March 31, 2005
i/m on retreat
till next week
will be back
like a bounding catamount
===============================
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March 22, 2005
studio age manifesto .....delayed
the meat mixer
has taken a mulligan on uz
he now wants to
"rethink this studio bid....
in the light of
"the still "
rising lab sector "
well inded
meat
its a lab age
we live in
as werner von braun
use to say
===========================================================
the over view from the tower
"profiteers algor-issimus "
" employ the smallest
feasible percentage
of
the whole wage klass
for the longest /hardest/fastest
possible work time "
the french fizzle
"les 35 heures....?"
"c'est mort "
============================================
check this all out wageniks
our legal job week:
40 hours
the french legal work week:
35 hours
the lucky frog fucks ....
right?
wrong
-------------------------------------
the global marketplace makes
this short strokin
turn nasty ....
babbit's moralhere:
it isn't nice
to bust
the market's
"natural rate "
of job hours
and besides
one nation
won't long get away
it
not on the down side
not by forcing
mass jobbings
to attend
way less
then their foreign
trade partner peers
----------------------------------------------
take a look at these
'03 averages
for
annual job hours :
french and germans ~1500
perfidious brits ~1700
we damn yankees ~1800
the calc...
1500 x 1.2 = 1800
compared to us
the frogs
are 20% off the pace
---------------------------------------------
well despite a really festive
" no way ..... over my dead..."
press and srteet type
hull -a - ba -loo
the french govern-ment
(now in
" rational " bidness party hands)
has pushed
thru
a legal work week
roll back
yup
guy et jean
you is both
goin back to 39 hours
----------------------------------------
whats this like
for frog wagery?
the pride or old europes working klass
in american terms ...
its as if
after planting old glory
a top
mt su ru bachee
on the island of iwo jima
the japs had pushed us back down the slope
torn our beloved flag
off its pole
and pissed on it .....
=============================================
p.s.
hey america's
union intelligensia note well
where's
the fucking "long run "
superiority of the euro-unions
in all this?
i 'd say
making dates u can't keep
is "tres mal"
for yer klass mates
we american union orgers
get compared unfavorably
to
these super-prolecat...
conciously counter-profiteer.....
union forall and for ever ....
party of the woikery .....
klass struggle till the boss do drop .....
leaper geepers
well
so much for them and theres
sorry folks
but
i get to resenting the rap
and heres hard rocks
despite their "better ways"
they're still headed
back
our way
anyway
the why it all works is
tres deep
ain't it ?
by the way
where might we "all "
be headed...
datum :
south korean's jobble
~2400 hours per solar year
and
to paraphrase one of our leading klass sages ...
" 3000 hours pre 365 ....
thats the gold standard
if the wagery
is jobblin' anything less
the caps
feel they're slackin
================================================
March 19, 2005
toward the optimal one hoss shay labor force
after 55:
will it be
our golden years ?
or
will we be back on the grill
reground job-burgers
here's a lady eve
old timers
intervention
by the way
the lady herself
has gotta be
well past that 55 post
herb I just saw this
in a sermonic
article
what u figure?
is this the new wave ?
a sudden job skew
toward
the well barnacled hulls ?
i know u like to laugh up
the " better get ready to jobble till yer scrap "
bull rope
but maybe .....
-----------------
this is based
on a "number fry up"
by
that infamous
afl-xxx
stat flack hack
the ever dull - i- gent
dean
baker
once boiled off
its all prolly just another
too good to be true
5 alarm pure smoke
no fire mirage
after the music stops
don't we all wish we
could say
" I'm seein'
666 all over town
these days "
my suspicions are
he's pullin his usual
"ejack - u- lota pray-cox" here
like with his
"the coming rate spike "
quackery
in any case .....
----------------------------
"Over the last year
workers over age 55
accounted for half
(918,000 out of 1,810,000)
the rise in employment "
------- clearing away
a little sky hookery here
dean doubtless
tell us what
the base year
job share
of these oldsters
was
my thumb est 12%
so we can get
a sense of the oldster overage
that share today
based on these same
notoriuosly labile survey numbers
is beyond 15%
tres big jump
too tres
something seems off here ....-------------
"There are two factors
driving the flood of older
workers into the labor market....
One
the hideously deflated
post bubble
value
of
retirees' 401(k)s
two ( in two parts )
1)
the price hikes
for health-care
coverage
2)
employers
dropping
their retirees
from company paid coverage"
"In February 1999,
17,000,000 people
over age 55
were working
Last month there were
22,775,000,
an increase
of more than 35 percent
----- i guess last year
in fact
was slightly below
average
for this interval
since these numbers imply
a steady
yearly rise
of about 950 thousand --------
" This
is especially striking
since job growth
had collapsed
for everyone else
after March 2001"
------- indeed.....
all the better to doubt you for
i guess i'll have to
get more numbers for ya
on this herb ----------
-------- dean is clam like
at his site
gues itsgonna entail
me
wading into d of l waters
to fish this out
god what i'll do some times
for a touche --------
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AT LONG LAST AMERIKA'S UNION ?
" THE JOB FREEDOM MOVEMENT
MAY BE AMERICA'S
NEW LIBERTY CHASE "
"RADIO AL" FRANKEN
------------------------------------------
WELL POKES
HERE'S A LAWLESS
PACK OF RESOLUTES
ALREADY OUT
ON THAT HUNT
=====================================================
they kall themselves
THE CBS JOB NETWORK
CBS AS IN
the (C)ollective (B)argaining (S)yndicate
and EVENTUALLY
they want to overthrow corporate amerika
but for starters
they'll settle for
TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND
job freedom riots !
------------------------------------------------------------
this report
is from one of their leaders
" cadre 37"
formerly
my old pal
henry k:
" part time fry cook
full time syndicalist"
p.s. board roooms take note
your days of "wine and rose"
may be headed for
serious curtailment ....
-------------------------------------------------------------------
los vegas march 17 2005
today in a four corners release
the burgeoning CBS job network
FIRED A SALVO
DIRECTLY INTO THE HEART
OF
X-PLOITATION INC
THE JOB FREEDOM CRUSADE
IS NOW ON THE AIR ....
RULE ONE
LIBERTY IS NON NEGOTIABLE
RULE TWO
JOB FREEDOMS ARE A RIGHT NOT A PRIVILEDGE
-------------------------------
WOH WOH WOH HERE HENRY .....
BACK GROUND PLEASE
--------------------------------
NO HERB
NO BACK GROUND
ONLY FORE GROUND
JOB ONE IS GROUP LIBERTY
GROUP LIBERTY ON THE JOB
FREE SPEECH
FREE VOICE
FREE LUNCH
JOB FREEDOM
MEANS
TASK TIMING?
OUR CHOICE
TASK CONTROL?
OUR CHOICE
TASK REFUSAL
OUR RIGHT
-------------------------------
FOLLOW THIS
BOSS BOOB?
YOU CAN PAY US FOR
OUR OUT PUT
BUT OUR TIMES OURS
ITS NOT FOR SALE
WE MAY
ENTER YOUR DOORS
BUT THIS IS STILL OUR COUNTRY
THE LAND OF LIBERTY
THE LAND OF THE FREE
AND IN THE LAND OF THE FREE
A FREE MANS TIME
CAN NOT BE BOUGHT
NOW WE GOT YOUR ATTENTION
WITH OUR
ON SITE DEMO
DON'T TRY TO NEGOTIATE
JUST
SIGN HERE ....
--------------------------------
BLAH BLAH BLAH
SURE SURE SURE
I GET IT HENRY K
I GET IT
( HERBUS INTERUPTUS)
SO FROM NOW ON
YOUR SERVICES
WILL BE PROVIDED
WHEN AND HOW YOU CHOOOSE
AND ALL THATS UP FOR SALE IS THE RESULTS
BUT HOW NOW BROWN COW ?
HOW U PLAN ON STARTIN THE FIRE?
---------------------------------
STAY TUNED SHIP MATES
FOR CADRE 37'S AMAZING ANSWER...................
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March 18, 2005
europe on five unions a day
hey if we yanks
suck at building
and rebuilding unions
whats europe's story
with their higher org rates
is euro wagery in toto
really doin better ?
maybe
when you compare
klass wide compensations
over there vs over here
maybe
they show
total diffs
between uz
that are
(on average)
not worth
a frenchman's fart
what if
the only wider gap
is between
their orged v our orged
and
as to each systems
internal diffs
org v unorg
on pay gap
and jobless rates
maybe amerika islow and behold
more equal....
where am i goin here?
shit if i know
i'm gropin and vampin here comrades
till pandora reports back on this
but in addition
if
as i surmise
there's
a near same rate of drop
in the wage share
on both sides of the pond
then maybe
we're over here
climbin the wrong pole
maybe
as we all get
closer
to that one last belch
before we're nowhere
maybe
"high union density or bust"
is just another
false goal
another
klass holy grail. with a hole in it ..
