An Actual Wildcat Strike In Boston

[Popular Front of Judea]

I feel for the parents who had no time to prepare but I have to say I am glad to see that the classic wildcat strike hasn't disappeared from the Earth.


Boston school buses started rolling again Wednesday morning, the day after a surprise strike by about 600 drivers, but school officials warned that the dispute that led to the work stoppage was not resolved.

"We're still concerned about a similar action at any time, and we're keeping our contingency plans in place," schools spokesman Brian Ballou said, while warning that there may be delays and the buses couldn't be counted on for rides home.

The drivers' union said drivers agreed to return to work after the company contracted by the city to transport students, Veolia Transportation Inc, agreed to meet with the union on Wednesday to discuss grievances.

Mayor Tom Menino, who was outraged by the strike and vowed to use every legal avenue available to get drivers back to work and to punish those responsible for the work stoppage, called the development "very good news."

The wildcat strike Tuesday stranded about 33,000 children, who were shuttled to schools in police cars and offered free rides on public transportation. The school department said students had an 82% attendance rate Tuesday, about 10% lower than a normal day.
Boston schools opened an hour early Wednesday for parents who wanted to drop off their children before work.

Patrick Bryant, an attorney for the United Steelworkers Local 8751, said union leadership asked the nearly 700 striking drivers to return to work, including during visits with megaphones to every city bus yard Tuesday.

Bryant said the strike was not authorized by the union but led by rogue members.

Drivers picketing outside the bus yards Tuesday said the company was not honoring the terms of their contract. They've also said they're frustrated with Veolia's treatment of them, including changes in their health care plan, failing to provide key route information and ineffective communications.

Schools spokesman Lee McGuire said the walkout was prompted, in part, by the union's opposition to a GPS system that allows parents to track buses online in real time.
On Tuesday afternoon, Veolia moved to force the drivers back to work, but a federal judge turned down the request.

Veolia had requested a temporary injunction against the drivers' union. But Bryant called the request for an injunction against the union "Kabuki theater," because the union opposes the strike and has tried to get drivers back on the job.

"(Veolia's attorney) wants an injunction purely for the theater and the drama and to represent to the people that he's doing something," he said.

But Veolia's attorneys argued it strains credibility to believe that the union isn't behind a near universal work stoppage involving hundreds of members.

"This was beyond the actions of a few rogue members," attorney Paul Hodnett said.

US District Judge George O'Toole sided with the union, saying an injunction wasn't appropriate, at least until it's clear whether drivers would return to work Wednesday.

Boston school buses rolling again after strike but dispute still unresolved | Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/09/boston-school-bus-strike-ends/print)

[Two Buck Chuck]

Good to see wildcat strikes. Also interesting to note that one of the union officials who pushed for an end to the wildcat strike is a member of the Workers World Party:

From WSWS today (I can't post links):

Drivers returned to the job on promises the union would be meeting with company officials on Wednesday in an effort to press the workers’ demands. Steve Kirschbaum, chairman of the union’s grievance committee, pushed for an end to the wildcat, welcoming the return of drivers as an act of good faith in advance of the union’s meeting with management Wednesday.

Kirschbaum, a founding Local 8751 member with long-time connections to the pseudo-left Workers World Party, stated that Mayor Menino “was right. We do have a good contract.” He peddled the claim that the union represented workers and could persuade the company to listen to the drivers’ grievances. “Veolia has no right to negate 38 years of collective bargaining,” he said.

[Sea]

Good to see wildcat strikes. Also interesting to note that one of the union officials who pushed for an end to the wildcat strike is a member of the Workers World Party:

From WSWS today (I can't post links):
Drivers returned to the job on promises the union would be meeting with company officials on Wednesday in an effort to press the workers’ demands. Steve Kirschbaum, chairman of the union’s grievance committee, pushed for an end to the wildcat, welcoming the return of drivers as an act of good faith in advance of the union’s meeting with management Wednesday.

