A BART/AC Transit strike could make real gains |
by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
Continuing the thread about the labor disputes here in the San Francisco Bay Area with the BART (subway) workers on strike and the AC Transit (bus drivers) out of contract and still negotiating, I read an interesting couple of comments in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning. The (AC Transit) bus driver’s Union leadership has chosen not to strike alongside the BART workers although they can legally do so and are in the same union, the ATU. Every bus driver I spoke to at the Board Meeting last week agreed that if the two walked out together and coordinated their a strike, the chances of winning would be increased. “ Unity is strength” is a slogan every worker understands. The City of Oakland workers could also strike.
Continuing the thread about the labor disputes here in the San Francisco Bay Area with the BART (subway) workers on strike and the AC Transit (bus drivers) out of contract and still negotiating, I read an interesting couple of comments in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning. The (AC Transit) bus driver’s Union leadership has chosen not to strike alongside the BART workers although they can legally do so and are in the same union, the ATU. Every bus driver I spoke to at the Board Meeting last week agreed that if the two walked out together and coordinated their a strike, the chances of winning would be increased. “ Unity is strength” is a slogan every worker understands. The City of Oakland workers could also strike.
Greg Harper, the president of the Alameda County Transit
Board which governs the transit agency is very happy that the drivers didn’t go
on strike with the BART workers. The drivers, “Really understood the situation, and we really appreciate the fact
that they came in,” (to work), he
tells the Chronicle.
His remarks are followed by the following comments, “The thing about the bus driver is that that they are right there with the public. They even know the names of their passengers and they are deeply committed to provide service.”
His remarks are followed by the following comments, “The thing about the bus driver is that that they are right there with the public. They even know the names of their passengers and they are deeply committed to provide service.”
Perhaps it is Harper’s underling, I thought, maybe the
company lawyer. No, these remarks come from the mouth of Sharon Cornu who
the Chronicle describes as a “transit
union spokeswoman.” She is happy
that the BART workers fight against the bosses, a struggle over putting food on
the table, is made considerably more difficult by the decision of the AC
Transit drivers Union leadership to have their members stay on the job. It
helps neither bus drivers nor train operators that this is the case.
To the folks who pay the dues that contribute to the obscene
salaries many of the top labor officials make, and who hire so called “consultants” like Sharon Cornu.: Here is
the problem with our movement today.
I saw Ms Cornu at last week’s AC Transit Board meeting. I
didn’t recognize her at first and thought she was a former employee of AFSCME,
my former Union. She was slinking around
trying to make connections with Union officials promoting herself as a
consultant. She is quite the popular one.
She is a former staffer to Jean Quan the Mayor of Oakland that had the
cops brutalize Occupy Oakland. She has
been the Governor’s Minority Business of the Year person and she was the head
of the Alameda Labor Council, the state arm of the AFL-CIO and the AFL-CIO’s
National Field Director
Ms Cornu is very well educated like many of those in the
lower rungs of the right wing trade union bureaucracy graduating magna cum laude from Brown
University, a famous US liberal college.
This
is nothing new. Labor’s full time apparatus consists of many former and
sometimes present leftists and highly educated folks like Ms Cornu. The trade union bureaucracy, not too well up
on labor history and economics, find them very useful as advisors on such
affairs and spokespersons at times like these. The folks atop organized labor
do not like too much publicity either, in fact, its preferable that the members
they represent and who’s hard earned dues money lubricates the wheels of the
organization and pays their salaries don’t know who they are which is sadly the
case.
The
answer to this criticism from above will be that the members decide or the “members have spoken”. This is the officialdom’s example of how
democratic they are. The same line is
dragged out when they bring the bosses message to their members at contract
time, you can strike though we haven’t prepared for one and don’t believe we
can win one or you can accept 20% wage cuts.
“And by the way, we are in
difficult times and shared sacrifice is needed to save the country from
collapse.” The members choose the cuts and democracy has run its course.
