Leave a twig for the birds to perch on... don't let the capitalists do your thinking for you... if you are in the neighborhood, stop on in; the coffee is always hot and the cookie jar is full... looking forward to the day when the real decisions in America are made by working class families gathered around the kitchen table... new postings daily...Yours in the struggle...Alan L. Maki
The status quo is not working for working people. Unions need to
seriously overhaul the way they operate if they are to remain relevant.
One key example that reveals the directionlessness and impotence of
contemporary unions is the perennial convention charade where the
organized labour movement convenes with the professed aims of advancing
the interests of workers and improving society as a whole. If only this
were the case.
With few exceptions, a recurring drama plays out at conventions on
the backs of working people, “full of sound and fury; signifying
nothing” (to quote Macbeth.) Here are some of those recurring acts that paralyze a movement.
Every convention begins with some kind of rhetoric about “democracy”
and the importance of the labour movement coming together to debate and
participate with a view to social progress. Seriously, who are we
kidding with this pretend democracy? Labour conventions are typically
contrived. Everyone knows the fix is in – but no one wants to say it out
loud. In some cases the problem goes as far as paid staffers attempting
to influence the proceedings in the backrooms or even acting as
delegates, when for all intents and purposes they are actually
representing their employers, the top elected officers.
Limited debate
During these precarious times, one would think this coming together
every three years would lead to deep and fiery discussions on where our
labour movement is headed and what it will take to develop an effective
resistance. Just the opposite is true. For example, during the 2011
Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) convention,
debate was limited to approximately nine hours for an entire week. This
script ensures that workers, representing their unions as delegates,
will have precious little time to debate the issues. Further, the show
is always conducted by those orchestrating the front stage at the
expense of the delegates who become mere spectators of the labour scene.
Speaking out in the context of a union convention feels much like
speaking out of turn in church. You know how far you can go and where to
stop. Some topics, like any critical reflection on the relationship to
the New Democratic Party (NDP), capitalism, class, strategy, and especially direct action, are mostly off limits and treated as unmentionable.
Time is typically stuffed with uninspiring speakers – very few could
be described as especially challenging or insightful. Given that some
unions hold seminars for the purpose of educating members, this is
highly disappointing. Another problem is that some speakers from the
floor have more rights than others, which is reflected in the amount of
time allocated to delegates to speak.
The CLC achieved a new low at the last convention when space was taken up by CBC
personalities Ian Hanomansing and Wendy Mesley. Hanomansing, serving as
a moderator, voiced his disapproval with the claim that a corporate
bias exists in mainstream reporting. The problem, according to
Hanomansing, is that the left fails at both making their stories sexy
enough and packaging their message as well as the right, thus confirming
that journalism in today’s mainstream media is more of a public
relations exercise than about finding and reporting the news. I guess
Hanomansing means that journalists shouldn’t be doing the work of
putting stories together and that in essence everyone is on the same
playing field with equal resources to have our stories told. Migrant
farm workers, for example, then must be assumed to be in the same
position to tell their story as Jason Kenney, the Minister of
Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. To further demonstrate
the disingenuous nature of union convention debates, questions for
panellists had to be submitted in writing, thus ensuring no challenging
or embarrassing moments for invited guests. A debate that is scripted is
in fact not a debate at all.
Rhetoric no substitute for action
Labour conventions are long on rhetoric but short on substance. The
process is predictable and repetitious. Speaking to the converted, the
right is assailed and the NDP lionized.
Meanwhile, labour leaders – except during the occasional election – prop
each other up, slap one another on the back and avoid discussing the
systemic problems plaguing workers or naming the elephants in the room
all the while preferring instead to heap on personal accolades.
Personality politics, not discussions of political systems, fill the
space and agendas. So-and-so is a “great guy,” a fighter for their
members, a hero in the fight against Prime Minister Harper, or whichever
non-NDP leader is in office. Delegates cheer.
Little happens. But in those moments, under the lights in the house of
labour, we sure do feel good about ourselves. There is a fetish about
leadership and playing follow-the-leader, but nothing comparably
passionate about the significance of struggle and the necessity of
resistance. It’s easier for the union aristocracy that way. No one need
feel uncomfortable.
I wonder if anyone was listening when the Manitoba Federation of Labour (MFL)
convention guest speaker, Canadian Union of Postal Workers President
Denis Lemelin, broke the mould somewhat by calling on labour to develop
our own “social project”? Lemelin explains that sectoral divisions and
defensiveness can be replaced by a basis of unity with a clear long-term
strategic plan to gain public support and fight for all of society.
