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| 2014, Hoffa at Taylor Farms rally |
By Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
My small town newspaper, the San Leandro Times, had a piece in it a couple
weeks ago about a local Safeway store manager who called the cops on the
Teamsters who were leafleting outside.
They were handing out fliers protesting Safeway selling products from
Taylor farms an outfit the unions claim, “…mistreats
and underpays workers…” *
No worker would object to that but all these companies
underpay and mistreat workers. In this case, most of the workers are immigrants
though, working for an outfit called Taylor Farms. This makes a difference as
there is more support from socially conscious white liberals at the disgusting
treatment of immigrant workers here in California and a passive attempt to
shame the company and get shoppers not to shop, in what is an area with a large Latino
population, might have a small affect. More importantly it gives the impression
that the union movement is actually doing something for the most vulnerable and
oppressed among us.
Here in California we have a constitutional right to leaflet
on private property like a shopping center parking lot. This right came about I
believe through the Pruneyard decision and I have refused to leave these areas
in the past when managers send out the guard or ask me themselves to leave. In
fact, I generally tell them to call the cops who have always supported my right
to do so.
The
reader might find this interesting and a little humorous.
They have been chipping away at this right and normally when
confronted say that there is a designated area for such free speech activity.
Naturally, the designated area is way off in the corner and away from the
members of the public who you want to read you leaflet.
In this instance, the president of teamsters local 70,
Dominic Chiovare was there. This local is one of the largest if not the largest
Teamster local in the area.
According to the Times, when the cops got there the
Teamsters were told to move down to the designated area where no one would get
the leaflet as that is likely where the bosses chose to designate it, and the
courts, their courts and their legislators, have given this chicanery approval. As they always have with me, they accused
those leafleting of harassing people, blocking the entrance etc. This is
standard procedure.
Claiming they weren’t going to be there long, the Teamsters “…complied, just to keep the peace” the
Times reports.
The problem is that labor officials have been keeping the
peace at their members’ expense for decades.
Teamster President, Dominic Chiovare confirmed this, being
quoted in the paper, “We did it the friendly
way……we’ve been friendly and polite the whole time.” I assume he means to the customers and I would
believe him. The Times reporter also confirmed this, writing, “But the entire time a San Leandro reporter
was there, the path for customers was clear, no teamster obstructed anyone’s
path, and the teamsters couldn’t have been more polite.” The bosses, more
accurately their policies, are not friendly at all, not at Taylor Farms, not at
Safeway.
Chiovare complied with Safeway telling the Times, “We did
it the friendly way….but if we wanted to we could have hundreds of teamsters
down here in an hour and shut this place down. That’s how things get
ugly---when you stop people from exercising their rights.”
Leaving aside that neither the Teamsters nor any other union
for that matter has shut a business of this size down and don’t really attempt
to. And as far as I understand it, the “designated
Area” is a legal definition and you’d need a lot more than 300 people and
have to violate the law here. I am not opposed to violating the law and in fact
argue we have to violate the law if we want to throw back and defeat the
austerity agenda of capital or the 1% as people refer to it. But we have to
violate the law in a mass way and that means mobilizing the members and the
wider working class. The union hierarchy is much more afraid of this than they
are the bosses.
But the heads of organized labor from the top down have not
shown any inclination that they are willing to actually go on the offensive
against the employers, especially ones like Safeway. Even when there is no law
to violate, the position of the strategists atop organize labor is to help the
employers compete which amounts to concessions on the part of their members. In
every bargaining situation they start from a position that concessions have to
be made. Workers have to be “realistic.”
T
wo years ago the Teamsters held a rally outside the Taylor Farms plant in Tracy CA. It was the usual scene, 700 people were there which can be empowering. But the bosses' are not afraid of rallies like these. What they respond to is profits and profits are hurt when plants are shut down. At this rally the Teamster International president Jimmy Hoffa shows up, gets his picture taken and makes a speech:
“I bring you greetings from the 1.4 million members of the Teamsters
union,” Hoffa told workers at the rally.
