Looking for advice about picket line stuff where I work

Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful responses. I started talking to some other workers there and was pleasantly surprised (although perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at all) that many are feeling acutely separated from the union--they are bargaining over our heads and not giving us any information and trying to drag people out to publicity things instead of actually discussing anything with the membership. The random shop steward will tell you its hopeless--but the coworker I talked to said he wished the union was asking people to do something--write letters or strategize or something--but they haven't done anything and they haven't even told us to do anything ourselves besides wait.

I've also heard that the two unions are "negotiating separately" (not sure about all that entails or if there is any formal show of cooperation). There is a union general meeting very very very soon which I plan on going to, arriving early to talk to other workers and ask how they are feeling and what they are thinking.

And then my plan is to ask, somewhat forcefully, if we are working with the other union, if not WHY not, pointing out that they have 3 times our membership and saying that it doesn't make sense to vote on our contract yea or nay or to vote for a strike yea or nay when we don't know what the other union is doing--Also to ask if there's any way those decisions can be made together.

I expect to hear some line about how th other union isn't cooperating or isn't talking to us, to which I can only really respond that members of that union that I've spoken too have stressed the need for solidarity and for all the city workers to stick together. As much as there are differences between the two memberships, we all need each other to do our jobs and professionals are hurt by cuts in the "blue collar" workforce because:
a) our co-workers will be overworked and we will be picking up the slack
b) lowering their wages will only tempt the city to replace professionals with non-professionals and keep us competing with each other--they will be able to threaten us by saying "a 'blue-collar' person in your department only makes $x whereas you make $2x so we will lay you off and have them do your job unless you take a massive pay cut" The better off they are, the better off we can be.
c) if we don't work together with them and act as one, we can't expect their support in the future and they have 3 times the membership we do--this is especially important because his contract is not a one-time thing--if the budget shows anything about the city administration's priorities, it's that they want city workers to pay for everything--this isn't a one-time thing but a strategy to make us less powerful for ever--how much have they ever given back?
d) decent living wage government jobs in the city for city residents means a city that isn't so hopeless people move out, if there are no more opportunities for decent employment in the city, it will shrink, as will the tax base, as will the need for our "professional" jobs (is that too parochial/localist? I only mean it to say that better jobs anywhere means better jobs everywhere--I don't want to flatter people's illusions either).

Anyway, that's my plan for the upcomming union meeting. I also sent out an email to people who had expressed interest in the past in talking about where we work--but I didn't hear anything back--I hope my warnings to not open the email on a work PC didn't sound too paranoid/nervous for these coworkers.

Beyond those general concerns, I don't want to forecast too much and will wait and see what happens while I talk to more coworkers and see if others are frustrated with the way the unions are acting.

Thanks again the ideas, everyone

Very Gratefully,

soyons tout

Well, I blew it. The union meeting happened (there will be more, though) I didn't know what to expect and my public contribution didn't really do much to spark people's needs to stick together across union divisions and I definitely didn't do anything to contribute to the independent spirit of my coworkers for action with what I said.

Union meeting started, and our union did say that they <i>are</i> in fact working with the other union despite negotiating separately (which I guess are terms set by the city), and there's even a big city worker rally planned soon with not just the two city worker unions, but the union for non-teaching staff in the city schools and the transit union all involved (which is pretty smart, I'd say--The thing is, however, to make this solidarity real for each worker with or without the unions)

Right after that was announced, someone from the back brought up that there were twice as many people out in the hallway (our union hall is pretty small) and asked if we could adjourn and reschedule in a place big enough for everyone to hear and be heard and the union boss turned everyone against him and said that no one else wanted to adjourn, then he made a motion to adjourn and it was seconded and he sped through the vote only counting the people in the front of the room (not even knowing who was out in the hall). After that they rushed into a financial report from the treasurer and didn't do anything but ask, after the financial report, in light of the need for a larger space and larger meeting, if there was any chance of a joint meeting with the other city workers' union which the union boss said was definitely possible and then moved on--I was too mousey about it and didn't really phrase it in a good way. Needless to say, the whole forum was frustrating and confusing and basically a monologue from union officials during which we were allowed to ask a couple questions which were all answered dismissively. I didn't start off with a demanding tone and didn't ask the right or enough questions, I don't think.

However, I did talk to workers in other city departments afterward who expressed frustration, thought the union treated the people in the hall shamefully, thought the union wasn't try hard enough to get negotiation started (the city won't talk to the union, but they don't say what they've tried to get the city's attention--they don't brag about hanging around the offices of the city or putting any pressure to negotiate on the city at all, presumably because all they do is call up once a week and ask "is now a good time?")

So despite that misstep, I'm thinking of trying to connect with workers at the rally coming up and possibly giving out little cards with an email I have specifically for political contacts that I don't open at work and saying to email me if they want to maybe get a group of people together to talk about the upcoming contracts and what we can do to support each other (city workers, school workers, transit workers, etc.). Said email, however is kind of a weird email address and I wouldn't want to put my name on the cards in case they were found somehow (or should I just put my first name? again I'm not too sure about how secretive to be). I didn't get a response yet from others in my direct department, but I think it might be even more important to have a discussion that encompassed that many more workers under attack.

Does that sound like a good idea?

Also again, thanks for eveyone's comments, it's been a big help. I don't mean to be so dependent and advice-seeking, I just really don't have any experience with this kind of thing.

-soyons tout

Thanks so much for the article. Pretty inspiring stuff. At this point I don't know how interested anyone else is in something bigger, but I do want to plant a seed of workers acting for themselves and trying to stick up for ourselves as workers together on our own, rather than just relying on the union--and I want to stress that workers as a class are all facing the same attacks.

