Blame the Unions
Much of this page's hiatus last week was taken up with a considerable amount of soul-searching. Actually, if you're a regular reader and saw the CUPE BC and NDP links disappear from my sidebar, you know that the soul-searching has been going on for a few weeks now. This page is angry and frustrated by the labour movement's lack of ability and/or interest in attacking the BC Liberal agenda, particularly when it comes to the issues of poverty and homelessness is British Columbia. When people have to shove their way to the mic at the latest Olympic announcement or shackle themselves to each other on the floor of a cabinet minister's office, you know how hollow the words "An Injury to One is an Injury to All" are ringing these days.
Everything I learned in Labour History class leaves me pissed off with the BC Fed and my own Union. Why bother Organizing the Unorganized when our self-absorbed Baby Boomer membership (and leadership) each received $3,000* in pre-Olympic hush money...oops... signing bonuses from Carole Taylor? So much for any solidarity with the Anti-Poverty, First Nations, and Environmental movements who stood with us on the front lawn of the Legislature in the dark weeks of February, 2002. I know from experience that my fellow union members are people who will sit in rapture listening at the Union's convention to Stephen Lewis talk about fighting AIDS in Africa but at the same time shrug when Stephen Harper's troglodytes move to shut down the Safe Injection Site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Much of the fightback against the Lieberals during their first term came from members of the Hospital Employees Union (HEU), who were mostly front-line workers, immigrants, and women. HEU workers struck after Bill 29 demolished their collective agreement, and my union told its members working that they shouldn't cross the picket line, but they didn't have to march with HEU members to get their strike pay either. That one CUPE guy in front of UBC Hospital? That was either me, or the other guy - everyone else stayed home and watched it on TV. The HEU members weren't white middle-class baby boomers, and neither are the Anti-Poverty activists desperately struggling to maintain social housing, welfare rates, and opportunities to break the cycle of drugs, prostitution, and violence. Why does one of the most powerful labour movements in North America turn its back on the people most likely to back the ideals of the labour movement?
Today the self-interested silence from Big Labour towards the people at the margins is still deafening, and disturbing. The kinds of people who are flocking to the ranks of the Anti-Poverty Committee in 2007 are exactly the kinds of people that Unions like the Industrial Workers of the World were organizing in 1907. Where's the coalition-building? Where are the community campaigns? Last spring the BC Fed could have used public sector bargaining to not only leverage a comprehensive labour accord for the 2010 Olympics, but comprehensive social and environmental accords as well. If our public sector jobs were worth a General Strike three years ago, then affordable housing, decent welfare, real training opportunities and a public transit system to reach them are worth a General Strike now.
Much of this page's hiatus last week was taken up with a considerable amount of soul-searching. Actually, if you're a regular reader and saw the CUPE BC and NDP links disappear from my sidebar, you know that the soul-searching has been going on for a few weeks now. This page is angry and frustrated by the labour movement's lack of ability and/or interest in attacking the BC Liberal agenda, particularly when it comes to the issues of poverty and homelessness is British Columbia. When people have to shove their way to the mic at the latest Olympic announcement or shackle themselves to each other on the floor of a cabinet minister's office, you know how hollow the words "An Injury to One is an Injury to All" are ringing these days.
Everything I learned in Labour History class leaves me pissed off with the BC Fed and my own Union. Why bother Organizing the Unorganized when our self-absorbed Baby Boomer membership (and leadership) each received $3,000* in pre-Olympic hush money...oops... signing bonuses from Carole Taylor? So much for any solidarity with the Anti-Poverty, First Nations, and Environmental movements who stood with us on the front lawn of the Legislature in the dark weeks of February, 2002. I know from experience that my fellow union members are people who will sit in rapture listening at the Union's convention to Stephen Lewis talk about fighting AIDS in Africa but at the same time shrug when Stephen Harper's troglodytes move to shut down the Safe Injection Site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Much of the fightback against the Lieberals during their first term came from members of the Hospital Employees Union (HEU), who were mostly front-line workers, immigrants, and women. HEU workers struck after Bill 29 demolished their collective agreement, and my union told its members working that they shouldn't cross the picket line, but they didn't have to march with HEU members to get their strike pay either. That one CUPE guy in front of UBC Hospital? That was either me, or the other guy - everyone else stayed home and watched it on TV. The HEU members weren't white middle-class baby boomers, and neither are the Anti-Poverty activists desperately struggling to maintain social housing, welfare rates, and opportunities to break the cycle of drugs, prostitution, and violence. Why does one of the most powerful labour movements in North America turn its back on the people most likely to back the ideals of the labour movement?
Today the self-interested silence from Big Labour towards the people at the margins is still deafening, and disturbing. The kinds of people who are flocking to the ranks of the Anti-Poverty Committee in 2007 are exactly the kinds of people that Unions like the Industrial Workers of the World were organizing in 1907. Where's the coalition-building? Where are the community campaigns? Last spring the BC Fed could have used public sector bargaining to not only leverage a comprehensive labour accord for the 2010 Olympics, but comprehensive social and environmental accords as well. If our public sector jobs were worth a General Strike three years ago, then affordable housing, decent welfare, real training opportunities and a public transit system to reach them are worth a General Strike now.
*For those of you scoring at home, I didn't get the signing bonus, thanks to my Union refusing to grieve my placement rights from a Medical Leave at the time.
1 comment:
Most CUPE members don't know what side of the fence they are on.
There is a systematic attack the working middle class and the poor. As a whole, society has developed a 'dog eat dog' or 'survival of the fittest' attitude and here we be.
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