Whatever happened to militant unions?

There's yet another story out there concerning Canadians being sent home so foreign workers can take their jobs for less money.

Reading between the lines, it sounds to me that the sum total of what the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Ironworkers intends to do about it is bleat to the media about their tough luck.

That's it.

When you have a union leadership that gutless, it's no wonder international labour brokers are cutting their grass. Back in the day, had an employer even dreamt of forcing union ironworkers off the job in favour of foreign scabs, the jobsite would have been shut down immediately. Union leaders were willing to go to jail. Rank and file were willing to go to jail. Their jobs were something they and their fathers and grandfathers before them had fought hard to make into a well-paying blue-collar profession.

I cannot for a moment imagine such a scenario playing out in Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters or Walter Reuther's UAW or even Bob White's CAW.

Look at the CAW today; when Caterpillar closed the London Electromotive plant, the union's response was to help their members fill out their EI applications.

We need a new generation of old-school labour leaders, men and women who know what they stand for and aren't going to buckle even in the face of prospective jail time.

The shit-bags and weasels who are conniving with the Harper government to flood the country with low-paid non-union labour are having a field day because nobody on the other side is willing to take a stand.

Those sixty workers sent home last week have the power to shut Kearl down. But they won't do it by going home with their tails between their legs, and they need the support of their union.

Working class

"I've never... dealt with such an unethical, immoral, disrespectful, highly profitable company like Caterpillar."

That was CAW chief Ken Lewenza when Caterpillar was busy turning $30/hr. jobs in London Ontario into $15/hr. jobs in one of the "right-to-work-for-less" states.

And what happened then?

Nothing.

Ken did the best he could to salvage whatever severance crumbs he could from the situation. The overall Caterpillar strategy of playing workers in one jurisdiction off against those in another was never remotely challenged.

Why not?

Workers in China have made huge gains in recent years. They have made such gains that within a few years Chinese wages will catch up to North American wages.

Why?

Because workers in China are not averse to tossing a factory manager from the plant roof from time to time just to let the management side know that they're serious.

Now I'm certainly not suggesting that we need to toss managers from the factory roof, but where all of the unions in North America have failed is in letting the other side know that they're serious. Back in the day, folks like Reuther and Hoffa were willing to go to jail.

That can happen when you're willing to assert yourself.

That can happen when you're prepared to say "no thanks, we're not ready to settle for crumbs."

A large part of the problem originates in the rank and file. I remember when I worked at Budd Automotive, where I was hired on my 18th birthday, guys would show up in dress shirts and blazers because they didn't want their neighbours to know they worked in a factory.

These were generally the same guys who, once they'd worked there a few months, would conclude that the union was holding them back.

Yup! They were slamming blanks into a press and pulling them out for five bucks an hour when the minimum wage was $1.50. The training for their job took about five minutes. But they hated the fact that they had union dues deducted from their pay!

There's still an awful lot of that going on. Well into the 1960's Newfoundland was happy to employ grade eight graduates to teach the grade one class. Now you need two university degrees to teach a grade one class. And you'll find teachers who truly believe that without their teacher union they could do better for themselves!

Yes! The government will happily double your salary if it wasn't for that damned union!

The truth of the matter is that there is no teaching job anywhere in North America that couldn't be done and done well by some eager recent graduate who is working at the mall for minimum wage and would see a $30 thousand annual salary with benefits as the pot 'o gold at the end of their rainbow.

Once we're in a mindset that accepts the logic of moving a job or replacing a worker just because somebody is willing to do that job for less, we're screwed.

And it is on this point that organized labour has failed us.

Founding Fathers eyed four hour work day

Ya, maybe the French have whittled that down to a three hour work day but this is still big news to most Americans.

Ben Franklin himself went on the record as favoring a four hour day.

Take that, Walter Reuther! Nevermind your eight hour day; the Founding Fathers had it pegged at half that.

Funny how we don't hear Glen Beck and the rest of the Founding Fathers fetishists waving their banners about that Founding Father proclamation.

Michigan workers take it dry

Governor Rick Snyder took Michigan down the "right to work for less" road today. It's for the good of the workers of course. Why should they forever be held back by those union bosses who skim off their union dues and use them to support... an entire snake nest of liberal issues only favored by Democrats?

"Right to Work" is a cynically Orwellian misnomer of course. Right to Work legislation is everywhere recognized as the draconian anti-worker initiative that it is. Now that it has found a home in Michigan, look for it to rear its head across the Detroit River, where wannabe Tory Premier-in-waiting Tim Hudak has already been making noises about how unions are too powerful etc.

The truth of the matter is that unions are weaker in the North American economy today than at any time in the past 75 years. What we need is a new generation of union leaders who are willing to face down the politicians who are doing the bosses bidding. We need more Jimmie Hoffas and Walter Reuthers and CS Jacksons and Bob Whites.

Maybe we need to roll back the clock a bit further and pick up where the "Wobblies" left off. One union for all working people. After all, everybody from the clerk at the 7-11 to the most sophisticated technician in the aerospace industry deserves to make a living wage. It doesn't need to be the same wage, obviously, but even the weakest and least-skilled among us deserves to live with dignity.

How the weakest among us fare out will be the criteria by which our society is judged.

I think Jesus said that.