previously, Chuck wrote:
> I certainly wouldn't choose any organized labor union at this point.
> I'm more likely to see some improvements at work through wildcat
> actions than I am waiting for the union bureacracy to sell me out
> through some agreement with my bosses. If you recall, labor had
> more power when it was autonomous and NOT organized into a few
> national unions. Or, just look at the cozy relationship between
> organized labor and the Democratic wing of the Corporate Party.
I can't see how you distinguish useful union functions from 'big unions'.
The other day you said the primary function of a union is to round-up agitated workers and steer their discontent away from revolution, and even strikes. A union's main function, you said, is in the service of capital as a means of control and to co-opt worker discontent. Why? Because it's an organization, because it isn't consensus-based?
You also attacked "pro-union leftists", the kind of so-called whimps who can't take on capital, and decried unions as "the left wing of capital." You also contrasted "union organizing" with "worker power," as if they're antagonists. You said we could still have unions in a different form, but the only clues to that form are wildcat actions and 'networking'. What, cell phones and e-mails wielded by Internet savvy consensus-based affinity groups that "think outside the box" & Just do it™?
And people are jumping you, Chuck, because despite the casting your arguments as pro-labor and anti-capital, you are attacking unions as third party interlopers in the class struggle. That is EXACTLY the boss's anti-union propaganda view of unions: third parties with no rightful claim to represent the workers, even if it's a representative organization composed of the workers themselves. Dissolution of unions from within, if successful, which you did advocate for certain unions, would have a very concrete benefit for the bosses: no unions.
To drive the point home, here's an excerpt from an employee handbook received by a friend of mine this month from a hospital in Dallas, TX:
> We want to maintain a union-free workplace
> and believe third parties, such as unions, are
> unnecessary because they do not promote direct,
> open, honest communication. To continue our
> history of employees and management working
> closely together, if ever asked to sign a union
> authorization card or to vote for a union, we
> encourage you to say "no."
-- Shane
________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.