solidarity caucus

B.C. Labour At A Crossroads

Published on 18 Jan 2007 at 10:12 am.

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Filed under Uncategorized, Analysis, Leaflets and Posters, 2006 B.C. Fed Convention.

B.C. Labour At A Crossroads

The last four years have been a disaster for the British Columbia labour movement.

Meeting here four years ago this week, delegates were in a fury over the Campbell government’s attacks on unions, the poor, women, aboriginal people and students. More than that, we were collectively prepared to fight these attacks. The delegates at the 2002 Fed convention were so unified in their determination to beat back Campbell’s attacks that they actually forced the Fed leadership to amend the Action Plan to include escalating actions up to and including a general strike. But since then, we have seen nothing but an increasing series of setbacks, reversals and outright betrayals…

It started in 2002, with the unanimous adoption of a militant Action Plan, which was immediately discarded by the officers in defiance of the convention’s decision;

It deepened with the destruction of collaborative relations with the dozens of community coalitions that had sprung up across the province to resist Campbell; in some cases the labour bureaucracy moved in to take control of local coalitions, and where it could not take control, to break away from them;

It continued with most of the labour leadership’s throwing their support and resources into supporting Campbell’s biggest P3, the Olympics. Increasingly, labour’s traditional opposition to privatization and public-private partnerships has become in many cases little more than lip service, most clearly in the leadership’s refusal to fight to block the RAV line.

Finally, chickens started coming home to roost. Having betrayed our allies in the community, our leadership began applying the same methods to Fed members.

· our leadership withdrew support from the ferry workers in December 2003, forcing them to accept a disastrous binding arbitration where Vince Ready imposed a seven-year contract, a 0-0-0-0-2-2-3% increase, and in so doing imposed a contract on the BC Ferry and Marine Workers’ Union that paved the way for Campbell’s privatization of B.C. Ferries; (see note below)
· our leadership barged into the HEU strike four months later, swept aside the elected negotiating committee, and rammed through a deal cutting wages by 15%, firing thousands, and sealing the privatization of hospital support services, and prevented the HEU membership from voting on the deal;
· our leadership not only refused to mobilize support for the teachers during their brave strike in October 2005, it went to the media and publicly pressured the BCTF to return to work and accept Vince Ready’s bankrupt deal. Not only that, some affiliates even went so far as to actively discourage their own members from showing up at the big BCTF/CUPE strike rally;
· all of this led the way to last spring’s disastrous public sector settlements, where our leaderships lay down before the Liberals’ divide and rule campaign. They refused to form a common front, they refused to bargain together against the government, they refused to unite, and they allowed the Campbell government to ram through an unprecedented four-year strike ban in the public sector. This means, effectively, that our leadership has helped open the door to the next big wave of Liberal privatizations in health care, education, social services and infrastructure that will be hitting us between now and the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Going For The Gold

At the same time these betrayals have been taking place, a good chunk of the Federation leadership has been transforming itself from labour leaders to developers. The last 15 years has seen many different union leaders starting to use their members’ pension funds to build their own corporate empires. Concert Properties is the clearest example of this, where a union-controlled development fund has bankrolled itself off the pension savings of the members of 20 different unions and has grown to become the largest developer of rental properties in B.C., only to become indistinguishable from any other developer. This also means that a sizeable chunk of our leaders have made their separate peace with the Liberals. Concert Properties is union-controlled, but every single year since 2001 it has donated thousands of dollars to the B.C. Liberal Party, and the entire leadership of this Federation stands condemned for its continuing refusal to criticize this monstrous sellout.

We need to go back to our roots.

The last hundred years of B.C. labour is rich with lessons that still have meaning today. From Ginger Goodwin to the battle of Ballantyne Pier, from the post office occupation to the On To Ottawa Trek, from the Lenkurt Electric strike to the Canadian Farmworkers organizing campaign, working people have won nothing until they have unified, organized, and confronted their employers and the employers’ governments.

We have learned that we must be unified to win. The old slogan “an injury to one is an injury to all” is something that we need to put into practice if the union movement is to be able to survive the 21st century. We can no longer stand by in silence if workers are under attack and their right to strike is being taken away from them. We must fight side by side with any union under attack, because it is our rights that are under attack as well.

We must break with the concept of the trade unionism as a technocracy of lawyers, arbitrators and business agents, and return to being a labour movement based on a permanently mobilized and active membership.

We must recreate a democratic and militant labour movement, one where there is genuine membership control over each union, where debates are open, unfettered and real, and where decisions taken by the membership are carried out and leaderships are actually accountable to their members.

Finally, and by no means least, we must rediscover the radical meaning of the B.C. Fed slogan “what we want for ourselves, we desire for all”. We must seek out alliances wherever we can with the poor and working poor where we can together fight side by side as equals for common goals.

To do this, we will need both to renew this Federation and to change its leadership.

From top to bottom.

(Note – This text has been slightly changed from the original. The paragraph dealing with the 2003 ferry workers strike has been reworded, as the original wording could be interpreted to blame the ferry workers for the Ready decision and the privatization of B.C. Ferries, which is not true, and not our position. The imposition of the Ready arbitration and the pressured return to work was what opened the door to the provincial government’s privatization of the ferry system by helping create a relationship of forces where they could implement the Coastal Ferries Act. This was the not the fault of the BC Ferry and Marine Workers’ Union membership. It was the fault of the leadership of the BC Federation of Labour.)

Solidarity Caucus
solidaritycaucus@shaw.ca
#17-1744 Kingsway, Vancouver, B.C. V5N 2S6
phone (604) 254-1421 fax (604) 872-5105

Why Punish COPE?

Published on 18 Jan 2007 at 6:44 am.

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Why Punish COPE?

1) Labour’s Boycott Is Not Even-Handed –

The labour leaderships’ boycott of COPE and Vision is anything but balanced.
First, COPE is far more reliant on contributions from the union movement than
Vision is. In the 2005 election, 69% of COPE’s total contributions were from
the labour movement, but only 12% of Vision’s donations came from unions.
Second, the breakaway faction who left COPE to form Vision skipped out on
their share of COPE’s 2002 election debt– a debt that got them elected in
the first place — leaving COPE to pick up the tab of hundreds of thousands
of dollars used to elect Vision councillors. Add to this the fact that Vision
spent over three times as much as COPE did in 2005 and it becomes clear that
the supposedly even-handed boycott hits COPE far worse than it does Vision.

