by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444 Retired
In October 2104, supporters of this blog spent time on the picket lines at Waste Management, the company that handles refuse from Oakland and parts of San Leandro. The strikers were mostly the low paid sorters, sorting through trash every day for $12 an hour. They were mostly Latino, members of ILWU Local 6.
The truck drivers at waste Management are in the Teamsters
union, but due to the usual pissing contests that take place between different
sections of the labor hierarchy the drivers, whose job is crucial to the
operation of the company, drove through the picket lines. As the drivers drove in to
the plant we could see by the expressions on their faces that they didn’t like
doing it. It goes against the grain for any class conscious worker to do such a
thing, help the bosses’ break a strike.
What was even more sickening were the Teamster officials,
alongside the bosses ushering their members in, making sure they weren’t
impeded. In other words, they took action that helped undermine the strike,
increased the suffering of the workers on the lines and increased the chance of
a victory for the multi-millionaires that profit from the waste business. According
to PR Watch, Waste Management's top
executives combined made $119,201,381 from 2006 to 2012.
I
approached one driver who had his window open and asked him how he felt about
crossing the lines: "I don't
like it but our leadership says we have to.", he replied. He
drove through and I turned and asked the striker for a copy of the leaflet they
ere handing out appealing for help and solidarity.. The Teamster official
then came scurrying over and told me to "Stop harassing my drivers, if
you want to harass anyone harass me." As if he cares about his drivers.
As if being on strike isn’t bad enough and having
the overpaid officials of a potentially powerful union ally act as
strikebreakers by telling their members to work across a picket line, top union
officials were busy attacking the striking workers in the media. Rome Aloise, who is a VP of
the Teamster Joint Council 7, a Teamster International Vice President and also
an official in Local 853 that represents the drivers at Waste Management, told
the Mercury News that the fight against Waste Management is “unrealistic” and that the workers were
just “pawns” of the ILWU leadership
and that the campaign for these workers , “…is
based on a promise that cannot be met and is designed to create false hopes for
the workers.”
Aloise was joined in the public offensive against these $12
an hour workers who sort through garbage 8 or ten hours a day, by Don Crossato,
an official with
Machinists union probably on over $100,000 a year, and Felix Martinez, of Teamsters local 70. They both agreed
that what the workers were asking was “unrealistic”
with Crossato claiming the differences didn’t “warrant a strike”. The
workers were asking for a raise from $12 to $20.
Rome
Aloise made $346,722 in salaries and allowances in 2014 according to the Teamster
for a Democratic Union that’s beside all the other perks like double
pensions. Aloise, the strikebreaker and union bureaucrat is now in hot water as
the members of an Independent Review Board have recommended to the IBT General
Executive Board that he be brought up on charges for “requesting and receiving things of value from IBT employers..” and among other things “entering in to sham collective bargaining agreements with the
GrandFund” and interfering in union elections.
The
reality is that pretty much all union contracts are “sham”, contracts in the
sense that the entire labor leadership from the AFL-CIO on down has thrown in
the towel when it comes to fighting the bosses; they don’t have to openly act
criminally in the sense that they break the law. They simply refuse to fight
and hold back any rank and file movement from below that challenges the
relationship they have built with the bosses’ based on labor peace.
They don’t even pretend any more. They openly call for concessions and that their own members must sacrifice in order to help the employers out. This entire strategy flows form the dominant philosophy in the trade union movement today, the Team Concept. This manifests in many forms, Labor/Management partnerships, Focus Groups, Quality of Life Circles, Interest Based bargaining etc. The union hierarchy practices this Team Concept strategy on the job in the form of cooperation with the boss and in the political arena through their association with the Democratic Party acting as agents of this major capitalist party in the workers’ organizations.
They don’t even pretend any more. They openly call for concessions and that their own members must sacrifice in order to help the employers out. This entire strategy flows form the dominant philosophy in the trade union movement today, the Team Concept. This manifests in many forms, Labor/Management partnerships, Focus Groups, Quality of Life Circles, Interest Based bargaining etc. The union hierarchy practices this Team Concept strategy on the job in the form of cooperation with the boss and in the political arena through their association with the Democratic Party acting as agents of this major capitalist party in the workers’ organizations.
The
likes of Aloise and others who suck the life blood out of the labor movement betray their members, and live high on the hog at their members’ expense are the lowest type of human being. To betray workers, to side with
the forces of capital against labor, to use the workers' organization for one’s
own advancement, is criminal.
Rome Aloise, James Hoffa and Ken Hall Source IBT JC 7 |
None
of us are exempt from such betrayals.
Many a rank and file member has entered the leadership with good
intentions but ended up betraying those they claimed to fight for. Many others
simply quit. Any individual or group
that offers themselves as an alternative to the present ideologically bankrupt
leadership must unequivocally reject and abandon the Team Concept on the job
and in politics through the Democratic Party. They must openly campaign against the present leaders' concessionary policies.
Rank
and file caucuses based on a program that demands and fights for what workers
and our communities need rather than what’s acceptable to the bosses, or
“realistic” to them and the Democrats must be built from the ground up. They should be built in the
workplaces, offices, and construction sites where we work and meet every day
and link up with the communities in which we live and work. Rank and file committees can and must look
toward the unorganized and link up with the unemployed, the student movement
and the myriad of movements that have sprung up throughout the country from
Flint to the urban ghettos, the movement against police brutality and mass incarceration, disproportionally people of color, the rural communities and increasingly the
suburbs. Small (community business) can also be
an ally of labor if approached correctly. The offensive of the 1% will not
cease and will in fact intensify as a disastrous US foreign policy and the cost
of it in terms of human life and money will be laid on the shoulders of workers
and the middle class. It is in the workplace where out power lies, our ability to stop the machine form running, to halt profit taking and organized workers have many allies but we have to use this power in conjunction and in solidarity with other social movements.
Rome
Aloise is not alone, there is this type of blatant corruption within organized
labor but the main problem is not crass criminal activity, it is that the heads
of organized labor are ideologically bankrupt. They worship the market, they
idolize profits, they have the same world-view as the 1%.
Were
there a genuine militant rank and file caucus in that local, the drivers that
objected to scabbing on their co-workers at Waste Management would have had
somewhere to turn, they would have had it before it happened. This is the task
facing the rank and file dues payer, ridding ourselves of the present
leadership of our organizations. But it has to come from below; no one will do
it for us. The time for whining has long gone.
From the Waste Management Strike where Teamster officials ushered in the scabs.
ILWU Waste Management strike. Teamster drivers still crossing lines.
From the Waste Management Strike where Teamster officials ushered in the scabs.
ILWU Waste Management strike. Teamster drivers still crossing lines.
4 comments:
pure greed, need to go to prison living high on the hog off are hard work, him chuck mack they keep it the family been screwing workers for years. book em danno
hoffa is to old needs to retire aloise needs his ass kick ps corrupted and holding all these position is a crock give someone else a chance for one the jobs its all about him... Fred zuckerman for president
How about a update on this crooked rome aloise can not understand how this p. s. can still be running on the hoffa slate rippen off the teamster members off big time. hoffa cant be trusted.needs to be voted out. Go Fred zuckerman
any news on crooked rome aloise
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