[lbo-talk] Boycotting the unorganized?

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Thu Jan 20 18:04:31 PST 2005


Tom wrote:
>Nathan Newman wrote,
>
>>If you're in a union, you follow the rules of that union and the
>>most basic one is not to cross picket lines.
>
>For three years, the bulk of my earnings came from work as an expert
>witness on behalf of union locals in dispute with other union locals
>precisely about what one of the most basic rules of unionism,
>seniority, was. These things are not as cut and dried as Newman!
>suggests. Unions are capable of "interpreting" the most basic rules
>to mean exactly the opposite of what they've meant for a hundred and
>fifty years and what they would mean to common sense.
>
>There was also a union local around these parts that negotiated
>give-back contracts with the corporation that was taking over public
>services that were being privitized. The unionized, public sector
>employees were being dismissed and then the corporation would
>replace them with new workers hired at about one-half the former
>wage under the terms of the new "union contract". If the union
>itself is not following the most basic rules of unionism, one cannot
>assume that their picket line does. Part of the rule about picket
>lines is that they are there to defend bona fide worker rights and
>not simply arbitrary exercises of coercion. A union that uses a
>picket line for any non bona fide union purpose is, in essence,
>"crossing its own picket line" by undermining the legitimacy of the
>basic rules.
>
>The Sandwichman

I agree with Tom.

Generally speaking, it's good if more people develop an almost instinctive habit of not crossing any picket line, but this rule, too, has exceptions. The question is whether or not a particular picket line seeks to defend perceived sectoral interests of a privileged stratum of workers at the expense of poorer proletarians. I'm thinking of, for instance, actions of the CTV in Venezuela and the AFL-CIO's support for them, about which many people outside Venezuela were confused, as Mike Lebowitz notes ("Venezuela's National Union of Workers," April 2, 2003 , <http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=3374>); the doctors' strike in Saskatchewan in 1961 (Elaine Bernard, "The Politics of Canada's Health Care System," <http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/lwp/eb/healthc.pdf>); and so on.

As for the general "Buy Union" campaign, as opposed to particular picket lines, it unfortunately still tends to slide into a "Buy American" campaign, as you can see at <http://www.shopunionmade.org/>.

Then, there are questions of solidarity between the employed who have union jobs and the unemployed/intermittently employed who can only get non-union jobs if they get any at all, to which US unions have not shown sufficient commitment.

Paul wrote:
>But any prospective boycott (and, as of yet I believe a serious
>boycott has not been launched, 2 days leafleting is just a token
>threat) would face one hurdle that I think IS illustrative of
>national problems. This union's membership is towards the "bottom"
>of the organized working class and faces real obstacles "getting
>through" to convince the even ostensibly sympathetic elements of the
>middle class store clientele that this is not some sham or scam
>(viz. the reactions on this list). These are days of very large
>income disparities and much of today's (upper) middle class was not
>born to union households, like they were 20 years ago. And of
>course the union's leadership lacks the drive and political vision
>to reach the community. Sad because it would take only a few partly
>paid organizers from the anti-globalization crowd of the Columbia
>University community.... (Michael Pollack...interested?)

It could be the other way around. I mean, maybe, Michael was not sure if the picket was a genuine union picket or a competitor's stunt because activists handing out flyers didn't sound like supermarket workers. For informational pickets like the one that Michael asked about, unions sometimes (or often, depending on areas) rely more on student activists, community activists, and paid union organizers than their own rank-and-file members. -- Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * "Proud of Britain": <http://www.proudofbritain.net/ > and <http://www.proud-of-britain.org.uk/>



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