2) COPE Is Not Responsible For The Split –

Mayor Larry Campbell broke from COPE even before he took office when he
threatened to go ahead and obtain an injunction against the Woodwards squat.
The Friends of Larry Campbell broke democratically-adopted COPE policy which
supports a freeze on transit fares when their rep on Translink voted for a
fare increase. They broke COPE election promises to oppose slot machines.
They broke with COPE policy opposing P3’s when they purged Fred Bass from the
Translink board and had his replacement Raymond Louie cast the deciding vote
that brought in the P3 RAV line. They tried unsuccessfully to expel Fred
Bass, Tim Louis and Anne Roberts from the COPE executive. They started
organizing their own fundraisers and setting up their web site months before
the incident they used as a pretext for their split. Vision broke away from
COPE, not the other way around. Vision Vancouver and its leadership have to
bear full responsibility for the split. They were the ones who organized it,
after all.

3) Vision Vancouver Does Not Respect Democracy –

After repeated unsuccessful attempts to change COPE policy, Vision simply
ignored the repeated votes of the majority of COPE members. They went
further, setting up an organization run by an unelected executive committee,
fielding hand- picked candidates that had never seen a nominating meeting,
and putting forward policies developed in the back rooms that had never come
before a membership meeting.

4) Vision Vancouver Runs On Corporate Money –

You dance with them what brung you. In 2005, 69% of COPE’s donations were
from the union movement. Vision Vancouver’s funding shows where their
support comes from. 73% of Vision’s funds came from corporations. Only 12%
came from unions. Nearly half of Vision’s total contributions – 46.7%, or
$632,622 – came from developers and gambling and liquor interests. Even more
telling, Vision Vancouver does not hesitate to accept money from some of the
worst lockout artists in town, like Gary Jackson of Royal Diamond Casino
fame, and like Telus’ $9,100 donation, most of which Vision received in the
middle of Telus’ 2005 lockout of TWU.

The “labour boycott of COPE and Vision” is not neutral, is not even-handed,
is not constructive, and is not even rooted in reality. We in labour should
not be punishing COPE for the disunity that Vision has created.

Signed in personal capacity. Organizations are listed for identification
purposes only.

John Ames
Secretary treasurer
B.C. Government and Service Employees Union local 503
Delegate, Vancouver and District Labour Council

Jim Houlahan
Vice-president
Canadian Auto Workers local 111
Delegate, VDLC

Gretchen Dulmage
Vice-chair and chief shop steward
Childrens and Women’s Hospital Site
HEU / PSHA Amalgamated local, CUPE 6010
VDLC executive member-at-large

Dick Fahlman
Steward and former treasurer
International Theatre and Stage Employees Union
Local 891
(motion picture production technicians)

Gordon Flett
Shop steward
Communication, Energy and Paparworkers local 2000
Former chair, VDLC strike support committee

John Yano
Conductor and steward, HEU St. Paul’s local
HEU / CUPE 6016
Member, HEU provincial executive subcommittee for
support workers
Member, HEU LG standing committee
Delegate, VDLC

Will Offley
Member, B.C. Nurses Union
Central Vancouver Region
Delegate, VDLC

Isobel Kiborn
HEU / CUPE (retired)

Mike Palacek
Shop steward
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Vancouver local

Ken Hiebert
Member, International Longshore and Warehouse Union
Local 500

Christine Arcand
Former executive member
HEU / CUPE Vancouver General Hospital local

Mike O’Neill
Executive member
Vancouver Secondary Teachers Association
Former COPE school board trustee

Cathy Peters
PHSA Amalgamated Local HEU/CUPE 6010
HEU People with Disabilities Equity Standing Committee
CUPE National Disability Rights Working Group
VDLC alternate delegate

Larry Tallman
Member, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Local 15

Frank Barbeau
Retired member
Brewery and Distillery Workers local 300

Gene McGuckin
Executive member, CEP 1129
Delegate, VDLC

Maureen Bourke
Secretary treasurer
Telecommunication Workers Union local 63

Claudio Eckdahl
Component 6 executive member
BCGEU 603
VDLC delegate

Jim Brown
Member, TWU 30

Paul Houle
Shop steward
BCGEU 603
COPE treasurer
Purinethol

Herbal Phentermine
Prandin

Inside The CAW Jacket

Published on 12 May 2006 at 11:24 am.

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Filed under Uncategorized, Analysis, Debating Strategy, Labour And The Liberals.

Inside the CAW Jacket

Perhaps no other event in the history of the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW) has evoked more of a reaction than the spectacle in December of CAW National President Buzz Hargrove gleefully giving then Prime Minister Paul Martin a CAW jacket to wear while Martin was campaigning for re-election. New Democratic Party (NDP) members and supporters were infuriated. The Liberals were ecstatic. The Left outside of the NDP cringed seeing vindication of their worst opinions of Hargrove and his political history going back to the days of Dennis McDermott’s bitter fights against the left in the Canadian UAW. Disgust was widespread.

But “jacketgate” is really misunderstood. It is misunderstood because it did not actually mark a sudden or dramatic shift in the political and class orientation of the CAW. The CAW’s right turn exemplified by that spectacle has actually been evident for almost a decade. It has been taking shape since shortly after the Ontario Days of Action were deliberately wound down by a union bureaucracy in Ontario in which the right-wing “pink paper unions” (USWA, UFCW, SEIU, OPSEU etc.) achieved hegemony in the Ontario Federation of Labour and hegemony in determining the political orientation of the province’s labour movement.

Ontario 1999

The demise of the extra-parliamentary social movement that was mobilized during the Ontario Days of Action went hand in hand with a deliberate and general retreat by organized labour in Ontario, where the CAW’s membership is concentrated, into electoral politics. Initially this led to some political disarray then to a focus on the 1999 Ontario election. Defeating the province’s Tory government at the polls became the sole objective of Ontario labour.

