AFL-CIO chief Trumka rejects White House jobs council report
By Kevin Bogardus - 01/18/12 01:42 PM ET
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/204861-afl-cio-chief-dissents-from-white-house-jobs-council-report
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Wednesday offered a stinging rebuke of the the White House jobs Council’s latest report. Trumka, one of two union leaders on the council, said the body is too narrow to provide recommendations to President Obama that are balanced between the interests of business and other groups such as labor.
Trumka specifically took issue with the report’s calls for lower corporate taxes and fewer regulations, saying they would not lead to more jobs.“Overall, I disagree that reforming our regulatory system and reducing the statutory corporate tax rate are crucial elements of ‘competitiveness’ for the United States going forward, nor does empirical evidence support the claim that significant net new job creation would result from such ‘reforms,’” he said.
The 22-member council consists mainly of chief executives from major companies, including Intel, Procter & Gamble and Southwest Airlines. Trumka and Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and chairman of the Change to Win Federation, are the council’s only two labor members.
Trumka adopted the rhetoric of the Occupy Wall Street movement in his statement.“The answer lies in the view that we share with so many of our fellow Americans: that our country has become dominated by the interests of the wealthiest 1 percent at the expense of the remaining 99 percent,” Trumka said.
“It turns out that a country run in the interests of the wealthiest 1 percent systematically under-invests in public goods; systematically silences, disempowers, and under-invests in its workers; and in the end is less competitive and creates fewer jobs than a country that focuses on the interests of the 99 percent.”
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Thursday, December 15, 2011
CO-OPS SPREADING in USA
Worker-Owners of America, Unite!
THE Occupy Wall Street protests have come and mostly gone, and whether they continue to have an impact or not, they have brought an astounding fact to the public’s attention: a mere 1 percent of Americans own just under half of the country’s financial assets and other investments. America, it would seem, is less equitable than ever, thanks to our no-holds-barred capitalist system.
But at another level, something different has been quietly brewing in recent decades: more and more Americans are involved in co-ops, worker-owned companies and other alternatives to the traditional capitalist model. We may, in fact, be moving toward a hybrid system, something different from both traditional capitalism and socialism, without anyone even noticing.
Some 130 million Americans, for example, now participate in the ownership of co-op businesses and credit unions. More than 13 million Americans have become worker-owners of more than 11,000 employee-owned companies, six million more than belong to private-sector unions.
And worker-owned companies make a difference. In Cleveland, for instance, an integrated group of worker-owned companies, supported in part by the purchasing power of large hospitals and universities, has taken the lead in local solar-panel installation, “green” institutional laundry services and a commercial hydroponic greenhouse capable of producing more than three million heads of lettuce a year.
Local and state governments are likewise changing the nature of American capitalism. Almost half the states manage venture capital efforts, taking partial ownership in new businesses. Calpers, California’s public pension authority, helps finance local development projects; in Alaska, state oil revenues provide each resident with dividends from public investment strategies as a matter of right; in Alabama, public pension investing has long focused on state economic development.
Moreover, this year some 14 states began to consider legislation to create public Banks similar to the longstanding Bank of North Dakota; 15 more began to consider some form of single-payer or public-option health care plan.
Some of these developments, like rural co-ops and credit unions, have their origins in the New Deal era; some go back even further, to the Grange movement of the 1880s. The most widespread form of worker ownership stems from 1970s legislation that provided tax benefits to owners of small businesses who sold to their employees when they retired. Reagan-era domestic-spending cuts spurred nonprofits to form social enterprises that used profits to help finance their missions.
Recently, growing economic pain has provided a further catalyst. The Cleveland cooperatives are an answer to urban decay that traditional job training, small-business and other development strategies simply do not touch. They also build on a 30-year history of Ohio employee-ownership experiments traceable to the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970s and ’80s.
Further policy changes are likely. In Indiana, the Republican state treasurer, Richard Mourdock, is using state deposits to lower interest costs to employee-owned companies, a precedent others states could easily follow. Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, is developing legislation to support worker-owned strategies like that of Cleveland in other cities. And several policy analysts have proposed expanding existing government “set aside” procurement programs for small businesses to include co-ops and other democratized enterprises.
If such cooperative efforts continue to increase in number, scale and sophistication, they may suggest the outlines, however tentative, of something very different from both traditional, corporate-dominated capitalism and traditional socialism.
