Four California state employee Unions reached tentative agreements with the Schwarzenegger administration yesterday according to press reports. As usual, the Unions, including the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) that represents workers in the UC system, negotiated concessions that will help the state save money.As we have pointed out on this blog previously, the capitalist offensive, full of confidence after a successful campaign against the auto workers with the help of the UAW and national trade Union leadership, is concentrating its efforts on what it calls the "bloated" public sector. Not just services, but public sector pensions are coming under the axe. As strikes, protests and resistance in many forms occur throughout the world, those at the helm of the potentially powerful US trade Union movement allow their member's rights, wages and benefits that took decades of struggle to win, pass silently in to the garbage can of history with barely a whimper.
The tentative agreements reached yesterday include, but I'm sure are not limited to, the elimination of pension benefits enacted in in 1999 while new employees will have to work five more years before they receive benefits, and compensation would be based on the highest three years of wages. I am a retired public sector worker and my pension was based on the highest two. Also new employees will have to contribute 5% more to their retirement than they do now. There are still some 170,000 state workers working without a contract.
On the AFSCME website, like all the Unions, it explains why we need them, why someone should belong to a Union. It talks about the power of numbers and having a collective voice. Of course, this is all in regard to political action. The Labor leaders in Washington DC (close to their friends) have more influence with the politicians if they can bring more votes to the table. The idea of mass direct action and of using this mass direct action to win concessions from the bosses rather than what they do now, offer concessions to the bosses, is out of the question.
Union websites point to the Union advantage, that Union wages and benefits are 30% or so above non Union. This is something we should definitely push as it is important and a good organizing tool. And any time we collectivize it is a step forward as it gives us a vehicle through which to confront the employers. Unionization for very low waged workers, often new immigrants is a step up but never enough of a gain to live a secure existence or even make it without working two jobs; the problem is that the ceiling is falling in.
I was at a meeting at the University of California Berkeley where a group of national Unions were after the membership of another independent organization representing some 14,000 clerical workers in the UC system. The majority of these Unions already had members in this workplace. This attempt to reign in more dues money occurs during a period when the employers are waging an all out assault on workers; firings, layoffs, cuts in pay and benefits. Like contractors bidding for jobs, the Union staffers and their supporters within the various locals represented made a pitch for their Union. There's nothing bad about this in general but they all talked of how much stronger the members will be with their organization and how their organization fights for workers more aggressively than the other.
Teamster supporters within the independent organization (the Coalition of University Employees whose members were formerly members of AFSCME), claimed that by joining the Teamsters, the members will have "More power at the bargaining table in Sacramento and Washington DC" and that a vote for the Teamsters will "stop the threats to your future". The flier from AFSCME urging CUE members to rejoin that organization talked about "changing the balance of power by electing officials who will support working families". As I mentioned in a statement I put out at the time, this is nonsense. It is being dishonest with the membership of the Unions and workers in general. Objective reality is just the opposite and has been for some time.
What in the agreements cited above would attract people to Unions as workers work side by side, one working for less and with less benefits? It creates division and hostility between workers and toward the Union itself for agreeing to it. It's handy for the Labor hierarchy as workers that aren't in the Union yet can't vote on a deal that screws them. And for how long will this advantage exist as we continue to go backwards in order to placate capitalists and their political representatives in the Democratic Party?
These are the facts on the ground.
Private sector Union density is about 7.5 percent or so and I think I read once that that is below what it was before the Great Depression. The bosses want to bring the public sector (about 37% organized) down to this level. AFSCME, my former Union is an organization of some 1.6 million people, this is no small figure and, despite our lower numbers as a percentage of the working population, organized Labor still has tremendous potential power representing workers in transportation (docks, rail, airlines etc.), construction and other major sectors of the economy.
My experience has been, as it was during the ongoing struggles in the education industry, is that there is reluctance to challenge these disastrous policies of the Union leadership openly and aggressively by the left in the Unions in particular. This would attract some of the best workers, those looking for an alternative to concessions and a subjective force that they can turn to and participate in building. Some local leaderships appear a little more progressive in that they pass this or that harmless resolution that no one could really oppose and this absolves them from criticism; even socialists and others who claim the mantle of militancy refuse to wage open campaigns condemning the role of the leadership and offering an alternative strategy. I always found that there was this almost unwritten rule that you don't criticize the leadership of another local, the International or even your own. And by criticize, I don't mean calling names or making personal attacks, but condemning policies and strategy and putting forward real alternatives.
I couldn't sit through a meeting like the one I went to up at the University of California when Union representatives are talking about how strong their particular leadership is and they're going to protect your future without saying something; what they are saying is simply false. If I don't do that, then I have to blame the members for the crisis we're in as the leadership does. Any person or organization can say they will fight but how they'll fight is the issue.
The investors handbook and introduction to investing video AFSCME has on its website says it all.
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