While there was unity with regard to the objective there was not over the electoral strategy for achieving it. Essentially two distinct strategies were pursued. One focused on exclusively supporting the NDP. The other focused on strategically voting for those candidates most likely to defeat a Tory meaning, in most cases, a Liberal. The CAW broke new ground at this point and made a decisive political turn to the right by embracing the latter strategy. This marked a sea change for the CAW. The union had been a bulwark of support for the NDP since the party’s formation in 1961.

This notwithstanding, in 1995, the CAW leadership had punished the Ontario NDP for the its government’s anti-worker Social Contract legislation while steadfastly continuing to support the NDP in the rest of English Canada. The CAW did this by adopting a policy in the 1995 Ontario provincial election of only supporting NDP candidates who defied the NDP government of Premier Bob Rae by openly opposing the anti-labour Social Contract legislation. This effectively meant the CAW adopted a political position decisively to the left of both the NDP and every other predominantly private sector union. This political orientation to the left of the NDP remained clearly in force for the next couple of years while the Days of Action were taking place in opposition to the Tories’ policies.

Nonetheless, the planned demise of the Ontario Days of Action and the collapse of the movement associated with it largely facilitated the CAW’s subsequent right turn. As indicated it set the stage for the abandonment by the CAW of its tradition of unwavering support of the NDP in favour of strategic voting. Many CAW activists and local CAW leaders opposed this right turn wanting to remain loyal to the NDP. Others on far left prophetically opposed it seeing it as a clear opening to the Liberals and as an effective abandonment of class politics in the CAW’s political orientation.

Significantly, the unfolding of these developments went hand in hand with an extensive survey of the CAW rank and file concerning the union’s involvement in politics and intended to revise the political course of the union. The leadership analyzed the results of the survey and concluded the CAW would be more effective politically if it focused its political work on key issues rather than just on building support for the NDP. A new “non-partisan” political course could now be justified and was then set. This new political course proved to be wholly compatible with and conducive to strategic voting becoming an entrenched CAW policy.

Beyond this the collapse of the social movement embodied in the Ontario Days of Action set the stage for much more than just an embrace of strategic voting and a measured degree of electoral support for the Liberal Party. It simultaneously led to a significant change in the way the CAW addressed issues that was also complementary to the embrace of strategic voting with similar political effects. Specifically, extra-parliamentary political action ceased to be a central feature of the CAW’s mobilization around political issues and with this the CAW’s advocacy of what it claims is “social movement unionism” started to ring increasingly hollow. Accordingly, more and more effort was channeled into lobbying politicians and timid postcard and letter writing campaigns. It was as if the CAW had disavowed militant mass protest and the politics of the street.

Quebec City 2001

Indeed, the final gasp of the CAW’s commitment to the latter was vividly on display in Quebec City in April 2001 during the Free Trade of the Americas Summit. That was when organized labour effectively and shamelessly turned its back on the youth who constituted the vanguard of the then thriving movement against capitalist globalization and who personify the future of the left. During the two days of mass confrontation in Quebec City between these inspiring youth and their genuine allies, including some CAW activists and local leaders, on one side and the riot police on the other the few prominent CAW members present largely stayed clear of the main events. They took part in the organized labour’s hapless march to an empty parking lot on the outskirts of Quebec City instead.

Meanwhile, and most significantly, the large majority of the CAW leadership met at CAW Council on the same weekend far away in Port Elgin, Ontario. This happened because top CAW leaders had refused to move the meeting to Montreal in order to facilitate maximum participation in the mobilizations in Quebec City. In retrospect what happened that weekend in April 2001 was a very telling indication of how much things had changed in the CAW in the wake of the demise of the Ontario Days of Action and how much they stood in contrast to electrifying events like the occupation of the Oshawa Fabrication Plant during the 1996 CAW strike against GM and a one day general strike in Toronto right afterwards.

What happened in April 2001 starkly revealed how much of a gap there now was between the CAW’s occasionally militant rhetoric and practical reality when it came to the changing political orientation of the union. The chilling political fallout from 9/11 subsequently accentuated this marked shift away from militancy.

Logically the new emphasis on political tactics like lobbying coupled with the embrace of strategic voting combined to give additional momentum to realizing a closer relationship with Liberal politicians particularly insofar as the Liberal Party is traditionally the party of government and insofar as today’s Tories barely give unions like the CAW the time of day. Lines of communication between the Liberals consequently strengthened and, especially under Paul Martin’s federal government and Ontario’s Liberal government, bridges were being built to the obvious pleasure of the Liberals ever mindful of any opportunity to undercut labour support of the NDP. This, in large measure, set the stage for “jacketgate”.

But another critically important dynamic was at work with a very similar trajectory. Namely, the development of the auto and auto parts industry in Ontario within the context of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the broader phenomenon of capitalist globalization prompted a significant shift in the relationship of the union to the auto corporations it collectively bargains with. Developments over the past decade and a half within these industries in this context have caused the CAW to experience a continuous downsizing of its workforce in them and especially at “Big 3” operations in Canada. Worse still, this continual downsizing of the CAW’s auto and auto parts workforce has occurred at the same time as non-union auto manufacturing operations at Toyota and Honda have underwent a major expansion. This expansion has been prompted mainly by increased sales by these corporations and growing market share. This is resulting in the very ominous growth of a non-union workforce in the Canadian auto industry that directly threatens the future of pattern or industry-wide CAW agreements.

Oshawa 2006

These developments have resulted in fierce competition for a diminishing number of jobs at GM, Ford and Daimler Chrysler prompting those corporations to step up their pressure for both contract concessions by the CAW and massive government subsidies with the blessing of a CAW desperate to stop the relentless job losses. Confronted with this increasingly dire situation the CAW has become less and less adversarial in its relationship to these employers and more and more willing to accommodate their demands for more flexible collective agreements seemingly oblivious to the harsh impact of doing so on rank and file CAW members. They are the ones who have to work under these flexible agreements and they are the ones will experience daily the effects of the relentless restructuring of operations and the speed up that flexible agreements are designed to facilitate (ie. the just negotiated Oshawa “shelf agreement”).