=================================
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March 16, 2005
the JRLM : job rights liberation movement :( part one)
before we'll get
a jobholders
bill of rights
we need
a massive
job disobedience movement
================================
to high lite
the foul
pro profit anti human
jim crow like
job site regs
the whole stinkin'
spearte and unequal system
today
a jobholder leaves the civic
realm when he passes thru the job site door
drop off
the bill of rights
before you enter
your freedoms
and rights as a citzen
end here
yes we have
3 million scandals
every work day
3 million
rightless voids
areas of immunity
right
inside our republic
the whole stinkin mess of em
must be broken in the name
of a liberty
===============================
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March 14, 2005
behold uncle's audit hornets
think SAM'S BOYS
are
after union books for this:
"check em out
thats how we
brought hoffa down...."
try on
GROVER N'S
line for size :
" audit audit audit
burn up their dues
then audit em
again and again and again
till they throw in the towel"
If union leaders are feeling a little paranoid about
Bush's reelection, maybe it's because they really are
being persecuted. Republicans have both ideological and
strategic reasons for an offensive against labor.
Attacking unions pleases both Bush's corporate friends
and the movement's conservatives, and harasses the
strongest grassroots political operation opposing the
Republican right.
'There's been a strategy,' says former Democratic Rep.
David Bonior, now chairman of American Rights at Work.
'It's not a conspiracy. They're very open. [Key
conservative Republican strategist] Grover Norquist
says they want to get rid of unions, to break the labor
movement.'
But the rights of all workers, not just union members
and their organizations, are in jeopardy. Since Bush
took office, the Labor Department has significantly
reduced staff for enforcing employer violations of laws
on labor standards (such as child labor, the minimum
wage and overtime), occupational safety, and rights to
organize-laws that are important for everyone employed
in America.
Not that increasing the staff would help much if the
Labor Department's treatment of Wal-Mart is the
standard. The Labor Department recently fined Wal-Mart,
a company with $285 billion in annual sales, a paltry
$135,540-or less than $6,000 per violation-for breaking
child labor laws. What's more, the department promised
that its inspectors would give the company advance
notice of future investigations.
Of course, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao may figure that
there's no need to beef up enforcement if the laws are
getting weaker. Republicans plan to follow up Bush's
success last year in curtailing overtime protection
with legislation that would make both overtime payments
and the 40-hour week optional for employers.
But while protection of children and of worker health
is being neglected, the Office of Labor-Management
Standards, which investigates and audits labor unions,
is thriving. This year 48 new positions and a 15
percent budget increase were granted to the office, and
since Bush has been in office they have benefited from
94 new positions and a 60 percent overall increase in
the budget. Last year the Labor Department began
imposing extraordinarily detailed financial reporting
requirements for unions and related institutions, like
credit unions. Although the AFL-CIO is still pursuing a
legal challenge to the rules, the new
requirements-which far exceed those placed on
corporations-have already eaten up dues that could have
been spent on providing members with services. In
addition, the reports expose details about union
strategies that could be helpful to employers and
political opponents.
'The real motivation was to saddle unions with
expensive and time-consuming requirements to harass
them and to provide the kind of ammunition that a Right
to Work Committee researcher or Republican staffer
would find very useful, but union members would find
not useful at all,' says AFL-CIO General Counsel
Deborah Greenfield. 'I don't think it's an accident
that the head of the agency within the Department of
Labor who came up with the rule, Don Todd, was head of
research for the Republican National Committee.'
While unions are harassed more systematically, there
have been complaints that the NAACP and at least 60
tax-exempt groups have been investigated by the
Internal Revenue Service because of their political
activities-though the Treasury Department inspector
general recently found no wrongdoing. And the Los
Angeles Times reported on February 19 that Sen. James
Inhofe (R-Okla.), chair of the Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee, demanded tax and financial
records from two organizations of state and local
government environmental officials who had criticized
Bush's Clear Skies legislation.
Of course, for workers, the threat of expensive union
reporting requirements pales in comparison to Bush
initiatives to privatize Social Security and make the
federal tax system even more regressive. Also, Bush's
proposed Medicaid cuts hit two groups of vulnerable
workers: not only low-income individual aid recipients,
including many employees of companies like Wal-Mart,
but also many thousands of workers in nursing homes and
hospitals whose pay ultimately comes from Medicaid.
In addition, the federal government is attacking the
right of hundreds of thousands of Homeland Security and
Defense Department workers to unionize, and Republican
governors in Indiana and Missouri are curtailing
workers' collective bargaining rights (see 'The Midwest
Union Rollback,' March 14). The right is renewing its
efforts to pass state and federal right-to-work laws
that prohibit requiring employees in a unionized
workplace to pay dues to unions. What's more,
conservative Republicans in Arizona, California,
Georgia, South Carolina and Oklahoma are also pushing
restrictions on union political spending.
In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to
shift public employees' pensions from a defined benefit
plan to a defined contribution plan similar to a
401(k). Beyond jeopardizing public employees'
retirement, it's a calculated attack on workers' power
through pension funds, like CalPERS, that push for
corporate reform. Bush's NLRB
But perhaps the biggest assault on workers will be
coming from the agency entrusted to promote collective
bargaining, the National Labor Relations Board. After
Bush was able to make his appointments to the
NLRB-including its chairman, Robert Battista,
management attorney for the union-busting Detroit
newspapers in the '90s-the board began issuing a string
of anti-union rulings. 'They're not just failing to
keep up with the times, but moving in the wrong
direction,' says Fred Feinstein, NLRB general counsel
in the Clinton years. He argues that the Bush NLRB,
more than past Republican boards, has adopted the
viewpoint of the ardently anti-union National Right-to-
Work Committee.
Jonathan Hiatt and Craig Becker, respectively general
counsel and associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO,
recently wrote, 'The members of the board appointed by
President Bush appear to be headed toward the most
radical non-legislative contraction of employee rights
in the agency's history.' While restricting the rights
of even non-union workers to seek help from co-workers
to protect their rights at work, the Bush board has
overruled or restricted the rights to form a union of
many workers whose jobs are typical of the new,
flexible economy, such as graduate teaching assistants,
handicapped workers, artists' models and temporary
employees.
The Bush board may also soon resolve a dispute about
the definition of 'supervisors.' This is a critical
question because supervisors are not eligible to join a
union. Feinstein fears that the board will define
supervisory positions in such an expansive way that 90
percent of nurses working in a nursing home could be
prevented from unionizing. Meanwhile, with no clear
definition, the board threw out a union election
victory because a worker the board deemed a supervisor
had argued for unionization.
Of course, having supervisors argue against a union-or
far worse-is standard procedure. For example, in
several recent cases where the employer threatened to
close a factory if workers voted for the union, fired
pro-union workers, offered bribes or selectively locked
out pro-union workers, the board either found no
violation by the employer or else imposed no special
remedies. In one case, the employer did not provide the
union the requisite full list of employees before the
election, but the board said it was close enough and
refused to call a new election. Adding insult to
injury, the decision came seven years after the
original attempt to organize.
An even bigger threat looms ahead. Increasingly, unions
organize, as they did many years ago, by getting
employers to recognize the union when a third party
verifies that a majority of workers have signed union
cards-a practice known as 'card check.' The board has
now signaled that it may make such recognition illegal
or at least permit union decertification elections
immediately, rather than after at least one year under
current rules.
In other cases, the board appears determined to narrow
the scope of agreements that unions and management can
reach before majority worker support is established. In
February a regional NLRB director challenged an
agreement between the Steelworkers and a manufacturing
investment company to establish management neutrality
during an organizing drive. Hiatt and Becker warn that
if the board decides
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March 13, 2005
shoppertainment vs walmartation
yes the studio era has its bounds
take marketing
"fetch it yerself
open aisle stacking ....
ain't exactly
a soft shoe sell
studio content :
zero
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ANDY SPOUTS WISDOM
ANDY line :
"WALMART IS THE GM OF OUR ERA "
HE'S DEAD RIGHT
============================================
sometimes andy gets in a snatch or two of real music
i lost the quote but it ran something like this:
" hey
before the 30's up surge
before
recognition and contracts
what did a factory operative
stand to make for his 10 hour shift?
bottom wrung wages
after flint
look what happened
thats where we are today in commercial companies
pre flint"
right on andy
till we put a flint on walmart
nothing much will change
hey
from homestead to flint
was 40 plus years
where
in the holy hell
we are
along the road
to walmarts
final Flintlocking
only cleo knows
===========================================
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March 12, 2005
keep yer stick on the ice: talk players league
since 1890
when
america's
leading ball-players
stoutly walked
out
on the old national league
and
set up their own outfits
" with all the stars in .....
and all the owners out "
the up and down battles
between
"the players
and their owners"
have probed
a very deep
hot and
sore spot
inside the massive soul
of america's
" day labor "
---------------------------------------------------------
this shift
its
"the skate and fight"
guys turn
to have
" a go at their masters"
==================================
"Three billion dollars.