It’s easy to overestimate the possibilities of a new system. These efforts are minor compared with the power of Wall Street banks and the other giants of the American economy. On the other hand, it is precisely these institutions that have created enormous economic problems and fueled public anger.
During the Populist and Progressive eras, a decades-long buildup of public anger led to major policy shifts, many of which simply took existing ideas from local and state efforts to the national stage. Furthermore, we have already seen how, in moments of crisis, the nationalization of auto giants like General Motors and Chrysler can suddenly become a reality. When the next financial breakdown occurs, huge injections of public money may well lead to de facto takeovers of major banks.
And while the American public has long supported the capitalist model, that, too, may be changing. In 2009 a Rasmussen poll reported that Americans under 30 years old were “essentially evenly divided” as to whether they preferred “capitalism” or “socialism.”
A long era of economic stagnation could well lead to a profound national debate about an America that is dominated neither by giant corporations nor by socialist bureaucrats. It would be a fitting next direction for a troubled nation that has long styled itself as of, by and for the people.
By GAR ALPEROVITZ
Gar Alperovitz, a professor of political economy at the University of Maryland and a founder of the Democracy Collaborative, is the author of “America Beyond Capitalism.”
THE Occupy Wall Street protests have come and mostly gone, and whether they continue to have an impact or not, they have brought an astounding fact to the public’s attention: a mere 1 percent of Americans own just under half of the country’s financial assets and other investments. America, it would seem, is less equitable than ever, thanks to our no-holds-barred capitalist system.
But at another level, something different has been quietly brewing in recent decades: more and more Americans are involved in co-ops, worker-owned companies and other alternatives to the traditional capitalist model. We may, in fact, be moving toward a hybrid system, something different from both traditional capitalism and socialism, without anyone even noticing.
Some 130 million Americans, for example, now participate in the ownership of co-op businesses and credit unions. More than 13 million Americans have become worker-owners of more than 11,000 employee-owned companies, six million more than belong to private-sector unions.
And worker-owned companies make a difference. In Cleveland, for instance, an integrated group of worker-owned companies, supported in part by the purchasing power of large hospitals and universities, has taken the lead in local solar-panel installation, “green” institutional laundry services and a commercial hydroponic greenhouse capable of producing more than three million heads of lettuce a year.
Local and state governments are likewise changing the nature of American capitalism. Almost half the states manage venture capital efforts, taking partial ownership in new businesses. Calpers, California’s public pension authority, helps finance local development projects; in Alaska, state oil revenues provide each resident with dividends from public investment strategies as a matter of right; in Alabama, public pension investing has long focused on state economic development.
Moreover, this year some 14 states began to consider legislation to create public Banks similar to the longstanding Bank of North Dakota; 15 more began to consider some form of single-payer or public-option health care plan.
Some of these developments, like rural co-ops and credit unions, have their origins in the New Deal era; some go back even further, to the Grange movement of the 1880s. The most widespread form of worker ownership stems from 1970s legislation that provided tax benefits to owners of small businesses who sold to their employees when they retired. Reagan-era domestic-spending cuts spurred nonprofits to form social enterprises that used profits to help finance their missions.
Recently, growing economic pain has provided a further catalyst. The Cleveland cooperatives are an answer to urban decay that traditional job training, small-business and other development strategies simply do not touch. They also build on a 30-year history of Ohio employee-ownership experiments traceable to the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970s and ’80s.
Further policy changes are likely. In Indiana, the Republican state treasurer, Richard Mourdock, is using state deposits to lower interest costs to employee-owned companies, a precedent others states could easily follow. Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, is developing legislation to support worker-owned strategies like that of Cleveland in other cities. And several policy analysts have proposed expanding existing government “set aside” procurement programs for small businesses to include co-ops and other democratized enterprises.
If such cooperative efforts continue to increase in number, scale and sophistication, they may suggest the outlines, however tentative, of something very different from both traditional, corporate-dominated capitalism and traditional socialism.
It’s easy to overestimate the possibilities of a new system. These efforts are minor compared with the power of Wall Street banks and the other giants of the American economy. On the other hand, it is precisely these institutions that have created enormous economic problems and fueled public anger.
During the Populist and Progressive eras, a decades-long buildup of public anger led to major policy shifts, many of which simply took existing ideas from local and state efforts to the national stage. Furthermore, we have already seen how, in moments of crisis, the nationalization of auto giants like General Motors and Chrysler can suddenly become a reality. When the next financial breakdown occurs, huge injections of public money may well lead to de facto takeovers of major banks.