Silencing dissidents
It is noteworthy to see who gets in and who doesn’t at labour conventions. At the Montreal 2005 CLC
Convention anti-poverty activists from the Belleville Tenant Action
Group, fundraising in the main lobby of the convention center, were
threatened with expulsion until delegates passing by came to their
defence using a little direct action of their own.
While labour conventions are a place to pick up information, finding
a table of radical or challenging literature may be difficult. There is
limited space, and the organizers have final say over who is invited
and who isn’t. A number of spaces were taken up by insurance companies
at the recent MFL convention held in June 2012. Regrettably, challenging or critical materials were in much shorter supply.
Backroom mechanisms, never out in the open, are used to keep
resolutions that may not be palatable to the leaders from ever making it
to the floor. It matters not where the resolution came from (a local
union, workers from the shop floor). If it seems “controversial” or
doesn’t fit the pre-structured schemes of leadership it may magically
disappear in spite of “process.” A case in point is the recent MFL resolution on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) directed at Israeli Apartheid. While the resolutions committee recommended concurrence unanimously, behind the scenes the MFL
executive asked the committee to reconsider its decision. Concurrence
was pulled under the guise that the resolution did not reflect CLC
policy. This raises the question of who gets to decide policy for
organized workers in Manitoba. It does not appear to be a bottom-up
process, but instead, a top-down corporate model. After some wrangling,
face-saving, and negotiation, the resolution received again the desired
concurrence only to have the motion tabled on the floor after a number
of delegates spoke in its favour. To add further insult, activists were
prevented from distributing information on BDS and the situation of Palestinians to delegates, even though that literature was produced in a unionized print shop.
Manitoba requires 65 per cent sign-up to certify a union. Two bold
activists held a silent protest during Premier Greg Selinger’s speech to
convention delegates by holding up signs pointing out that a government
majority can be achieved with much less than 50 per cent of the votes
but for workers in Manitoba, the bar is set at 65 per cent, the highest
in the country. They were told to sit down. Silence and politeness
remain the order of the day, thus making any criticism of the NDP off limits. The Manitoba NDP
have been in power for 13 years and did not deliver on anti-scab
legislation (now called “replacement workers” by organized labour, an
example of neoliberal Newspeak that incorporates the language of the
right). While perhaps an NDP government is not
quite as hostile as a Tory one, can a “lesser of the evils” really be
considered enough of a victory? Neither the NDP
nor organized labour challenge the neoliberal capitalist system; in
fact, neither can even bring themselves to utter the words to address
its very existence.
Toothless resolutions
Resolutions have become a kind of shopping list without any pith or
substance. Mostly toothless, they allow us to feel good about ourselves,
as if we crossed another one off the list of things that need doing
without the slightest mention of how we are going to do them. At the MFL
convention 172 non-administrative resolutions were submitted. Of these
the resolved action called on lobbying the provincial government 110
times. Sometimes the resolution stated the MFL
will “continue to lobby” on an issue indicating that this is not the
first time the issue was raised. The word “urge” is used 12 times,
“encourage” five times, and “call on” three times. Stronger words like
“demand” and “insist” were used four and two times respectively. This
begs the question, what do we mean by lobby, urge, and encourage
exactly? Does it mean beg, plead, take a minister to dinner, or mobilize
a movement that can ensure the stated goals are met? Why do union
conventions spend so much time, effort, and expense to make empty pleas
and to obediently prop up governments and their agendas that clearly
work against workers’ interests?
When potentially popular and effective resolutions appear, they are
frequently watered down inside policy papers to give the appearance of
democratic process while keeping the lid on things.
Waste of scarce resources
Conventions are financially costly. For a CLC
convention, delegates fly in from across the country and typically book
one delegate per costly hotel room and receive generous per diems for
meals. Imagine what kind of organizing and support for real struggle and
change there could be were we a little more frugal, creative, and
long-sighted. Meanwhile, labour organizers in the Global South often
seem to be able to consistently do more with less, while producing far
more effective results.
According to David Camfield, associate professor in labour studies at the University of Manitoba and author of Canadian Labour in Crisis,
“it’s worth noting that in many cases the people who attend as
delegates aren’t the best activists, the ones who are troublemakers on
the job, supporters of community struggles, and critics of complacency
in the unions. Such activists often aren’t delegates, either because
they don’t get elected or – in unions where delegates are selected, not
elected – because officials deny them delegate credentials. Some people
on the left think conventions are the most important moments in the life
of a union. I disagree, for two reasons. First, conventions often don’t
have that much impact on what happens in the union. For example, if a
resolution gets passed that the top brass don’t like, they can often
find a way to ensure it never gets acted on. Second, unions matter most
when ‘union’ means workers taking action together in the workplace or on
the streets.”
