Boeing and Airbus strike solidarity

[RedDawn]

http://www.dailymotion.com/Gauche-Revolutionnaire/video/x6w8ua_airbusboeing-workers-solidarity_news

A message of support and solidarity from French Airbus workers to striking Boeing workers:
“Your strike is our strike,a victory for Boeing workers will be an encouragement for us in our fight against outsourcing”.

Mick an Irish worker for an Airbus supplier ,CGT union activist and member of Gauche Révolutionnaire the French sister organization of the Socialist Alternative in the U.S. interviews Patrick a French Airbus sheetmetal worker on the Final Assembly Line (FAL) in Toulouse. Patrick who is also a CGT union activist explains the current struggle of Airbus engineers and machinists against the outsourcing of Airbus jobs to cheap labour companies. He sends his solidarity and hopes that Boeing workers will ‘fold Boeing management over’ and win their strike.

[Q]

Inspiring! :)
How is the Boeing strike holding out?

[RedDawn]

Poor bastards are stuck hard. $150 a week in strike pay just kicked in on Saturday.

Fuck Boeing. Hard.

[Q]

Poor bastards are stuck hard. $150 a week in strike pay just kicked in on Saturday.

Fuck Boeing. Hard.

Sad to hear :(
How is the union leadership under all this? I heard that this particular branch was more militant, how is that received in the wider union?

[RedDawn]

The leadership are crap.

The union members are like hell hounds. I heard a rumor that one member was removed from union hall when it was annouced that they would postpone the strike. He apparently punched one of the union leaders. There was a huge uproar when the leadership capitulated to our "Democratic" governor.

In fact, a lot of workers are still pissed at the governor for telling them to postpone the strike.

This union leadership is some of the weakest yet, they are only pushed forward by the members. They barely assign any picket duty and even then the pickets are just informational pickets. Despite this, there are rumors of picketers throwing stuff at scab cars.

[Bilan]

Keep us updated on how this goes.
we had a cuouple of airport strikes not long ago. One did well, one was completely fucked by the leadership.

Solidarity!

[chimx]

In fact, a lot of workers are still pissed at the governor for telling them to postpone the strike.

It's because of how bad Gregoire is fucking up on stuff like this that you find many workers in WA actually supporting Rossi (R) instead...

[JimmyJazz]

Will someone explain to me again the logic behind supporting workers whose livelihood is the military industrial complex? Specifically, explain to me how it isn't a ridiculous form of identity politics to support people who provide material support for state terrorism simply because they are "workers". :confused:

[DiaMat86]

PLP is supporting this strike. Look at the latest Challenge for the inside story. www.plp.org


JJ:

Strikes in the MIC can seriously disrupt warmaking capabilities. The alternative is what? Not organize them and leave them to their own ideological devices.

The revolutionary party needs millions of workers. The bolsheviks organized in the actual military and that was key to revolution.

[JimmyJazz]

JJ:

Strikes in the MIC can seriously disrupt warmaking capabilities.

well damn, that makes sense :o

[chimx]

Boeing makes military and commercial shit, not that it matters IMO.

[Sendo]

Not really to the topic directly, but...
I'd like to see their workers make political strikes too. The military contracts are a huge waste of money (as opposed to peace contracts) and create A LOT of pollution.

The biggest contributor in the USA to CO2 is coal plants. The worst per dollar generated is military heavy industry. I know workers need to fight for quantitative gains like wages, but this kind of an outfit is ideal for political strikes. I think the workers should flatly refuse to make military stuff, focus all of their efforts on planes and expand maybe into other forms of heavy transit. I'd rather see them build some super plane or train or something than make bombers.

I was reading on how anarchists want to use labor as a political tool and then I started thinking about this strike.

**
Unfortunately this strike isn't as well known as it should be. I think it is becoming clearer that specialized, and this place Or that place unionism is going to have to come to an end. The international solidarity is great to hear, and reaching out is really necessary.

I also think that 1st world workers are sick of races to the bottom. The fact that Airbus workers are not trying to steal contracts or anything, but rather standing together makes me think the days of painting unions as greedy is over.
**

For people still in the states, how are the attitudes you've witnessed? How does it compare to the attitudes over the UPS strikes of the 90s?