And while the American public has long supported the capitalist model, that, too, may be changing. In 2009 a Rasmussen poll reported that Americans under 30 years old were “essentially evenly divided” as to whether they preferred “capitalism” or “socialism.”
A long era of economic stagnation could well lead to a profound national debate about an America that is dominated neither by giant corporations nor by socialist bureaucrats. It would be a fitting next direction for a troubled nation that has long styled itself as of, by and for the people.
By GAR ALPEROVITZ
Gar Alperovitz, a professor of political economy at the University of Maryland and a founder of the Democracy Collaborative, is the author of “America Beyond Capitalism.”
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Oakland OWS Port Action Dec. 12th, 2011
Occupy Members Swarm Oakland Port
"I am getting tired of seeing my neighbors getting hurt and I am fighting the good fight." Says UPWA Leader Charles Smith
(12-12) 11:58 PST OAKLAND -- Almost half the berths at the Port of Oakland have temporarily ceased operations today after hundreds of protesters spent the morning blocking intersections in the port.
Roughly 150 longshoremen on the dayshift were sent home with little to no pay after they were either unable to get to work or the big rigs used to haul containers couldn't reach the berths, said Craig Merrilees, spokesman for the International Longshore Worker's Union (ILWU). Fifty longshoremen are still working today, Merrilees said.
The employees were sent home after the companies that own the different berths in the port decided to shut down and send workers home. "There have been disruptions, there have been distractions, but we are not shut down," said Isaac Kos-Read, spokesman for the port.
The next shift of workers is expected to start later this afternoon and demonstrators have pledged to again disrupt operations.
"We have a lot to be proud of today," said Clarence Thomas, a Longshoreman after getting the text alert from protest organizers saying they had successfully closed the port and were pulling out. Thomas said he supported the movement.
"We're very very happy," added Judy Greenspan, 59, a public school teacher in Richmond. "Despite all the premonitions of violence, this has been peaceful throughout. I hope we can redouble our efforts again this afternoon."
The group of protesters succeeded in stopping a line of big-rigs from entering the Port of Oakland for nearly five hours this morning during their march to shut down the busy cargo terminal.
Organizers have pledged to march to the port and shut down the terminal, one of the busiest on the West Coast. Some unions, including the one representing Oakland teachers, are supporting the day-long strike while others, like the Longshoremen's union, say shutting down the port will harm hard-working stevedores and truck drivers.
Carrying signs saying "Shutdown Wall St. on the Waterfront" about 200 protesters marched the three blocks from the West Oakland BART Station to the port entrances before sunrise today.
The group marchers were met by a line of police officers in riot gear near the intersection of Seventh Street and Middle Harbor Road. Protesters began marching in a circle, preventing trucks from getting through. At least one demonstrator set up a tent in the intersection.
Around 8:45 a.m. two lines of 50 police officers in riot gear marched toward the group and formed a line on one side of the group for 15 minutes. About 25 officers then walked away, seeming to suggest the standoff would continue into the late morning.
Before dawn, one trucker, clearly frustrated, blew his air horn and tried to drive through the crowd.
Some Longshoremen scheduled to begin work at 8 a.m. decided they didn't want to cross a picket line and went home. Others, though, said they needed the money.
"I am here because I am a union member. Unions have been decimated," Charles Smith, 68, a retired wastewater treatment plant worker said as he trudged to the port. "I am getting tired of seeing my neighbors getting hurt and I am fighting the good fight."
Demonstrators are trying to close ports up and down the West Coast. "It's necessary. It is a way to strike back, to show our numbers and show what the people can do," said William Lovell, 44, who said he participated in the now-dismantled Occupy SF camp. "We are politely breaking the rules as gently as we can."
At a news conference this morning, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said while she agrees with the concerns of the Occupy movement in general, she did not want to see the port closed.
"We're working hard today to keep the port operations going with minimal disruption," Quan said. "We urge the demonstrators who are coming to the port to respect the rights of the 99 percent who are trying to work today and to keep their protest peaceful. So far, it seems to be going well and operations are minimally disrupted. We hope that this will continue for the day."
Dan Siegel, Quan's legal adviser who quit when she supported a raid of the downtown Occupy camp, spent the morning at the protest. He said the mood was almost "festive."
"It started out kind of tense, there were a lot of threats from police and politicians," he said. "I think ultimately we had large enough numbers (that) police decided to pull back and allow us to picket."