The end result is yet another development that logically goes hand in hand with developing a closer relationship to the Liberals who, as noted, are usually best positioned to deliver the government subsidies to these corporations in exchange for new investments that are also consistently tied to the acceptance of local contract concessions giving the corporations more flexibility in managing their workplaces and facilitating corresponding reductions in production costs at our members’ expense. In effect, consent to a realignment of the work process on the shop floor has coincided and still is coinciding with a realignment of the CAW’s political orientation making for an broad realignment of the union’s class orientation.

In contrast to the Liberals, the NDP is largely left out in the cold. Being out of power the NDP cannot deliver government subsidies and can only be very useful to the CAW in the auto and auto parts industries if and when it holds the balance of power while a minority Liberal government is in office.

The CAW’s subsequent break from the NDP cannot be accurately and thoroughly understood without grasping these things. Indeed, the context they define also goes a long way towards explaining the CAW leadership’s recent fury at the NDP over the federal party’s decision late last year to not continue to prop up Paul Martin’s federal Liberal government in order to extract legislation the CAW desired. This context also largely explains the depth of their current, deepened disillusionment with the NDP and it illustrates why the CAW is so supportive of changing to a parliamentary system based upon proportional representation federally and provincially.

On the other hand this context does not explain why the CAW has never made a serious, let alone sustained, effort to mobilize within the NDP in order to push it to the left and make it take up organized labour’s goals in a more meaningful way. Nor does this context explain why the CAW and the Canadian UAW before it has more often than not either openly aligned itself or passively gone along with the NDP establishment sometimes even in direct opposition to the left within the NDP.

The Party’s Over

These things beg the question of what can be done in the wake of the CAW’s pre-determined decision at a CAW Council meeting in April to terminate its relationship to the NDP and opt for a redoubling of its less than consistent support for its social movement partners as an ostensibly viable political alternative. Demanding an unlikely but not inconceivable return to the previous status quo in terms of a restored relationship with the NDP would be a political dead end. There is no reason at all to believe a restored relationship would be followed by a determined CAW effort to internally challenge both the NDP leadership and the increasingly right-wing drift of the NDP. The effective absence of any such effort throughout all the years the CAW was in the NDP precludes any credible hope that this would be attempted unless the current top leadership of the CAW is thoroughly swept from power and its army of full time officers suddenly embrace anti-capitalist politics in a truly meaningful, as opposed to a rhetorical and momentary, way. Regardless, the rightward drift of social democratic parties globally in the context of 21st Century capitalism reveals such an attempt to turn the NDP decisively to the left would be doomed to failure.

Working towards the formation of a political alternative decisively to the left of the NDP is a more plausible option. But it has little support currently within the CAW. In the absence of much more support this must be considered a distant goal. Nonetheless, ongoing advocacy of a political alternative decisively to the left of the NDP is still critically necessary in order to methodically build support for its eventual formation.

In the meantime there is a compelling need for an immediate political strategy which combines sustained attacks on continued CAW electoral support for the Liberals and strategic voting with relentless demands that the CAW leadership return to an adversarial and meaningful anti-concessions stance towards employers fully cognizant of how succumbing to corporate demands for flexibility is ultimately suicidal for a workers’ organization. Finally, the CAW leadership must also be relentlessly pressed to effectively practice what they are now preaching in relation to our social partners. They must be compelled to forge a renewed, sustained and consistent commitment to militant, extra-parliamentary political action of the kind we saw during the Ontario Days of Action the demise of which largely set the stage for the current, muddled political mess highlighted in December by “Jacketgate”.

Bruce Allen is the Vice-President of CAW Local 199 in St. Catharines, Ontario. He founded the CAW Left Caucus. This article is to appear in the July/August edition of New Socialist magazine.

Delphi’s Nightmare Strategy — The Race To The Bottom

Published on 7 Apr 2006 at 4:12 pm.

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Filed under Uncategorized, Analysis.

The Detroit News April 2, 2006

Delphi plan: Grim model for the future

Cutting benefits, union ties and moving to China, Mexico, bankrupt supplier
could pave way for others.

By Brett Clanton / The Detroit News

With Delphi Corp. bleeding cash, jettisoning 21 U.S. plants and thousands of
workers and headed for a showdown with its unions, the parts maker would
seem to be destined for history’s scrap heap.

But the bankrupt poster child for the failing industrial Midwest may emerge
from this period of creative destruction as a healthy and viable company –
only one whose future lies mostly in low-cost meccas like Mexico and China.

Instead of a cautionary tale, Delphi may become the blueprint for companies
that want to safeguard their future by fleeing the American heartland,
brutally cutting union ties and escaping enormous retiree benefit costs.

And that may be the scariest part of the Delphi debacle for Detroit. The
“race to the bottom” feared by United Auto Workers President Ron
Gettelfinger is off and running.

The Delphi of tomorrow will bear only the slightest resemblance to the
rust-belt behemoth created in a 1999 spin-off from General Motors Corp. At
that time, Delphi had 60,000 highly paid U.S. hourly workers. The staggering
downsizing plan announced Friday will leave Delphi with about one-fourth
that total.

But Delphi’s 60,000-strong work force in Mexico is likely to keep growing.
And Delphi will build a smaller range of parts.

“Delphi can survive,” said Patrick Anderson, an East Lansing economist who
last year authored a report on the impact of the supplier’s bankruptcy. “But
it will be a much different Delphi than we’re used to.”

Though not in bankruptcy, Visteon Corp., the auto parts maker cast off by
Ford Motor Co. in 2000, is moving nearly as quickly to untangle itself from
high union wages and benefits.

It has transferred unprofitable U.S. plants back to the automaker and is
radically downsizing in North America in an urgent bid to become profitable.

Others also restructuring

Lear Corp., Tower Automotive and other major auto suppliers also are
restructuring themselves with an eye toward low-cost countries.