This was the offer put on the
table by a coterie
of Boston based businessmen
to buy
the entire National Hockey League
puck, stick, and
barrel."
" the great humiliation
was not so much the offer.
It's the fact
that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman
felt
like he had to take it seriously."
"As professor Andrew Zimbalist sez
"What the offer
shows
is that there are people
with financial
resources
out there
that see much more potential
and value in
hockey
if the league is run properly"
To make matters worse
Bettman delivered
a speech
announcing his plan
for restarting play this fall
Making peace with the crisis
of overproduction
that is
the National Hockey League"
Bettman announced that
every one of the NHL’s thirty teams
would return.
Bettman in his next
breath
publicly threatened
permanent player replacements
this fall."
" Using scab players
would in fact
violate Canadian labor law,
where unionists are
protected against job loss
while on strike or locked
out. "
Al Strachan of the Toronto Sun wrote
"It’s a desperate step,
a
virtual legal minefield,
but [Bettman] has no choice
now.
He promised too many owners
a hard cap [mandatory
spending limits on players
to make up for budget
problems
rooted in over-expansion]
and he is backed
into a corner.
If the owners think replacement players
will restore credibility
to their sport,
they have been
misled. It will only make
the NHL more of a travesty
than it is already."
Meanwhile, the players
-- after seeming to wither
toward the end of negotiations
-- are straightening
their backs and holding firm.
They have offered to cut
their pay,
but they refuse to have
the owners crisis of
overproduction
solved on their backs.
As Islanders
representative Mark Parrish said,
"The union has bent,
but right now we are stronger
and more united than
ever."
" Hockey, because of its comical Sun Belt
expansion,
is finding its skilled players marginalized
by a glut
of grabbing, pawing, clunking defensemen."
-----------------------
this giff then wanders off
in boo hoo style
toward
the glory days
of bobby hull and davey keon
blah blah
but
as far as the product
on the ice goes....
hey no way round it
the talent
was gettin mighty
sparse
like mother hubbards soup
not enough real meat
to fill all 30 bowls
sure
scab hockey holds no solution
but it does open stuff up .....
as in
"we'll build our own league "
10 teams
in ten top cities
who's to say which is
the biggger bluff
fuck
compared to 30 team
scab league .....
--------------------------------------------
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the house of labor: before and after the anti jeffersonian termites took over ....
this book review made me......
queeeesy
see what u feel
========================================================
"in this account
of a lifetime of support
for the
advancement of democracy
inside the house of labor,
you'll find the better-known characters
and their
stories of labor misdeeds,
such as United Mine Workers
President Tony Boyle
But the compelling
stories of lesser knowns
who took on crooked unions,
like Dow Wilson and Lloyd Green
of the San Francisco
Brotherhood of Painters
-- both of whom were murdered
for their courageous efforts
-- are a treasure trove of
historical narrative
about union politics,
human
frailties, and true grit
that form the largely untold
dark drama of U.S. labor history
of the last half
century.
This book is about individuals,
including Benson
himself,
who had the courage
of their convictions.
It is also about the cynic-inspiring tenacity,
and the sometimes criminality,
of so-called union leaders
who fought rank-and-file insurgents
at every turn.
This includes the deeply troubling
role of the AFL-CIO
throughout much
of the history covered in Benson's
book. "
" Benson was present at the rebirth,
of the
U.S. labor movement
in the first half of the twentieth
century.
as a teenager he witnessed the mass
upsurge in union organizing
that took place in the
Great Depression era
of the United States."
"After
working in various blue collar jobs,
he eventually
helped edit Labor Action.
During the 1950s he became
increasingly
aware of and deeply concerned
about trade
union rebels and reformers
who were harassed, beaten --
and sometimes murdered --
when they voiced concerns
about undemocratic and authoritarian union rule
missing union funds,
and corrupt collusion with
employers.
Soon after, in 1960,
he launched Union
Democracy in Action,
which was, as he writes in his
book, "a one-man-band newsletter
to break the story of
the lonely union reformer."
Benson, supporter of the
often isolated union rebel,
began his new career in the
mirror image of those he championed.
He spent the next
dozen years as a lonely crusader
supporting union
insurgents' efforts
to apply the provisions of federal
legislation adopted
in 1959 designed to enforce basic
democratic rights in unions,"
" the Labor-Management
Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA)."
Benson brought attention to
the courageous union
members who stood up to labor union
thugs and gangsters
-- union leaders in name only
-- who controlled jobs,
colluded with employers,
tolerated no internal union
dissent,
threatened and carried out violence
, and used
the union treasury
as a personal piggy bank,
also known
as stealing.
Despite this corruption
that threatened to
undermine public confidence
in labor unions and the
future growth of organized labor,
all of which Benson
fought so hard to expose,
the AFL-CIO did nothing.
Twelve years after
he launched Union Democracy in
Action,
Benson had succeeded
in developing a network of
rank-and-file union activists.
He wanted to do
something larger,
but he had no money and remained
isolated
from funds that might be secured
from sometime
supporters --
social liberals with means,
civil
libertarians and labor progressives and intellectuals.
While feeling discouraged,
his vision and tenacity
inspired support
from an unlikely source.
An old YPSL
friend, now with money,
donated nearly $40,000 to help
Benson launch
the Association for Union Democracy
in
1972.
Through law suits,
public campaigns,
education classes,
and its newsletter,
Union Democracy Review,
the AUD
under Benson supported labor movement
reformers
fighting to gain control of their unions by
strengthening union democracy and eradicating
corruption in campaigns against entrenched power in
unions large and small, but notably the Civil Service
Employees Association in New York, Steel Workers,
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the
construction industry, International Longshoremen's
Association, United Mine Workers of America, and of
course, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
(IBT).
Benson describes with satisfaction how the U.S. Justice
Department's consent decree imposed on the Teamsters in
1989 facilitated the election of reformer Ron Carey to
the office of Teamster General President in 1991. Carey
subsequently had the IBT rejoin the AFL-CIO, whose
votes made the crucial difference in the 1995 election
of upstart John Sweeney as president of the labor
federation, the first contested election in the then
40-year history of the AFL-CIO. Sweeney's election
created a sense of hope that it was a new day for
organized labor in the United States -- hope that
labor's advancing decline could be halted and that a
reinvigorated effort to "organize the unorganized"
would lead eventually to millions of new union members
at the dawn of a new century. Was this unique
democratic moment -- a palpable demand among unionists
for accountability in the life of this otherwise long-
entrenched bureaucracy -- fueled by the cumulative
effect of AUD's efforts, especially with regard to
developments within the Teamsters? Benson believes that
it was.
But nine years later it is hard to recall that sense of
hope spawned by this democratic moment. Herman Benson's
book arrives at a time of great unease about the future
of organized labor in the United States. The condition
of the U.S. labor movement has worsened considerably
since 1995, threatening a transformation of the labor
movement different from the hopeful vision suggested in
the title of Benson's book. The increasing disconnects
between collective bargaining and union power are
widening: wage increases are smaller, health care and
pension benefits are less secure, and the right to
strike and the right to organize are functionally legal
fictions. These conditions will only worsen given the
reelection of George W. Bush.
There is insufficient evidence that a democratic
transformation of the labor movement continued to
develop following the change at the top of the AFL-CIO
in 1995. Service Employees International Union
President Andrew Stern released a discussion paper on
the future of organized labor, Unite to Win, just after
the November election. To his credit, Stern is
promoting a discussion about the need for restructuring
the labor movement in significant ways so that unions
can better represent workers, organize more workers and
win better contracts. Though the issuance of the
discussion paper is itself a refreshing democratic act
by a major labor leader, the substance of the document
mentions the word democracy only twice. Stern's six-
page paper is constructed around ten key points,
important all, but not one specifies the need for more
democracy at all levels of the labor movement.
>From my perch, the biggest internal threat to the labor
movement is apathy and lack of involvement by rank-and-
file union members. To organize the unorganized, and to
organize the organized, requires member involvement
because labor's power lies in the mobilization of its
members. Involvement and mobilization are indicative of
and the result of a union that reflects the more
democratic society we want to create. As Benson writes
eloquently in his closing chapter, "The Power of
Democracy,"
The existence of democracy does not eliminate the need
for intelligent leadership nor does it automatically
supply constructive policies; but it does serve as a
means of finding that leadership, arriving at those
policies, and rallying public support for them.
Meanwhile, the discussion, the debate, the political
and social battles continue while we search for
answers. It is not absurd, in fact it is the essence of
realism, to suggest that an infusion of the spirit of
democracy in its own internal life will make the labor
movement a more powerful force and give it moral
authority in the defense of social justice as the
battle over social policy continues.
All too often, the power of information, ideas, access
to people, shared leadership, collectively developed
vision and strategies are in the hands of a few, often
the senior elected officers and senior staff, rather
than dispersed across the organization and its members.
If we demand equality, fairness, and democracy, we must
practice it within our labor organizations. If we do
not practice our core values, then why would anyone
want to join us in our pursuit of economic justice and
democratic participation?