Chronicle staff writers Will Kane and Henry K. Lee contributed to this report.
Edited and emphasis by Bloggger
"I am getting tired of seeing my neighbors getting hurt and I am fighting the good fight." Says UPWA Leader Charles Smith
(12-12) 11:58 PST OAKLAND -- Almost half the berths at the Port of Oakland have temporarily ceased operations today after hundreds of protesters spent the morning blocking intersections in the port.
Roughly 150 longshoremen on the dayshift were sent home with little to no pay after they were either unable to get to work or the big rigs used to haul containers couldn't reach the berths, said Craig Merrilees, spokesman for the International Longshore Worker's Union (ILWU). Fifty longshoremen are still working today, Merrilees said.
The employees were sent home after the companies that own the different berths in the port decided to shut down and send workers home. "There have been disruptions, there have been distractions, but we are not shut down," said Isaac Kos-Read, spokesman for the port.
The next shift of workers is expected to start later this afternoon and demonstrators have pledged to again disrupt operations.
"We have a lot to be proud of today," said Clarence Thomas, a Longshoreman after getting the text alert from protest organizers saying they had successfully closed the port and were pulling out. Thomas said he supported the movement.
"We're very very happy," added Judy Greenspan, 59, a public school teacher in Richmond. "Despite all the premonitions of violence, this has been peaceful throughout. I hope we can redouble our efforts again this afternoon."
The group of protesters succeeded in stopping a line of big-rigs from entering the Port of Oakland for nearly five hours this morning during their march to shut down the busy cargo terminal.
Organizers have pledged to march to the port and shut down the terminal, one of the busiest on the West Coast. Some unions, including the one representing Oakland teachers, are supporting the day-long strike while others, like the Longshoremen's union, say shutting down the port will harm hard-working stevedores and truck drivers.
Carrying signs saying "Shutdown Wall St. on the Waterfront" about 200 protesters marched the three blocks from the West Oakland BART Station to the port entrances before sunrise today.
The group marchers were met by a line of police officers in riot gear near the intersection of Seventh Street and Middle Harbor Road. Protesters began marching in a circle, preventing trucks from getting through. At least one demonstrator set up a tent in the intersection.
Around 8:45 a.m. two lines of 50 police officers in riot gear marched toward the group and formed a line on one side of the group for 15 minutes. About 25 officers then walked away, seeming to suggest the standoff would continue into the late morning.
Before dawn, one trucker, clearly frustrated, blew his air horn and tried to drive through the crowd.
Some Longshoremen scheduled to begin work at 8 a.m. decided they didn't want to cross a picket line and went home. Others, though, said they needed the money.
"I am here because I am a union member. Unions have been decimated," Charles Smith, 68, a retired wastewater treatment plant worker said as he trudged to the port. "I am getting tired of seeing my neighbors getting hurt and I am fighting the good fight."
Demonstrators are trying to close ports up and down the West Coast. "It's necessary. It is a way to strike back, to show our numbers and show what the people can do," said William Lovell, 44, who said he participated in the now-dismantled Occupy SF camp. "We are politely breaking the rules as gently as we can."
At a news conference this morning, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said while she agrees with the concerns of the Occupy movement in general, she did not want to see the port closed.
"We're working hard today to keep the port operations going with minimal disruption," Quan said. "We urge the demonstrators who are coming to the port to respect the rights of the 99 percent who are trying to work today and to keep their protest peaceful. So far, it seems to be going well and operations are minimally disrupted. We hope that this will continue for the day."
Dan Siegel, Quan's legal adviser who quit when she supported a raid of the downtown Occupy camp, spent the morning at the protest. He said the mood was almost "festive."
"It started out kind of tense, there were a lot of threats from police and politicians," he said. "I think ultimately we had large enough numbers (that) police decided to pull back and allow us to picket."
Chronicle staff writers Will Kane and Henry K. Lee contributed to this report.
Edited and emphasis by Bloggger
Thursday, December 8, 2011
1% Attack on Labor Unions (via NLRB)
The Republican war on unions continues apace. On a near-party-line vote Wednesday, the House passed a bill crafted to thwart a National Labor Relations Board decision, made earlier Wednesday, that would entitle workers to a timely vote on unionization once they’ve petitioned for it. By ruling that employers’ legal challenges can be entertained only after a vote, the board effectively denied employers the ability to hold up a vote for weeks, months or even years. Elections delayed, the NLRB essentially said, are elections denied.
