The Occupy movement is the first real, major, popular reaction that could avert this. But it’s going to be necessary to face the fact that it’s a long, hard struggle. You don’t win victories tomorrow. You have to form the structures that will be sustained, that will go on through hard times and can win major victories. And there are a lot of things that can be done.
Toward Worker Takeover
I mentioned before that, in the 1930s, one of the most effective actions was the sit-down strike. And the reason is simple: that’s just a step before the takeover of an industry.
Through the 1970s, as the decline was setting in, there were some important events that took place. In 1977, U.S. Steel decided to close one of its major facilities in Youngstown, Ohio. Instead of just walking away, the workforce and the community decided to get together and buy it from the company, hand it over to the work force, and turn it into a worker-run, worker-managed facility. They didn’t win. But with enough popular support, they could have won. It’s a topic that Gar Alperovitz and Staughton Lynd, the lawyer for the workers and community, have discussed in detail.
It was a partial victory because, even though they lost, it set off other efforts. And now, throughout Ohio, and in other places, there’s a scattering of hundreds, maybe thousands, of sometimes not-so-small worker/community-owned industries that could become worker-managed. And that’s the basis for a real revolution. That’s how it takes place.
In one of the suburbs of Boston, about a year ago, something similar happened. A multinational decided to close down a profitable, functioning facility carrying out some high-tech manufacturing. Evidently, it just wasn’t profitable enough for them. The workforce and the union offered to buy it, take it over, and run it themselves. The multinational decided to close it down instead, probably for reasons of class-consciousness. I don’t think they want things like this to happen. If there had been enough popular support, if there had been something like the Occupy movement that could have gotten involved, they might have succeeded. (Don't forget the workers' takeover at Republic Windows and Doors. -ed)
And there are other things going on like that. In fact, some of them are major. Not long ago, President Barack Obama took over the auto industry, which was basically owned by the public. And there were a number of things that could have been done. One was what was done: reconstitute it so that it could be handed back to the ownership, or very similar ownership, and continue on its traditional path.
The other possibility was to hand it over to the workforce -- which owned it anyway -- turn it into a worker-owned, worker-managed major industrial system that’s a big part of the economy, and have it produce things that people need. And there’s a lot that we need.
We all know or should know that the United States is extremely backward globally in high-speed transportation, and it’s very serious. It not only affects people’s lives, but the economy. In that regard, here’s a personal story. I happened to be giving talks in France a couple of months ago and had to take a train from Avignon in southern France to Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, the same distance as from Washington, DC, to Boston. It took two hours. I don’t know if you’ve ever taken the train from Washington to Boston, but it’s operating at about the same speed it was 60 years ago when my wife and I first took it. It’s a scandal.
It could be done here as it’s been done in Europe. They had the capacity to do it, the skilled work force. It would have taken a little popular support, but it could have made a major change in the economy.
Just to make it more surreal, while this option was being avoided, the Obama administration was sending its transportation secretary to Spain to get contracts for developing high-speed rail for the United States, which could have been done right in the rust belt, which is being closed down. There are no economic reasons why this can’t happen. These are class reasons, and reflect the lack of popular political mobilization. Things like this continue.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus in the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. A TomDispatch regular, he is the author of numerous best-selling political works, most recently, Hopes and Prospects, Making the Future, and Occupy, published by Zuccotti Park Press, from which this speech, given last October, is excerpted and adapted. His web site is www.chomsky.info
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
CAL NURSES STRIKE MAY 1st
Re: M1GS (Los Angeles May 1st General Strike - all our resources are going towards a 4,500 Registered Nurse Strike against Sutter Health in Northern California. This has been targeted to exert the maximum leverage at a critical point in the struggle against the 1%. Sutter has proposed outrageous cuts - to our members' standards, but more importantly to "unprofitable" aspects of patient care, mostly services to the most vulnerable members of the 99%. Would we be striking Sutter at some point anyway if not for the Occupation's call for a General Strike? Absolutely - this is the only language they understand and the struggle against market based healthcare goes on 24/7/365. But the date is not an accident, and we stand in solidarity with the Occupation and support all the actions nationwide taking place for International Workers' Day.
-James Moy
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/northern-california-sutter-rns-to-strike-may-1-to-protest-attack-on-patient/
Northern California Sutter RNs to Strike May 1 To Protest Attack on Patient Care, RN Standards
Where to Join the Picket Line, and at Strike Rallies Tuesday
Northern California RNs will strike eight Sutter corporation hospitals Tuesday, May 1 to once again protest the wealthy corporation’s outrageous demands for more than 100 reductions in patient care protections and RN standards.
The nurses will also protest ongoing cuts in patient services – the latest being the expected announcement by Sutter next week that it intends to close the San Leandro hospital, abandoning the thousands of patients who depend on that hospital every year for acute care.
Sutter is making these demands for contract concessions and sweeping cuts in care despite making over $4 billion in profits since 2007, and handing its chief executive Pat Fry at 215 percent pay hike to over $4 million a year, in addition to salaries of over $1 million a year to some 20 other top executives.
Join the Sutter RNs on the picket line, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the following facilities:
Alta Bates Main Campus, 2450 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley
Alta Bates Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way, Berkeley (psychiatric care facility)
Alta Bates Summit Campus, 350 Hawthorne Avenue, Oakland
Eden Medical Center, 20103 Lake Chabot Rd, Castro Valley
San Leandro Hospital, 13855 E. 14th St., San Leandro
Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, 1501 Trousdale Drive, Burlingame
Mills Health Center, 100 S. San Mateo Drive, San Mateo
Sutter Lakeside Hospital, 5176 Hill Road East, Lakeport
Novato Community Hospital, 180 Rowland Way, Novato
Sutter Solano Medical Center, 300 Hospital Drive, Vallejo
Sutter Delta Medical Center, 3901 Lone Tree Way, Antioch
Rallies are planned at the following locations:
Alta Bates, Ashby hospital, Berkeley – 11 a.m.
Sutter Solano, Vallejo – 11 a.m.
Sutter Delta, Antioch – 12 noon
Eden Medical – 12 noon
Alta Bates, Summit hospital – 1 p.m.
Peninsula – 2 p.m.
Sutter Lakeside- 3 p.m.
San Leandro – 3 p.m., followed by Town Hall meeting, San Leandro Senior Community Center, 13909 E. 14th Street
Among the many concession demands at various Sutter hospitals:
Eliminating paid sick leave, effectively forcing nurses to work when ill, exposing already frail and vulnerable patients to further infection.
Forcing RNs to work in hospital areas for which they do not have appropriate clinical expertise, again a safety risk for patients.
Huge increases in nurses’ out-of-pocket costs for health coverage for themselves and family members.
Limits on the ability of charge nurses, who make clinical assignments for nurses, to address staffing shortages, subjecting patients to the danger of unsafe staffing.
Forcing RNs to work overtime, exposing patients to care from fatigued nurses who are more prone to making medical errors.
Eliminating retiree health plans.
Eliminating all health coverage for nurses who work less than 30 hours per week.
Reduced pregnancy and family medical leave, undermining RN families.
Concurrently, Sutter continues to make substantial cuts in patient services throughout the region, especially in areas it considers inadequately profitable, such as mental health, cancer screening, and services for women, children, and seniors.
“Sutter’s tone at the bargaining table has been dismissive and disrespectful of nurses' concerns,” said Mills-Peninsula RN Genel Morgan. “They have misjudged our resolve to stand up and safeguard our nursing standards, and to ensure our patients don’t suffer from Sutter wanting to cut these standards. Sutter has used half truths and lies to justify their objectives, but we see right through them, much as the community sees through them whenever Sutter cuts services. “
“Sutter has passed the stage of ‘too big to fail’ going to ‘too big to care’,” said CNA/NNU co-president Zenei Cortez, RN. “They have shown they are far more interested in amassing wealth than caring about community health or the nurses who provide care for the patients who are the base of Sutter’s huge profits. Sutter RNs will never accept a reduced voice to speak out for patients, or an erosion in their own standards.”
Sutter’s additional abandonment of communities and patients (partial list):
End breast cancer screening for women with disabilities and most bone marrow transplant services for cancer patients at Alta Bates Summit in Oakland and Berkeley.
Stop providing psychiatric services under contract with Sacramento County for more than 225 Sacramento children.
Close specialized pediatric care, acute rehabilitation, dialysis, and skilled nursing care services at Mills and Peninsula hospitals in Burlingame and San Mateo.
Close home health services and limit acute-care hospital stays in Lakeport.