“I’ve heard about the lack of
respect here, the fact that people can’t use the restroom when they need
to, and that workers have been here ten years and are temporary
employees. That's got to change – and we’re going to change it.”
The problem is that the old "I bring you the greetings of millions" speech is not new and one million 375,000 Teamsters have probably never heard of the dispute. And even if they did, greetings don't back bosses off. What Hoffa won't do is mobilize these millions to act on their own behalf.
Most of the workers inside Safeway are represented by the
UFCW. The leadership of the UFCW called its members out back in 2003 readers
may remember. The strike was pretty
effective in Southern California shutting down much of the stores’ activity.
The leadership sent strikers up to the Bay Area for informational picket lines
encouraging shoppers to boycott the stores up here. As one shopper told me when
I was on those lines, “UFCW members, in
the same union as those on strike are in the store stocking the shelves and you
want me not to shop here in support of the strikers?”
Of course, he shouldn’t have gone in but he has a point. The
problem was that they were in different locals. The way to win would have been
to bring the workers here out and indeed, push that 2003 strike to become a
national strike. In other words, in every possible way make the dispute more
general. Safeway is a giant global corporation, and no one union can beat them.
But this would have been illegal, and the labor officialdom never breaks the
law or gets involved in shady deals except when it comes to dealing with their
own members. My union Afscme has done it the ILWU has done it, the Machinists,
all of them.
Only recently myself and others were on picket lines at the
local Waste Management center where the lowest paid workers, mostly immigrant workers
and members of the ILWU Local 6, had gone on strike. Teamster officials from
another local but a member of the same council as Local 70, were escorting
their drivers across the picket lines along with management; it was an ugly
sight indeed. Their argument was that there was some unmet organizational obligations
and they wouldn’t honor the strike. The teamster drivers hated it, they knew it
was wrong but the officials have economic power over them. It’s not easy to
cross them if you’re not organized in to an open caucus.
The way to win for the immigrant workers at Taylor Farms is
by linking up all these struggles. The workers inside Safeway have seen their
living standards decline. The newer hires often receive lower wages and fewer
benefits, concessions forced on them by contracts that they could not vote on.
When I hear a labor official like Dominic Chiovare talk
about being friendly I have to laugh a bit. Power is what attracts. The average union member on the job might not
say it openly but the general view is not only that our leaders are corrupt,
it’s that they’re too close and friendly with the boss. They are absolutely right about that though
they may not be clear as to why.
We would do wise to listen to our enemies who are clear
about the class nature of society and how to maintain their interests. The powerful
bourgeois George Schultz writes:
Negotiations are a
euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the
bargaining table.
The strategists atop organized labor ensure that the show of
power is absent at the negotiating table.
The top union officials do not have to work under the
contracts that they impose on their own members. Rome Aloise, a Teamster
official who was
VP of
the Teamster Joint Council 7, a Teamster International Vice President and also
an official in Local 853 that represents the drivers that he ordered to cross
the lines in the above Waste Management strike, earned $346,722 in salaries and
allowances in 2014. The workers whose picket lines his local violated earned
$12 an hour. Aloise
has since been in some hot water himself.
It’s
incredible arrogance that someone like that, earning the money he did or does**”…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.”
No
one would oppose leafleting a store about another rotten employer, especially
if it was part of a wider strategy to bring all the workers together, not just
the organized but the unorganized and workers in our communities as well. But
the point of doing that would be to raise everyone’s standard of living. It
would mean fighting for jobs, health care, and waging a general struggle
against austerity.
This
can only lead to chaos from the union officials view of the world. It is one thing to bring thousands of people
together to fight for their rights and livelihoods. It’s another to control its
direction once people get a sense of their commonality and real power. Plus, it
would mess up the relationship they’ve built with the employers based on labor
peace.
Teamsters
have been getting their asses kicked too. It’s not simply the poorest and low
waged workers. The bosses’ aren’t afraid of the Teamster or any other union
officials’ threats after years of concessionary deal making. There’ll have to
be some changes made in the unions to change that dynamic.
*San Leandro Times 6-23-16
** I am not aware of the situation at this time with regards
to Aloise’ status after being brought up on charges.