I
have been accused, including by some socialists, of having a principle of
denouncing the trade union bureaucracy. But this is not the case. If any union
leader or group of our leaders take steps forward, abandons the Team Concept
and labor/management partnerships and really fight for gains for their members
and the working class as a whole, then I support that and would gladly use my
time helping in that regard. What myself, and others like me refuse to do is
ignore the extremely negative and class collaborationist role the trade union
hierarchy plays. A role supported by academics and liberal intellectuals and
folks like Ms Cornu who are looking to make a nice career off of the backs of
working people. The strikes we have lost over the last 40 years from the P9
Hormel strike to Eastern Airlines, Teamsters Newspaper strike in Detroit, the Staley
war, and the California grocery workers strike in 2003 were all due to the role
of the trade union leadership at the highest levels. Added to this to be honest, is the role that
so many leftists also play by refusing to openly challenge these policies and
campaign for an alternative among the ranks. By doing this they consciously or
unconsciously act as a left cover for them.
If we do not make this clear, that these decisions like the AC Transit unions decision to help out while their brothers and sisters are on strike, comes from the top down, then we have to blame the members which is what happens. But leadership has responsibilities and in times of heightened class struggle leadership is crucial. I was at the AC transit board meeting last week and there was a tremendous mood for unity there. Workers are clearly angry. Sometimes the anger can and will overcome the obstacle of their own leadership and the leadership lose control for a while. But a powerful combination of the bosses and our own leaders is not an easy one to confront But confront it we must if we are to halt the bosses efforts to take back what has taken the US working class 150 years to win.
If we do not make this clear, that these decisions like the AC Transit unions decision to help out while their brothers and sisters are on strike, comes from the top down, then we have to blame the members which is what happens. But leadership has responsibilities and in times of heightened class struggle leadership is crucial. I was at the AC transit board meeting last week and there was a tremendous mood for unity there. Workers are clearly angry. Sometimes the anger can and will overcome the obstacle of their own leadership and the leadership lose control for a while. But a powerful combination of the bosses and our own leaders is not an easy one to confront But confront it we must if we are to halt the bosses efforts to take back what has taken the US working class 150 years to win.
It’s
the same with demands in times like these; the strategy of the trade union
hierarchy and its academic advisers is damage control. The union leadership
echoes the 1%’s claims that we are in hard times and that we are weak and them
strong, that we need shared sacrifice (us and Warren Buffet together) and that
we can’t win. They are good at telling us what we “can’t” do. The average member looks at this scenario, correctly
sees to challenge it would mean a huge struggle yet there’s no real opposition
out there (the left really has no significant impact on workers lives) so they
bury their heads and slip further back hoping for better times. But better
times are not coming; we cannot avoid a fight. Also, our health care is
connected to our employment, this is another trick.
I
would bet my house on it that in the present situation and with the anger that
exists not just among union members but in society as a whole, were there serious
and established fighting caucuses in the unions offering an alternative to the
concessionary stance of the leadership we would see a more widespread strike
and also organizing and involvement of the unorganized and our communities,
even if such a caucus wasn’t represented in the leadership. The anger in
society is suppressed by the union leadership and their allies in academia and
directed in to electoral politics and their friends in the Democratic
Party. It has yet no organizational
form. Most of these people like Ms. Cornu whose comments provoked me to write
this commentary, (my opponents call it a rant) are agents of the Democratic
Party in the workers’ movement.
I am
not condemning education or all academics.
Many people from privileged backgrounds have sacrificed their time and
their lives for workers and our movement.
But they did it abandoning their own class position. But those who have
power and influence in our movement use their privileged status also to bully
workers intellectually. I know from
personal experience that this can be a difficult thing to overcome. Race and
gender oppression holds us back; but class oppression cannot be
underestimated---class consciousness and recognizing who are our best allies
can give us a powerful advantage.
Read more about this dispute by scrolling down or checking the "popular posts" to the right.
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