Close acute rehabilitation services, skilled nursing care, and psychiatric services, and substantially downgrade nursery care for sick children at Eden Hospital in Castro Valley.
Sharply cut psychiatric care at Herrick Hospital in Berkeley.
Close a birthing center at Sutter Auburn Faith, forcing new mothers and families to travel up to 100 miles for obstetrics care, while giving a $1 million gift to the Sacramento Kings.
Close pediatric, psychiatric, lactation, and transitional care services in Santa Rosa.
-James Moy
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/northern-california-sutter-rns-to-strike-may-1-to-protest-attack-on-patient/
Northern California Sutter RNs to Strike May 1 To Protest Attack on Patient Care, RN Standards
Where to Join the Picket Line, and at Strike Rallies Tuesday
Northern California RNs will strike eight Sutter corporation hospitals Tuesday, May 1 to once again protest the wealthy corporation’s outrageous demands for more than 100 reductions in patient care protections and RN standards.
The nurses will also protest ongoing cuts in patient services – the latest being the expected announcement by Sutter next week that it intends to close the San Leandro hospital, abandoning the thousands of patients who depend on that hospital every year for acute care.
Sutter is making these demands for contract concessions and sweeping cuts in care despite making over $4 billion in profits since 2007, and handing its chief executive Pat Fry at 215 percent pay hike to over $4 million a year, in addition to salaries of over $1 million a year to some 20 other top executives.
Join the Sutter RNs on the picket line, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the following facilities:
Alta Bates Main Campus, 2450 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley
Alta Bates Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way, Berkeley (psychiatric care facility)
Alta Bates Summit Campus, 350 Hawthorne Avenue, Oakland
Eden Medical Center, 20103 Lake Chabot Rd, Castro Valley
San Leandro Hospital, 13855 E. 14th St., San Leandro
Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, 1501 Trousdale Drive, Burlingame
Mills Health Center, 100 S. San Mateo Drive, San Mateo
Sutter Lakeside Hospital, 5176 Hill Road East, Lakeport
Novato Community Hospital, 180 Rowland Way, Novato
Sutter Solano Medical Center, 300 Hospital Drive, Vallejo
Sutter Delta Medical Center, 3901 Lone Tree Way, Antioch
Rallies are planned at the following locations:
Alta Bates, Ashby hospital, Berkeley – 11 a.m.
Sutter Solano, Vallejo – 11 a.m.
Sutter Delta, Antioch – 12 noon
Eden Medical – 12 noon
Alta Bates, Summit hospital – 1 p.m.
Peninsula – 2 p.m.
Sutter Lakeside- 3 p.m.
San Leandro – 3 p.m., followed by Town Hall meeting, San Leandro Senior Community Center, 13909 E. 14th Street
Among the many concession demands at various Sutter hospitals:
Eliminating paid sick leave, effectively forcing nurses to work when ill, exposing already frail and vulnerable patients to further infection.
Forcing RNs to work in hospital areas for which they do not have appropriate clinical expertise, again a safety risk for patients.
Huge increases in nurses’ out-of-pocket costs for health coverage for themselves and family members.
Limits on the ability of charge nurses, who make clinical assignments for nurses, to address staffing shortages, subjecting patients to the danger of unsafe staffing.
Forcing RNs to work overtime, exposing patients to care from fatigued nurses who are more prone to making medical errors.
Eliminating retiree health plans.
Eliminating all health coverage for nurses who work less than 30 hours per week.
Reduced pregnancy and family medical leave, undermining RN families.
Concurrently, Sutter continues to make substantial cuts in patient services throughout the region, especially in areas it considers inadequately profitable, such as mental health, cancer screening, and services for women, children, and seniors.
“Sutter’s tone at the bargaining table has been dismissive and disrespectful of nurses' concerns,” said Mills-Peninsula RN Genel Morgan. “They have misjudged our resolve to stand up and safeguard our nursing standards, and to ensure our patients don’t suffer from Sutter wanting to cut these standards. Sutter has used half truths and lies to justify their objectives, but we see right through them, much as the community sees through them whenever Sutter cuts services. “
“Sutter has passed the stage of ‘too big to fail’ going to ‘too big to care’,” said CNA/NNU co-president Zenei Cortez, RN. “They have shown they are far more interested in amassing wealth than caring about community health or the nurses who provide care for the patients who are the base of Sutter’s huge profits. Sutter RNs will never accept a reduced voice to speak out for patients, or an erosion in their own standards.”
Sutter’s additional abandonment of communities and patients (partial list):
End breast cancer screening for women with disabilities and most bone marrow transplant services for cancer patients at Alta Bates Summit in Oakland and Berkeley.
Stop providing psychiatric services under contract with Sacramento County for more than 225 Sacramento children.
Close specialized pediatric care, acute rehabilitation, dialysis, and skilled nursing care services at Mills and Peninsula hospitals in Burlingame and San Mateo.
Close home health services and limit acute-care hospital stays in Lakeport.
Close acute rehabilitation services, skilled nursing care, and psychiatric services, and substantially downgrade nursery care for sick children at Eden Hospital in Castro Valley.
Sharply cut psychiatric care at Herrick Hospital in Berkeley.
Close a birthing center at Sutter Auburn Faith, forcing new mothers and families to travel up to 100 miles for obstetrics care, while giving a $1 million gift to the Sacramento Kings.
Close pediatric, psychiatric, lactation, and transitional care services in Santa Rosa.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
British Unions Strike for Pensions May 10
In UK 475,000 to strike 10 May: let’s kick David Cameron and keep kicking
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Brits Hits the Bricks
by Sadie Robinson
Up to half a million workers will strike over pensions on 10 May.
The action will bring together members of the Unite, PCS, UCU, Nipsa and RMT unions. It will hit hospitals, colleges, job centres, transport and other key public services.
And it will show that the mood to fight the Tory (Conservative Party) attacks has not gone away. The strike will see 100,000 Unite workers in the health service walk out.
Frank Wood is on Unite’s national executive committee and is a bio-medical scientist at King’s Hospital in London.
He told Socialist Worker, “It is absolutely critical that we don’t retreat on pensions. This attack is part of a coordinated attack by the government—we need a coordinated response.
“People are looking to the Unions to give a lead. We must get organised now.”
Laura Miles, a member of the UCU’s national executive committee, said, “This is a fight against the government, not individual employers.
“That means we need to work with other unions to build serious action. Everyone knows that one-day strikes won’t be enough to win.
Sustained
“In the UCU lecturers are fighting for more action after 10 May—including rolling strikes. We need to rebuild a sustained, national campaign.”
The Tories have already forced attacks on millions of public sector workers.
They have increased monthly pension contributions and switched the inflation measure that pensions are linked to—slashing their value.
They also want to force people to work longer before they can receive their full pension.
Frank said, “This week NHS staff will be getting their pay slips with an average £30 less as a result of the attack.
“This is quite a blow on top of a three-year pay freeze, attempts to introduce regional pay and harsh cuts.”
A magnificent coordinated strike on 30 November last year saw around 2.6 million workers take action together.
But since then many union leaders have either refused to call more action or have dithered over the next steps.
The NUT and UCU unions called a strike in London on 28 March. Other workers are glad to be joining this new strike.
Laura Jowell is a PCS rep in Bradford, west Yorkshire. She told Socialist Worker, “People are relieved that we’re coming out again on 10 May.
“There’s a sense that we’re building towards something bigger in June. This strike can kickstart the dispute again.”
Rage
Aileen Scott-McFarlane is a Unite rep and lab technician in London.
She said that in her workplace “the feeling of rage is now at boiling point”.
“It’s as though the feeling to fight is stronger than before. Now we are getting organised to make sure the strike is solid.”
The Tories’ policies will pave the way for more harsh attacks on ordinary people’s living standards.
The government plans to raise the state retirement age for men and women to 66 by 2020.
One study found that four in 10 firms expect that by 2020 workers will retire at 67 or later. And one in six companies expects the typical retirement age to be between 68 and 70.
“My quality of life is being threatened,” said Aileen. “And this isn’t a one-off—if they get this through, they’ll come back for more.”
comment on article | email | print
Share:
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Brits Hits the Bricks
by Sadie Robinson
Up to half a million workers will strike over pensions on 10 May.
The action will bring together members of the Unite, PCS, UCU, Nipsa and RMT unions. It will hit hospitals, colleges, job centres, transport and other key public services.
And it will show that the mood to fight the Tory (Conservative Party) attacks has not gone away. The strike will see 100,000 Unite workers in the health service walk out.
Frank Wood is on Unite’s national executive committee and is a bio-medical scientist at King’s Hospital in London.
