Workers *are* powerless as long as they remain unorganised. Mike Ballard
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In my minor ad hoc efforts to test the waters in my former work place, I realized that the basic problem was imagination. I think most US has little or no memory or history to start from, so they can't get passed first base, the idea itself. The only reason I can, is because I've seen it work, but long ago of course.
I stopped by on my way home from an errand after 5:00 the other day. One of the guys I talked to during breaks was outside having a smoke. So I pulled over. He told me they cut my replacement to half time, fired the long time receptionist-intake woman who I really liked and he was working passed hours with no over time.
Well, there you have it. I don't know this for certain, but I suspect if we had some kind of organized small workforce we could have drawn attention to the consequences of endless healthcare budget cuts and kept up a story going in the local press. The main point here is to keep the local, mostly liberal political officials focused in the right direction, since constituencies in the news tend to do that. Silence is taken as evidence of benign conditions and political support.
The other point I wanted to make on the earlier post was that workers do not need permission from anybody. Did MLK or Pete Seeger have permission? In this country it's nice to have a union, but it's become basically irrelevant. The Chrysler workers don't need the UAW's permission to take over their closing plants, and they are not going to get it anyway. Well, to hell with you Jack, as they use to say.
So what if a union signs a contract not to strike? That's the union, not the workers. Worker solidarity doesn't depend on unions. Unions depend on worker solidarity. When they don't have that as organic and integral, then they start talking discipline. Discipline ain't solidarity.
But talk like that is way too advanced for US labor to grasp. I mean ultimately, what's the difference between union and non-union actions and organizing? We have handmade signs and they have printed ones?
You get a hint of this business of pickets when you forget there are local laws about the thickness of the wood for a picket. Evidently in the days of yore, workers used more substantial things like rough cut grape stakes which don't break so easy...
CG