When Benson, now in his mid-eighties, launched the
Association for Union Democracy in 1972, he surely had
no idea that such a little-funded and small operation
would still be operating more than thirty years later,
but AUD, now based with a small staff in Brooklyn,
continues today. But still today, among many in
official union circles, AUD is looked upon with the
same loathing as a union buster. Why this is so surely
has much to do with Benson's views on "the divided soul
of American labor leadership." Benson writes that "the
labor movement . . . stands on the side of the people
against the privileges of wealth, for workers rights
against corporate power. But on all of the issues that
involve the rights of workers inside their unions, that
same labor movement, as represented by most of its top
officials, stubbornly defends limitations, restrictions
and repression."
To help sooth, and enlighten, the divided soul of
American labor leadership, Benson's book could have
strengthened its noble message by exploring what are
the deep roots of U.S. trade union corruption and
discussing the problems of democracy:
• Organized labor in the United States developed
in the context of a particular capitalist country since
the civil war. How has this shaped the nature and
extent of our nation's union corruption?
• How does the amount of and nature of union
corruption in the United States compare to union
corruption in other countries?
• What is the importance of democracy in unions
relative to other essential components of building
organizational power? For example, if a union has many
of the forms of democracy without the substance of
power -- if technological change and plant closings
have drastically reduced union density and bargaining
power, or the number of signatory employers is in
decline -- what is the meaning of democracy in this
context?
• Running a union is very difficult even in the
best of circumstances because a union must be, as A.J.
Muste wrote more than 70 years ago, an "army and town
meeting." Because both features are permanent, the
conflicts within unions to forge both power and
community may be a sign of life and strong leadership
and not an indication of a lack of democracy.
" 40 years ago
in an article entitled,
"Democracy Is Inevitable,"
Philip Slater and Warren Bennis
wrote
"democracy becomes
a functional necessity
whenever a social system is
competing for survival
under conditions of chronic
change."
If their proposition is true
and relevant to
the U.S. labor movement today,
then Herman Benson's book
and its emphasis on democracy
as a strategy for labor's revival
could not be
timelier."
_______________________________________________________
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March 11, 2005
whiteneck -skill stripper... in over drive ?
" The advantages of a college degree
are being erased "
"If a degree holder loses a job
that worker is now more likely
than a high school dropout
to be chronically unemployed."
================================================
LA TIMES MARCH 10 2005:
" Long-term unemployment,
defined as joblessness
for six months or more,
is at record rates.
But there's an additional twist:
An unusually large share
of those chronically out of work
are college graduates.
The increasing inability
of educated workers
to quickly return
to the workforce
reflects dramatic shifts
in the economy
Even as overall hiring
is picking up
and economic growth remains strong
industries are transforming
at a rapid pace
as they adjust
to intense competition
technological change
and other pressures.
That means skilled jobs
can quickly become obsolete
while others are outsourced
Educated workers
are increasingly subject
to the job insecurities
and disruptions
usually plaguing blue-collar laborers
-----------------------------------------------
The advantages of a college degree
"are being erased,"
Even with better-than-expected job growth
373,000 people
with college degrees
quit job hunting
and dropped out
of the labor force
last month
The number of long-term unemployed
who are college graduates
has nearly tripled
since the bursting
of the tech bubble in 2000
Nearly 1 in 5
of the long-term jobless
are college graduates
If a degree holder loses a job
that worker is now more likely
than a high school dropout
to be chronically unemployed.
Since the 2001 recession,
about one-fifth of the unemployed
have been out of work
for more than six months
— and that proportion
has steadily crept up
even as the unemployment rate
has fallen.
Even with the national unemployment rate
at a relatively low 5.4%,
the share of those out of work
for more than six months
is higher now than during the early 1980s,
when the jobless rate
was in the double digits,
The average length of unemployment
is also higher now
than at any time
other than the early 1980s.
the number of college graduates
has steadily risen over
the decades.
Tech workers,
in particular,
are victims of their successes
during the 1990s,
when many high-tech companies
went on hiring binges
and wages soared.
"The high tech outfits
basically stockpiled workers
now they've
gotten rid of their overstock."
Higher pay commanded by college graduates
also is a factor.
Wage differentials
between
those with and without college degrees
are at record highs.
Those relatively well-paid professionals
may take longer
to find work
because they are more reluctant
to accept lower-paying work
— although many ultimately do.
Educated professionals also have assets,
such as stocks and homes,
that can help tide them over.
But digging into those assets
can be painful,
The problems of long-term unemployment
are even more pronounced
for older workers,
for whom retirement issues loom large.
The number of long-term unemployed
who were 45 or older
doubled from 2000 to 2003.
That comes as studies show
that the elderly
are having to work longer
and put off retirement.
older workers often face age discrimination
but may also face
a tougher time
adjusting to the increasingly shifting skills
needed in the workplace.
"There are more and more specialists,
And if there are more and more specialists
in an information economy,
you get people whose skills aren't
as portable as they used to be."
"employers have become pickier
about what skills they want "
"When there's a lot of people
out in the marketplace,
companies can afford to say
we want someone
ruly with this experience,
not someone who just says,
'Well, I've taken
a couple of classes in this area,' "
Getting retrained
is also increasingly difficult.
Job-training funds
have been steadily cut
over the decades.
Fields that are booming,
such as nursing,
can require years of study
that some jobless cannot afford.
It's getting tougher to keep pace
with the changing job market
the most recent recession in 2001,
involved "structural" changes
in industries
rather than the usual
ups and downs
f the business cycle.
That means that certain jobs
may never be replaced.
For example, jobs designing computer chips
may vanish because of fundamental changes
in chip design or production
or because the industry
has shipped the jobs overseas
Or businesses' efforts to boost productivity
may mean that computer programs
shrink the number of loan officers
needed to process applications
at a bank.
though the United States manufactures less,
white-collar workers
increasingly produce goods and services
on Information Age assembly lines.
"Instead of a room of auto workers,
you've got a room of insurance brokers."
Those white-collar assembly-line workers
are the most vulnerable to changes
in the globalized economy
"These are the types of people
who are going to have their jobs
under the threat of outsourcing,"
"The market changes a lot faster now
than it used to,"
==================================================================
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GM 's last BM
my prediction.....
GENERAL MOTORS
WITHIN 5 YEARS
WILL SLIP
INTO
A TERMINAL
FINANCIAL DEATH RATTLE .....
WHY GM ?
WHO ELSE
ONLY SUCH A DEBACLE
ONLY THE HUMILIATION
OF THAT
FORMER
ZEUS OF INDUSTRY
COULD SERVE AS A PROPER
TIPPING POINT
like the reichstag fire......
---------------------------
yup.....
"APRES GM
LA DELUGE "
stay tuned
for .....
TERROR--FORT AMERIKA'S
FINAL WAGE RATE SOLUTION
=====================================================
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sony goes studio....
see what we mean?
sony just made a new
head guy
out of a studio type suit
yes sony
that former symbol
of jap engineering prowess
will
now be
"headed up"
by
ah ah ah
"welsh talent scout" ......
------------------------------------------------------
hey mac
do ya need a surer sign
then that?
-------------------------------------
we have entered
the studio age indeed
======================================================
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March 10, 2005
we need this kinda wild assed devotion
god love
those
ever too fuckin few
tree lovers
up north of here....
==================================
" a few Dozen
protesters
are camped out
at the Biscuit Ancient Forest site
in big timber suck butt
Les AuCoin's
Southern Oregon backyard"
"Yesterday
logging was delayed
three hours
by these folks
locking their necks
to Government vehicles
More of same
is planned for today"
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March 09, 2005
part two: why deja vu all over again ain't so funny
remember the last cycle ?
till bensinger got his walkin papers?
see it all happening again ?
the little pie suckers
with the brass heads
clanging clanging away
till we end in another stand still .......
=============================================
HERE HERE LETS UNITE......
so
when exactly
do the creeps
begin to care
about our endless member shrink?
only when ....
there's not enough
dues-cows
left in their own barn
to keep the fuckers
in silky speedos
a state of affairs
the rag men
that gave us UNITE
faced........
and SOLVED
NOT BY
making a big batch
of new union-ites
NO SIREEE
the tried and true
squalid slime way
iz
just to
"scum moige"
take yer money
and go out
and
find yerselves
a pack of dollar hungry
under fed fellow pies
and moige
wid em
jump a shared ride
on the backs
of
their hapless herd
of
already captive
and pacified hoofers
--------------------------
speaking of moiges
right around now
50 years ago
the infamous blue meany
pulled off
the moige of moiges
hog tied
brother Walt' s
de-redheaded
rump CIO
into the "legendary " AFL
to form...
a new
IKE era
type Federation
the afl-xxx
an outfit
that just keeps lookin
better and better
all the time ..........
well don't it ?