He told Socialist Worker, “It is absolutely critical that we don’t retreat on pensions. This attack is part of a coordinated attack by the government—we need a coordinated response.
“People are looking to the Unions to give a lead. We must get organised now.”
Laura Miles, a member of the UCU’s national executive committee, said, “This is a fight against the government, not individual employers.
“That means we need to work with other unions to build serious action. Everyone knows that one-day strikes won’t be enough to win.
Sustained
“In the UCU lecturers are fighting for more action after 10 May—including rolling strikes. We need to rebuild a sustained, national campaign.”
The Tories have already forced attacks on millions of public sector workers.
They have increased monthly pension contributions and switched the inflation measure that pensions are linked to—slashing their value.
They also want to force people to work longer before they can receive their full pension.
Frank said, “This week NHS staff will be getting their pay slips with an average £30 less as a result of the attack.
“This is quite a blow on top of a three-year pay freeze, attempts to introduce regional pay and harsh cuts.”
A magnificent coordinated strike on 30 November last year saw around 2.6 million workers take action together.
But since then many union leaders have either refused to call more action or have dithered over the next steps.
The NUT and UCU unions called a strike in London on 28 March. Other workers are glad to be joining this new strike.
Laura Jowell is a PCS rep in Bradford, west Yorkshire. She told Socialist Worker, “People are relieved that we’re coming out again on 10 May.
“There’s a sense that we’re building towards something bigger in June. This strike can kickstart the dispute again.”
Rage
Aileen Scott-McFarlane is a Unite rep and lab technician in London.
She said that in her workplace “the feeling of rage is now at boiling point”.
“It’s as though the feeling to fight is stronger than before. Now we are getting organised to make sure the strike is solid.”
The Tories’ policies will pave the way for more harsh attacks on ordinary people’s living standards.
The government plans to raise the state retirement age for men and women to 66 by 2020.
One study found that four in 10 firms expect that by 2020 workers will retire at 67 or later. And one in six companies expects the typical retirement age to be between 68 and 70.
“My quality of life is being threatened,” said Aileen. “And this isn’t a one-off—if they get this through, they’ll come back for more.”
Jefferson and Buffet Rule
Thomas Jefferson and Obama's Buffet Rule
I don't know what Founding Father and President Thomas Jefferson would have thought about TV, cars, spaceships, cellphones, skyscrapers, computers or nuclear weapons. But I do know what Jefferson would have thought about the Buffett Rule. He would have liked it.
The Buffett Rule is the Obama Administration's proposal to adopt a 30% minimum tax rate on personal income above $1 million a year. It would promote one of the central tenets of progressivism: that the burden of taxes should fall on the rich, not the poor.
In 1811, two years after Jefferson left the Presidency, Jefferson wrote a letter to General Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a hero of the American Revolution. Jefferson said that he supported taxes (then Tariffs, since there was no income tax yet) falling entirely on the wealthy. As Jefferson explained: "The farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of this country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings."
Here is someone else who was an outspoken proponent of progressive taxation: Adam Smith, who literally "wrote the book" on capitalism. In 1776, in The Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote:
"The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."
(I wonder: When Adam Smith wrote about the "luxuries and vanities" of the rich, was he contemplating Mitt Romney's elevator for Romney's car? Or is that simply beyond contemplation?)
Two hundred years ago, when America was founded, progressive taxation was viewed as just common sense. We still have common sense, don't we?
First, let's see the Buffett Rule for individuals. Then the Buffett Rule for corporations. That would be progressive. And that would be progress.
Courage,
Alan Grayson
Congressman with Guts
I don't know what Founding Father and President Thomas Jefferson would have thought about TV, cars, spaceships, cellphones, skyscrapers, computers or nuclear weapons. But I do know what Jefferson would have thought about the Buffett Rule. He would have liked it.
The Buffett Rule is the Obama Administration's proposal to adopt a 30% minimum tax rate on personal income above $1 million a year. It would promote one of the central tenets of progressivism: that the burden of taxes should fall on the rich, not the poor.
In 1811, two years after Jefferson left the Presidency, Jefferson wrote a letter to General Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a hero of the American Revolution. Jefferson said that he supported taxes (then Tariffs, since there was no income tax yet) falling entirely on the wealthy. As Jefferson explained: "The farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of this country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings."
Here is someone else who was an outspoken proponent of progressive taxation: Adam Smith, who literally "wrote the book" on capitalism. In 1776, in The Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote:
"The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."
(I wonder: When Adam Smith wrote about the "luxuries and vanities" of the rich, was he contemplating Mitt Romney's elevator for Romney's car? Or is that simply beyond contemplation?)
Two hundred years ago, when America was founded, progressive taxation was viewed as just common sense. We still have common sense, don't we?
First, let's see the Buffett Rule for individuals. Then the Buffett Rule for corporations. That would be progressive. And that would be progress.
Courage,
Alan Grayson
Congressman with Guts
Democrats Must Ask Labor
Big Labor's Big MomentBy: Jonathan Allen and Robin Bravender
For years Big Labor has been looking small, but it doesn’t feel that way now.
Unions won an Ohio referendum overturning Gov. John Kasich’s effort to restrict collective bargaining for government employees.
They built a recall campaign that could still knock Republican Scott Walker out of the governor’s mansion in Maple Bluff, Wis.
And on Tuesday night, they kneecapped Rep. Jason Altmire in a Pennsylvania Democratic primary — getting payback for his vote against the president’s health care law.
Not bad for a movement that had been read its last rites.
“The labor movement has huge momentum in terms of electoral politics,” said Robert Reich, former Clinton administration labor secretary. “Many union members have been stirred up by the anti-union animus of the Republicans.”
It’s the GOP that threw the unions a lifeline by going too far when it took office after the 2010 election, labor sources say, and it has only itself to blame if the public is more sympathetic to working stiffs than free-marketers.
“I think it was a clear overreach by some of these right-wing Republicans,” said Ricky Feller, the associate political director at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Former Wisconsin Rep. Dave Obey, a labor-loving Democrat who ran the House Appropriations Committee, said Unions are fighting for survival against a brand of conservative Republicans — he named Walker, Kasich and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan — whose ideology makes no room for them.
“They genuflect Ayn Rand three times a day before they go to work and they come in, whether it’s at the federal level or the state level, and they screw working people every time they turn around. It shouldn’t mystify people why [unions] are more active,” Obey said. “They have their backs against the wall. The governor has a switchblade out and it’s at their throat. So they’re going to fight back with everything they have.”
What they have — money and people — are the two sources that legendary organizer Saul Alinsky said create power.
The people power was evident at the ballot box and on petitions in Ohio and Wisconsin, and it has taken hold in the rise of populist sentiment both within the Democratic Party and outside it.
“When you see these right-wing attacks on everything and then the attempts to blame the victim … it mobilizes our people,” said United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard.
Unions’ money and extensive ground game operation, long used to boost Democrats in national races, have been flowing to the states of late.
It helped fuel the ouster of several Republican state senators in Wisconsin last year and the effort to boot Walker.
“People are pumped up and that’s what our friend Scott Walker caused,” Feller said, adding that Walker’s opponents have a “good shot at him,” in the June recall election. “I think there’s some buyer’s remorse out there.”
Cash reserves are also being used selectively in races for federal office and in Democratic primaries. A labor coalition called Working for Us, which is headed by former AFL-CIO operative Steve Rosenthal, spent more than $50,000 on telephone calls and mailers aimed at helping Rep. Mark Critz (D-Pa.) beat Altmire in Tuesday’s incumbent-vs.-incumbent primary in western Pennsylvania.
Nearly 20 labor groups, including the United Steelworkers, the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, threw their weight behind Critz. Gerard of USW attended a pro-Critz rally earlier this month and SEIU launched a get-out-the-vote operation on his behalf.
With new forms of soft money exploding onto the political scene, Unions’ help is in heavy demand.
President Barack Obama, who turned up his nose at contributions from corporations and lobbyists, wants unions to help underwrite the cost of the party’s national convention this year, according to Bloomberg News. The request comes even as major labor groups are boycotting events in Charlotte because the city and the state of North Carolina are hostile to unions.
But Obama has nowhere else to turn, according to Democratic sources.
“The only groups that have a significant amount of money that they can play with is labor,” said a Democratic operative familiar with labor politics. “It puts labor in a good position.”
Labor groups say they can’t compete in the air wars against conservative groups that intend to pour hundreds of millions into defeating Democrats this year.
But they’ve long used their own extensive cash reserves to support candidates — principally Democrats — on the ground.