The House legislation, by contrast, stipulated that such legal challenges can go forward before the vote. The bill will almost surely go nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but then, it’s just one foray in the Republicans’ battle to extirpate worker-controlled organizations in America.
E.J. Dionne Jr.
A New Square Deal
In the run-up to Wednesday’s NLRB vote, there was considerable doubt as to whether a vote could even be held. The five-seat board is down to three members. Republicans have vowed not to confirm any more of President Obama’s appointees, and the Supreme Court ruled last year that if the board’s membership fell to just two, it would no longer have the power to issue rulings. In recent weeks a number of Republicans have urged the board’s remaining GOP member, Brian Hayes, to resign, stripping the board of its rule-setting ability. After NLRB Chairman Mark Pearce scaled back the proposed reform, Hayes decided to stay on, though he did vote against Pearce’s modified proposal.
Also Wednesday, one ostensible casus belli for the GOP war on the board was removed when Boeing and the Machinists Union agreed on a new contract, under which the company committed to expand production at its unionized Washington-state factories. In return, the union agreed to drop its complaint to the NLRB against Boeing’s new factory in non-union South Carolina. When the NLRB’s general counsel took up the case, Republicans pounced: The board, they said, was threatening to kill jobs. This week, the general counsel indicated that if the machinists dropped the case, so would he.
But that won’t stop the GOP’s jihad. The term of NLRB member Craig Becker expires this month, which will winnow board membership down to a powerless two. GOP legislators won’t confirm more members as long as Obama is president, nor will they permit a congressional recess during which Obama could make recess appointments. Throughout 2012, then, the organization that governs labor relations in the United States will govern no more: Lower-level labor-board judges can issue rulings, but the board to which such rulings can be appealed will be MIA. Labor disputes will enter a terra incognita: Can they be heard by a court absent a board ruling? Can employers or unions willfully violate labor law with the assurance that the referees are no longer on the field? Conundrums loom.
Some might reasonably wonder why the GOP war persists when union power has already been so greatly reduced. In the mid-20th century, 40 percent of private-sector workers belonged to unions; today, just 7 percent do. But the Republican struggle continues for two reasons. When it comes to elections, unions are still the most potent mobilizers of the Democratic vote — getting minorities to the polls and persuading members of the white working class to vote Democratic. Indeed, Republican gains among working-class whites (whom they carried by an unprecedented 63 percent to 33 percent in 2010) are, above all, the result of the deunionization of that class. An analysis of exit polling over the past 30 years shows that unionized white working-class men vote Democratic at a rate 20 percent higher than their non-union counterparts. For political reasons, Republicans are determined to de-unionize workers even more.
There’s another reason, too. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that in the third quarter, wages as a share of gross domestic product were the lowest they’ve been since 1929, and compensation (that includes health insurance) as a share of GDP was at its lowest point since 1955. Corporate profits as a share of GDP, by contrast, are the highest they’ve been since 1929. The destruction of private-sector unions has redistributed income to the rich, which is the Republican Party’s raison d’etre.
Which is why the Republican war on unions — which is also the Republican war on the 99 percent — rolls on.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Students Back Workers' General Strike
UK Students begin wave of occupations to back public sector strikes
David Willetts abandons Cambridge University speech as protesters take over lecture hall to oppose £9,000 tuition fees. Occupied lecture halls and buildings would act as bases for students to plan further action backing strikes by about 3 million public sector workers – expected to be the biggest day of industrial action since the winter of discontent in 1979.
Police at the student protest over university tuition fees and public sector cuts in London on 9 November, when the Met warned baton rounds could be used.
Students are planning a wave of campus occupations and protests in the run-up to nationwide strikes next week, the Guardian has learned.
Occupations called by the student group National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) ahead of the trade union day of action on 30 November have already happened at Birmingham and Cambridge universities.
Higher education minister David Willetts had to abandon a speech on the Idea of University on Tuesday night after students heckled him from the stage and began occupying Cambridge's largest lecture hall.
The occupations, in opposition to the government's white paper on education reform, which would formalise the £9,000 rise in tuition fees, are expected to break out across the country.
NCAFC said that occupied lecture halls and buildings would act as bases for students to plan further action backing strikes by about 3 million public sector workers – expected to be the biggest day of industrial action since the winter of discontent in 1979.
The group's co-founder, Michael Chessum, said: "It's all terribly unpredictable. We may well see actions and occupations popping up all other the country today and in the coming week."