=================================
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part one : bloated parasites in search of a bigger host
this is fer
andy's gang
cohens pluggers
and
raynor's rayons
etc etc
=====================================
"looked at
from the inside out
this grotesque pack
of middle aged muddles
is nothin but a deadly
infection
ready willing and able
thedestroy
the fighting spirit of labor ...."
dick ' bitter pill 'bensinger 1998
--------------------------------------------------------------
" so whats up boyz?
ain't got enough host animals
to keep ya all
as ya've grown accustomed
to being kept
you fuckin klass jigilos "
'easy listenin' ed
nelson 2005
-------------------------------------------------
so what say you ?
can these lampreys
morph
reform themselves
into hammer head sharks ?
forget about it ......
we gotta
bust ourselves out of
this fuckin plaster caste
we're encased in
gwt it ?
free ourselves up
enough
so there's
at least
some fuckin
semblance
of klass wide
foot work
goin on
around here
====================================
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toma toes risen
the bell has bowed
tacoville
will recognize
florida's
little brown
tomato skins ....
============================
March 8, 2005
In a precedent-
setting move,
fast-food industry leader Taco Bell
Corp.,
a division of Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM)
has
agreed to work
with the Florida-based farm worker
organization,
the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW),
to address
the wages and working conditions
of
farmworkers
in the Florida tomato industry.
Taco Bell has recently secured an agreement with
several of its tomato-grower suppliers, who employ the
farmworkers, to pass-through the company-funded
equivalent of one-cent per pound directly to the
workers.
In 2004, Taco
Bell purchased approximately 10 million pounds of
Florida tomatoes,
representing
less than one percent of
Florida’s tomato production.
CIW is a membership-led
organization of agricultural
workers
based in Immokalee, Florida,
that seeks justice
for farmworkers
and promotes
their fair treatment in
accordance with national
and international labor
standards.
Among its accomplishments,
the CIW has aided
in the prosecution
of five slavery operations
by the
Department of Justice
and the liberation
of over 1,000
workers.
The CIW uses creative methods
to educate
consumers about human rights
abuses in the U.S.
agriculture industry,
corporate social responsibility,
and how consumers
can help workers
realize their social
change goals. "
------------ didn't ceasar chavez
already do this 35 years ago?
shining silver avatars
rise
shining silver avatars
fall
but regardless
eventually
the dark harvest
gets brought in
despite them
and
by the fuck load ....
====================================
_______________________________________________________
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March 07, 2005
purple puff
" 100,000 dead solders won't beat one live one"
nathan bedford forest
=========================================
lisez
Andy S
cuttin the custard ....
"we have to change
this nation's laws
our laws are
ridiculous
When you think about
what faces workers
out in the workplace....
you'd think
you were in a country
that was
incredibly repressive
Talking about unions
means a chance of getting fired
We have a renegade
system of employers
who think it's important
to put
down workers
So we need
a combination
of workers
having hope
and
unions
with the scale and size
and
strategy and will
and passion
to work with them
and
fight with them
and be their voice
And at the same
time we need
to make sure
we live in a democracy
where
workers
do get to make
those choices."
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the emerging studio economy
we had a two day
confrence here over the past weekend
first since
that idiotic debacle
with the hubcatz
from
the up state teamsters locals ....
this one left no shiners
===================================
so who came?
as sleeves sez
mostly
" geeks and zeeks"
yup
----------------------------
in fact by sunday
accordin to
the Surapee Sid
" got to feelin
kinda like a
star trek convention
around here "
at least sorta ...
----------
but we need long range vision right ?
we're headed for
a studio economy?
yes
plus labs and proving grounds maybe
tangible produtc development
one of a kinds with automatic
replication possibilities
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March 05, 2005
A purple international ?
now herr stern
wants
a new international
well of sorts ...
the great consolidater
wants a global forum
(read personal platform)
the disco duckof american unionism
the donald trump
of building maintenance
the custodians' own
man of la mancha
dat gull dern
wunder- putz
the man with
a wharton school
mind set
and
a ding dong school
outfit
oh i obsess
and compulse ...
nite nite
sweetest dreams
MY EMILY
my shackled princess
==========================
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much touted E-soviet cactus crap house show down a dud
were ya hopin'
for some
real fire works
a vicious fuming split
not just a tea toss ?
sorry
these boys play dull ball
i won't pull
wait till
the summer convention....
this is about as hot as these klowns get
========================================
----------------------------------------
nope
straight bores-ville
predictably
the old Don majority
on the exec soviet
couldn't really
decide whether to shit
or get off the pot
so
in half assed
fashion
they neigh said
the new
purple gang / jimmy krack korn
kombo
by votin down
radical
50%
dues cut
the whole bunch
of em
end up
with piss
on their legs
--------------------------------
now
given the eleventh hour
UAW SHIFT
maybe the badest
stain
ain't on
our boy andy
but on
old man river
el sweeno
----------------------------------
can ya keep awake till july ?
==========================================
THE STORY IN NYT
------------------------------------
LAS VEGAS, March 2 -
In a vote
likely to create deeper tensions
inside the labor movement,
the leaders of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
rejected a proposal on Wednesday
to cut in half
individual unions' contributions
to the federation
to free up more money for organizing.
The 15-to-7 vote
against the proposal
put forward by five large unions
came during
the federation's winter meeting here
which was taking place
under a threat
by the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s largest union
the Service Employees International Union
to leave the organization.
The unions backing the proposal
vowed to continue fighting,
saying they hoped to secure
a majority before the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s
quadrennial convention in July
Several also left open
the possibility of a leadership challenge
to John J. Sweeney,
the federation's president,
who has tried unsuccessfully
to stem the erosion in organized labor's ranks.
On Tuesday, Mr. Sweeney proposed
a cut of 17 percent,
or $15 million,
in individual unions' contributions,
money that the unions
would then use for organizing
and match on a basis of four to one.
But the five unions argued
that a 50 percent cut
in contributions was important
to get unions to invest more
in organizing,
to shake up the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s
bureaucracy
and to demonstrate a commitment
to far-reaching change.
"The current debate is not about dollars,"
said James P. Hoffa,
president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
"It is about
a vision of the future
of the American labor movement."
The Teamsters
were the proposal's main sponsor
which was also backed
by the service employees
the food and commercial workers
the laborers
and Unite Here
the United Auto Workers joined in.
At a news conference Andrew Stern,
the service employees' president,
dodged the question
of whether he might still withdraw
his 1.7-million-member union
from the federation.
Unhappy
with the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s
bureaucracy
and its failure
to stop unions from shrinking
Mr. Stern has threaten
to secede and create
a new workers movement
that he hopes would be a catalyst
for revitalizing labor
But his threats to withdraw
in turn have angered many labor leaders
who call him impulsive
and divisive
and assert that seceding would hurt labor badly.
"Our greatest strength
has always been
our unity,
our willingness to stick together,"
said Richard Trumka,
the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s secretary-treasurer.
"I promise you one thing:
If we stick together,
we'll get a solution and grow.
If we get fragmented,
every part of the fragments
will be weaker,
and the big losers
in that will be American workers."
Mr. Stern and his allies
have also called for measures
to speed mergers
to create larger, stronger unions
with clear lines of focus
so they do not undercut one other
in organizing and negotiating.
But his and the Teamsters' proposal
to cut contributions to the labor federation
have dominated the meeting here,
partly because of fears
that such a sharp cut,
coming to about $40 million a year,
would force the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
to reduce its staff
and its responsibilities.
Mr. Sweeney said
he was all for more organizing,
but he opposed the 50 percent cut,
saying it would weaken
the A.F.L.-C.I.O. far too much.
He argued it would be wisest
for the federation to spend more
on political efforts,
while individual unions
financed organizing efforts,
as they have traditionally done.
"My hope is
that we're going to be able
to move changes
that Andy will feel
are bold and meaningful,"
said Mr. Sweeney.
"We're also hopeful
that we don't lose an affiliate
, especially a major affiliate
like S.E.I.U."
. Many of Stern's opponents
say unions are already so embattled
that it is foolish
for him to start a civil war
over what percentage to cut contributions.
Mr. Sweeney said
he was pushing through sweeping changes,
among them a large increase
in political and legislative spending
, to $45 million a year,
so the federation could have
a permanent political presence
in many states
and mount major campaigns
simultaneously in national elections
and state elections.
A big question at this week's meeting
is whether John Wilhelm,
the president of Unite Here's hotel and restaurant division,
will declare
that he is running against Mr. Sweeney.
On Wednesday,
Mr. Wilhelm hedged,
saying labor's focus right now
should be setting the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s goals.
"The question about leadership elections
should come after that,
not concurrent with it," he said.
Mr. Sweeney has said
he has locked up enough support
to ensure his re-election
to a four-year term. "
-----------same old same old
wavin at the traffic
as everyone blows on by
like a bum tryin'
to thumb a ride
only instead
of his thumb
being in the air
his thumb's
up his ass -----------
=================================================
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March 04, 2005
JOB A KAZEE JAIL TIME
KLASS LAW IS A HIGHER LAW
PROVE YA KNOW IT AND MEAN IT
IT OCCURS TO ME
LABOR'S LEADERS
NEED TO DO SOME SERIOUS TIME
HAND JOB
ANDY...