“The only way to fight big money is with lots of ordinary folks,” Gerard said.
Union leaders say that while they’re relishing some of their recent victories, they’re not getting comfortable just yet.
“We’re not at all cocky about this,” said AFL-CIO Political Director Michael Podhorzer. “I definitely think that it’s a very uphill fight.”
Some of organized labor’s critics doubt whether unions’ latest victories mark a true resurgence.
“I guess it depends on your definition of ‘resurgence,’” said Patrick Semmens, a spokesman for the anti-union National Right to Work Committee. He noted that unions failed to block Indiana from becoming the 23rd right-to-work state and couldn’t hold off efforts to curtail labor’s power in traditionally union friendly states like Ohio and Wisconsin, even though the Ohio measure was later defeated on the ballot.
Over the long term, the numbers aren’t looking great for labor as the percentage of the unionized workforce nationwide continues to dwindle.
“So while organized labor is fired up and has a lot of ground troops and is still able to donate relatively generously to campaigns, the ranks of organized labor are still declining overall,” said Reich, who is now a public policy professor at the University of California-Berkeley.
And he’s not expecting the GOP to discontinue its attacks. “We could be witnessing the start of a kind of no-holds-barred gloves off Republican assault on organized labor,” Reich said. “If politics is war by another name and if you want to knock out the enemy, then what better way to do it than to directly attack organized labor?”
Still, union leaders say they’re in a much better place than they were two years ago, and some are looking forward to a fight against Mitt Romney, which promises to put their issues front and center in the campaign.
“You never know what kind of gifts Mitt Romney is going to give you,” said Feller of AFSCME. The millionaire former private equity investor is known for off-the-cuff statements that make him seem out of touch with the working class, and the Obama campaign is certain to hammer him on the income inequality gap.
“I think there’s a great opportunity to draw contrasts between the extreme ideas of Mitt Romney and the like and where the president is,” said SEIU Political Director Brandon Davis.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75626.html
For years Big Labor has been looking small, but it doesn’t feel that way now.
Unions won an Ohio referendum overturning Gov. John Kasich’s effort to restrict collective bargaining for government employees.
They built a recall campaign that could still knock Republican Scott Walker out of the governor’s mansion in Maple Bluff, Wis.
And on Tuesday night, they kneecapped Rep. Jason Altmire in a Pennsylvania Democratic primary — getting payback for his vote against the president’s health care law.
Not bad for a movement that had been read its last rites.
“The labor movement has huge momentum in terms of electoral politics,” said Robert Reich, former Clinton administration labor secretary. “Many union members have been stirred up by the anti-union animus of the Republicans.”
It’s the GOP that threw the unions a lifeline by going too far when it took office after the 2010 election, labor sources say, and it has only itself to blame if the public is more sympathetic to working stiffs than free-marketers.
“I think it was a clear overreach by some of these right-wing Republicans,” said Ricky Feller, the associate political director at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Former Wisconsin Rep. Dave Obey, a labor-loving Democrat who ran the House Appropriations Committee, said Unions are fighting for survival against a brand of conservative Republicans — he named Walker, Kasich and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan — whose ideology makes no room for them.
“They genuflect Ayn Rand three times a day before they go to work and they come in, whether it’s at the federal level or the state level, and they screw working people every time they turn around. It shouldn’t mystify people why [unions] are more active,” Obey said. “They have their backs against the wall. The governor has a switchblade out and it’s at their throat. So they’re going to fight back with everything they have.”
What they have — money and people — are the two sources that legendary organizer Saul Alinsky said create power.
The people power was evident at the ballot box and on petitions in Ohio and Wisconsin, and it has taken hold in the rise of populist sentiment both within the Democratic Party and outside it.
“When you see these right-wing attacks on everything and then the attempts to blame the victim … it mobilizes our people,” said United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard.
Unions’ money and extensive ground game operation, long used to boost Democrats in national races, have been flowing to the states of late.
It helped fuel the ouster of several Republican state senators in Wisconsin last year and the effort to boot Walker.
“People are pumped up and that’s what our friend Scott Walker caused,” Feller said, adding that Walker’s opponents have a “good shot at him,” in the June recall election. “I think there’s some buyer’s remorse out there.”
Cash reserves are also being used selectively in races for federal office and in Democratic primaries. A labor coalition called Working for Us, which is headed by former AFL-CIO operative Steve Rosenthal, spent more than $50,000 on telephone calls and mailers aimed at helping Rep. Mark Critz (D-Pa.) beat Altmire in Tuesday’s incumbent-vs.-incumbent primary in western Pennsylvania.
Nearly 20 labor groups, including the United Steelworkers, the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, threw their weight behind Critz. Gerard of USW attended a pro-Critz rally earlier this month and SEIU launched a get-out-the-vote operation on his behalf.
With new forms of soft money exploding onto the political scene, Unions’ help is in heavy demand.
President Barack Obama, who turned up his nose at contributions from corporations and lobbyists, wants unions to help underwrite the cost of the party’s national convention this year, according to Bloomberg News. The request comes even as major labor groups are boycotting events in Charlotte because the city and the state of North Carolina are hostile to unions.
But Obama has nowhere else to turn, according to Democratic sources.
“The only groups that have a significant amount of money that they can play with is labor,” said a Democratic operative familiar with labor politics. “It puts labor in a good position.”
Labor groups say they can’t compete in the air wars against conservative groups that intend to pour hundreds of millions into defeating Democrats this year.
But they’ve long used their own extensive cash reserves to support candidates — principally Democrats — on the ground.
“The only way to fight big money is with lots of ordinary folks,” Gerard said.
Union leaders say that while they’re relishing some of their recent victories, they’re not getting comfortable just yet.
“We’re not at all cocky about this,” said AFL-CIO Political Director Michael Podhorzer. “I definitely think that it’s a very uphill fight.”
Some of organized labor’s critics doubt whether unions’ latest victories mark a true resurgence.
“I guess it depends on your definition of ‘resurgence,’” said Patrick Semmens, a spokesman for the anti-union National Right to Work Committee. He noted that unions failed to block Indiana from becoming the 23rd right-to-work state and couldn’t hold off efforts to curtail labor’s power in traditionally union friendly states like Ohio and Wisconsin, even though the Ohio measure was later defeated on the ballot.
Over the long term, the numbers aren’t looking great for labor as the percentage of the unionized workforce nationwide continues to dwindle.
“So while organized labor is fired up and has a lot of ground troops and is still able to donate relatively generously to campaigns, the ranks of organized labor are still declining overall,” said Reich, who is now a public policy professor at the University of California-Berkeley.
And he’s not expecting the GOP to discontinue its attacks. “We could be witnessing the start of a kind of no-holds-barred gloves off Republican assault on organized labor,” Reich said. “If politics is war by another name and if you want to knock out the enemy, then what better way to do it than to directly attack organized labor?”
Still, union leaders say they’re in a much better place than they were two years ago, and some are looking forward to a fight against Mitt Romney, which promises to put their issues front and center in the campaign.
“You never know what kind of gifts Mitt Romney is going to give you,” said Feller of AFSCME. The millionaire former private equity investor is known for off-the-cuff statements that make him seem out of touch with the working class, and the Obama campaign is certain to hammer him on the income inequality gap.
“I think there’s a great opportunity to draw contrasts between the extreme ideas of Mitt Romney and the like and where the president is,” said SEIU Political Director Brandon Davis.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75626.html
Monday, April 16, 2012
Canada Strikes Show Need for LABOR MOVEMENT
Attacks on Teachers, Airline Workers, and Public Pensions in Canada Highlight Need for a Fighting Labor Movement
by Roger Annis
A trend is taking hold across Canada of working class resistance to the capitalist crisis and attacks by governments and corporations on workers' rights and the social wage. Library workers in the city of Toronto and transit and university workers in Halifax recently went on strike, as did daycare workers in Quebec. Workers at Air Canada have staged a series of protests and strikes in the past year. Teachers and students in British Columbia recently struck for better education, while in Quebec students are waging a spectacular mass campaign against rises in post-secondary tuition fees. Provincial government workers are restive.
Some 300,000 government service workers in British Columbia are bargaining a new collective agreement and saying no to the same wage and services freeze the government is seeking to impose on teachers. The government of Ontario recently delivered a budget that aims to cut billions of dollars in services and thousands of jobs. Equally noticeable is the lag in organizing the broad solidarity necessary for these struggles to win. This article examines the two sides of a dynamic and unfolding reality.
