After the initial euphoria the time has come to move forward. The reality today is that Teamsters and Kossacks are working together toward the same goal; organizing school bus workers and this is both important and exciting. Important because it can lead to improving people’s lives. Exciting because what we are doing is something new and because what we do that is effective can spread quickly.
After some initial research by a handful of volunteers the lay of the land emerges. These are some of the most important facts to take into account;
- The tide has turned. For the first time in decades a majority of workers would like to form a union.
- The tactics developed in the 70 and 80 by the union "avoidance" industry are being applied throughout the corporate world and are as effective as they are ruthless.
- The blogsphere can play a very effective role in the coming years by cooperating tactically and strategically with labor unions.
- The School Bus Worker Project is a reality.
1) The tide has turned. This gives a new chance to the labor movement. For too long the American worker lost ground against ever more powerful hyper compensated CEOs.
No more.
This from the Economic Policy Institute
EPI BRIEFING PAPER
Economic Policy Institute ● February 22, 2007
DO WORKERS STILL WANT UNIONS?
MORE THAN EVER
By Richard B. Freeman
Workers want unions more than ever before. The proportion of workers who want unions has risen substantially over the last 10 years, and a majority of nonunion workers in 2005 would vote for union representation if they could. This is up from the roughly 30% who would vote for representation in the mid-1980s, and the 32% to 39% in the mid-1990s, depending on the survey. Given that nearly all union workers (90%) desire union representation, the mid-1990s analysis suggested that if all the workers who wanted union representation could achieve it, then 44% of the workforce would have union representation. The rise in the desire for union representation since then suggests that the share of the nonunion workforce wanting union representation in 2005 was 53%. These results, in turn, suggest that if workers were provided the union representation they desired in 2005, then the overall unionization rate would have been about 58%.
I am sure the policies of the Bush administration have a lot to do with this new attitude toward unionization. The economy has NOT favored the little guy during the reign of BushCo, it HAS favored the top 5%. The only thing trickling down is misery.
But this is a fact. If there was free and fair voting, workers would join unions.
We are going to think out of the box to give workers a chance to decide without fear of reprisals and without their hands tied behind their backs.
- The union busting tactics developed in the 70 and 80 by the "union avoidance" industry are being applied throughout the corporate world and are as effective as they are ruthless. These union busting tactics are one of the main reasons why union membership has declined for decades. We are not talking old style union busting.
From TruthOut
Human Rights at the Workplace
By Dean Baker and Mary Beth Maxwell
For a determined anti-union employer, the risk of a modest payment to a few fired organizers is well worth the cost. Workers are unlikely to carry forward with an organizing drive after they have seen the most visible leaders get fired. As a result, firing union organizers is now a standard response to organizing drives.
From the Wall Street Journal
"There's almost no one that doesn't have somebody professional running an antiunion campaign," says Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University. In 1999, Ms. Bronfenbrenner conducted a study of 407 private-sector employers that found that 75% of those companies hired an outside consultant during a union organizing campaign.
This devastating study Consultants, lawyers and the "union-free" movement in the USA since the 1970s by John Logan, published in the Industrial Relations Journal, is a compendium of modern union busting tactics and a must read.
If you want to get a laugh followed by righteous anger, watch this Wal-Mart union-busting video
This is a catalog of union busting products from one of these consulting firms.
More on union busting here and here.
New legislation is needed but it may take years. But this is a recent victory thanks to a new Democratic majority in congress (the 2006 elections have brought something to cheer about in labor relations)
Thanks to The NationI learned about this videoand this legislation;
The legislation, which passed 241-185 on a mainly party-line vote (two Dems voted against the bill, 13 Republicans voted for it) faces an uphill journey to gain the 60 votes necessary to avoid a filibuster and pass in the Senate. The White House also announced Wednesday that President Bush would veto the bill if it reaches him.
But, despite the improbability of the bill becoming law in this Congress, the passage of the EFCA is nonetheless hugely important. As Miss Laura writes on Daily Kos, in order to defeat the bill and satisfy their corporate masters, "Republicans will have to go on record against workers. Not against unions, but against the millions of non-union workers in this country who want to join unions. Democrats are forcing them to lay that contempt for workers bare before the nation."
