This e-mail like all kinds of other "solidarity" with Verizon workers are making the rounds.
BUT--- why is no one asking how it is that a union, in this case the Communications Workers of America, can support Obama along with Verizon?
We see the same pattern with the present lock-out in the Red River Valley with American Crystal Sugar locking out 1,300 workers.
We saw this same thing with the lockout of United Steel Worker union members who were locked out at Honeywell which ended with workers losing the shirts off their backs and the USW leadership calling it a "victory"--- again, union and management both supporting the same Barack Obama.
I have a question:
How can workers and management who have such sharp differences over wages, benefits and working conditions agree when it comes to supporting Barack Obama?
Obama comes to Cannon Falls, Minnesota. He goes to talk to the Chamber of Commerce not locked out American Crystal Sugar workers in the Red River Valley who are members of the BCTGM union which backed Obama to the hilt in a cooperative and working alliance and partnership with American Crystal Sugar's management along with working together supporting the Republican running as a Democrat, Congressman Collin Peterson.
Obama encourages high levels of unemployment making it easy for corporations to recruit scabs. Obama doesn't advance EFCA nor does he table anti-scab legislation. What exactly and specifically is the working class getting from Obama? Nothing but his wars and forced austerity measures to pay for his wars.
The UAW backs Obama along with the Big Three and Obama comes to Minnesota avoiding so much as even speaking in defense of locked out American Crystal Sugar workers and he also refuses to discuss the thousands of jobs that will be lost when the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is closed and bulldozed over in September.
Tim Carpenter who is an apologist for everything the Democrats do now declares in his letter below:
"Verizon has joined the pack of corporatists that are taking the race-to-the-bottom approach that is devastating the lives of public and private workers around the country."
Well, what politician is siding with these views of Verizon and this "pack of corporatists?" Barack Obama.
Doesn't it seem strange to anyone besides me that both union leaders and corporate management would be enthusiastically supporting the same president?
How can the same president serve both workers and management?
With Honeywell, American Crystal Sugar and Verizon managements being in the dominant position over workers by their sheer wealth (of course the wealth was created by the workers and stolen by management through a scheme we Marxists call exploitation); who is best served by Obama remaining silent during these strikes and lock-outs?
Who is getting the best value for their investments in supporting Barack Obama: workers or management?
Tim Carpenter travels all over the country talking about how PDA has been "holding Barack Obama's feet to the fire" as have his "coalition partners," including union leaders; but, how come Tim Carpenter in his letter here doesn't call on Barack Obama to take the side of striking and locked out workers?
Why doesn't Tim Carpenter call on Obama and the Democrats to table anti-scab legislation?
Obama has called for "putting America first;" but, why isn't Obama calling for placing the plight of the working class before Wall Street's greedy drive for unlimited profits derived from the exloitation of working people and maximized through austerity measures being used to force working people to pick up the tab for Wall Street's imperialist wars?
CWA President Cohen calls for the re-election of Barack Obama; so does Verizon management.
Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Miller union leader Mark Froemke calls for the re-election of Barack Obama; so does the management of American Crystal Sugar.
Leo Gerard, President of the United Steel Workers calls for the re-election of Barack Obama; so does Honeywell management.
Unions and management fight like hell over wages, benefits and working conditions but become best buds in supporting Obama? How can two groups (classes) agree to support the same Barack Obama?
The answer lies in what we Marxists call "class collaboration;" or sell-out and betrayal of the working class by union leaders.
Oh, yes--- what about Wisconsin? Union leaders there continue their support for Obama but what has Obama delivered in return to their struggle?
And then we have the National Education Association rushing to be the first union to back Obama's re-election efforts; and public school teachers have gotten what from Obama that would explain their enthusiasm for him? Maybe it's just the pension fund managers pulling the strings connected to NEA leaders?
Come on, really; how are working people ever going to win anything fighting for better wages, benefits and working conditions when there stand Obama and the Democrats, just like the Republicans, waiting to take everything away won through struggle as with Verizon workers--- or, in the case of Honeywell and American Crystal Sugar, workers just turn, upon advice from union leaders to complacency and acquiescence without struggle.