Teachers Defend Education
The 41,000 members of the BC Teachers' Federation (BCTF) are in the midst of a bitter collective bargaining confrontation with the provincial government. They are fighting a two-year salary freeze that the Liberal government is seeking to impose. They also want to win back the right to bargain class sizes and other aspects of their work that directly affect the quality of the education they provide. Teachers began job action at the beginning of the school year, last September, declining to participate in voluntary activities and cooperate with administrators, including refusing to fill out report cards. Job action escalated into a three-day strike beginning March 5 when the government announced it would impose a draconian law to strip away the right to strike and send disputed issues to a skewed "mediation" process. Bill 22 says mediation must correspond to the government's guideline of a two-year, "net zero" increase to education spending. The bill was passed into law on March 17. It imposes stiff penalties on the union and individual teachers for strike or other job action. Further strike action appears unlikely. The union is mulling participation in the government's mediation, something it said earlier it would not do. It recently announced it would mount a major effort over the coming year to unseat the government. The next provincial election will take place in May 2013. Support for the teachers' struggle has been very strong in the province, including a province-wide strike by secondary school students on March 2. But it has been lacking from other unions. Notwithstanding the fact that the government and its popularity is "in free fall," according to the BCTF and confirmed by recent polls, the broader labor movement in the province has not mobilized in support of teachers. The BCTF expects it will get a more sympathetic ear should the opposition New Democratic Party get elected in 2013. The trade union-based party is leading the Liberals in the polls by a huge margin. But its leaders have stated they will not repeal Bill 22 and they have not said if and how they would satisfy teacher/parent/student grievances.
Airline Workers Get Hammered
Airline workers in Canada suffered a blow on March 18 and 19 when the aircraft maintenance company AVEOS staged a bankruptcy that has thrown some 2,600 highly skilled workers out of work in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. The company said it is out of money and may not even meet its salary and pension obligations to workers.The flagrant abuse of this bankruptcy spectacle has angered and offended the people of Quebec in particular. About 1,800 of the affected workers are in Montreal. For several days following the bankruptcy announcement, AVEOS workers protested and blocked traffic leading into the corporate offices of Air Canada in the city.On March 21, the National Assembly of Quebec (provincial government) passed a resolution unanimously demanding the federal government undertake "all possible legal recourse" to keep the AVEOS facility open. Talks and legal actions are underway to revive some or all of the shuttered AVEOS/Air Canada operation, including using money from the state-assisted Solidarity (capital investment) Fund of the Quebec Federation of Labour.In British Columbia, the legislative assembly unanimously adopted a resolution in early April that asks the federal government to accord to the AVEOS facility in Vancouver whatever job protection might be won in other cities.
Declining Conditions of Airline Workers
AVEOS was created in 2007 by Air Canada, the largest airline in the country. It was a spinoff of a portion of its aircraft maintenance division. The airline shifted its heavy maintenance work to the shadow company while keeping its line maintenance in house. ("Heavy maintenance" is the major overhaul that aircraft routinely require in order to remain safe to fly. "Line maintenance" is the repair and maintenance required by aircraft while in service, typically retained by airlines for reasons of quality control and speed of service.)Around the time that AVEOS was created, Air Canada purchased a heavy maintenance aircraft repair facility in El Salvador, where wages are about 15 percent of what the company pays in Canada. Although that facility became part of AVEOS, its ownership structure was jerry-rigged to keep it unaffected by a future 'bankruptcy' of its parent. The airline thus became well placed to shift its heavy maintenance elsewhere for a fraction of the cost.The moves to offload maintenance of aircraft were only the latest in a series of steps by investors to loot Air Canada of its accumulated value following the privatization of the airline in 1988. Among the many moves that have earned hundreds of millions of dollars for the directors and shareholders of Air Canada since its privatization are: Lowering of salaries and benefits of operations workers (cleaning, baggage handling, handing of planes at terminals, etc.) through a two-tier system of remuneration of new hires. Expansion of part-time and on-call work wherever possible. Purchase of Air Canada's largest competitor, Canadian Airlines, in 2001 and then declaration of insolvency in 2003 to liquidate debt from that and other acquisitions. Sale in the early 2000s of Air Canada's engine repair shops to a foreign buyer specializing in that work.Sale of the flyer rewards division of the airline. Creation of a short-haul (under three hours of flying), lower-wage division of the airline, called "Jazz." The gradual breakdown of common bargaining among the three or four major unions at the airline.Other attacks on Air Canada workers are taking place simultaneous to the AVEOS shutdown, notably against the right to bargain collective agreements. Beginning last year, the federal government now routinely outlaws strikes at the airline. Bargaining in 2011 prompted job actions by two of the three major unions at Air Canada -- the Canadian Autoworkers Union (ticket agents) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (flight attendants) -- but they also prompted anti-strike laws. No significant protest was mounted either by the affected unions or by the broader labor movement. Negotiated agreements with the CAW and CUPE included a new, lower-tier pension for new employees. This year, the government threatened the same anti-strike measure against the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) and its pilots association. Talks with the IAM are currently in mediation where the CAW/CUPE pattern will weigh heavily. Looming over the entire situation at the airline is the threat of a repeat performance of the 2003 bankruptcy. This could set the stage, as in 2003, to pressure workers for more wage and benefit concessions. Air Canada has unfunded pension obligations of more than $2 billion for its past and present employees.
Attack on Canada's Public Pension Plan
On March 29, the Conservative government that was re-elected with a parliamentary majority last year announced an unprecedented attack on Canada's public pension plan. The measure was contained in a budget projection that also targets cuts of key public services and several tens of thousands of jobs. If the pension measure passes through Parliament, the age of eligibility of the second tier of the pension plan, Old Age Security, will pass from age 65 to 67. OAS pays some $550 per month to pension earners of annual incomes below $69,000. An earlier attack in 2009 increased the penalties for those drawing the first tier of the national pension, the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), before the age of 65. Those drawing CPP at the earliest eligible age, 60, for example, will be penalized for life by 42 per cent, compared to the previous 30 per cent. This was a bipartisan attack supported by the then-official opposition party, the Liberals.
Lessons
Some important lessons flow from these current battles. The main one is the need for mass mobilization of workers if employer attacks are to be turned back. The days of relying on good will or favorable court decisions are long past.The public pension situation is instructive. In 2010, pressure from members was building on Canada's unions and their political party, the NDP, to launch a mass campaign to increase benefits of the Canada Pension Plan. This was fueled, in part, by the growing practice of companies (cf. Air Canada) to underfund their employee pension plans.The federal government deflected the mounting pressure by promising to legislate increases to the CPP. But it set a condition on union and NDP leaders: "Don't pressure us with mass actions on Parliament Hill." Union leaders acquiesced, the informal deal was on. Months later, the government reneged, announcing instead a new plan to give tax breaks to employee/employer-funded pension plans that invest in financial markets. In 1985, a mass movement dubbed "grey power" arose when the federal government of the time sought to lessen inflation protection for the public pension plan. No equivalent protest is happening in response to these latest cuts, but that could quickly change. Teachers in BC have learned firsthand the dubious benefit of court appeals as substitutes for strikes or other mass action. An appeal by the BCTF of two anti-union and anti-education laws adopted in 2002 took more than eight years to wind its way through the courts. The BC Supreme Court finally ruled that Bills 27 and 28 violated some of the basic rights of teachers. In the new Bill 22, the government formally repealed Bills 27 and 28 and then placed nearly identical language in the new law!Hospital workers in BC have been similarly disappointed by the courts. In 2004, the provincial government outlawed a province-wide strike of hospital workers and then proceeded to privatize some 8,500 jobs of hospital support staff and cut the wages of all other staff. Three and a half years later, the BC Supreme Court ruled the law illegal. The affected union declared a big victory, but the court's remedy was a miserly financial compensation of a few thousand dollars to those workers who lost their jobs.When AVEOS was created in 2007, every worker at Air Canada feared this was a move to eventually shift heavy maintenance work to lower-wage jurisdictions in other countries. Workers staged protests when the news broke.Leaders of the IAM and of provincial and federal federations of labor made blustery speeches saying the decision would not be allowed to pass. But the speeches ended in one feeble action -- an appeal to a federal court asking it to rule that the creation of AVEOS was in violation of the 1988 Air Canada Public Participation Act. That act was created to soften union opposition to the privatization of Air Canada, then a state enterprise. It directed Air Canada to maintain its "maintenance work" at three facilities -- Montreal, Toronto. and Winnipeg.1
In 2010, a federal judge accepted Air Canada's word that it planned to keep maintenance work in the targeted cities. The judge conveniently ignored a precise interpretation of what "maintenance work" constituted. Incredibly, if the IAM thought that AVEOS was being set up for an eventual downfall, it never said so publicly or acted accordingly. It turns out that Air Canada helped to precipitate the "bankruptcy" of AVEOS by quietly directing its work away from it. The long history of the dismantling of Air Canada -- what can only be described as the looting of a former public enterprise -- goes largely unmentioned by all parties involved.
