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| Don't get excited. It's election time and he said nothing |
Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
So Sanders was on the Verizon picket lines. Is he running for office I wonder? I read the Labor Notes article on this and they haven't changed either. Not one mention of the failed strike last time when they lost a couple weeks pay other to say they were on strike and returned to work "without a deal". That's it from the troublemakers club?
Not one mention of what the labor hierarchy is or is not doing. In fact, I don’t think they mention them at all, it’s as if they don’t exist. Can the reader imagine a report of a foreign army marching on the US and no mention of their generals, their leaders, the orchestrator's of the assault? Of course not. This absence is conscious because the folks behind Labor Notes are part of the labor bureaucracy, it’s left flank and they consciously ignore the role played by the right wing that leads it because they do not want to get in to a conflict with them. I’m sorry, but read the piece, it’s Just a bland report on events and the disgraceful role of the top leadership, the strategists atop the national unions and national bodies is absent. It's not much different from an AFL-CIO piece, it doesn't inspire or help workers understand why we are where we're at. It's just a report. If the Labor Notes leadership didn't present an image as some sort of fighting alternative in the movement or a radical wing of organized labor it would be different, but they do.
So Sanders was on the Verizon picket lines. Is he running for office I wonder? I read the Labor Notes article on this and they haven't changed either. Not one mention of the failed strike last time when they lost a couple weeks pay other to say they were on strike and returned to work "without a deal". That's it from the troublemakers club?
Not one mention of what the labor hierarchy is or is not doing. In fact, I don’t think they mention them at all, it’s as if they don’t exist. Can the reader imagine a report of a foreign army marching on the US and no mention of their generals, their leaders, the orchestrator's of the assault? Of course not. This absence is conscious because the folks behind Labor Notes are part of the labor bureaucracy, it’s left flank and they consciously ignore the role played by the right wing that leads it because they do not want to get in to a conflict with them. I’m sorry, but read the piece, it’s Just a bland report on events and the disgraceful role of the top leadership, the strategists atop the national unions and national bodies is absent. It's not much different from an AFL-CIO piece, it doesn't inspire or help workers understand why we are where we're at. It's just a report. If the Labor Notes leadership didn't present an image as some sort of fighting alternative in the movement or a radical wing of organized labor it would be different, but they do.
Even Sanders, a Democratic Party candidate for president of
the US if he can get his party to select him, gets a free pass. He's been in
politics for years. How many picket lines has he been on? Has he called for a
victory for the workers, for their demands to be met, for other workers to join
them? No, just empty phrases. "Thank
you for your courage in standing up against corporate greed," Dan
DiMaggio quotes him as saying in Labor Notes, calling Verizon, "just another major American
corporation trying to destroy the lives of working Americans."
"You are telling corporate America they cannot have it all," Sanders says. Oh my, the strike is as much won with language like that.
It is an insult to any thinking worker to give Sanders or Clinton any credibility for showing up on a picket line at election time with these tired old worn out statements. All these friends of labor (actually, friends of the labor leadership) do it. The dashing millionaire (worth about $10 million) former mayor of SF Gavin Newsome, a darling of top labor officials was on them. He also savaged workers as well. We're wise to it Bernie.
One doesn’t have to call names or insult personally as some
left characters do. But to ignore the fact that we have lost strike after
strike, too many to go in to here (read about them on this blog) despite heroic
sacrifice on the part of the rank and file of organized labor, is outright
criminal. There is a point when being
totally uncritical amounts to siding with those who betray, whose actions are
the cause of our demise.
2 comments:
This author had done no research. Bernie has been on other picket lines long before running for president. Hillary is the opportunist.
The author of this article is angry and should take a chill pill.
Now here is a typical response from someone that can't really defend their views. First of all, the person is afraid to identify themselves, afraid to stand by their views. And beyond that, anonymous says very little. Anonymous makes an attempt at psychoanalysis telling the author he is angry. That's sort of akin to the men who abuse women telling them they nag, or whine too much in order to cover their own inadequacies.
I wasn't going to bother to publish this comment as we really prefer comments that actually help us, and those that read our blog. If the author wants to pluck up the courage to openly share their views and can express them that would be welcome. Even if we don't agree with them. Try again anonymous. But beware, no more nonsense stuff like the above.
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