In front of an audience of more than a hundred, Willetts was forced to sit in a corner of the stage of Lady Mitchell Hall, as students read out a prepared statement.
Student James Jackson said activists from Cambridge Defend Education read out a prepared statement which was repeated sentence by sentence by other demonstrators in the audience – a technique used by Occupy activists.
Making reference to recent student protests in which the Metropolitan police said baton rounds could be used to prevent disorder, the statement said: "You can threaten to shoot us with rubber bullets; you can arrest us; you can imprison us; you can criminalise our dissent; you can blight a hundred thousand lives … but you cannot break us because we are more resolute, more numerous, and more determined than you … Go home, David."
After sitting on the stage, they eventually forced the minister's departure.
"At first Willetts seemed to want to carry on," Jackson said. "After the second minute he sat in a corner then [the organisers] closed the blinds on him, still waiting for us to stop and leave. When we didn't, I think he decided it was time for him to go and so he just left."
Jackson, 21, who is reading art history, said that after Willetts' departure the group occupied the hall and were now receiving support from academics who were bringing them food and supplies.
Silkie Carlo, 22, studying psychology, who was also part of the action said : "Cambridge is serious about defending education. Particularly from an institution that is seen as upper middle class, the most privileged students, it's important that we understand that the rise in fees affect us and the progress of the university. We don't want to study in that kind of place."
In the early hours of Wedenesday, Birmingham students occupied an abandoned gatehouse on the northern edge of their campus, where they plan to hold a series of lectures.
by Shiv Malik
Guardian (London)
David Willetts abandons Cambridge University speech as protesters take over lecture hall to oppose £9,000 tuition fees. Occupied lecture halls and buildings would act as bases for students to plan further action backing strikes by about 3 million public sector workers – expected to be the biggest day of industrial action since the winter of discontent in 1979.
Police at the student protest over university tuition fees and public sector cuts in London on 9 November, when the Met warned baton rounds could be used.
Students are planning a wave of campus occupations and protests in the run-up to nationwide strikes next week, the Guardian has learned.
Occupations called by the student group National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) ahead of the trade union day of action on 30 November have already happened at Birmingham and Cambridge universities.
Higher education minister David Willetts had to abandon a speech on the Idea of University on Tuesday night after students heckled him from the stage and began occupying Cambridge's largest lecture hall.
The occupations, in opposition to the government's white paper on education reform, which would formalise the £9,000 rise in tuition fees, are expected to break out across the country.
NCAFC said that occupied lecture halls and buildings would act as bases for students to plan further action backing strikes by about 3 million public sector workers – expected to be the biggest day of industrial action since the winter of discontent in 1979.
The group's co-founder, Michael Chessum, said: "It's all terribly unpredictable. We may well see actions and occupations popping up all other the country today and in the coming week."
In front of an audience of more than a hundred, Willetts was forced to sit in a corner of the stage of Lady Mitchell Hall, as students read out a prepared statement.
Student James Jackson said activists from Cambridge Defend Education read out a prepared statement which was repeated sentence by sentence by other demonstrators in the audience – a technique used by Occupy activists.
Making reference to recent student protests in which the Metropolitan police said baton rounds could be used to prevent disorder, the statement said: "You can threaten to shoot us with rubber bullets; you can arrest us; you can imprison us; you can criminalise our dissent; you can blight a hundred thousand lives … but you cannot break us because we are more resolute, more numerous, and more determined than you … Go home, David."
After sitting on the stage, they eventually forced the minister's departure.
"At first Willetts seemed to want to carry on," Jackson said. "After the second minute he sat in a corner then [the organisers] closed the blinds on him, still waiting for us to stop and leave. When we didn't, I think he decided it was time for him to go and so he just left."
Jackson, 21, who is reading art history, said that after Willetts' departure the group occupied the hall and were now receiving support from academics who were bringing them food and supplies.
Silkie Carlo, 22, studying psychology, who was also part of the action said : "Cambridge is serious about defending education. Particularly from an institution that is seen as upper middle class, the most privileged students, it's important that we understand that the rise in fees affect us and the progress of the university. We don't want to study in that kind of place."