What Road Ahead for Workers?
Private employers and especially federal and provincial governments are stepping up their attacks on jobs and public services. A more militant and coordinated response is needed by the union movement. All indications show the desire of workers for just such a course. Last year, the Occupy movement was widely hailed. Strike activity is on the upswing. Air Canada workers show the restive mood -- rank and file-initiated strikes and protests have become near commonplace and workers are typically rejecting concession agreements negotiated by their leaders.Working-class resistance has been strongest in Quebec. The social democratic NDP won a landslide victory in the province during the 2011 federal election. A mass student movement is refusing to bow to government threats and has mobilized tens of thousands in the streets.The challenge before the unions is to act as a social movement on behalf of the entire working class and break from the mould of job trusts focused on looking after the narrow interests of their dues-paying members. In the wake of the federal budget that attacked the OAS, newly elected leader of the NDP Tom Mulcair said the party would do "everything possible within the Parliamentary arena" to oppose the budget. But much more is needed. While it is useful to have a voice in Parliament on behalf of workers' interest, current battles will be won in the streets and on the picket lines. That is where attention and solidarity must be directed. Furthermore, all this will help open the door to the political challenge to capitalist rule that is needed and increasingly on the agenda. 1 The Air Canada maintenance facility in Vancouver was not named in the 1988 law because Air Canada only acquired it in 2001 through the purchase of Canadian Airlines.
Roger Annis may be contacted at rogerannis@telus.net
URL: mrzine.monthlyreview.org
by Roger Annis
A trend is taking hold across Canada of working class resistance to the capitalist crisis and attacks by governments and corporations on workers' rights and the social wage. Library workers in the city of Toronto and transit and university workers in Halifax recently went on strike, as did daycare workers in Quebec. Workers at Air Canada have staged a series of protests and strikes in the past year. Teachers and students in British Columbia recently struck for better education, while in Quebec students are waging a spectacular mass campaign against rises in post-secondary tuition fees. Provincial government workers are restive.
Some 300,000 government service workers in British Columbia are bargaining a new collective agreement and saying no to the same wage and services freeze the government is seeking to impose on teachers. The government of Ontario recently delivered a budget that aims to cut billions of dollars in services and thousands of jobs. Equally noticeable is the lag in organizing the broad solidarity necessary for these struggles to win. This article examines the two sides of a dynamic and unfolding reality.
Teachers Defend Education
The 41,000 members of the BC Teachers' Federation (BCTF) are in the midst of a bitter collective bargaining confrontation with the provincial government. They are fighting a two-year salary freeze that the Liberal government is seeking to impose. They also want to win back the right to bargain class sizes and other aspects of their work that directly affect the quality of the education they provide. Teachers began job action at the beginning of the school year, last September, declining to participate in voluntary activities and cooperate with administrators, including refusing to fill out report cards. Job action escalated into a three-day strike beginning March 5 when the government announced it would impose a draconian law to strip away the right to strike and send disputed issues to a skewed "mediation" process. Bill 22 says mediation must correspond to the government's guideline of a two-year, "net zero" increase to education spending. The bill was passed into law on March 17. It imposes stiff penalties on the union and individual teachers for strike or other job action. Further strike action appears unlikely. The union is mulling participation in the government's mediation, something it said earlier it would not do. It recently announced it would mount a major effort over the coming year to unseat the government. The next provincial election will take place in May 2013. Support for the teachers' struggle has been very strong in the province, including a province-wide strike by secondary school students on March 2. But it has been lacking from other unions. Notwithstanding the fact that the government and its popularity is "in free fall," according to the BCTF and confirmed by recent polls, the broader labor movement in the province has not mobilized in support of teachers. The BCTF expects it will get a more sympathetic ear should the opposition New Democratic Party get elected in 2013. The trade union-based party is leading the Liberals in the polls by a huge margin. But its leaders have stated they will not repeal Bill 22 and they have not said if and how they would satisfy teacher/parent/student grievances.
Airline Workers Get Hammered
Airline workers in Canada suffered a blow on March 18 and 19 when the aircraft maintenance company AVEOS staged a bankruptcy that has thrown some 2,600 highly skilled workers out of work in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. The company said it is out of money and may not even meet its salary and pension obligations to workers.The flagrant abuse of this bankruptcy spectacle has angered and offended the people of Quebec in particular. About 1,800 of the affected workers are in Montreal. For several days following the bankruptcy announcement, AVEOS workers protested and blocked traffic leading into the corporate offices of Air Canada in the city.On March 21, the National Assembly of Quebec (provincial government) passed a resolution unanimously demanding the federal government undertake "all possible legal recourse" to keep the AVEOS facility open. Talks and legal actions are underway to revive some or all of the shuttered AVEOS/Air Canada operation, including using money from the state-assisted Solidarity (capital investment) Fund of the Quebec Federation of Labour.In British Columbia, the legislative assembly unanimously adopted a resolution in early April that asks the federal government to accord to the AVEOS facility in Vancouver whatever job protection might be won in other cities.
Declining Conditions of Airline Workers
AVEOS was created in 2007 by Air Canada, the largest airline in the country. It was a spinoff of a portion of its aircraft maintenance division. The airline shifted its heavy maintenance work to the shadow company while keeping its line maintenance in house. ("Heavy maintenance" is the major overhaul that aircraft routinely require in order to remain safe to fly. "Line maintenance" is the repair and maintenance required by aircraft while in service, typically retained by airlines for reasons of quality control and speed of service.)Around the time that AVEOS was created, Air Canada purchased a heavy maintenance aircraft repair facility in El Salvador, where wages are about 15 percent of what the company pays in Canada. Although that facility became part of AVEOS, its ownership structure was jerry-rigged to keep it unaffected by a future 'bankruptcy' of its parent. The airline thus became well placed to shift its heavy maintenance elsewhere for a fraction of the cost.The moves to offload maintenance of aircraft were only the latest in a series of steps by investors to loot Air Canada of its accumulated value following the privatization of the airline in 1988. Among the many moves that have earned hundreds of millions of dollars for the directors and shareholders of Air Canada since its privatization are: Lowering of salaries and benefits of operations workers (cleaning, baggage handling, handing of planes at terminals, etc.) through a two-tier system of remuneration of new hires. Expansion of part-time and on-call work wherever possible. Purchase of Air Canada's largest competitor, Canadian Airlines, in 2001 and then declaration of insolvency in 2003 to liquidate debt from that and other acquisitions. Sale in the early 2000s of Air Canada's engine repair shops to a foreign buyer specializing in that work.Sale of the flyer rewards division of the airline. Creation of a short-haul (under three hours of flying), lower-wage division of the airline, called "Jazz." The gradual breakdown of common bargaining among the three or four major unions at the airline.Other attacks on Air Canada workers are taking place simultaneous to the AVEOS shutdown, notably against the right to bargain collective agreements. Beginning last year, the federal government now routinely outlaws strikes at the airline. Bargaining in 2011 prompted job actions by two of the three major unions at Air Canada -- the Canadian Autoworkers Union (ticket agents) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (flight attendants) -- but they also prompted anti-strike laws. No significant protest was mounted either by the affected unions or by the broader labor movement. Negotiated agreements with the CAW and CUPE included a new, lower-tier pension for new employees. This year, the government threatened the same anti-strike measure against the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) and its pilots association. Talks with the IAM are currently in mediation where the CAW/CUPE pattern will weigh heavily. Looming over the entire situation at the airline is the threat of a repeat performance of the 2003 bankruptcy. This could set the stage, as in 2003, to pressure workers for more wage and benefit concessions. Air Canada has unfunded pension obligations of more than $2 billion for its past and present employees.
Attack on Canada's Public Pension Plan
On March 29, the Conservative government that was re-elected with a parliamentary majority last year announced an unprecedented attack on Canada's public pension plan. The measure was contained in a budget projection that also targets cuts of key public services and several tens of thousands of jobs. If the pension measure passes through Parliament, the age of eligibility of the second tier of the pension plan, Old Age Security, will pass from age 65 to 67. OAS pays some $550 per month to pension earners of annual incomes below $69,000. An earlier attack in 2009 increased the penalties for those drawing the first tier of the national pension, the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), before the age of 65. Those drawing CPP at the earliest eligible age, 60, for example, will be penalized for life by 42 per cent, compared to the previous 30 per cent. This was a bipartisan attack supported by the then-official opposition party, the Liberals.
