How Many More Times? Democrats Side with Bosses Over Rail Workers!

Enough 14

Statement of Vermont AFL-CIO President David Van Deusen:

• Democratic Party Fucks Over Rail Workers!
• Rail Workers To Receive ZERO Paid Sick Days!
• Rail’s Right To Strike Outlawed For This Contract Cycle!

 

U.S. Rail Unions went into this bargaining season with not a single day of paid sick leave in their Contract. Achieving paid sick leave was the top priority of Union members. And today, because of an act of Congress and because of the latest Democratic Party betrayal (the latest in a long line of betrayals), they still have no sick leave.

Every Union member and working class man and woman and child in the United States of America should be livid right now. President Joe Biden (a Democrat), the Democratic Party leadership in the House and Senate, and the vast majority of Democratic (& Republican) Party politicians in the Capital just fucked over Rail workers and sided with the billionaire bosses again. The Rail corporations, after years of record profits, shall not be required to pay workers if they have to miss a day of work due to illness. This is bullshit.

No matter how the Democratic Party apologists try to spin it, Congress had the power to grant Unionized Rail workers paid sick leave, willfully chose to not do so, and then imposed a contract which was voted DOWN by the rank & file of four Unions representing a majority of Rail workers in this country. The Democrats in the House chose to send TWO bills to the Senate (instead of tying the sick leave to the TA), and it was the Democrats again in the Senate who REFUSED to abolish the filibuster (which takes a simple majority) and instead agreed to a 60 vote threshold to pass the sick leave bill. And even after the sick leave bill failed to get the 60 votes, the great majority Democrats still voted to impose the TA. And in so doing, Congress also effectively outlawed strike activity in the Rail sector for this contract cycle. Thus the betrayal of Labor falls on the Democrats.

This is a huge win for the billionaire railroad owners, CEOs, investors, and the capitalist ruling class of the USA. And given that the two major political parties on the national stage are both firmly supported by the elite (and side with the elite at every crucial juncture), this was also a predictable outcome from the start (as was the failure of the Democrats to pass the PRO Act last year). As sad and sickening as this may be, it is a truth we must reckon with.

The national Democratic Party is NOT the friend of Labor. They are a capitalist party organized to represent the interests of the bosses. And even while they lack degrees of evil exhibited by the increasingly fascist Republican Party, we must not be so confused as to think them allies. They, like the Republicans, are a force we must struggle against (not within). If our collective aspirations as a Labor Movement is to see an empowerment of working people, these are realities we must come to grips with.

So long as the two major national parties are the Democrats (big capitalists) and the Republicans (capitalists with a fascist trajectory), we would be wise to soberly understand that the true power of workers will never be realized through supporting the better of two bad candidates in an election or spending tens of millions of dollars of PAC money to prop up a party which does not support us.

No, my friends, our true power can only be found in our labor, through our solidarity, in the factories, on the job sites, in our shops, in our communities, and by way of those actions we collectively choose to take outside bounds of the preferred limits of engagement set forth by the rigged system created by our class enemies. President Joe Biden is NOT pro-Union (even if he displays less visceral hatred of us than did Donald Trump). Congress is not pro-Union. And neither party will do the right thing unless and until they fear us.

So, let us channel our anger and put our focus and attention towards the hard task of organizing, let us be unafraid to call out and name our enemies, and let us build our Labor Movement into a force which puts the Fear of God into the hearts of those who would side with billionaires and millionaires over the people. And should the Rail Unions and their members choose to withhold their labor (act of Congress be damned), let us stand side by side with them as Brothers and Sisters, come what may, until victory, unbowed!

David Van Deusen

President of The Vermont AFL-CIO

Stick this on your letterbox.

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‘We have been silenced’: meet the sex worker coalition fighting the cost of living crisis

gal-dem

Juno Mac

The cost of living crisis has hit millions of people hard, with latest reports indicating that 8 million in the UK are struggling to pay their bills, and food prices reaching the highest they’ve been in 40 years. Amid this dire economic climate, the experiences of sex workers have been largely overlooked – but a new campaign aims to change that.

The Hookers Against Hardship campaign comes from a coalition of sex worker collectives across the UK, demanding government action and public support to tackle poverty among sex workers during the current cost of living crisis. Made up of Britain’s major sex worker-led organisations – including SWARM, the English Collective of Prostitutes, Scot-pep, United Sex Workers, Bristol Sex Workers’ Collective and Decrim Now – the campaign draws attention to the ways sex workers are being affected by the crisis, and situates their demands within

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REBUTTAL TO BT GROUP’S CLAIMS – CWU INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE

This gallery contains 3 photos.

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Interview – Transport for London worker and RMT rep – On recent rail strikes – October 2022

Angry Workers

We are seeing an increase in strike action in the UK, which is a good thing, but we don’t know much about the experiences and views of workers who are involved in them. We rely on the official statements of the trade union press officers, which doesn’t help us to answer the main questions when it comes to strikes: are the strikes actually effective, do they hurt the bosses? Do workers overcome divisions between different contracts, departments, professional groups or sectors? Do workers themselves learn how to conduct their own struggles and decide about form and goals?