While the details of Delphi’s turnaround are messy, they are not unexpected.
Since an Oct. 8 bankruptcy filing, Delphi Chairman and CEO Robert S. “Steve”
Miller has said the domestic auto industry can only survive if it breaks
from a business model that he argues is no longer sustainable.
Cradle-to-the-grave benefits, $100,000-a-year factory jobs, guaranteed pay
for laid-off workers — they must go in order for the domestic auto industry
to survive, he said.

“I think we all understand very well that life is not going to continue the
way it has been,” Miller told The Detroit News in an interview after
Delphi’s Chapter 11 filing. “Things have to change.”

Delphi made the point Friday, when it filed a sweeping reorganization plan
and took steps to terminate its union contracts and retiree benefits.

In the reorganization plan, Delphi said it will shed 21 of 29 U.S. factories
– including five in Michigan — cut 8,500 salaried jobs, freeze pensions
later this year and dump unprofitable parts contracts with GM.

Yet the motion to begin the process of voiding union contracts could create
bigger problems for Delphi in coming weeks.

The move increases the chances of a work stoppage at Delphi, which could
ruin the supplier and hobble GM, its largest customer. If Delphi is
successful in convincing U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain to reject the
contracts and it unilaterally slashes worker pay, “it appears that it will
be impossible to avoid a long strike,” the UAW said in a statement Friday.

But Delphi’s Miller said the company is “singularly focused” on reaching an
agreement with its unions that avoids a battle in the streets. GM will use
its influence to avert a strike.

Globalization, GM hurt firm

The problems that brought Delphi to this point stem in part from its 1999
separation from GM, but also from the gnawing forces of globalization.

While the spin-off made the supplier the beneficiary of a wealth of GM
technology and business, it also saddled it with GM wages that are more than
double those of most U.S. suppliers.

“The basic idea was for Delphi to outrun the legacy problem of its inherited
labor costs by diversifying its customer base and global footprint,” Miller
told the Washington Post on Oct. 28. “That strategy sounded good, but
ultimately failed.”

Delphi remains too reliant on GM, whose declining U.S. market share has
wreaked havoc on many domestic parts suppliers. The automaker accounts for 49 percent of Delphi’s revenue, is down from 76 percent in 1999 and 87
percent in 1992.

GM, grappling with its own financial travails, has tried to offset losses by
demanding reduced prices from its largest supplier. GM, since the spin-off,
has asked Delphi for an average 2.1 percent price break each year on parts
– more than double what other automakers require, the supplier said Friday
in court filings. GM, in turn, says it pays a $2 billion-a-year premium on
Delphi parts because of the supplier’s bloated cost structure.

At the same time, Delphi said its U.S. union labor costs rose 81 percent in
the last six years, from $43.47 per hour in 1999 to $78.63 last year. Though
its unions dispute the numbers, Delphi said the figures represent the full
cost of wages, benefits and other items for 33,000 U.S. hourly employees.

“That kind of thing just isn’t affordable in a global reality anymore,” said
Neil DeKoker, head of the Original Equipment Suppliers Association, a
Troy-based supplier industry trade group.

Non-U.S. facilities grow

Delphi has increasingly moved operations to low-cost countries such as
Mexico and China.

Today, the supplier employs about 185,000 people worldwide, but fewer than 50,000 people in the United States. It has 163 manufacturing sites, but
fewer than three dozen in this country.

In its reorganization, Delphi has identified eight U.S. plants that are
critical to its U.S. operations: They are in Grand Rapids; Brookhaven and
Clinton, Miss.; Kokomo, Ind.; Lockport and Rochester, N.Y.; and Warren and
Vandalia, Ohio. Delphi said those plants will focus on safety features,
electronics, diesel and gas powertrains and climate-control products.

Delphi would no longer build spark plugs, brakes, steering components and a
list of other auto parts in this country.

While the company operates 33 manufacturing facilities in the United States,
it included only its 29 plants with unionized work forces in the Friday
filing. The remaining four are staffed primarily by outside contractors.

So, what will become of the 21 factories that sit on the block?

“The implication is that a fair amount of it is going to go global,” said
Kim Korth, president of IRN Inc., a Grand Rapids-based industry research
firm.

“But I think it also opens some significant opportunities for domestic
suppliers.”

Analysts say buyers could include existing suppliers growing their business
with domestic automakers, strategic financial investors, such as billionaire
Wilbur Ross or new competitors, perhaps from China, looking to make inroads in the U.S. auto market.

Delphi intends to unload the targeted plants by Jan. 1, 2008.

Its unions blast Delphi for using the bankruptcy process to wriggle out of
labor contracts and close plants.

Like Miller, they see Delphi as a symbol of how global economic forces are
forcing change on their industry. But they see the paradigm shift less as an
opportunity and more as an unmitigated disaster for workers and communities.

“What’s the difference between Delphi and the Titanic?” UAW Local 699
Chairman Tom Basner said in a recent letter to workers in Saginaw. “The
answer, of course, is that the Titanic had a band.”

You can reach Brett Clanton at (313) 222-2612 or bclanton@detnews.com.

Plunder Road

Published on 26 Mar 2006 at 5:25 pm.

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PLUNDER ROAD
(Tune: Thunder Road)
(With apologies to Don Raye and Robert Mitchum)

Come listen to my story
For I will tell it all
Of how some crooked leaders
Made a noble union fall
Haggard was the leader and Ghag he was his toad
And when they hit the Local’s loot
They called it ‘Plunder Road’.

Chorus:
And there were blunders, blunders
All over Plunder Road
Sweetheart deals with bosses
And expense accounts to load
And there was moonshine, good times
That left an empty purse
Let’s hope the Mounties catch’em
If Big Steel don’t do it first.

A weekend up in Sun Peaks
Or maybe Vegas Town
On a junket in Miami
They’d just lay that plastic down
If their pockets got too empty
They’d just raid the H.E.U.
With not a thought for lesser pay
They need them union dues

Chorus:
And there were sanctions, lawsuits
All over Plunder Road
Harassment charges pending and
Assault charges galore
And there was splurging, gouging
All on the workers’ tab
With not a thought for justifying
All the fun they had.