Lessons
Some important lessons flow from these current battles. The main one is the need for mass mobilization of workers if employer attacks are to be turned back. The days of relying on good will or favorable court decisions are long past.The public pension situation is instructive. In 2010, pressure from members was building on Canada's unions and their political party, the NDP, to launch a mass campaign to increase benefits of the Canada Pension Plan. This was fueled, in part, by the growing practice of companies (cf. Air Canada) to underfund their employee pension plans.The federal government deflected the mounting pressure by promising to legislate increases to the CPP. But it set a condition on union and NDP leaders: "Don't pressure us with mass actions on Parliament Hill." Union leaders acquiesced, the informal deal was on. Months later, the government reneged, announcing instead a new plan to give tax breaks to employee/employer-funded pension plans that invest in financial markets. In 1985, a mass movement dubbed "grey power" arose when the federal government of the time sought to lessen inflation protection for the public pension plan. No equivalent protest is happening in response to these latest cuts, but that could quickly change. Teachers in BC have learned firsthand the dubious benefit of court appeals as substitutes for strikes or other mass action. An appeal by the BCTF of two anti-union and anti-education laws adopted in 2002 took more than eight years to wind its way through the courts. The BC Supreme Court finally ruled that Bills 27 and 28 violated some of the basic rights of teachers. In the new Bill 22, the government formally repealed Bills 27 and 28 and then placed nearly identical language in the new law!Hospital workers in BC have been similarly disappointed by the courts. In 2004, the provincial government outlawed a province-wide strike of hospital workers and then proceeded to privatize some 8,500 jobs of hospital support staff and cut the wages of all other staff. Three and a half years later, the BC Supreme Court ruled the law illegal. The affected union declared a big victory, but the court's remedy was a miserly financial compensation of a few thousand dollars to those workers who lost their jobs.When AVEOS was created in 2007, every worker at Air Canada feared this was a move to eventually shift heavy maintenance work to lower-wage jurisdictions in other countries. Workers staged protests when the news broke.Leaders of the IAM and of provincial and federal federations of labor made blustery speeches saying the decision would not be allowed to pass. But the speeches ended in one feeble action -- an appeal to a federal court asking it to rule that the creation of AVEOS was in violation of the 1988 Air Canada Public Participation Act. That act was created to soften union opposition to the privatization of Air Canada, then a state enterprise. It directed Air Canada to maintain its "maintenance work" at three facilities -- Montreal, Toronto. and Winnipeg.1
In 2010, a federal judge accepted Air Canada's word that it planned to keep maintenance work in the targeted cities. The judge conveniently ignored a precise interpretation of what "maintenance work" constituted. Incredibly, if the IAM thought that AVEOS was being set up for an eventual downfall, it never said so publicly or acted accordingly. It turns out that Air Canada helped to precipitate the "bankruptcy" of AVEOS by quietly directing its work away from it. The long history of the dismantling of Air Canada -- what can only be described as the looting of a former public enterprise -- goes largely unmentioned by all parties involved.
What Road Ahead for Workers?
Private employers and especially federal and provincial governments are stepping up their attacks on jobs and public services. A more militant and coordinated response is needed by the union movement. All indications show the desire of workers for just such a course. Last year, the Occupy movement was widely hailed. Strike activity is on the upswing. Air Canada workers show the restive mood -- rank and file-initiated strikes and protests have become near commonplace and workers are typically rejecting concession agreements negotiated by their leaders.Working-class resistance has been strongest in Quebec. The social democratic NDP won a landslide victory in the province during the 2011 federal election. A mass student movement is refusing to bow to government threats and has mobilized tens of thousands in the streets.The challenge before the unions is to act as a social movement on behalf of the entire working class and break from the mould of job trusts focused on looking after the narrow interests of their dues-paying members. In the wake of the federal budget that attacked the OAS, newly elected leader of the NDP Tom Mulcair said the party would do "everything possible within the Parliamentary arena" to oppose the budget. But much more is needed. While it is useful to have a voice in Parliament on behalf of workers' interest, current battles will be won in the streets and on the picket lines. That is where attention and solidarity must be directed. Furthermore, all this will help open the door to the political challenge to capitalist rule that is needed and increasingly on the agenda. 1 The Air Canada maintenance facility in Vancouver was not named in the 1988 law because Air Canada only acquired it in 2001 through the purchase of Canadian Airlines.
Roger Annis may be contacted at rogerannis@telus.net
URL: mrzine.monthlyreview.org
Public Worker Pension Assault
Ruling class takes aim at public worker pensions
John Dillon and Glen Brown
Remarks made by Illinois Teachers Retirement system (TRS) Executive Director Dick Ingram became an immediate subject of a recent panel discussion held by the Better Government Association on April 9, 2012, at Loyola University in Chicago.
Two members of the pension committee convened by Governor Quinn had an opportunity to speak about what “we all face” in light of increased pension costs because of the unfunded liability (money now owed and that has not been paid into the fund during several governors’ tenures).
Panelist at the Better Government Association forum on the TRS situation were (left to right) State Rep. Darlene Senger, Henry Bayer (AFSCME), Tyrone Fahner (Civic Committee), and Elaine Nekritz (State Rep.). Substance photo by Todd Mertz. Representatives Darlene Senger and Elaine Nekritz spoke about the nature of the deficit problem and moving forward to make adjustments to the retirement system. Henry Bayer, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, Council 31, and Tyrone Fahner, president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago were also present.
Fahner was quick to remind everyone in the audience that “out of a sense of responsibility to his membership, Mr. Dick Ingram, head of the TRS, has admitted to the pension system’s insolvency”; that the “real numbers were hidden.”
Rank-and-file members from the public unions in the room were silent, not out of surprise but because once again they were hearing Ingram’s words being used to make a case that “cuts” to the current teachers and, quite possibly the retirees, were necessary, despite the constitutional provision that protects such changes.
When asked “what are the limits of pension reform? Where must we stop because of the constitution,” Fahner replied that “the only limits are that we can’t take what’s already been earned. That would be inappropriate and unconstitutional.” Nonetheless, Fahner said that changes going forward can be “frozen” or “changed”; that Chief Legal Counsel to Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and Parliamentarian of the Illinois Senate “Madiar is wrong” about his analysis regarding a current employee’s vested right when he or she enters the pension system. He also said “if we do nothing, everyone is screwed.”
Senger added “SB 512 wasn’t unconstitutional. It wasn’t taking away benefits. We have a system that is failing” and “every time you delay a solution, it becomes costly.” Senger also declared that the employer (school district) should pay the normal costs since the employer makes the contracts, and that “the COLA is the problem” and “should be suspended like in Rhode Island.”
The Chicago Tribune had cited Ingram a few days earlier: “With insolvency looming in as little as 17 years, the head of the state’s largest pension fund is a warning that pension benefits promised to teachers, starting with those already retired, may need to be cut” (Teachers and pension cuts. Chicago Tribune 4 April 2012). Another article by Chris Wetterich in the Springfield’s State Journal Register had quoted Ingram: “What we are saying is that the number is so bad that you have to start having those conversations. The reality is that if you look at the pension math, the single biggest cost is the COLA” (31 March 2012).
The reactionary firestorm was to be expected. Rank-and-file, as well as the IFT and AFCSME, were shrill in their condemnations of Ingram’s sudden and unexplained change. The Illinois Education Association likewise responded but with close connections to the TRS (the president of IEA is also a TRS trustee): “It’s important to understand that the current situation is very serious but capable of being resolved. TRS, SURS, and other state systems can be saved, but we need to understand that it will not be easy or inexpensive."
Meanwhile, Ingram has been eager to make clear that his statements were a warning regarding what would happen as a result of the state’s failure to fund or lessen the funding to the teachers’ pension. Those were, according to Ingram, the reasons for the stress tests conducted by Buck Consultants. In short, his words were being used “out of context.” To make this even more clear, Ingram printed a clarification in the Chicago Tribune’s Voice of the People on Tuesday, April 10 that stated: “Neither I nor the Teachers Retirement System is proposing any changes in member benefits, especially a reduction in the current annual cost-of-living adjustment… It is not our role at TRS to suggest a solution to this problem.”