SAY
DO 5 YEARS
FOR
OH SHIT.....WHATEVER
BRAKING SOME
DILL WEED
ANTI UNION "LEGALITY"
COME ON ONE OF YOU
HUGE PUFF BALLZ
TIP OVER
THE BURGER TABLE
SAY
"YA IBROKE THAT LAW
FUCKYES
AND FUCK
ALL THESE KLASS RULES
FUCKEM
AND FUCK
THIS FUCKIN KLASS TILT...
THERE'S TOO MANY
FUCKIN
RIP OFF
REGS
IF WE KEEP
PLAYIN BY THE RULES
WE'RE GONNA DIE BY THE RULES
SO
FUCK
ALL THE
"FUCK YOU UP LEGAL " SHIT
THERE'S A HIGHER LAW
A KLASS LAW
A LAW THAT MAKES FOR JUSTICE
I OBEY THAT FUCKIN HIGHER LAW
=================================================
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50 YEARS OF DYNO-MITE
T'WAS A GOLDEN AGE INDEED
FROM
1866-1916
THE WAGERY KLASS
GROWN HANDY
ON THE JOB
PLAYIN
WITH THUNDERSTICKS
USED EM WELL AS
WOODEN SHOES
LES SABOTEURS....
=========================================
AT TIMES OF KLASS STRUGGLE
THEY
USED EM
TO BLOW
A FEW
EXTRA CURE FUC-ULAR
HOLES
THRU
THE CORPORATE
GAME PLAN
PROBLEM :
SILLY RADS
STARTED TOSSIN EM TOO
WILLY NILLY
AT "THE STATE'S"
MEN-POWER
GOT TO SEEM
SO RECKLESS AND BLOODY MINDED
OVER TIME
THE TRICK
LOST MOST OF ITS PLEB APPEAL
IN FACT
THE TECHNIQUE
IN RAD HANDS
WORKED SO WELL IN REVERSE
HOODED COPS STARTED
PLAYING TOO
-----------------------------------
MY TAKE:
LETS RETHINK SABOTAGE
IN THE AGE OF 'PUTER VIRUSES AND WORMS
Posted by herb jr. jr. at
08:36 AM
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Keiretsu for labor
this postis off an EEEEEE
from a compadre
up in frisco
Koko Knot ....
==========================================
general unions
have one relly big stumbling block
all the little pyramids
running the 60 plus germ scale outfits
okay heres a solution that avoids andy hand jobs
hideous big 10 wet dream
with its
" kill the comp
we're just killin each other "
bull shit
the keiretsu would compete
like general unions now do
see it ?
a real wrangle
5 one big unions
slug it out across the board to sign up
all that
dip shittin
wage fodder
out there
future for the fedreation?
run
labors election day
attack the beltway bums
mono-ploy
keiretsus
maybe oh five or so
each trying to cover as many job types as possible
fightin each other
like bootlegger rings
over every job site
tuff
and expansion oriented
like jap corporations ...........
see it ?
a real wrangle
5 "one big unions "
at once
slugging it out
across the landscape
no quarter asked none given
sign up or sign off
10 years from now...
fuck
all that
dip shittin
disorganized
wage fodder out there
will be kissin'
our assses
we'll get so goooooooooooooooood
the world will rock to us
like
we're chuck berry's axe
------------------------------------------
some boring details:
core of each keiretsu
a holding union:
a beast
part exec -soviet
part org-bureau
part credit- union
part flyin ass kicker
example :
credit union function
central
borrowing and funds transfer agent
between member unions
and/ or
outside creditors
for the ring of unions
in the keiretsu
the eexec soviet
must have
full power
to tax each unions
dues stream
to service debt from borrowings
for specified uses
org drive funds / strike funds
----------------------------------
caution will get no dance partners
unless
the sadie hawkins reversal happens
and 40 million wagery in the state of disorder
are galvinized by some well publicized
victories
agin the corporate goonery
direct non board actions....
--------------------
(HERB HERE)
kOKO'S
EEEEE
DRIBBLED OFF INTO MANIC JABBER
ONE SIDE POINT
IN THREE BUZZERY BITS:
ALL GOOD ONLY STILL NEED
THESE "SHOP FLOOR"
PRAIRIE IGNITORS
1) JOB -A - KAZEE MOVEMENT'S
JOB SOVIETS
2) THE INSIDE
FREE-SPEAKERS
AND MOST OFF
3) THAT FUCKIN PROFITEERS
PESTILENCE
THE LONE WRANGLERS
THE FEARSOME " ORG RONIN "
READY LIKE EL CHIG
TO STRIKE ANYWHERE
AN EVIL PROFIT
IS BEING EXTRACTED
============================================================
Posted by herb jr. jr. at
08:01 AM
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March 01, 2005
rationale of fed wage min: keep heads at water level
sure we wanta max that min
but fuckski mates
the present fed wage min
does have a reason
if no rhyme
do the math
u'll see
==========================
check it out
the fucker's set
so
two full time
wagery parents
can support themselves
and two kids
at 10% above
the poverty line
heart bleeding
moral indignity
rages at this of course ....
as in this clipped pasage:
" The current federal
minimum wage of $5.15 per hour
is today
40 percent below
its 1968 purchasing power peek
A fulltime
worker taking no vacation
or holidays
making
the federal minimum wage
earns only 55 percent
of the federal
poverty line"
( for a four person household )
okay
i say
so what white knight ?
thats only half the story
if this 4 person household
has two adult
and the bastards
are both
willing
to wagery full time
for the chump rate
then zap
they got theirselves
a household
cookin along at
110%
of poverty
so git yer tubes tied
and
sail on sailors sail on ....
-----------------------------
to be fair here...
any dern mad
right face chap
rightly adds
"what about welfare !!!"
sure
Such workers
face a make it
or brake it reality
well
beyond
the fedocrats
alice in fanciful-land
poverty
escape budget
but then
they
qualify
for public support
and assistance
and tax credits etc
answer:
"ya
which
places
the rest of the burden
squarely where it belongs
on
the ass hole innocent
wagery klass
taxpayers
they pick up
where their own employers
leave off
---------------------------------
n.b.
what perhaps some of us
crusaders don't get
is the wild long run irony
a happy hiden climax
is now
"BUILDING OFF STAGE"
as the "Attila right"
completes its triumph's
by
dismantling the safety net
the bene to them
is only a little
cause they over egged the cake
by also plling off
the great tax burden shift
they largely
removed from their shoulders
the provision for this social subsidy
moved it in fact
over to the wagery
ain't that right?
now
given the tax free profit zone
cuttin the subsidy
only removes an internal klass antagonism
now
welfare
is mostly paid for
by taxed wagery
remove the safety net
end welfare as we know it
and zoink
the boobs
have pulled off
just what they most fear:
klass wide klass war conditions
since in the long run
goo goo welfare
wedged the wagery klass in two
remove it
and
u remove
the split inside wagery
the two pieces
can come back together
and
with a nice loud clap
somethin not heard
since FDR squeezed
TITS
behind ER's back
------------------------------
"THE FARCE OF UNINTENDED KLASS CONSEQUENCES "
TONITES episode:
"labor's loves
lost
now regained "
------------------------------
peace sisters
klass solidarity forever
=================================
Posted by herb jr. jr. at
08:37 PM
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more whither unions guff
hey this wind bag has hiz moments......
substandard pensions, work in the informal economy or
are engaged in child and parent care. By some estimates
the real jobless rate in the United States approximates
the double digits of many European countries.
There has been a marked reduction of labor struggles in
the last two decades as well. Fear and anxiety afflicts
large sections of the unionized labor force which, to
safeguard their jobs in a soft economy, feels forced to
accept bad contracts that erode health and pension
benefits and whose wage settlements fail to keep up
with inflation. And many unorganized workers hesitate
to join unions because they know they can be fired
without effective recourse to the law or to the
exercise of union power. Or the plant might pick up and
flee to Mexico, China or the non-union American South.
Moreover many workers have lost their faith in unions
as guarantors of a better life, largely because they
perceive that Labor is in full retreat. Organizing in
the retail sector, which is generally exempt from the
phenomenon of the runaway shop, has, with the exception
of food markets, remained in the doldrums. But, past
union gains in the retail food sector are under siege.
The recent lost strike by 75,000 grocery workers,
members of the Food and Commercial Workers, highlighted
the difficulties faced by relatively well paid
unionized retail food establishments in the wake of the
advent of Wal-Mart, the 800 pound guerilla in the
industry that pays close to the minimum wage. That the
union did not choose to spread the strike throughout
the industry's hundreds of thousands of union members--
violating the no-strike provisions of dozens of
contracts, if necessary--, was a symptom of the
timidity that afflicts much of organized labor.