On the twenty-fourth of June
In the year two thousand five
The Steelworker brass told Ghag
You better make those records jibe
You paid a mortgage from the strike fund
Paid off a shill or two
Bought knick-knacks at the Disney Store
With hard-earned union dues

Chorus:
And there were hearings, jeerings
From an angry rank and file
How dare you take our money
To line your pockets all the while
And there’ll be cheering, rejoicing
From each Mill-worker throat
When justice bangs the gavel down
And gets old Sonny’s goat
When Justice bangs the gavel down
And gets Ghag’s greedy goat.

By Andy Mathisen
member, Steelworkers Local 1-3567

(This song expresses a personal opinion. It should not be understood, construed or interpreted as representing the position of the United Steelworkers of America, Steelworkers Canada, Steelworkers Western Region #3, the B.C. Federation of Labour, Leo Gerard, Ken Neumann, Steve Hunt, Norm Rivard, Sonny Ghag, or anyone else on down the food chain. You can quietly hum this song, but if you sing the words out loud, you better do so at your own risk. Void in provinces where prohibited by law. Void in unions where prohibited by bylaw.)

The CAW’s Great Leap Backwards

Published on 26 Mar 2006 at 5:21 pm.

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Filed under Uncategorized, Analysis, Debating Strategy.

The CAW’s Great Leap Backwards

The CAW’s decision to open its just signed local agreements with GM in Oshawa marked a momentous turning point in our union’s history. With this decision the CAW stepped on the accelerator in the corporate race to the bottom. The result is a great leap backwards that will ultimately affect every Canadian worker.

Consider the grave implications of this “shelf agreement”. For the first time ever the CAW has agreed to reduce time off the job via reduced break times. By doing so the CAW has gone from bad to worse in terms of the centuries’ long fight to reduce work time. Having just signed a contract with absolutely no additional paid time off the job at a time when our members are working harder and harder the CAW is giving up time off the job that our parents’ generation fought and even died on picket lines to gain. This concession is a shameful betrayal of their heroic legacy. It is a step back to the kind of workplace they fought to change to make it fit for human beings.

The agreement to outsource nearly 400 non-skilled maintenance and construction jobs in the Skilled Trades will have a similar effect. High seniority workers will no longer be rewarded with these generally less physically demanding off-line jobs. These jobs will cease to be part of the bargaining unit. Worst of all these preferred jobs will be outsourced to non-union workers paid less than half our wages and receiving few if any benefits. This means our production workforce will be subject to the gross insult of being tied to production lines and working shifts while what were preferred jobs are done by exploited, non-union workers working in the same plant.

Furthermore, insofar as this will involve employing non-union workers outside of a CAW bargaining unit, we will not be able to negotiate to raise their compensation up to ours and, as such, their very presence will threaten what we have. This means that contrary to CAW policy the CAW has effectively agreed to a two-tier wage and benefit structure with a huge gap between the upper and lower tiers. We will also see the effective end of the decades’ old union principle of having a closed union shop uniting everyone working within it and maximizing our power to deal with the boss.

This means the implementation of this “shelf agreement” will mark a major step towards realizing the boss’ goal of having a cheap, more disposable workforce. This also means a key goal of corporate work reorganizing strategies like lean and agile manufacturing will have largely been achieved. It is also noteworthy that conceding this resembles what the UAW has done. This is historically significant for the CAW.

If the “shelf agreement” is implemented it will create other nightmares for affected CAW members. There will be far more pressure on older workers to retire as soon as possible because they will not be able to withstand continuing to doing their jobs. Once retired they will leave younger workers behind to bear the brunt of a “continuous improvement” process that enables the boss to get the most work out of the fewest possible number of workers. Workers who become injured will increasingly have to choose between being shown the door or working in pain and becoming more injured.

Over a decade ago I wrote about corporate work reorganization strategies I warning they would lead to workers working in 19th Century working conditions with 21st Century technology. If you fully consider the consequences of this “shelf agreement” in its broader industry – wide context it is painfully clear my warning was accurate.

We cannot be complacent. We must be resolute in defending what we and those who came before us fought so hard for. We must not allow ourselves to be beaten into submission and industrial servitude. We require knowledgeable, insightful leadership with a broad vision and determination to rise to the historic challenges now facing us. With it the membership’s declining faith in the CAW can be revived and the boss can again see our collective power as workers. We must always remember that we did not build this union in order to go backwards!!!

Bruce Allen
Vice-President of CAW Local 199

Stephen Hume On The Ferry Sinking

Published on 24 Mar 2006 at 3:00 pm.

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Filed under Uncategorized, Ferry Workers' Strike (2003).

Thank captain, crew for averting marine tragedy

Stephen Hume
Vancouver Sun

Friday, March 24, 2006

“The union claims that because its members need extra training for the ocean, they should get extra pay. Sure, a small premium above comparable jobs on shore or in a movie theatre might be justifiable.”

– pundit Mark Milke, expressing an opinion on the worth of ferry crew in 2003.

“The crew did an awesome job to get us off.” — passenger Jill Lawrence expressing an opinion on the worth of ferry crew after safely abandoning ship in two metre seas and a 75-kilometre per hour gale during a wreck in which the B.C. ferry Queen of the North struck a reef and went to the bottom just over an hour later on March 22, 2006.

“Why would we put a bunch of gift shop employees and cooks on board ship when they’re not providing those services?” — B.C. Ferries boss David Hahn, dismissing union objections to a company plan to save money while providing essential services during a 2003 job action by crewing ferries with janitorial staff.

“They were all very, very good. They were on the ball.” — 74-year-old passenger Douglas Rice of London, praising the crew’s skill in getting him and his wife out of their cabin and into the lifeboats before the ship sank Wednesday morning.

“Thank God we’ve got all these people apparently safe.” — Premier Gordon Campbell (at the time of this writing, two passengers were still missing).

I don’t think I’m being disrespectful in suggesting that God had less to do with saving the passengers than the gift shop employees, cooks and table cleaners.

Before we start calling this a miracle and attributing the safety of the surviving passengers to divine intervention, let’s thank the captain, officers and the crew for their courage, professionalism and commitment to duty. Nor should we forget the people of Hartley Bay who hazarded dirty weather in their own small craft to rescue survivors.