Nevertheless, in the same editorial, Ingram once again warns that he has told his board that significant changes must occur in order to avoid insolvency, and these changes need come from newly-generated revenue sources. He further said “Any of these significant changes can only be made by the General Assembly.” For the media, Ingram outlined the “possible areas where lawmakers may look for a solution. There are only a few options available, and none are very pleasant to discuss – changes in the cost-of-living adjustment, in member contributions, in retirement age and in the benefit formula, as well as increased revenues through taxes.”
When the question of finding revenue rather than cutting pension benefits was asked, Senger’s immediate response was “giving an ‘over-spender’ [the State of Illinois] more money is not an answer.” Fahner then asked the audience in the forum: “Do you want your taxes to go up?” While no one wants an increase in taxes, and most people want an equitable and fair taxation for all, Fahner reminded the audience that under Illinois’ current tax structure, they [the middle class] would take the brunt of any increase). Bayer countered that Fahner “wants to fix the pensions and roll back $6 billion worth of taxes” on the wealthy and corporations.
When asked “are taxpayers going to take another hit?” Nekritz responded that “we knew that the [income] tax increase wasn’t going to solve the pension problem.” When asked whether the retirement age for current teachers be raised, Senger, Nekritz and Fahner said “yes”; Bayer said “no.” When asked whether the COLA be a part of the pension solution? Senger, Nekritz and Fahner said “yes”; Bayer said “no.” When asked whether the state should pay what it owes, all of them said “yes.”
They will not be the establishment of a broader tax base so rates are “lower in order to minimize the impact…” and because a broader tax base offers “diversification since it spreads the burden of taxation among more payers than a narrow basis does” (National Conference of State Legislatures).
They will not be the taxation of services to increase needed revenue despite the fact that “the tax system in the State of Illinois does not reflect today’s economic realities” (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning) and the State of Illinois taxes less than one-third of the 168 potentially-taxable services (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities).
Moreover, it will not be the elimination of welfare for the rich even though “the State of Illinois is among 10 states in the nation with the highest taxes paid by its poorest citizens at 13 percent” (the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy), and one of the few states where the top five percent of income earners pay the least amount of sales, excise, property and income taxes because of federal deduction offsets or regressive tax loopholes from itemized deductions, such as capital gains tax breaks and deductions for federal income taxes paid that are coupled with a flat-rate structure (the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy). They will be suggestions to cut the constitutional benefits of teachers, however.
John Dillon and Glen Brown
Remarks made by Illinois Teachers Retirement system (TRS) Executive Director Dick Ingram became an immediate subject of a recent panel discussion held by the Better Government Association on April 9, 2012, at Loyola University in Chicago.
Two members of the pension committee convened by Governor Quinn had an opportunity to speak about what “we all face” in light of increased pension costs because of the unfunded liability (money now owed and that has not been paid into the fund during several governors’ tenures).
Panelist at the Better Government Association forum on the TRS situation were (left to right) State Rep. Darlene Senger, Henry Bayer (AFSCME), Tyrone Fahner (Civic Committee), and Elaine Nekritz (State Rep.). Substance photo by Todd Mertz. Representatives Darlene Senger and Elaine Nekritz spoke about the nature of the deficit problem and moving forward to make adjustments to the retirement system. Henry Bayer, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, Council 31, and Tyrone Fahner, president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago were also present.
Fahner was quick to remind everyone in the audience that “out of a sense of responsibility to his membership, Mr. Dick Ingram, head of the TRS, has admitted to the pension system’s insolvency”; that the “real numbers were hidden.”
Rank-and-file members from the public unions in the room were silent, not out of surprise but because once again they were hearing Ingram’s words being used to make a case that “cuts” to the current teachers and, quite possibly the retirees, were necessary, despite the constitutional provision that protects such changes.
When asked “what are the limits of pension reform? Where must we stop because of the constitution,” Fahner replied that “the only limits are that we can’t take what’s already been earned. That would be inappropriate and unconstitutional.” Nonetheless, Fahner said that changes going forward can be “frozen” or “changed”; that Chief Legal Counsel to Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and Parliamentarian of the Illinois Senate “Madiar is wrong” about his analysis regarding a current employee’s vested right when he or she enters the pension system. He also said “if we do nothing, everyone is screwed.”
Senger added “SB 512 wasn’t unconstitutional. It wasn’t taking away benefits. We have a system that is failing” and “every time you delay a solution, it becomes costly.” Senger also declared that the employer (school district) should pay the normal costs since the employer makes the contracts, and that “the COLA is the problem” and “should be suspended like in Rhode Island.”
The Chicago Tribune had cited Ingram a few days earlier: “With insolvency looming in as little as 17 years, the head of the state’s largest pension fund is a warning that pension benefits promised to teachers, starting with those already retired, may need to be cut” (Teachers and pension cuts. Chicago Tribune 4 April 2012). Another article by Chris Wetterich in the Springfield’s State Journal Register had quoted Ingram: “What we are saying is that the number is so bad that you have to start having those conversations. The reality is that if you look at the pension math, the single biggest cost is the COLA” (31 March 2012).
The reactionary firestorm was to be expected. Rank-and-file, as well as the IFT and AFCSME, were shrill in their condemnations of Ingram’s sudden and unexplained change. The Illinois Education Association likewise responded but with close connections to the TRS (the president of IEA is also a TRS trustee): “It’s important to understand that the current situation is very serious but capable of being resolved. TRS, SURS, and other state systems can be saved, but we need to understand that it will not be easy or inexpensive."
Meanwhile, Ingram has been eager to make clear that his statements were a warning regarding what would happen as a result of the state’s failure to fund or lessen the funding to the teachers’ pension. Those were, according to Ingram, the reasons for the stress tests conducted by Buck Consultants. In short, his words were being used “out of context.” To make this even more clear, Ingram printed a clarification in the Chicago Tribune’s Voice of the People on Tuesday, April 10 that stated: “Neither I nor the Teachers Retirement System is proposing any changes in member benefits, especially a reduction in the current annual cost-of-living adjustment… It is not our role at TRS to suggest a solution to this problem.”
Nevertheless, in the same editorial, Ingram once again warns that he has told his board that significant changes must occur in order to avoid insolvency, and these changes need come from newly-generated revenue sources. He further said “Any of these significant changes can only be made by the General Assembly.” For the media, Ingram outlined the “possible areas where lawmakers may look for a solution. There are only a few options available, and none are very pleasant to discuss – changes in the cost-of-living adjustment, in member contributions, in retirement age and in the benefit formula, as well as increased revenues through taxes.”
When the question of finding revenue rather than cutting pension benefits was asked, Senger’s immediate response was “giving an ‘over-spender’ [the State of Illinois] more money is not an answer.” Fahner then asked the audience in the forum: “Do you want your taxes to go up?” While no one wants an increase in taxes, and most people want an equitable and fair taxation for all, Fahner reminded the audience that under Illinois’ current tax structure, they [the middle class] would take the brunt of any increase). Bayer countered that Fahner “wants to fix the pensions and roll back $6 billion worth of taxes” on the wealthy and corporations.
When asked “are taxpayers going to take another hit?” Nekritz responded that “we knew that the [income] tax increase wasn’t going to solve the pension problem.” When asked whether the retirement age for current teachers be raised, Senger, Nekritz and Fahner said “yes”; Bayer said “no.” When asked whether the COLA be a part of the pension solution? Senger, Nekritz and Fahner said “yes”; Bayer said “no.” When asked whether the state should pay what it owes, all of them said “yes.”
In seven days, the pension committee will send its recommendations to Governor Quinn. They will not include increases in revenue such as a graduated income tax that has been recommended by the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Center for Economic Policy and Research, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, and United for a Fair Economy, et al.
They will not be the establishment of a broader tax base so rates are “lower in order to minimize the impact…” and because a broader tax base offers “diversification since it spreads the burden of taxation among more payers than a narrow basis does” (National Conference of State Legislatures).
They will not be the taxation of services to increase needed revenue despite the fact that “the tax system in the State of Illinois does not reflect today’s economic realities” (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning) and the State of Illinois taxes less than one-third of the 168 potentially-taxable services (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities).
Moreover, it will not be the elimination of welfare for the rich even though “the State of Illinois is among 10 states in the nation with the highest taxes paid by its poorest citizens at 13 percent” (the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy), and one of the few states where the top five percent of income earners pay the least amount of sales, excise, property and income taxes because of federal deduction offsets or regressive tax loopholes from itemized deductions, such as capital gains tax breaks and deductions for federal income taxes paid that are coupled with a flat-rate structure (the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy). They will be suggestions to cut the constitutional benefits of teachers, however.
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