”
The rulers were so worried that the strike would continue to shut down the city that a special session of the State Legislature was called to wave the Condon-Wadlin Act that made public-sector strikes illegal, and amnesty was granted to all strikers penalized by the law. In addition, the strikers won increases in wages and benefits.
As Harry DeBoer, leader of the famous Minnesota Teamsters Strike, wrote: “In 1934 we papered the wall with injunctions. The employer can always find some anti-union judge to sign a piece of paper. But strikes come down to a relationship of forces. If our forces are bigger and more powerful than theirs, we will win.”
The unions began as organized bodies of workers fighting to assert their class interest against those of the capitalists. The AFL preamble of 1886 stated, “A struggle is going on in all the nations of the civilized world, between the oppressors and the oppressed of all countries, a struggle between the capitalist and the laborer, which grows in intensity from year to year, and will work disastrous results to the toiling millions, if they are not combined for mutual protection and benefit.” But, as the late Martin Glaberman once remarked, “Full-time status for the union committeeman, which began as a means of freeing the union representative from the pressures of management, became a means of freeing the representative from the pressure of the workers.” Union bureaucracies formed that mirrored managers of other commodities. Union honchos even took stakes and positions in the companies they supposedly represent workers against!
Today the union bureaucrats seeks labor peace at any cost, in order to preserve their privileged positions and monopoly on organized labor. For these labor managers, workers are simply foot soldiers to be wielded as they see fit. More than anything, the union executives want and need to maintain their cozy relationship with the bosses and their representative political agents: the Republicans and especially the Democrats. (Verizon donates immense amounts of money to candidates of both parties, as seen in their release on 2010 political contributions available here (http://responsibility.verizon.com/images/vz_uploads/VZ_Political_Contributions_2010.pdf) as a PDF file.)
That's why they attempt to hold back and limit militant worker actions. That's why they bow their heads in reverence of the bosses' laws. That's why they accept concession after concession. That's why they try to steer discontented members back into the Democratic Party fold (as they did recently in Madison, Wisconsin). That's why they have millions for politicians, but nothing for striking members!
That's why TWU Local 100 leader Roger Toussaint marched hand-in-hand with Eliot Spitzer at the West Indian Day Parade, mere months after Spitzer had drilled the union with injunctions arrested Toussaint for calling a strike! That's why the AFL-CIO continues to back Democratic hopefuls in every election even though Democratic President Jimmy Carter invoked the anti-worker Taft-Hartley Act against the Bituminous Coal Strike of 1977-78, the Democratic governor of Minnesota called out the National Guard to smash the Hormel strike in 1985, the Democratic state senator (Hillary Clinton) loudly denounced striking transit workers in 2005, Democratic President Barrack Obama's administration forced massive concessions on auto workers in 2009, etc.
The working class has no representatives in the government or at union bureaucracy. So what is to be done?
Don't forget who built the unions! Don't forget who won the right to strike, the 8-hour day, minimum wage, social security and more! Workers did!
Workers don't need to rely on anyone else to fight their battles. Workers build, maintain and operate everything. Workers can win!
While attacks on unions obviously must be opposed, workers will need to work within, alongside and outside of the union apparatus to secure a real victory. Rank-and-file strike committees can be formed by open election on picket lines and in meetings. Lists of demands can drawn up and bargaining teams can be chosen from among those on the picket lines. Representatives chosen by and directly responsible to their fellow workers can be sent to other work places to call for sympathy actions, from strikes to “hot cargoing” (refusing to touch) any goods going in or coming out of Verizon facilities. Direct appeals can be made to the unorganized workers at Verizon Wireless locations and workers in other industries by elected outreach teams. Discussions for joint activity can be immediately arranged with Post Office workers, who are current facing layoffs in the hundreds of thousands. Thousands of unemployed workers and even a section of the replacement workers can be won to the cause by raising the demand that all who join the strike activity be given jobs at Verizon. Mass pickets can be called. Flying pickets, sit downs, occupations and blockades can be organized.
The attacks can be turned back. They key is for workers to take things into their own hands. You've kept the bosses' operations going every day of your working life, now it's time to serve yourselves.
Despite raking in $10 billion in profits in 2010, Verizon is attempting to force the workers to give up nearly all the gains they've won through years of hard struggle. The multimillionaire executives who head the corporate giant want to slash wages, lower their contribution to employee healthcare, cut pensions for current workers and eliminate them completely for new hires. They have pointed to the auto industry, where workers have seen their wages and benefits ground down to next to nothing in recent years, as an example of new standards. Like their counterparts in auto, they want to use the capitalist economic crisis and mass unemployment as a battering ram against the workers in their employ.
These parasites have also made clear that they intend to do away with the union presence in their company completely. When the leadership at the top of the CWA and IBEW cravenly offered to keep workers on the job under the old contract during ongoing negotiations, Verizon forced a strike by rejecting the unions' last offer.
This strike takes place around the 30th anniversary of the history defeat of the PATCO strike, when the the same Ronald Reagan that the air traffic controllers' union has endorsed in the previous presidential election fired all 11,345 strikers and destroyed the union.
This time around, Verizon is looking to the capitalist state to assist it in its drive against the working class, just as the air industry did with the Reagan administration and the auto industry did with the Obama administration. Today, the government has increased its arsenal with a plethora of expanded powers enacted in the “War on Terror.”
Already, Verizon has pointed to supposed acts of sabotage to bring in the enforcers of law and order. Court injunctions against strike actions have been won by the company in Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware. They are now being sought in New Jersey and Massachusetts. Verizon has cited “reprehensible actions” on the part of picketers, which include claims that strikers have prevented scab “replacement workers” from entering Verizon facilities. This is how far the war against the working class has advanced. Strikes are meant to shut down all operations!