Among the sharper critics of the current drift are the
leaders of the New Unity Partnership(NUP), presidents
of SEIU, UNITE(the merged union of men's and women's
clothing, textiles, and the remnants of hat and shoe
workers), HERE, the Hotel and Restaurant Employees,
UBC, the Carpenters, and LIUNA, the Laborers.
Acknowledging the weight of economic change, political
defeats that accompanied the so-called Reagan
Revolution, and the corporate offensive against past
gains they insist that the predominant "service" model
of unionism takes pride of place in explaining why
labor has lost so much ground.
The service model devotes most union resources--money
and staff--to serving the needs of existing members:
negotiating contracts, handling members' grievances,
administering benefits programs. These services are
highly political especially in times such as these when
union power to win substantial gains at the bargaining
table is severely limited. Since most local and
national unions observe the rituals of liberal
democracy even if they are one party regimes, officers
must be re-elected by the membership. If leaders cannot
bring home the bacon, in part because the economic and
political weakness of the union, and because the
leadership actively discourages members from engaging
in strikes and other forms of direct action at the
local level, they can always point to a job saved, a
tooth filled, or an arbitration won. Where militancy
fails, lawyers and business agents take over. Even as
rising prescription and hospital costs plague most
union-administered benefits funds, social security
remains inadequate for retirees, and corporations who
administer union- negotiated benefits take advantage of
bankruptcy and so-called Medicaid and Medicare reform
to flagrantly make unilateral cuts, for internal
political reasons many union cling to their private
welfare programs rather than fighting for a universal,
publicly financed and run health care program and an
adequate national pension system to replace the
increasingly problematic company or union plans. In
sum, the service model is not simply a choice; it is
the bread and butter of the leadership.
It is ten years since a coalition of the leaders of
some of America's largest unions--the three main
metalworkers organizations(Auto, Steel and
Machinists), the giant State, County and Municipal
Employees(AFSCME) SEIU, perhaps the most dynamic of
them all, and several others--swept a slate led by
SEIU's John Sweeney into the AFL-CIO leadership.
Blasting what they perceived as the ineffective and
complacent record of the Kirkland administration,
especially its failure to undertake aggressive
organizing, Sweeney urged its affiliates to stop
labor's bleeding by, in effect, replacing the service
model with an organizing model. Simultaneously the
AFL-CIO started an organizing department under the
direction of one of labor's shining stars in the
field, Richard Bensinger. And the Federation became a
major player in Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection
campaign, pouring millions of dollars into the
Democratic Party coffers and financing intensive get
out the vote drives. But, less than three years later,
Bensinger was gone having endured the ire of the
affiliates who charged him with subverting their
prerogatives. The main responsibility for organizing
has reverted to the international unions. Some beefed
up their organizing budgets but most of the
federation's 60 affiliates promptly relegated it to
the back burner
What was left of the Sweeney insurgency? The AFL-CIO
has made a de facto shift from organizing to electoral
politics. In 2000 Labor stepped up its political
efforts and helped Al Gore win the popular vote and was
prepared to win the Electoral College in the wake of
widespread black and Latino disenfranchisement and vote
fraud in Florida. But when Gore urged the unions and
other allies to accept the decision of the Supreme
Court to stop the vote count, they vacated the streets
and went quietly into the night. 2004 witnessed
renewed and intensified electoral activity by the AFL-
CIO which more than doubled its 2000 $45 million budget
and put thousands of union activists on the streets.
When Kerry conceded the 2004 election on the morning
after Bush's dubious victory in Ohio, Labor's voice was
absent from the conversation about whether the state's
vote had actually gone to Bush. These events reveal the
degree to which Organized Labor has become a "dependent
variable" in the political arena, notwithstanding its
importance in the Democrats' coalition. Labor takes
direction from the party rather than reflecting its own
political independence.
Having all but abandoned its organizing emphasis and
only a handful of the Federation's affiliates taking
up the challenge, the combination of the 2001-3
recessions and the continued contraction of employment
in some production sectors where unions have been
strongest accelerated labor's membership and density
losses. Meanwhile the strike weapon was all but
auctioned to the Smithsonian. When several large
airlines filed or threatened bankruptcy in 2004, once
more the specter of wage cuts and other concessions
permeated the industry. The Airline Pilots
Association, which never saw a wage cut they would not
embrace, quickly granted United Airlines and Delta
"temporary" relief. Only the independent Flight
Attendants union, composed mostly of women, has shown
its willingness to fight. In New York, led by the
125,000 member DC37, an AFSCME affiliate, most
municipal unions settled for wage rises that failed to
equal the inflation rate and in return for the city's
largesse granted to city government concessions.
Meanwhile, with the tacit agreement of the leadership
of DC 37 thousands of unemployed welfare recipients
are working in entry-level public jobs in hospitals,
parks and other public faculties at minimum wages and
without union representation.
In 2003 NUP leaders Andy Stern, Bruce Raynor and John
Wilhelm issued a statement abhorring the loss of
labor's economic power and, as Richard Hurd has pointed
out, calling once more for the adoption of the basic
features of Sweeney program of 1995 by, among other
measures, allocating at least 30% of their budgets to
organizing. Perhaps most controversial was their
proposal that, in order to regain labor's economic
clout the 60 international unions affiliated to the
federation be consolidated to 20 or fewer, thereby
reversing the fifty year trend toward general unionism
rather than craft or industrial unionism.(of course,
UNITE and SEIU are general unions, but that's another
story). In the process they urged the end of intra-
union rivalry and for the labor movement to concentrate
on fighting the boss instead. As Hurd has argued, NUP
was predicated on the idea that organizing was enough
to revive the movement and it was mainly a matter of
reallocating resources to get the job done. Recently,
for example, Stern proposed allocating $25 million of
the federation's $180 million budget to organize Wal-
Mart, which, given the size of the task is a symbolic
gesture.( Hurd 2004)
But NUP leaders are indifferent even hostile to the
concept of democratic, rank and file unionism. In the
first place none of the internationals they lead is
famous for its bottom-up democratic processes. Second,
their centralization proposals would make a social
movement model of unionism much more difficult to
achieve because it would reinforce the dominance of the
vertical, hierarchical structure over local autonomy.
Recall that during the industrial union upsurge of the
1930s--labor's last great moment of private sector
growth--there were two distinct modes of organizing.
John L. Lewis and Sidney Hillman formed "organizing
committees" directed from the top in steel, packing,
textiles and chemical. These campaigns were run from
headquarters, even though Lewis was anxious for
radicals' participation, which he received. But, except
for packing, where the left unionists refused to allow
themselves to be dislodged, when the committees gave
way to full-fledged internationals most became some of
the more reliable bulwarks of the emerging labor
conservatism after World War Two.
The second model is exemplified by the early
development of the UAW, whose activists never permitted
Lewis and Hillman to run their union, but retained a
highly decentralized organizational structure and an
organizing campaign which, in many instances, was
conducted by local unions and by shop floor leaders,
some of whom were radicals. Walter Reuther's own West
Side local was one of the major sites of parts plant
organizing. This was true of the Ford, GM-Flint and in
Ohio White Truck, Toledo Auto-Lite and the East coast
assembly plants where local unions formed their own
organizing committees and rank and file workers did
much of the work. In its early days, after local
leaders sent the AFL- appointed president Francis
Dillon on his way, the UAW was racked by internal
conflict, factions, and what some have term "ultra-
democracy", and harbored many radical groups who
jostled for leadership. Yet, contrary to the prevailing
view among labor leaders and experts alike that turmoil
and competition hurts the labor movement, it was among
the most successful of the early CIO unions. The same
can be said for the Rubber Workers which was a highly
contentious organization from its founding in 1936 to
the mid-1950s.
The Bush victory augurs badly for unions, especially
since they have chosen to completely subordinate
themselves to the Democratic Party. Not only is there
no chance for labor law reform, for raising the minimum
wage or, indeed for repeal or modification of NAFTA and
other anti-labor trade agreements, but the environment
for unions and particularly for organizing is poisoned
for the next four years. Paradoxically, that the law
stands against the workers might become an excuse for
resuming labor's historic preference for direct action.