The following interview with a comrade who works at Transport for London is a small step towards a more general debate between striking workers. We have to create independent forums to lead the debate, independent from political parties or trade union headquarters who have their separate interests when it comes to the strikes and mainly see them as recruitment grounds. If you feel the same, get in touch. If you want to talk about your strike experiences, get in touch. You can read a previous interview with the comrade about the situation during the Covid pandemic here. For a good general overview of the current crisis in global transport, check this out.

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*** The current rail strikes

The recent strikes have been declared the biggest rail dispute in a generation, with 50,000 workers from rail services to track maintenance to Transport for London. Was there a different quality to that strike, for example, was there more communication between workers from the different rail sectors?

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‘Don’t Pay’ or ‘Enough is Enough’: The role of workers’ vanguards in the current moment – Lessons to learn from GKN workers in Italy and others

Angry Workers

There are moments when a particular group of workers can become the political focus for the wider working class. They can act as a pole of attraction, they can become a conduit for a wider program and new forms of struggle.

The current wave of strikes in Britain shows that significant sections of the working class feel both the need and ability to defend their own interests. It has come at a point in the deepening crisis where the mainstream political establishment is unable to present meaningful state-driven solutions.

In desperation, the controlling Tory party has ditched Johnson and created several months of vacuum where they don’t even pretend to generate plans to ease hardships. That convulsion in the governing party is not unique to Britain. Unable to respond to crisis and pacify the population, governments elsewhere in Western Europe have also dissolved. In France, Macron’s party have lost control of the National Assembly and, in Italy, Draghi’s coalition government has collapsed.

Meanwhile, the leadership of the British Labour Party has been intent on showing themselves as the next Government to prop up the capitalist status quo in Britain. They are so keen to prove that point that, week in, week out, they have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from struggling workers.

While the absence of a plan is lamented by the reformists, we think it opens up an opportunity to strengthen the chance for workers’ struggles to progress from singular defensive battles to a wider political program for the working class.

Things are churning

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Some RMT pickets at Bournemouth Railway Station attended by Dorset wobs recently.

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August 2022

1st October 2022

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8th October 2022

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CWU pickets at BT openreach.

Bath hill this morning, picture courtesy Great Western Branch CWU

CWU pickets at BT openreach.

Wobblies from our branch have been supporting these pickets in Dorset and as far afield as Sussex. Here’s a picture from the one in Bognor on Monday.

A FW writes:

BT Open Reach were on strike today and are out at least twice this month. As a smaller part of the CWU they are beginning to feel a bit left out over Royal Mail’s dispute so if FWs could share a bit on Social Media to friends and Comrades it may help to get the message out a bit about their struggle.

IWW Statement in Solidarity with Canary Workers’ Co-op

The Canary media workers form Cooperative

The contemporary media industry is well known for puppeting the capitalist and state narratives and for promoting job insecurity, low wages and controls on the freedoms of journalists to speak the truth to power. The dynamic of employer and worker strips good journalists of the ability to provide the public with genuine working class perspectives and reporting on the events that we ought to know about. While this dynamic remains, even under the most progressive of bosses, the voices of the workers remain chained.

The Industrial Workers of the World welcomes the decision by our fellow workers and union members at The Canary publication, to take steps to remove bosses from their workplace, and create equitable and horizontal democratic structures through the founding of the Canary Workers’ Co-operative (CWC).

The workers of the CWC “believe in the need for a radical media that isn’t afraid to speak truth to power, amplify the voices of the oppressed, and envision a world beyond capitalism and the state. Radical media needs to be a microcosm of the world we want to live in. It needs to be worker-run and truly democratic.”

The organising of this Co-operative has taken place over many months and has emerged out of several conflicts that arose because of the behaviour of the Canary’s prior leadership, and the hierarchy and inequality institutionalised within the workplace.

While co-ops still exist under capitalism, we recognise the revolutionary spirit of this initiative that sets a positive example for others to follow; embodying the change you want to see; taking control of your own workplace; using your platform for the benefit of the working class.

The Canary Workers’ Co-op has adopted a horizontal and ‘sociocratic’ structure. This means that there will no longer be bosses and the workers will make all the decisions themselves in decentralised working groups and general meetings. All members are recognised as equals and will have equal democractic control of the CWC.

The CWC is run for the benefit of all the workers and everyone will be paid the same for a day’s work (currently £12 an hour). This is in contrast to the disproportionately high pay received by the bosses in the past, taken from the profits of the workers toil.

Furthermore the CWC is committed to providing education and training to members for the good of the co-op, and for the good of the movement. This whole process is a learning experience for all those involved, including the IWW itself as we support the CWC as it develops and redefines its relationship to the union and the wider class struggle.

We are proud of our fellow workers at the Canary for starting this journey to build a radical alternative to the capitalist structures which alienate the workers from their work and keep the means of production in the hands of a few.

IWW sends our solidarity to the Canary Workers’ Co-operative!

We celebrate this new beginning for you all, and we look forward to supporting you to achieve better working conditions and practices that will inspire others to follow this example.

Dump the bosses off your back!