Kirschbaum, a founding Local 8751 member with long-time connections to the pseudo-left Workers World Party, stated that Mayor Menino “was right. We do have a good contract.” He peddled the claim that the union represented workers and could persuade the company to listen to the drivers’ grievances. “Veolia has no right to negate 38 years of collective bargaining,” he said. I love how the pseudo-left SEP always rail against other pseudo-left sects. :laugh:

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Fucking union hacks, right?
It's amazing how they show what side they're on in these situations - parading around with their bullhorns. "So, so, so! So why the fuck aren't you working? Get back to it!"

[Thirsty Crow]

Fucking union hacks, right?
It's amazing how they show what side they're on in these situations - parading around with their bullhorns. "So, so, so! So why the fuck aren't you working? Get back to it!"Isn't that clear as day already from the history of the union form?

[Ele'ill]

xLnuFgb_mts

[VivalaCuarta]

As with everything from the scab socialists at the WSWS, this needs to be taken with a mountain of salt.

I'm no supporter of the sub-reformist Workers World Party. But this was not a wildcat strike (a strike against the union leadership). And wildcatting, while sometimes necessary, is not a revolutionary "principle." Usually, it is tactically suicidal. And while some of the Local 8751 leaders' statements reflect their loyalty to the capitalist system, it is not necessarily a betrayal to end a strike at any particular point, and I'm not convinced that it was wrong in this instance to do a one-day strike.

The WSWS are the people who all through the 1970s and '80s were cheerleaders for the top AFL-CIO bureaucrats and champions of "unions" for strikebreaking, racist murdering bourgeois cops. In the '70s at the height of the Vietnam war, they offered to help the AFL tops form a "labor party" whose program said not one word about the war or about black oppression (after all, these are the color-blind "socialists" who claim that the lynching of Trayvon Martin had nothing to do with race.) Then in the 1980s along with the rest of the opportunist left, they were cheerleaders for Polish Solidarnosc, Reagan and the CIA's company union for counterrevolution. So after the defeat of the Soviet Union they made one of their characteristic opportunist, unexplained 180-degree turns and went from being "socialist" lieutenants of the AFL-CIA tops to claiming that the unions altogether had magically ceased to be working class organizations. Now they write scab propaganda and try to spike union organizing campaigns.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Isn't that clear as day already from the history of the union form?
Throughout history there have been two types of union officials. One type would join the workers on a wildcat ensuring that the union bureacracy supported the workers with full force with strike pay etc, the other would side with the bosses and undermine the workers' efforts. I think it's fair to say that ever since the gutting of unions with neoliberalism that there is more of one type than the other.


xLnuFgb_mts
God I hate these fucking suits. They're everywhere like parasites. How is that a part of his campaign? Sickening.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Isn't that clear as day already from the history of the union form?

*Shrug* I think it's a mixed bag.
For one, it depends by what you mean by "the union form", and I think even within business unions there are contradictions that emerge in situations like this. Rank and file self-organization and direct action is often organized through and within unions, even as the machinery of the unions goes to work ensuring a certain limit on those struggles (e.g. "What's bad for the company . . ."). I think there have been moments where workers have transcended these limits, though, obviously, that doesn't seem to be the case in this particular instance.
So, y'know, I'm not in love with unions or the really-existing-"labour movement", but I don't necessarily think that workers organization along nominally "union" lines is necessarily a total dead end (if nothing else, strikes open up "opportunities").

[Yuppie Grinder]

Good. Bus drivers get shit on by everyone.

[Thirsty Crow]

Throughout history there have been two types of union officials. One type would join the workers on a wildcat ensuring that the union bureacracy supported the workers with full force with strike pay etc, the other would side with the bosses and undermine the workers' efforts.
Does this represent anything other than an attempt at reining in and disciplining the workers in action, once again subordinating them to the negotiation machine?

To clarify, I'm not saying that union officials have a hidden, conspiratorial agenda. I'm not saying that nothing can be gained from the action of the union apparatus. I'm merely highlighting the structural position of every single union within capitalism.

Anyway, I'd assume that those stewards who managed to provide material support for wildcat strikers without encircling the strike and drawing it into the official framework had a rough time when those actions were over. By the way, care to give out some reading material on this?


