Working Fer The Man

Union Democracy Now

That’s no thermometer, friend.  Look over your shoulder and you will see a familiar smirking face.  Yes, that’s right, it’s your union boss holding the tub of lubrication and watching exuberantly as the company boss gives it to you good.

 

Here in IBEW Local 827, the foreplay between the company bosses and our union boss has transformed from friction into sultry disco inferno, and before it’s over we’re all going to get screwed — screwed by a nasty bastard called business unionism.

 

The big internal battle in the labor movement has always been between business unionism and a more radical rank-and-file or grassroots unionism.  Surely many workers reading this are thinking, “I’m no radical.”  That’s true and that’s the problem.  We need to become radicals.   We can never be partners with the company, because they will always make sure that the partnership is extraordinarily unequal.

 

The letter that our esteemed union boss has just sent us all is another problem.  He basically says we have to surrender to the company’s agenda, “that we live in the same house.”  We don’t live in the same house.  We don’t share the same interests.  For instance, it’s in the company’s interest to make us work as hard and fast and cheaply as possible.  None of those things are good for us.  Our quality of life is not important to them.  The quality of the work is not that important.  These days the big bosses who run the company get paid because of numbers and stock prices.  Quality of work plays a small role in the computation of these numbers.  These greedy bastards only care about their pay and compensation.  Look what happened on Wall Street.  We can’t emulate them.  Sure we all need to earn our livings, but we also need to have some principle.  We need to set the standard for working conditions, not just at our company but for all workers.

 

Now is not the time to hide under the covers.  We need to fight, but like a prize fighter we need to get in shape before we step into the ring.  We need to do some work. Let’s not move into the big boss man’s house.  Let’s get our own house in order, so we can win.  Right now the union operates more like dictatorship, like a business.  Our current union boss seems to think he can tell us what to do.  But we’re the union, not him.  The rank and file needs to run the union, and the union leaders need to carry out our decisions.  That’s part of what “radical union” means, but for us to build that kind of democracy in our union, we need a plan.  We also need a grassroots movement to spread and implement the plan.

 

Now is the time to do it.  Business unionism has led the labor movement away from its radical roots.  Our greatest victories were won back in the in the 1930’s and 40’s during the last great economic crisis.  The right to organize, the eight hour day, social security, unemployment insurance, respectful working conditions, all these victories and more came from a time when radical workers ran many unions.  The bosses were scared and they bent, but didn’t break.  In the 1950’s they threw the radicals out of the unions using the Red Scare as an excuse.  Slowly but surely the bosses started to take back the gains we had won.  The business union leaders began to make more and more deals and now they have bargained away most of the union movement.   That’s the main reason unions’ numbers have been dwindling and their influence waning over the last 50 years.  That’s why real wages have decreased steadily over most of those years and private sector union membership has declined from 36 percent in 1956 to 8 percent now.  We work more, produce more but get paid less money.  Meanwhile the bosses have gotten richer and richer.

 

We don’t live in the same house with the company.  We’re out in the tool shed next to leaky septic tank.  We need to take our house – the union — back.  Today’s the day.  Tomorrow’s too late.