This is especially true for the South, now an electoral
bastion of reactionary Republicanism. But this state of
affairs was not inevitable. It came about largely
because throughout the 20th century the South remained
an open shop region. Had the AFL-CIO committed its
resources to the South, and succeeded in organizing
textiles, among other major production industries, the
political complexion of the region might have been
different. Instead, most unions abandoned attempts to
organize in the region after 1950 when the CIO's
Operation Dixie, a four year organizing campaign
centered in textiles,failed miserably in part because
the top CIO leadership steadfastly refused to address
the race question. The Textile, Communications,
Clothing, Woodworkers, Longshore and Teamsters unions
are exceptions, mostly because they had little choice
but to try to unionize their industries. But any good
labor historian knows that some of the most militant
strikes in textiles, clothing, communications, road
transportation tobacco and other prominent industries
have occurred in the South. Once Southern Workers get
the union spirit, they are as reliable and enthusiastic
unionists as any other workers, mainly because the
union is a cause as well as a rational solution to
their economic problems. Southern organizers understand
well that organizing is not a routine business
activity, but a struggle to win the hearts and minds of
workers and when they succeed they have some of the
best unionists anywhere. As a result of the pervasive
business unionism, The South is now the region of
choice for much of US manufacturing and transportation
industries. That the AFL-CIO has virtually absented
itself from the region both at the level of organizing
and in the electoral arena is one of the markers of its
possible demise.( Griffith, 1988)
In the 2004 elections the Democrats chose to ignore the
South, even though, paradoxically, Kerry selected John
Edwards as his running mate. The decision to focus on a
relatively narrow band of battleground states all of
them, except Florida and Pennsylvania in the Midwest
was based on crackpot realism: Kerry's staff believed
he had no chance of winning any of the Southern states
so he was better advised to spend his resources on the
so-called "battlegrounds". Yet there were five open
Democratic Senate seats at stake in the South. Would a
vigorous campaign in the Carolinas, Georgia and
Louisiana have made a difference in the outcome of the
senatorial races? Maybe not. But the long- term future
of the party and the progressive forces within it
clearly depends on its ability to make new inroads in
the South. Avoiding the Southern states puts the
Democrats in fairly narrow demographic corridors. For
the unions the South is one of the crucibles upon which
its future depends.
The tacit message that labor must become more
aggressive was delivered several times by Stern. During
the 2004 primary election season he broke ranks with
many other union leaders who backed labor's old friend
Rep. Dick Gephardt and, instead, supported Howard
Dean's more forthright anti-Iraq war stance and
somewhat bolder liberal message. When, by careful
manipulation by the centrist leadership of the
Democratic National Committee Dean went down in flames,
Stern lost no time criticizing the victor, John Kerry
and his staff for conducting a boring campaign without
a message. In the environment of Democratic euphoria
that followed the party's Boston convention, Stern's
statement went down like a dose of food poisoning. He
was condemned by Democrats, their minions, and some
labor leaders alike for undermining a potentially
victorious campaign. In retreat, Stern assured his
critics that his union was contributing $65 million to
the Democratic campaign. But the underlying theme of
his critique became clearer only days after Kerry's
defeat on November 2. As the AFL-CIO Executive Council
gathered in Washington on November 10 to consider its
options after Kerry's defeat, Stern drew the lesson
that the labor movement must go back to the
fundamentals, especially organizing. New York Times
labor reporter, Steven Greenhouse speculated that the
"labor movement is in turmoil". He reported that Stern
was warning his colleagues that SEIU "may pull out of
the labor federation and some labor leaders say[in]
that John J. Sweeney might face a challenge for its
presidency. Greenhouse goes on to speculate that HERE
president John Wilhelm might be a candidate to oppose
Sweeney.(Greenhouse, 2004)
As a major union of public employees, SEIU has no
alternative but to engage in political action since as
Paul Johnston has pointed out, public sector unions are
almost invariably "state builders (Johnston,1995). But
behind the call for spending more money and energy on
rebuilding the labor movement through organizing is a
suggestion that the labor movement return to
syndicalism, albeit not of the ideological kind. NUP's
syndicalism would restore economic power the old
fashioned way: increasing union density through
organizing and pursuing a highly concentrated
industrial consolidation rather than political action.
In demanding greater centralization, Stern and his
colleagues are returning to the early CIO model where
many major organizing campaigns were directed by men
closely tied to the top leadership, as opposed to the
ancient AFL model of decentralization, where a small
organization say, the Office and Professional Employees
or the Glassblowers, remained firmly in control of
their own destiny at every level..
In the main, there is little public criticism within
labor's ranks of the NUP proposals. The exception is
the 700,000 member Communications Workers, many of
whose local unions and organizing drives are a near-
model of democratic process. While the union supported
Tom Donahue, Kirkland's annointed sucesssor, in 1995,
it cannot be said that it is among the international
unions that has remained complacent in the face of
membership losses, due to technological change and to
telephone company mergers and acquisitions. Its
successful campaign to organize thousands of United
Airlines ticket agents in the 1990s relied mainly on
the agents themselves. Staff provided asssistance but
by no means dominated the organizing drive.
Modern unionists, spawned in several generations of
ideology according to which union participation in
electoral politics must take center stage mainly
because of the importance of the legal framework within
which collective bargaining and organizing operates,
might criticize this virtual paradigm shift as
retrograde, or at least accuse its proponents of
turning a blind eye to the key role the law plays in
everyday union affairs. Not to mention the profound
resistance of union leaders who jealously guard their
autonomy, even if the pond in which they operate as big
fish is drying up. Of course, NUP leaders would claim
they are not trying to eliminate political action from
Labor's arsenal. But they have drawn different lessons
of the last quarter century of trade union decline,
from most labor leaders and labor experts.
Paradoxically it was under the tutelage of the
conservative New York plumber, George Meany, that the
AFL-CIO steadily built a powerful political and
lobbying machine after 1955. Here, too, Meany followed
the CIO Political Action Committee model of central
control, rather than the old AFL practice of leaving
the initiative to affiliates. By the 1960s the
federation's Committee on Political Education (COPE)
had deployed a field staff working with state
federations, appointed a central "operating committee"
consisting of key staff operatives of some affiliates
such as the UAW and ILGWU to develop an electoral
strategy focusing on key union-rich states that, among
other achievements helped John F. Kennedy win a closely
fought presidential race, and raised millions for the
Democrats' national candidates. At the same time Meany
steered organized labor away from its traditional non-
partisanship. During the Kennedy-Johnson years, the
AFL-CIO became perhaps the most important political
base of the Democratic Party. But while the federation
remains a vital component of the coalition that
constitutes the Democrats' electoral campaigns and,
under Democratic administrations participates--
sometimes at a cabinet level-- in government, in other
respects until Sweeney's tenure, it was reticent to get
involved in such core union functions as organizing.
Meany was an old AFL stalwart who believed, in the
Gompers mode, that the federation should intervene in
electoral politics and adjudicating jurisdictional
disputes among affiliates when bi-lateral negotiations
failed.(1) On most issues, Meany was illing to use his
bully pulpit to articulate labor's political and social
goals. But on the ground, he remained opposed to
substituting the federation for its affiliates on
crucial union functions such as organizing, even if
Gompers himself had sponsored large-scale Packinghouse
and Steel organizing campaigns in the World War One
period, appointed William Z. Foster a leading
syndicalist before the war, to head the campaigns..
Meany's protégé and successor Lane Kirkland, whose
union credentials were far more shaky but was equally
conservative, nevertheless opened a wedge in 1983 to
federation involvement in organizing, but it remained
only a wedge. Sweeney and his associates might have
faulted him for being too cautious in the pursuit of
union-building, but it was during Kirkland's
administration that the precedent had been set.
Labor's ills go far beyond its organizing failures or
defeats in the electoral arena or its declining
membership relative to the size of the labor force.
Recent attempts by nearly all airline companies and
many other private sector corporations to reduce or
eliminate benefit packages for working employees, and
to abrogate union contractual requirements which
provide benefits to retirees "for life", illustrate the
fragility of collective bargaining. Another symptom is
brought about by the virtual disappearance of the
strike weapon in most industries and sectors: as a
result in many instances collective bargaining has
become collective begging. Union leaders and labor
relations experts tend to attribute these losses to
declining density. If unions in textiles and apparel or
in the retail sector, for example, had more membership
they would be more potent at the bargaining table. Of
course, this theory fails to explain the crushing
defeats suffered in the 1980s by UAW members in the
farm equipment industry, especially industry leader,
Catepillar, where union density was very high, or the
concessions granted by the union to the big three auto
corporations, which, until the 1990s, were almost 100%
organized, particularly the huge 1979 $400 million wage
concession to Chrysler. Moreover the UAW followed this
precedent-setting agreement with a series of
collaborations with Ford and GM to secure worker
"participation" in modifying or rescinding hard-won
work rules and cooperating with programs such as
flexible specialization that prepared the ground for
massive outsourcing of parts production to lower-paying
contractors. Or the wage concessions granted by the
Packinghouse division of the Meatcutters union in the
mid-1980s that was resisted by Austin, Minnesota Hormel
workers who found themselves largely abandoned by their
international union..Nor does the density theory stand
up in the cases of high density sectors such as
teachers and other public employees unions whose
salaries suffered significant erosion and working
conditions worsened in the 1980s and 1990s when state
legislatures simply refused to allocate more state aid
to education and other services, forcing local
communities, already suffering a shrinking tax base
because of deindustrialization, to fend for themselves.
Today, many public unions accept the proposition that
every significant wage or benefit gain must be balanced
by union concessions such as giving up hours, agreeing
to two-tier salary scales for the same title, and
increased co-pays and deductibles for prescription
drugs and medical procedures.
Although necessary, density loss is not a sufficient
explanation for the current labor pains. Underlying the
decline of the labor movement are these factors:
1. The twin perils of economic globalization and
technological change. While the Sweeney administration
has made a few stabs at forging international labor