I know I've been ridiculously dependent on this forum and there's probably not a lot more to be said, but I had one more final question:

Our union has an email-list and someone on it said we shouldn't let the other union drag us into a strike and should try to get a good contract "regardless of the what the other union does." I want to respond to this without recommending anything illegal, because I know for a fact that a lot of people (stupidly) open these emails at work on work computers. [email contents removed by author to remove self-identifying details surrounding this issue]

Does that sound like a 1/2 decent email that points out some truths without getting me in trouble too much (I know it sounds very concilliatory, one thing I'm dealing with is workers who think their bosses, the government, the unions, etc. are basically protecting them & looking out for them--and I don't want to flatter their prejudices, but I don't want to sound like a nutjob).

Thanks again for any advice. Let me know if this is getting annoying. I did contact the IWW in my area and I'm still talking to the ICC (of whom I know many of you having very differing opinions, which I understand) and trying to get good ideas and support. I also have been talking a lot more to coworkers one on one, although I don't find a ton of reception from anyone except the very young the almost retired (not sure exactly why that is). So yeah, thanks again.

Sincerely,

soyons tout

Hi everyone. So I went to the multi-union rally but didn't end up talking to many people and wasn't entirely sure what to say (I talked to some people about this and they said it's better to always go with someone for the purpose of maybe passing something out or even better, to have a couple people passing stuff out and then a third who isn't passing it out and can then talk to other people at the demo about what it says and what they think of it--which does sound like a better idea since I got nervous and had trouble getting conversations going). The other thing was that the rally basically was a chance for a bunch of people running for city government to campaign (there were about ten different political hopefuls on stage) and for each separate union to chant its local number after its respective president made its speech--there wasn't any opportunity for anyone to do much talking.

Afterwards, however, some people started marching around city hall on the sidewalk around it, then crossed the street, then crossed back to march around city hall again but just stood in the road and took the street corner with people chanting "no contract, no peace" and "shut it down." I don't think this was sanctioned by any of the union leadership I think the workers just did it and then other people followed suit. After about 15 minutes in one of the busiest intersections downtown, we marched around city hall again, this time in the street (although by this time the police had blocked off the streets about a block in either direction) with the same chants and after once around everyone met up at the corner of city hall and was addressed by some men in suits who I later found out were union officials--their basic message was "it's good you came out for this rally even though there was no notice--you need to do that even moreso in the future, whatever the union president says, you do--you didn't ask questions, you just came out and that's what we need to do." Despite the fact that the blocking of the street wasn't their decision (I don't think), they still chose to use their time to hammer home their message that the union membership can't know about any planned job actions in advance and just needs to wait and listen to the union leaders. I want to say something to the effect that its our jobs/wages/benefits on the line so we should be the ones deciding what to do and that we need a forum where all the city workers can discuss what we can do to hold onto our wages and pensions and healthcare--and to come up with things to make sure that if we <i>do</i> strike, we will win--and not simply save the city money by engaging in a losing strike. A friend from the ICC also mentioned that it would be better to say "we need to ..." addressing the other workers instead of asking the union to do things or asking them what they are doing about things.

Two other things I'm interested in talking to people about are:

1) the city's whole budget is predicated on the approval of a city tax hike from the state government, and if doesn't pass, the city will a second budget plan which would be something like a 20% cut across all departments with big layoffs--and the union has acknowledged this but not offered to even attempt to do anything about it or deal with it and when I brought it up at a union meeting I was condescendingly told that the state government doesn't like our big city, historically (which everyone knows, but this was a way for them to dismiss my comment). People have asked what the plan is but they said they need to concentrate on the current situation--is this potentially an area for extending the struggle to people who work for the state (mostly those workers are in another city but the biggest chunk of them are in the same union coalition in the same industrial union--not the same local, but the same union like UNISON or whathaveyou)?

There's also a new proposal to have the state government take over our city's pension fund and fund it for a smaller defined return rate than it is currently funded for.

2) A large supermarket chain in the area (our city its suburbs and into another neighboring state) is demanding draconian cuts for their workers and their contract has officially expired with no one voting on a new contract. Is this also possibly an area to extend the struggle and could saying something about this possibly contribute to workers' self organization beyond just one sector?

Our union also has an email-list which I did post on once to emphasize that workers throughout the world are in the same boat and if we let one sector take a cut, it will be used as a pretext for more cuts in other places in the very near future.

All the city workers' unions are still negotiating with the city, even though our contract officially expired on July 1 (the last day of the contract, everyone wore the same color to work, for a solidarity day). I'll definitely keep folks updated as things develop. Thanks again for all your help.

-soyons tout

The transit workers' union in my city has voted to authorize a strike if there's no contract by the end of this week (around the time of a major tourist event). Transit workers (who work for a private firm with heavy subsidies, not directly for our municipal government) marched with city workers when our contract expired this summer but, as usual, the city-workers' union hasn't said peep about this (in addition to all their demoralizing, derailing tactics over the city workers' jobs--see http://en.internationalism.org/inter/i52/letter for details). Does anyone have any ideas about something I could perhaps either:

1.) write about solidarity to either a) post in break rooms/bathrooms etc. in the my city agency, b) post to our union local email list (obviously this would be written differently, either as a question to other members about what we can do to support them--although this might draw the eyes of the union leaders too much--not really sure), or

2.) something in print to give to strikers on picket lines about extending the struggle, pointing to other common struggles in the area (most obvious ones being the other union that runs our suburban service trains, the cab drivers, city workers, etc. --all of whom are in contract disputes).

3.) other things to do to support workers in struggle and argue for its rapid extension?

If anyone has any examples of previous flyers, leaflets, things to write, that would be great. Thanks.

-soyons tout