*
For one, it depends by what you mean by "the union form",I use this concept in contrast to the approach which highlights individual officials and focuses on these.
In short, the union form as a concept denotes all permanent economic organizations of the working class. So called business unions, base unions, ideological unions (anarcho-syndicalism) included.


So, y'know, I'm not in love with unions or the really-existing-"labour movement", but I don't necessarily think that workers organization along nominally "union" lines is necessarily a total dead end (if nothing else, strikes open up "opportunities").
I don't think it's a dead end either.
But my views might seem paradoxical. On one hand, permanent economic organizations are indispensable, but on the other hand it is indispensable for the class (as opposed to workers of individual enterprises, sectors, regions and so on) to transcend these and set up independent class wide organs, not only for the purpose of the revolutionary transformation, but also for the purpose of immediate economic and political struggles within capitalism (as this crisis shows day by day, the existing union apparatus is less and less capable to even act as a lever for decisive struggle against global austerity).

[Devrim]

I'm no supporter of the sub-reformist Workers World Party. But this was not a wildcat strike (a strike against the union leadership). And wildcatting, while sometimes necessary, is not a revolutionary "principle." Usually, it is tactically suicidal. And while some of the Local 8751 leaders' statements reflect their loyalty to the capitalist system, it is not necessarily a betrayal to end a strike at any particular point, and I'm not convinced that it was wrong in this instance to do a one-day strike.

A few questions;

Why is this not a wildcat strike? It said it was in the article above.
Is a wildcat strike a strike 'against the union leadership', or organised independent of the union leadership?
Why do you think wildcat strikes are usually 'tactically suicidal'?

Devrim

[VivalaCuarta]

Maybe we have different definitions of a wildcat strike. To my understanding it generally means a strike by, or started by, a minority of the union, against or at least without the approval of the established union leadership.

Now for legal reasons that I don't particularly disagree with, the leadership of Local 8751 is not officially calling the action a "strike." And the bourgeois press, out of a combination of ignorance, laziness and malice, calls it a "wildcat." And the Northites, following the lead of the bourgeois press, like the idea of it being a "wildcat" because the unions, you see, are bourgeois institutions and the workers must break from them.

I'm not against wildcat strikes on principle. I'm just not for them on principle. I want strikes to win. Union militants are often in the position of calling for a strike, or talking about the necessity of class struggle action, as opposed to the traitorous class-collaborationist policy of the union tops. So we want the whole union to go out, not just a minority of the most pissed-off workers. When we think there needs to be a strike, we say the strike should be under the control of an elected, recallable strike committee and that the union as a whole must get behind it. So it becomes a test of who the real leaders of the workers are and who are the agents of the bosses in the workers movement.

[Devrim]

Maybe we have different definitions of a wildcat strike. To my understanding it generally means a strike by, or started by, a minority of the union, against or at least without the approval of the established union leadership.

Now for legal reasons that I don't particularly disagree with, the leadership of Local 8751 is not officially calling the action a "strike."

I agree with the other parts of you definition, but I don't see where you get the part about wildcat strikes being started by a minority of workers.

I don't know anything about this strike in particular, but I would imagine that if the union leadership is not calling it a strike for legal reasons, and has ordered the workers to return to work, then it is probably a wildcat strike. If you know the details then could you please explain them. Who organised it?

Devrim

[VivalaCuarta]

I guess if more or less the whole union went out (which was also the case in Boston) then either a. the action wasn't taken against the existing leadership or b. the existing leadership is no longer the leadership, no matter what it says on their mailboxes!

As far as the union leaders "ordered the workers to return to work," well, it depends on the context.

If the strike was taken against the opposition of the official union leaders, sure, they will yell and scream about how everybody must go back to work! But if it wasn't, they will still call an end to the strike some time or another. Now whether they are correct, from the point of view of the interests of the working class, in calling for a return to work at any given point, is a political question determined by a lot of particular factors. But it doesn't, in my view, make a strike a "wildcat" or not.

The main issue for me is that whether a strike is or is not a "wildcat strike" is important from the perspective of the tactics needed in the given situation. But the distinction in itself does little to clarify what the political lessons and perspectives are.