What now?
What is the purpose of a labour convention? I would argue that it is
to challenge the growing capitalist disaster with a strong and vibrant
force of organized workers, both unionized and non-unionized, including
the unemployed and underemployed.
Labour centrals and organizations need to stop spending significant
amounts of members’ dues money to stage events that maintain the status
quo and privilege a few at the expense of the many. The International
Trade Union Confederation, CLC and provincial
federations of labour have proven themselves to be lacking vision, which
robs workers while reproducing a labour aristocracy void of ideas for
these times. It is time for critical questions and tough
self-reflection.
What is unclear is how trade unions intend to challenge the
austerity agenda. Merely coping, hanging on, and focusing a great deal
of energy on electoral politics at the expense of other forms of
struggle will not be enough to overcome the challenges that lay before
us. Given the state of the current economic arrangements, it’s probably
safe to say that it won’t serve future generations well either.
What is to be learned from our history? Labour movements and the
victories gained from them were not built by “urging” and “lobbying.”
They were created by the collective dignity and expression of human
beings who took risks and action against capital. What can be learned
and applied from autonomous, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, migrant,
Indigenous, student, and social movements that might shift this theatre
of empty rhetoric and surrender to create a coordinated body of workers
prepared to take the offensive, not just in the present, but for future
generations?
The questions to be asked are not about Harper and the corporations. The questions to be asked are of us.
Dave Bleakney is a member of the
Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the national union representative
for education (Anglophone). On matters of anti-capitalism, the dude
abides.
The question now is where to go from here. All workers and most
people are now expendable waste in the global corporate market. We feel
demoralized and defensive and are picked off one by one. We face
"austerity" as the banks earn record profits. We compete to death while
trillions are shored up in offshore bank accounts. Some of that loot was
robbed from us after the 2008 failure of the banking system for which
our children and their children and likely their children will be paying
for their lifetimes as the planet screams for relief. Is it fair that
someone that hasn't been born yet should be paying banks money after
they have already robbed and pillaged billions in profit? Apparently,
yes. There does not appear to be much understanding of system failure by
most workers and their leaders.
We keep puttering on, looking for someone to blame, a name we can
hang our hat on while systems of destruction rise around us. We use the
bosses' courts in vain attempts to settle scores with an occasional
victory. We keep running on someone else's treadmill while they control
the wheel. This system cares not about our bodies, our histories, our
cultures or our dignity. At one time, it was Indigenous peoples in this
position. Now it is all of us, everything, every country, every town,
every workplace, every street, and every body. The Indigenous
territories continue to be colonized. And we of the settler class have
self-colonized ourselves along the way and behave by cue in this absurd
trap. Even with resistance rising all around us, we go shopping and hope
for the best, like compliant little victims programmed by the system as
Rome burns, or more aptly, as the Earth screams.
Unions are woefully self-immobilized; seemingly unable or unwilling
to explore the processes to shift the terrain or acknowledge that one
might exist. That is left to the youth, the defenders of the land, the
frontline and marginalized peoples who are the most penalized fallout of
capitalism and a colonial mess that remains unresolved. We play by the
rules; the same rules made to penalize resistance and silence opposition
to corporatism (some would say it has the hallmarks of soft fascism).
We play the game on their field in an unsustainable order based on greed
and destruction and then predictably complain about it.
Are you as tired of being a victim as I am? We blame corporations for
what they were designed to do, blaming politicians for what they can't,
or won't, do, and living in the shadows of denial or fear or both. We
tolerate a system controlled by others that is based on an alleged
"lesser of evils," where no matter who is elected they will be hamstrung
by a global corporate initiative of investors and bankers that can
bring a country to its knees. It is the system which promotes a corrupt
nature of relations that robs workers, punishes the poor and destroys
the land. It is a place of record profits and jobless recoveries. The
"economy" as they call it, is spoken of with reverence and scared
fervour as if we exist and are designed only for it.
But like Patti Smith sang, "people have the power," more power than
they know, "the power to dream, to rule, to wrestle the earth from
fools." We have the strength in numbers that can occupy and blockade and
the power to withdraw our labour and bring the production of goods and
services to a halt. We have the power to write the script any time of
our choosing. How many of us are afraid of that power in the hour it is
needed most? Many working-class people participate in this surrender
whether they know it or not. They would rather talk about Christmas
turkey or the latest abuse by their bosses rather than joining or
creating spaces of resistance while staid, ineffective institutions rule
us. A lack of creative power, and spaces to find it, is a course
designed by the enemy that we travel day after day. It continues to rob
us, with our compliance, silence and ineffectiveness.