The forces of the federal government are also being unleashed against the Verizon workers. Obama's Justice Department is now intervening in the dispute, with Special Agent Bryan Travers stating in an email that “the FBI is looking into this matter from a security standpoint as part of our security efforts leading up to the 9-11 anniversary.”
And where is the union leadership? The CWA and IBEW leaders have been pleading with the Verizon bosses for peace since before the strike began. Rolando Scott, the president of CWA Local 1109 in New York, says his union is “willing to negotiate on all items,” meaning they are prepared to give into any and all of the company's demands.
The CWA has previously accepted demands for give-backs at AT&T, something Verizon knows very well. As the company noted in a letter to Congress, their demands are “similar to what the CWA has already agreed to with other companies.”
And in spite of its huge reserve of dues money, and the countless millions it hands over to politicians every election cycle, the AFL-CIO that both unions belong to has not even suggested financially assisting the strikers. What's more, the Verizon strike, which is one of the largest in recent history, is not even mentioned on the federation's website! With this level of disregard it's unimaginable that they would call out other union workers to strike in solidarity.
“Well,” some may say, “such activity may violate the law.” Whose laws? The Verizon workers, and indeed all workers, are now battling the same class of bosses and owners those laws were written to defend! And let's not forget that strikes and even unions themselves were once illegal in the United States! In some industries they still are! That stop workers from fighting for their livelihood. What other choice did they have? What other choice do you have?
The 1966 transit workers strike in New York City was banned by a court injunction. The local leadership was ordered to jail. At a press conference, local president Mike Quinn famously said “The judge can drop dead in his black robes and we would not call off the strike!”
The rulers were so worried that the strike would continue to shut down the city that a special session of the State Legislature was called to wave the Condon-Wadlin Act that made public-sector strikes illegal, and amnesty was granted to all strikers penalized by the law. In addition, the strikers won increases in wages and benefits.
As Harry DeBoer, leader of the famous Minnesota Teamsters Strike, wrote: “In 1934 we papered the wall with injunctions. The employer can always find some anti-union judge to sign a piece of paper. But strikes come down to a relationship of forces. If our forces are bigger and more powerful than theirs, we will win.”
The unions began as organized bodies of workers fighting to assert their class interest against those of the capitalists. The AFL preamble of 1886 stated, “A struggle is going on in all the nations of the civilized world, between the oppressors and the oppressed of all countries, a struggle between the capitalist and the laborer, which grows in intensity from year to year, and will work disastrous results to the toiling millions, if they are not combined for mutual protection and benefit.” But, as the late Martin Glaberman once remarked, “Full-time status for the union committeeman, which began as a means of freeing the union representative from the pressures of management, became a means of freeing the representative from the pressure of the workers.” Union bureaucracies formed that mirrored managers of other commodities. Union honchos even took stakes and positions in the companies they supposedly represent workers against!
Today the union bureaucrats seeks labor peace at any cost, in order to preserve their privileged positions and monopoly on organized labor. For these labor managers, workers are simply foot soldiers to be wielded as they see fit. More than anything, the union executives want and need to maintain their cozy relationship with the bosses and their representative political agents: the Republicans and especially the Democrats. (Verizon donates immense amounts of money to candidates of both parties, as seen in their release on 2010 political contributions available here (http://responsibility.verizon.com/images/vz_uploads/VZ_Political_Contributions_2010.pdf) as a PDF file.)
That's why they attempt to hold back and limit militant worker actions. That's why they bow their heads in reverence of the bosses' laws. That's why they accept concession after concession. That's why they try to steer discontented members back into the Democratic Party fold (as they did recently in Madison, Wisconsin). That's why they have millions for politicians, but nothing for striking members!
That's why TWU Local 100 leader Roger Toussaint marched hand-in-hand with Eliot Spitzer at the West Indian Day Parade, mere months after Spitzer had drilled the union with injunctions arrested Toussaint for calling a strike! That's why the AFL-CIO continues to back Democratic hopefuls in every election even though Democratic President Jimmy Carter invoked the anti-worker Taft-Hartley Act against the Bituminous Coal Strike of 1977-78, the Democratic governor of Minnesota called out the National Guard to smash the Hormel strike in 1985, the Democratic state senator (Hillary Clinton) loudly denounced striking transit workers in 2005, Democratic President Barrack Obama's administration forced massive concessions on auto workers in 2009, etc.
The working class has no representatives in the government or at union bureaucracy. So what is to be done?
Don't forget who built the unions! Don't forget who won the right to strike, the 8-hour day, minimum wage, social security and more! Workers did!
Workers don't need to rely on anyone else to fight their battles. Workers build, maintain and operate everything. Workers can win!
While attacks on unions obviously must be opposed, workers will need to work within, alongside and outside of the union apparatus to secure a real victory. Rank-and-file strike committees can be formed by open election on picket lines and in meetings. Lists of demands can drawn up and bargaining teams can be chosen from among those on the picket lines. Representatives chosen by and directly responsible to their fellow workers can be sent to other work places to call for sympathy actions, from strikes to “hot cargoing” (refusing to touch) any goods going in or coming out of Verizon facilities. Direct appeals can be made to the unorganized workers at Verizon Wireless locations and workers in other industries by elected outreach teams. Discussions for joint activity can be immediately arranged with Post Office workers, who are current facing layoffs in the hundreds of thousands. Thousands of unemployed workers and even a section of the replacement workers can be won to the cause by raising the demand that all who join the strike activity be given jobs at Verizon. Mass pickets can be called. Flying pickets, sit downs, occupations and blockades can be organized.
The attacks can be turned back. They key is for workers to take things into their own hands. You've kept the bosses' operations going every day of your working life, now it's time to serve yourselves.