I wonder what Barack Obama would have had to say if American Crystal Sugar workers would have occupied the plants knowing management stated in advance they were going to lock workers out and bring in scabs to do their jobs anmd take away their livelihoods?
Doesn't anyone see that Obama is not supporting working people in return for their support?
And then we have the thoroughly scabby bastards heading up the United Food and Commercial Workers union that continues it support for Obama and renting the non-union facilities of the Grand Portage Casino/Resort in Grand Portage, Minnesota for their so-called "Hands Across the Border" conference and rally which was nothing more than a CIA instigated confab organized at the behest of the rabid anti-communist ITUC trying to figure out how to "lead" Canadian workers away from class struggle trade unionism and rejection of advocacy of socialism through their New Democratic Party in exchange for "Obama style" politics.
Find union leaders supporting Obama and if you look closely you find those more closely associated with pork chop trade unionism, sweetheart contracts, poverty wage contracts (like UFCW) and outright sellouts and betrayers of working people in favor of employers' interests... just like Obama who is Wall Street all the way from wars to economics and none of these union "leaders" or Tim Carpenter are asking working people:
How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
These class collaborationist union "leaders" can't ask this question because they, like Obama, (but in a different way) do Wall street's dirty work and in doing Wall Street's dirty work in misleading workers, this is where these union "leaders" and management find "common ground" in supporting Obama and undermining the struggles of the very workers whose dues pay the big, fat salaries of these Obama supporting union "leaders."
Is it any wonder the current crop of worthless union "leaders" would rather we not learn about the real union leaders who built the unions in the mines, mills and factories and the politicians who supported them: Big Bill Haywood, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, William Z. Foster, Phil Raymond, Wyndham Mortimer, Nadia Barkan, Jim Tester, Ray Stevenson, John Bernard, Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson, Frances Perkins, Harry Bridges, Tim Buck and Gus Hall?
Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
Here is Tim Carpenter's pathetic "solidarity statement" with Verizon workers with not a mention of Barack Obama and the need for Obama to take the side of workers who supported him with campaign contributions, phone banking, walking the neighborhoods---
Who the hell does Tim Carpenter think took single-payer universal health care off the table just when the movement supporting it was peaking? Was it not Barack Obama and that sleazy bastard Max Baucus who Obama has now brought into his "Super Congress?"
And here we go again with the "tax-the-rich" rhetoric when we all know that Obama and the Democrats have no more intent to actually "tax-the-rich" than their intent to really end the wars--- all demogagic campaign rhetoric that could have been mouthed by Mussolini to hoodwink the people.
The only way working people are going to get anything out of this Wall Street government is through more militant strikes utilizing occupations to combat lock-outs and a nation-wide General Strike. Wall Street is not going to listen to the voices of working people until the profits come to a stop.
Alan L. Maki
An injury to all
Dear Alan,
Collective bargaining is under siege around the world, especially in "free trade" countries. From Wisconsin forward, 14 states have passed and 19 states have introduced legislation undermining collective bargaining.
Right now, 45,000 Verizon workers are on strike, because Verizon is trying again—despite Verizon's record profits—to eliminate the healthcare coverage putting these workers in the one percent of all American workers who receive company-paid medical benefits. They earned this through collective bargaining.
If these workers were in Canada or the UK, healthcare wouldn't even be an issue up for negotiation. In those countries, everyone is provided healthcare coverage by their governments.
Trying to justify themselves citing "Obamacare's" so-called "Cadillac Provision," Verizon argues that the CWA and IBEW members striking to maintain their contracts should lose their hard-fought and hard-won healthcare benefits.
The Verizon workers, PDA, and our coalition partners know that our government and Verizon's management have it all backwards: We all need to have full medical benefits—through expanded and improved Medicare for all. Verizon has joined the pack of corporatists that are taking the race-to-the-bottom approach that is devastating the lives of public and private workers around the country.
Show your solidarity with Verizon's workers, picketing at Verizon stores and offices in the eastern US. Tell Verizon's CEO that you stand with Verizon's workers against corporate greed.
And make sure you're part of the more than 60 September 1 actions across the country in support of National Nurses United's Main Street Campaign to make Wall Street pay their fair share. Watch the campaign's inspiring video.
An injury to one is an injury to all!
In solidarity,
Tim Carpenter, national director