[Devrim]

I guess if more or less the whole union went out (which was also the case in Boston) then either a. the action wasn't taken against the existing leadership or b. the existing leadership is no longer the leadership, no matter what it says on their mailboxes!

I have read this sentence about five times trying to understand it. If it says what I think it says it is complete nonsense. There are many case when the entire workforce comes out against the wishes of the leadership, and the leadership remain in office.

What do you mean by 'the existing leadership is no longer the leadership, no matter what it says on their mailboxes'? They blatantly are. If they lose some moral credibility with a few leftists it hardly matters.



As far as the union leaders "ordered the workers to return to work," well, it depends on the context.

If the strike was taken against the opposition of the official union leaders, sure, they will yell and scream about how everybody must go back to work! But if it wasn't, they will still call an end to the strike some time or another.

As I understand from the piece above, the strike started on Tuesday, and the union were telling people to go back to work on the same day:


Patrick Bryant, an attorney for the United Steelworkers Local 8751, said union leadership asked the nearly 700 striking drivers to return to work, including during visits with megaphones to every city bus yard Tuesday.

Bryant said the strike was not authorized by the union but led by rogue members.

It sounds like they are doing the managements work for them.

Devrim

[VivalaCuarta]

I guess this disagreement is not going to be resolved until more facts come to light. I can see where you're coming from, Devrim, but I think you have been drawing some factually false conclusions about what's really happening in Boston based on a. the methods that the Local leadership is using to try to shield the union from sanctions by the bourgeois courts and b. that the confusion caused in part by these mixed messages tends to confirm a pre-existing ideological prejudice among some leftists, be they right-wing social democrats (WSWS) or left-communists, to write off the unions as working class organizations.

[Devrim]

I have drawn conclusions based on what the article says. I am not American, and don't have any more information about it. I can imagine that what you are saying about the union trying to protect itself against the courts could well be true. I have seen unions use this tactic before (even to the point where local officials have taken workers out seemingly against the union whilst actually being under instructions to do it from head office).

If this is the case and WSWS is reporting it as a wildcat strike then it is very poor coverage.

Devrim

[Blake's Baby]

If that is the case - that it might be a strike unofficially sanctioned by the union, but kept secret to protect the organisation because the legal forms haven't been followed (for example) - it would be difficult to tell if it is a real wildcat, or a fake wildcat, surely?

If it looks like a wildcat (because the union officially condemns it) then it will be reported as a wildcat. It's only going to be afterwards I think that we'll find out if people start saying 'actually the union rep told us to come out, he said head office would support us secretly but had to denounce it in public' and such-like.

[Devrim]

If that is the case - that it might be a strike unofficially sanctioned by the union, but kept secret to protect the organisation because the legal forms haven't been followed (for example) - it would be difficult to tell if it is a real wildcat, or a fake wildcat, surely?

If it looks like a wildcat (because the union officially condemns it) then it will be reported as a wildcat. It's only going to be afterwards I think that we'll find out if people start saying 'actually the union rep told us to come out, he said head office would support us secretly but had to denounce it in public' and such-like.

Yes, it is difficult to know which is which especially looking from afar. Looking at this case though I think it is probably the more likely possibility.

The article mentions that there are several depots, and it sounds like it was a co-ordinated action (there is no mention of it spreading). While I might believe that one depot walked out on a wildcat strike, I find it more difficult to believe that especially in a country with such a low level of class struggle as the US, a number of depots organised a wildcat strike together outside of the union. I'd imagine that the union probably had some involve my in it.

Devrim

[Blake's Baby]

I think you might be right, unfortunately. It woul be great if the other depots had come out in solidarity, but it's maybe more likely that the union quietly arranged it beforehand.

[Blake's Baby]

Right: I'm editting this because Leftsolidarity has said that he misinterpretted what has gone before and has deleted his previous comments.

Nothing to see here.

[Leftsolidarity]

Sorry, I read through this thread after a 15 hour bus ride so apparently my reading of "WSWS" vs. "WWP" all kind of mashed together. I had read through it and it appeared that people were in agreement that somehow WWP was against the workers and were union hacks. My apologies for the misplaced rage.