But it was the captain who had to make the fateful decision to abandon ship in the middle of the night in severe conditions rather than hoping his vessel would stay afloat until the Coast Guard arrived to take off his passengers. The captain of the Princess Sophia opted to wait for rescue in 1918 but the ship slipped off Vanderbilt Reef just as the Queen of the North did and instead carried 343 passengers and crew to their deaths.

And it was the crew, the “spoiled,” “greedy,” “criminal” (all words used to describe them back in 2003) crew, which acted with selfless honour in putting the safety of their charges first and managing — in what must have been a terrifying and confusing situation — to muster scores of sleep-addled passengers, get them equipped with personal flotation devices and then smoothly transfer them from a listing deck to lifeboats and life rafts in heavy, killingly cold seas.

I do hope some of those erstwhile critics of the ferry workers will now ask passengers whether they think the efforts of Queen of the North crew members who saved them have only marginally more value than dispensing popcorn at a movie theatre.

And I hope some of the bean counters who determine staffing levels according to standard spreadsheet formulae will get around to asking themselves whether the high ratio of crew to passengers prevented a serious maritime accident from developing into a catastrophe.

In some respects. B.C. Ferries was fortuitous that the wreck of the Queen of the North occurred well off the tourist season when the ship was carrying the full crew required by transport regulations but carried only about seven percent of its passenger capacity.

It’s worth remembering that crewing any ship is like buying insurance. The odds are that you’ll never need their expensive training just as you hope you’ll never claim your insurance. But when you do, you’re thankful that you spent the money.

So the next time ferry workers’ wages come up for discussion, it would be a good idea for all of us in the punditocracy and for those who criticise ferry workers for being overpaid burger flippers to remember that we’re paying the premium not for all those voyages when nothing happens but for the one where something goes dreadfully wrong.

shume@islandnet.com

Looking At The BCMA Deal

Published on 14 Mar 2006 at 10:27 pm.

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Filed under Uncategorized, News, Analysis, Debating Strategy, Labour And The Liberals.

LOOKING AT THE BCMA DEAL

First reports seemed to put the value of the B.C. Medical Association tentative agreement as being a 19.1% increase for doctors across-the-board over a four-year agreement. Today’s press reports seem to indicate it might be substantially more, however.

The front-page article in the March 14 Vancouver Sun stated that “a tentative deal with all the province’s 8,800 doctors would give them a 10.4 percent fee increase over a four-year term, and offer some of them, especially full-service family doctors in high demand and short supply, a total fee increase of 19.1 percent over the four years.”

But the article also goes on to show that a considerable part of the tentative deal’s contents are contained in other areas. For example, it cites $670 million earmarked for cost of living increases above and beyond the 10.4% (or 19.1%) fee increases. This COLA provision works out to a surprisingly large figure – $19,034 per doctor per year, or $76,136 over the life of the contract.

The article goes on to cite further increases above and beyond the 10.4% (or 19.1%) the contract is supposedly worth – $168 million for specialists, “an added 8.7 percent in targeted compensation to family doctors”, up to $107 million in computer subsidies, increased maternity benefits, special incentives for sessional physicians, up to “$40,000 to pay off school loans or set up new ‘office infrastructure’”, a $10 million fund to provide incentives for GP’s to relocate to rural areas and – on top of everything else – the signing bonus!

In fact, the best way to appreciate the real cost of this contract is to measure the total fee the provincial government pays to the provinces 8,800 doctors. In 2006 B.C. will pay out an annual total of $2.8 billion to its physicians. By 2010 that figure will rise by $1.2 billion to an annual total of $4 billion a year. This represents by 2010 an average total per capita annual increase of $136,364 a year – 42.9% over four years – coming on top of the $50,000 a year across-the-board increase the doctors got four years ago.

It makes the 7.2% offered to HEU and BCGEU look less like good-faith bargaining and more like a provocation and an insult.

“Solidarity With Public Sector Workers”

Published on 11 Mar 2006 at 1:56 pm.

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Filed under Uncategorized, Analysis, Debating Strategy.

From the March 2006 issue of The Pulper, newsletter of CEP Local 1129 in Burnaby, BC.

Private Sector Solidarity Essential

Massive Public Sector Strike Over Job Security Looms

by Gene McGuckin

It’s crunch time again in BC as 300,000 public sector workers try to win contract settlements that protect their jobs against the privatization/contracting out mania of Gordon Campbell’s Liberals and their corporate buddies.

Contracts expire March 31 for members of the BC Government and Service Employees Union (BCGEU), the Hospital Employees Union (HEU), the BC Nurses Union (BCNU), the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Health Sciences Association (HSA), and several smaller unions.

Also expiring on March 31 is Finance Minister Carole Taylor’s offer of a share in $1 billion worth of signing bonuses for workers who settle contracts by that date.

These signing bonuses, calculated to range from $3,100 to $3,700 per worker, are a poison pill or a juicy worm on an extremely sharp hook. Government is dangling them to get members to ignore the threats to their job security and their need for a decent, ongoing set of wage increases.

And the “$1 billion dangle” is also calculated to divide public sector unions from each other. The Liberals and their corporate backers are hoping some unions will settle by the deadline and leave others to fight on their own.

A key target of this divide-and-conquer strategy is obviously the BC Teachers’ Federation, who only a few months ago embarrassed the government badly with a publicly supported illegal strike. The teachers’ contract is not up until June, and they are not even starting negotiations until the signing bonus deadline has expired.

Also a key part of the government’s war plan is the intransigent demand that all unions sign a four-year agreement, which would bring “labour peace” to the province until after the 2010 Olympics. While we have gotten use to such long contracts in the private sector, they are unprecedented in the public sector.

Wages are definitely an issue in these negotiations, especially for the health care workers who had a legislated 15% wage cut rammed down their throats two years ago. But others also want yearly hikes in the range of three to four per cent to make up for over a decade of wage freezes and below-inflation increases.

Government has currently tabled offers of increases in the range of 1.5 to 2 per cent in various sets of negotiations.