If you think there is something more, something greater and something
better, then we need to find a way out. This system is broken. Let's
get over it and plan for real. What is the old adage: don't get mad, get
even. Better yet, make our opponents irrelevant; perhaps not an easy
task, but certainly a noble and desired one. Never has this been so
vital to so many people. We face more than getting even: it is the
survival of our species and all living things with a little human
dignity in the here and now.
So what to do? I certainly can't claim to have the answer, and I
would be suspicious of anyone who claims they have them all. We are made
of many answers, many voices and all we lack is the space to find and
articulate them in a world that has been designed for us; a kind of
corporate matrix that leaves us feeling powerless, helpless or just
plain angry with nowhere to go.
If you step outside for a moment, leave the box, as Idle No More has
done, and just for an instant consider all things possible and that
maybe our biggest enemy has not been those that rob us and fill their
pockets, but rather ourselves. It is our compliance, our blind faith,
our system of acceptance, as if chained to an illusion that we can
really change things with a ballot while the strings are pulled
inevitably by invisible puppeteers. This farce which is now global no
longer has meaning or vision. We are atomized, broken up into
disconnected parts, right down to the neighbourhood and even family
level. We have been taught suspicion and that we live in "democracies"
and have special "Canadian values" in a land based on theft of
Indigenous territories and a culture of war. We see invisible enemies
everywhere. Up is down and down is up. So we look for refuge in a pile
of distractions and circuses. Time is almost up. And so we avoid. We are
the sheep, making it possible for the ruse to continue.
So what processes will we unleash? Will we remain a bunch of hopeless
victims satisfied with an absence of ideas about resistance? Will our
spaces be denied by well-meaning "leaders" hamstrung by processes from
another era that don't work? Or shall we mould ourselves into something
else, something fit for the times, something that leaves a legacy to be
enjoyed by those who follow us to build on; organized collectives of
workers that seize opportunity and turn disadvantage into advantage to
join with defenders of these lands and waters around us? Will we become a
movement defined by us and not our opponents? Will we become real
allies and join the resistance rising up all around us? Will we nurture a
wiry resistance that is always moving, strategizing and inviting
processes that are participatory and feed on the collective power we
carry together?
Our governments (and unions) are "pretend" or "part-time"
democracies. The backrooms, the hidden and the unseen, fear, and a lack
of ideas dot the terrain. Thus defeatism and social management of
struggle have become our practice, part of our nature. We have a poor
understanding of participatory democracy because we have not been given a
chance, nor do we claim it. It is too easy to blame "mis-leaders" or
general incompetence on others. That is unfair, though in some cases
quite true. We have allowed ourselves to be locked into processes with
little wiggle room. That means changing the terrain, and creating new
rules. We have the right to dream and create. Let us never forget that.
That project deepens now which leaves us with choices.
I don't need to list all the things that strangle our hope. We live
them everyday. And making more lists of our misery and what the
corporatocracy is doing to us is no longer on. Righteous victims don't
change anything. But new structures and spaces of possibility can lend
themselves to something vital. This is not a game. We can no longer
tippy-toe with a paralyzing fear that creates no victories and waits for
others to find them for us and merely complain and blame when they
don't.
Workers, and the increased destruction of rights, are not inevitable.
It is only inevitable if we allow ourselves to be "managed" under rules
and practices designed to rob and destroy us that we reproduce. So
instead of playing on their field, chasing paper thrown at us by
employers, filing grievances that go nowhere, and tying up unions in
bureaucratic processes, why not unleash another kind of unionism. One
grounded in the power of our work and dignity and in harmony with the
thousands of years of Indigenous wisdom placed on these lands that was
never extinguished, even in the darkest of times.
We don't lack resistance; we lack places to nurture it. Active
unionism would require that every worker contribute time and effort to
developing spaces and processes for resistance and acknowledge these
destructive systems of control rather than "manage" what we all agree is
a woeful decline in union power. A real struggle involves the personal,
the emotional, the direct contact, not hollow proclamations posted on
bulletin boards in the hopeless drudgery of workplaces. What we lack are
the assemblies and places to tap into our unity and power.
As the resistance rises around us, let us not be cautious and afraid
anymore. The politics of blame are over. None of us are alone. People do
have the power; they just struggle to realize it. Consider it an
invitation.
Dave Bleakney is the national union representative for education for the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and has written
and published in numerous publications on resistance, neoliberal
globalization and adult education pedagogy.
