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| Union hierarchy is desperate for members |
Well, that’s very nice of the Obama administration to “give” workers the right to Unionize. There are limitations though; after all, we wouldn’t want them to be effective. If the screeners’ vote for a Union, it won’t be one that can bargain over pay, issues related to security, or the “deployment of personnel or equipment”. They will be able to negotiate over the bidding process for work-shifts and performance evaluations. None of this really means too much though as Obama’s generosity doesn’t include the right to withdraw Labor. If screeners choose to join a Union they will be banned from striking or engaging in work slowdowns; in other words, they will have no power to enforce their demands that is not illegal.
It is generally a step in the right direction to go from no Union to having a Union, although that may not always be the case as the existing Union leadership acts as the agents of the corporations in the workers’ movement. Any genuine Union rank and file opposition to the capitalist offensive comes up against a ferocious resistance from the existing bureaucracy; so I am not so sure given that the Union will be one of the existing federal organizations.
Here’s what lies behind this shift in policy on screeners. The Obama administration has righteously screwed Union members and the millions of young people and others that were fooled by his talk of change that might benefit them. He has, as all Democratic administrations do, treated the Labor hierarchy with contempt. He screwed them on their precious EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) which they assumed would have made it easier for them to sign up new members with the least amount of effort bringing in lots of revenue in the form of added dues. Then there’s the “public option” and the wars, the Guantanamo closing, the list of betrayals is a long one.
But the Democrats recognize there is an election coming up in 2012 and we all know, they campaign for these things a year or more before hand; after all, the ability to fleece the US taxpayer and their looting expeditions abroad are very much dependent on being in the political driver’s seat. For Obama, the support of organized Labor, “will be critical to his re-election effort in 2012” the Journal points out. To ensure that Labor’s leadership is kept in the fold and continues to support the devastating policies that are destroying workers’ living standards, and helps him get elected next year, Obama has thrown them a bone.
The trade Union bureaucracy is very easy to please; they have simple needs; keep the dues money coming in. As I have stated many times before, the Union hierarchy sees the Unions as employment agencies with them as the CEO’s. It’s a business and all businesses need revenue; their revenue is the Union dues that the members’ pay, dues that rise as wages and benefits decline.
So for the trade Union tops they are ecstatic. The increased assault on public sector workers has affected their revenue as the ranks of the public sector workforce fell by almost 250,000 in 2010. Let’s just assume these members paid an average monthly dues of $30, that’s a loss of $7.5 million a month; what business can afford that and survive?
AFGE President John Gage is elated as it is most likely his Union that will get the increased revenue should the workers vote yes, "Now many issues will be up for negotiations, including seniority, shift biddings, transfers and awards,". "I can guarantee that after AFGE negotiates a contract, TSA will not rank anywhere near the bottom of the Best Places to Work survey, as it currently does at 220 out of 224 federal agencies.", he says.
The airport screening workforce has gone from 16,500 in 2001 to 63,000, so getting them in to Unions would go a long way to countering the losses in the established public sector workforce. As one Florida Republican said, “This will be President Obama’s biggest gift to organized labor”. He is right with one exception; it is Obama’s biggest gift to organized Labor’s hierarchy in order to garner their support in the next election, support which means millions of dollars of their members money on the one hand, and in kind help on the other as the resources of the AFL-CIO and the CTW coalition, offices, mailings, phone banking will be at the Democratic Party’s disposal.
Much of the door-to-door campaigning in elections is done by the huge staff that the hierarchy has that helps it maintain its leadership by discouraging and suppressing movements form below that may threaten it. These are resources that should be put to use organizing and mobilizing the potential power of the ranks organized Labor and the workers and youth in the communities in which we live and work; instead, they are at the service of those who are savaging rights, benefits and wages that took a generation of heroic struggle to win.
With the Team Concept, the mainstay of the Union leadership’s policies, Unions can help the boss considerably as the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee assures them, "collective bargaining does not diminish our security; it can actually enhance work-force productivity and TSA's mission.".
So the game goes on. The Republicans are opposed to them Unionizing and will play hardball. The Democrats (or most of them) will support it with restrictions that will ensure they are no serious threat to the capitalist agenda. The Labor leadership, as they do when this game is played out over cuts, with the Republicans wanting more, the Democrats fewer, will declare a major victory has been won. And throughout the process, the rank and file worker is a passive bystander asked only to step forward when the paper is to be inserted in to the ballot box; this isn’t how Unions were built.
Having said all this, I am sure that many an abused TSA worker will be pleased they have some sort of representation, I have no idea of the details except what I read in the media so I don’t know what other limits might be thrust upon them and it may well improve their lives a bit although it may also end up costing them more money after the dues are paid; I just don’t know.
What I do know is that the Union leadership’s ability to hold back a genuine movement for change within organized Labor that will arise to challenge the capitalist agenda will not last forever. The conditions are overripe in US society for similar movements like those in Ireland Greece and the Middle East and we will see them. If they begin outside the traditional organizations of the working class which is quite likely, these organizations will become engulfed in such a movement and be transformed by them.
* Airport Screeners Allowed to Unionize: WSJ, 2-5/6-11
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