In the early hours of Wedenesday, Birmingham students occupied an abandoned gatehouse on the northern edge of their campus, where they plan to hold a series of lectures.
by Shiv Malik
Guardian (London)
Friday, November 4, 2011
Partial History of General Strikes
Shutting It All Down:
The Power of General Strikes in U.S. History
BY ERIK LOOMIS
A flyer advertises Occupy Oakland's call for a general strike. (Photo by Flickr userallaboutgeorge, Creative Commons license)
Incredibly threatening to those in power, they rarely succeed. But they do build solidarity.
As protesters gather Wednesday for the general strike called by Occupy Oakland, it's worth looking at the history of this tactic. General strikes are rare in American social movements, because they are difficult to coordinate. On the other hand, few actions offer a more direct challenge to those in power. What can Occupy Oakland learn from their activist ancestors to help its participants draw strength? How have general strikes affected long-term labor and social movements?
The two major general strikes in American history are the Seattle General Strike of 1919 and the Oakland General Strike of 1946. In 1919, the workers of Seattle engaged in a three-day mass action calling all city workers onto the streets. This was the first citywide collective action in American history known as a general strike.
The Pacific Northwest in the early 20th century was a center of radicalism. Horrible working conditions in the timber industry, already radicalized immigrants from Scandinavia, activist dockworkers and the popularity of the Industrial Workers of the World among the region’s thousands of transient workers made Seattle a fertile center of radical thought that even influenced labor organizations affiliated with the traditionally moderate American Federation of Labor (AFL).
The strike began with shipyard workers but was quickly joined by workers around the city. By February 6, over 60,000 workers were on the streets where they remained for four days. In an atmosphere fearful of radicalism after the Bolshevik Revolution, conservatives around the nation declared the strike the first step toward revolution.
Seattle mayor Ole Hanson took the lead in crushing the strike ordering the National Guard to take control of the city’s light company. Fearing long-term fallout, national AFL leaders denounced the strike and it quickly fell apart. After its defeat, the labor movement in Seattle fell apart, a victim of both internal fighting and the vicious Red Scare that followed World War I.
The Oakland General Strike came out of the massive changes to the Bay Area during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of Americans moved to San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, and other cities to work in wartime industries. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) had achieved major successes in organizing American workers during the late 1930s. Often using communist organizers, the CIO built on the militancy of American labor to become a powerful force in opposition to both the more traditional AFL and conservative business interests.
During World War II, the AFL and CIO turned their energies toward defeating the fascist menace of Germany and Japan. The administration of Franklin Roosevelt, wanting to avoid strikes that would undermine wartime production, brought both the AFL and CIO into wartime planning. But while consumer prices rose during the war, wages did not. The motivated and radicalized workers wanted to strike, but their leaders and the federal government urged them to work through it.
When the war ended however, the country was overtaken by a wave of strikes. In 1946, 4.5 million workers went on strike throughout the United States, the greatest number of strikers in one year in American history. Wages did not keep up with rapidly rising prices and higher wages were the core demand of almost all the strikers.
The situation in Oakland was especially volatile because of the city’s Retail Merchants Association, a powerful and deeply anti-union business organization. These department stores owners employed mostly women, who they believed would accept low wages. The Department and Specialty Store Employees Union Local 1265 organized workers at these downtown stores. Early in 1946, they won victories at smaller stores and decided to take on the biggest retailers, Kahn’s and Hastings. A month-long strike ensued in the late fall of 1946. Beginning mere blocks from Occupy Oakland’s encampment, this turned into one of the biggest challenges to corporate America in the postwar years.
Although the CIO had the more radical agenda, it was actually the AFL who decided to call for a general strike on December 2, 1946 in support of the striking department store workers. AFL workers around Oakland walked off their jobs—bus drivers, teamsters, sailors, machinists, cannery workers, railroad porters, waiters, waitresses, cooks. For over two days, Oakland shut down. Over 100,000 workers participated in the strike.
The strikers controlled Oakland. All businesses except for pharmacies and food markets shut down. Bars could stay open but could only serve beer and had to put their juke boxes outside and allow for their free use. Couples literally danced in the streets. Recently returned war veterans created squadrons to prepare for battle. Union leadership took a back seat to rank and file actions.
Although it is often spun in Oakland legend that the General Strike was a successful action, it really wasn’t. A majority of workers wanted to continue striking and CIO unions considered joining in support, but the strike fell apart because of a single corrupt labor leader. Dave Beck, the head of the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa’s mentor, forced a compromise when he pulled his powerful union off the lines and endorsed a moderate settlement that accomplished almost nothing and quite literally did not address the department store workers concerns at all. While the still agitated workers managed to elect several labor representatives to the city council, the entire apparatus of the city used the General Strike to attack all labor. The police, the city government, and the Oakland Tribune combined to resist not only the Unionization of the department stores, but all Labor in Oakland.
