On Sat, 15 Jun 2002, Nathan Newman wrote:
> This is one of the only unions that has made headway into the expanding
> unionization into the technology sector and you sit pissing on them?
-No, the question is legitimate: what *is* US labor's strategy for -organizing the service sector?
CWA has organized tens of thousands of telecom workers in the high-tech sectors of broadband and wireless using aggressive card check agreements negotiated using the power of their traditional telephone worker base, then using aggressive intervention in merger and regulatory reviews to force companies to accept those neutrality agreements as the price of general success (or see the failure of mergers such as happened with MCI-Sprint).
>The reality of corporate mergers is that unions don't have major influence
>over the process, because they're not the shareholders/rentiers making the
>decisions.
That is true in many mergers, not the telecom sector, where mergers have had intense regulatory review at the FCC. CWA has been quite dynamic in those interventions-- they have a kickass key lobbyist there, a longtime lefty, who works carefully to back that strategy up with strong grassroots mobilization of members. And CWA has always had good lobbying strength because they are one of the few unions with members in probably every electoral district in the country, including the South, because the telephone industry went everywhere. In fact, one of the most pro-union companies is SBC, based out of Texas, because of this longtime political pressure.
>My own impression is that the seeds of that socialism are scattered around
>the high-tech culture, especially the videogame culture. For all its
>narrative flaws, Metal Gear Solid 2 is amazingly sharp about how the US
>ruling class rules.
THe rhetoric may be solid but where do the profits go? Capital is incredibly hip to commodifying dissent, as the saying goes. I am very old-fashioned-- give m punishing regulation that thrawts corporate merger desires unless they pay through the nose for better wages and allow unionization. A voice at work is the key to socialism.
-- Nathan Newman