3)The blogsphere can play a very useful role. We proved to be the margin of victory in the 2006 elections the same spirit, creativity and dedication can be applied to give workers a chance to vote to for a union in free and fair elections.
In the next few years about 2000 consultants and lawyers with $billions from 10,000 corporations who are doing everything they can to prevent 100,000,000 American workers from exercising their right to form a union will have to deal with 10,000 union organizers, 300,000 progressive political bloggers and 15,000,000 union members. I bet on us.
We have complementary strengths. Unions have boots on the ground, bloggers have keyboards on the Web (the most powerful and democratic form of communication and organization.) Unions have deep knowledge of union-busting and union organizing tactics, bloggers can help craft Internet based strategies that are effective and cannot be duplicated by the union busting forces.
Disseminating information, winning the war of ideas, digesting mountains of data, facilitating communications between all pro-worker stakeholders, educating union rank and file and workers on how to use the Internet to organize under the radar of union busters. We can do all this.
4)The School Bus Worker Project is a reality. Combining the strengths of a growing group of Kossacks and Teamsters we aim to organize drivers and other workers by developing new tactics and disseminating information effectively.
If you volunteer you may join our growing Teamster+Kossack action group and participate in brainstorms, research, activities and in general be part of something new that can bring a better life to many.
Those who want to volunteer or receive our upcoming newsletter can tell us so at;
schoolbusworkers(at)Yahoo(dot)com
Let us know what you want; newsletter or volunteer.
These are some of our future activities;
• Interact with key worker groups and union organizers to pioneer winning Internet based organizing strategies.
• Help channel and mobilize the vast and fast resources of the blogsphere for specific tactical and strategic objectives.
• Publish a newsletter of the School Bus Project.
• Coordinate with other labor+blogger groups in DailyKos and elsewhere.
• Help publish a website to use as a focal point for labor+blogger activity.
So what happened to Andre LaGrande and many others whom are finding about every day becomes history.
UPDATED: Key event info
All New Jersey and New York Kossacks are invited. Introduce yourselves if you attend.
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS
First Student Workers Congress
AUGUST 16 & 17, 2007
HYATT PLACE, PRINCETON, NJ
Agenda
Thursday, August 16, 2007
IBT Organizer Training
9:00 – 9:30 Welcome and Introductions
9:30 –10:15 Update on Current Campaign (all organizers)
10:15 – 11:45 Coalition Building (Religious and Community)
11:45 –12:30 LUNCH
12:30 –2:00 Reaching out to Political Leaders: How to Run a Meeting with a Political Leader and Campaigns Department
2:00 –2:15 BREAK
2:15 –3:45 Database and Citrix Training
3:45 –4:30 Shareholder Work, Working with the T&G and other leverage work
4:30 –4:45 BREAK
4:45 – 5:30 Future of Campaign and Weekend Blitz
5:30 – 6:00 Closing: Question and Answer
Friday, August 17, 2007
9:00 –9:45 Welcome and Introductions
Fred Potter, President of Teamsters Local Union No. 469 and Jeff Farmer, Director, IBT Organizing Department
9:45 –10:15 Weekend Overview and Reports
10:15 –10:45 Reports from the United Kingdom
10:45 –11:00 BREAK
11:00 – 11:30 Knowing Your Rights
11:30-12:00 School Bus Campaign Communications Issues
12:00 –12:45 Political and Community Outreach
12:45 –1:30 LUNCH
1:30 –2:00 Getting in the Door and Learning the Issues
2:00 –2:30 Developing and Delivering our Message
2:30 –3:00 Inoculation and Agitation
3:00 –3:30 Gathering Information, Leader House Call and Assessments
3:30 –3:45 BREAK
3:45 – 4:15 Building a Committee, Moving to Action and Tasking the Committee
4:15 – 6:15 Role Playing/Practicing our Home Visit Organizers
6:15 – 6:30 Closing Remarks: Question and Answer
7:00 –??? Social Event/Dinner