While Oakland remained a strong Union city after this, the strikes of 1946 around the nation and especially the Oakland General Strike led to the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Taft-Hartley was an open attack on the labor movement, limiting labor’s ability to strike, banning sympathy strikes (which could make it legally difficult for today’s unions to support Occupy Oakland’s General Strike), and allow individual states to pass so-called “right to work” laws, meaning that just because there is a Union at your workplace doesn’t mean you have to join it.
Soon after, the McCarthy era began and radical Unionism of any kind became suspicious, with the CIO kicking the Communist organizers and entire Communist-led unions out of the Federation, turning its back on its radical history.
If there is one lesson to take from these general strikes, it’s that they are extremely threatening to those in power. If successful, they show that the 1% have lost the control they so ardently seek. They will react with ferocity against the organizers, laying bare structural and legal inequalities in this nation. Neither strike was successful, but we remember them as moments of incredible worker solidarity when it seemed massive changes were about to happen. They need to be seen as part of the larger struggles of working people to achieve basic rights, decent wages, and safe living conditions in this country.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is picking up this torch and providing a strong voice for those who have become disempowered in the unregulated capitalism of the early 21st century. Whether the new general strike succeeds or not is less important than the public stand it takes against the exploitation of working-class people. The general strike is not the end of the road but rather one step on the path to taking back our country.
Finally, I want to encourage everyone involved in the Occupy movement, as well as anyone who identifies as progressive, to deeply read labor history and the history of social movements. Knowing about your ancestors is great, but the past offers a more direct lesson: understanding how various tactics and strategies have worked in the past, and how they can work in the present.
Financial Tax Protest by Unions
Unions, Occupy Wall Street to protest outside Treasury for ‘Robin Hood’ tax-Push For Franchise Tax (F.T.T.)
Pivoting off the Occupy Wall Street movement, unions are planning coordinated protests Thursday for a financial transactions tax (F.T.T.).
Organizers estimate more than 1,500 union members from more than 20 Labor groups, including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA), will be outside the Treasury Department Thursday to call for what has become known as the “Robin Hood Tax.”
Occupy Wall Street protesters also are being bused in from New York by National Nurses United (NNU) — yet another example of the evolving relationship between Labor and the protesters that have targeted the financial sector.Karen Higgins, co-president of the NNU, told The Hill that instituting a financial transactions tax could help fund social programs that are under threat.
“This is actually the first step to do something concrete and beneficial and not harm others by taking money out of social programs that help people survive,” Higgins said. “It is only reasonable that Wall Street contributes its fair share.”
The protest outside Treasury will be one of many planned for Thursday.
Union members, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, will be in Cannes, France, to call for the tax at the opening of the G-20 Summit that will be attended by President Obama and other world leaders.
There are also protests planned for Los Angeles (November 5th) and San Francisco.
Labor leaders have adopted the rhetoric of the protest movement, citing how the 99 percent of the country have suffered at the hands of the wealthiest 1 percent. Unions have provided logistical support for the protesters as well.
NNU members have set up first aid stations in several cities, including at Wall Street, to help the protesters. CWA members marched with protesters to a Verizon wireless store in New York last month. And one of AFSCME’s local Wisconsin unions helped provide pizzas for the protesters.
The protests come as Labor has grown frustrated with a proposal by Democratic members of the Super Committee — the panel tasked with reducing the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion. The Democrats’ plan would reduce the deficit by $3 trillion — partly through $500 billion in cuts to entitlement programs — and would include $1.3 trillion in tax hikes and Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill.
Higgins and others in Labor have long been calling for a financial transactions tax (F.T.T.) to help provide government funds for social programs. In September, the AFL-CIO drafted a memo that said a financial transactions tax could bring in $1 trillion in new government revenue over the 10 years.
Higgins said Lawmakers are targeting the wrong things to bring down the debt.
“Again, it is still going back to programs that we should not touch during a time of crisis, and this is a time of crisis,” Higgins said. “We need to be very disturbed about what suggestions are being made.”
Source:
By Kevin Bogardus - 11/02/11 02:12 PM ET
By Kevin Bogardus - 11/02/11 02:12 PM ET
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/191383-unions-occupy-wall-street-to-protest-for-robin-ho od-tax
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)