Carpenters Against Finance Capitalism

Right: life insurance soft sell!

Well, our union hasn't exactly come out against Finance Capital, yet. We did pass a motion last year against the bank bailout and in favor of the nationalization of the biggest US banks. However, any motion to end capitalism is unlikely soon.
What fired carpenters up against the finance capitalists at our most recent union meeting was a motion on the floor recommended by our union's Executive.

A representative from an insurance company, that's 100% unionized, spoke at the Local's Executive Board meeting to ask if they could send out a mailer to all our 3,000 members. The President of the Local argued on the floor of our membership meeting that the company would pay for the mailing and offer every carpenter $3,000 of life insurance without any strings. Of course you would have to sit down with some asshole salesman for an hour of intense hard sell, but who wouldn't want the $3,000 payment when a loved one dies?

I got up to the mic and asked a straight up question, "is this insurance company a for-profit company or not?" There was silence from the Executive Board members. There was a litany of shrugged shoulders and not a few looks of apparent misunderstanding from our local leaders. Another Executive Board member rose up indignantly to explain the whole "gift horse" theory. Mmmm. That didn't work. I asked the question again to a former Senior Business Agent who answered in the affirmative. Yes. They were for-profit.

Someone else complained about being constantly confronted with advertizing and raised the pertinant point - with 500 workers on the out of work list, why is our Executive Board sitting around chatting with Insurance Agents. The response from our E-Board members: $3,000! (In the vain of someone who thinks that raising the volume is the best way to win a debate.) Another member asked where does it end? Do we have car salesmen offering discounts to union members getting up at our union meetings?

Finally it went to the vote and Junk Mail politics was defeated and the Insurance Company lost.

Minutes later an angry Executive Board member dropped the company's flashy brochure in front of me. "Say goodbye to $3,000!" he whispered while the meeting was still going. I replied, "Dude, you oppose private insurance in healthcare, but you are pushing this private insurance!" He opened the brochure and showed me the mugshots of 50 union leaders who are all involved in this company, adding, "who would you rather give your money to? A union insurance company or some other company?" I looked it over, "don't you see bro'" I emlpored to him, "these fuckers are running the unions into the ground, and they're out selling private life insurance to us at the same time. It's a scam. It may be legal, but we don't need union leaders exploiting members for profit! Jeez!"

The dude walked off.

The militants in the rank and file of the carpenters union have lost a lot of motions lately. This one we won. Carpenters 1, For-profit Insurance 0.