But the big issue for most public workers is job security. Campbell Liberals and their business backers have made no secret of their desire to gut the public sector—from health care, to BC Hydro, to liquor stores—in an effort to downsize government, lower taxes (mainly to the wealthy), and transfer huge portions of the public’s wealth into private hands.

Since he signaled this clearly in his recent Throne Speech, Campbell himself has been engaged in a vigorous campaign to boost private health care in BC. This would inevitably lead to a two-tier system with no wait times for the rich, while the rest of us try to cope with a deteriorating public system.

But to pull off the privatization of health care and other public services, government has to be able to continue sacking public sector workers and turning their jobs (those that are not abolished outright) over to underpaid contract workers in the private sector.

So, all of the unions in bargaining right now have said that they need contracts that provide job security protections, or else there will be a strike.

At this writing, it appears that the nurses may be the only ones who are successful in pulling this off. This is simply because there is a shortage of nurses and, at least in hospitals and other major medical facilities, it would be difficult for private corporations to take over—right now.

If a massive public sector strike is launched—or rather, a series of strikes, since the unions are inexplicably not working in close cooperation—then obviously the next question will be: when does Campbell legislate them back to work?

When that question is answered, workers will once again have to decide whether to defy such legislation, as has been done over the past four years by ferry workers, health care workers, and teachers.

It is at this point that we in the private sector must be ready once more to support our public sector sisters and brothers.

Such support would not be selfless charity on our part. It would be recognition of two truths that should have been driven home to us by now:
destruction of public sector jobs means the simultaneous destruction of the public services we all depend on for a decent lifestyle, and
whatever they do to public sector workers now will lay the groundwork for what they do to private sector workers later.

Letting our enemies divide us up and take us on one at a time is not only pure madness in terms of basic logic, it also makes a mockery of the words “solidarity” and “union.”

Let us make ourselves ready.

We’re Approaching A Crossroads…

Published on 20 Feb 2006 at 9:42 pm.

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Filed under Uncategorized, News, Analysis, Leaflets and Posters, P3's And Privatization.

We’re Approaching A Crossroads….

The B.C. labour movement is fast approaching a crossroads. 90% of the province’s public sector workers are voting on contracts this spring, and the decisions we take will affect every working person in B.C., whether public sector or private sector, whether unionized or not.

The stakes are huge. Campbell is trying to set the stage for a huge leap in privatization of public services. In education he is already reneging on verbal agreements on class sizes he made to end last fall’s teachers strike. BCGEU is facing government demands targeting 6,000 of its members jobs in the public service, and the Throne Speech made it absolutely clear the Liberals are poised to bring in unprecedented health care privatizations that threaten the very existence of public health care.

But Campbell has a problem. Last fall the teachers strike showed the huge support there is throughout B.C. for keeping public services public, even if it meant being forced out on an illegal strike. Tens of thousands supported the BCTF. Even the Crown prosecutors refused to go after the teachers.

CAMPBELL HAS BAITED THE HOOK
So this year Campbell’s trying a different, and altogether more dangerous strategy. He’s offered a package designed to divide and conquer.

∙ The package contains $4.7 billion in wages, not even enough to make up for inflation;
∙ It baits the hook with a $3500 signing bonus, which is intended to create a divide-and-rule race to the bottom between unions to sign by March 31;
∙ It’s engineered to split the public sector unions apart, to set union against union, to set professionals against non-professionals, to set skilled trades against semi-skilled classifications, to divide and rule;
∙ Campbell’s demands for a four-year contract is also intended to take away our legal strike weapon until after the 2009 election and the 2010 Olympics, and to disarm us precisely when we could have the greatest leverage against the Liberal’s campaign of austerity, cuts, privatization and union-bashing

WE NEED A COMMON FRONT
Now, more than ever, we need to form a common front against the Liberals. If we stand together, if we negotiate together, if we refuse to settle separately, we are unbeatable. The teachers have shown us that the vast majority of working people in B.C. are prepared to support a fight to preserve public services, and that when faced with determined opposition the Liberals can be forced to back off. Why are we not fighting to win?

We need a common front. That means we need a common resolve to say no to the Liberal’s March 31st deadline.

The $3500 signing bonus is poison. It’s a big juicy worm, wiggling on a big sharp hook. We need a common agreement to reject it, because Campbell put it there for a reason. It’s there to bait our members into agreeing to concessions that will pave the way to destroying public education, healthcare and social services between now and the Olympics.

We need a common agreement that no one will fall for the Liberals’ demand for a four-year contract, and that we stick together for one that expires before the 2009 election.

We need a joint recognition that any wage settlement must be adequate for all our members and must also reflect the fact that different unions are at different starting points — most of us had our wages frozen over the last couple of years, but HEU members had a 15% cut. Any just settlement has to correct that situation.

We need a common front to start developing contingency plans for a provincewide public sector strike in the event Campbell does not budge from his concessionary demands. We saw last fall that there is huge support there, if we go out and organize it. A strike vote is all very well, but needs real preparation to make it an effective weapon. If it’s not backed up, it’s only a transparent bluff. To give it teeth, we need to lay the basis for multi-union, provincewide job action, because when push comes to shove, a general strike in the public sector may well be necessary to achieve our demands this year.

And last of all, we need a public commitment from the leadership of all our unions that there will be no move to sign agreements until every union under attack is ready to sign. The labour movement has always been based on the the notion that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” Unity is not a vague ideal we pay lip service to – it’s life or death. If we manage to organize a united fightback against the Liberals over the next weeks and months, there is every reason to be confident that we can defeat them.

But unity does not come cheap, or easy. We need to work for unity. We need to demand it. And we need to raise our voices together to ensure that it happens, in negotiations, and, if necessary, in the streets.

Solidarity Caucue
solidaritycaucus@shaw.ca

« Previous Entries

solidarity caucus

B.C. Labour At A Crossroads

Why Punish COPE?

Inside The CAW Jacket

Delphi’s Nightmare Strategy — The Race To The Bottom

Plunder Road

The CAW’s Great Leap Backwards

Stephen Hume On The Ferry Sinking

Looking At The BCMA Deal

“Solidarity With Public Sector Workers”

We’re Approaching A Crossroads…

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