Date: Sun, 17 Aug 1997 08:57:29 +1000
From: sjwright-AT-vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Steve Wright)
Subject: AUT: (fwd) Re: UPS -- The Rebellion of the Young and Part-time


Subject: Re: UPS -- The Rebellion of the Young and Part-time (fwd)
From: <rgibson-AT-pipeline.com>
Reply-To: "Conference iww.news" <iww-news-AT-igc.apc.org>
Date: 14 Aug 1997 16:18:59

From: Richard Gibson <rgibson-AT-pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: UPS -- The Rebellion of the Young and Part-time (fwd)

It is one thing to see the profound ties between class struggle and
fundamental social change. Surely those rank and filers who engage in
various higher forms of action on the picket lines, in union meetings, going
door to door with customers, are learning important lessons about capital,
the relations of class/race and sex--and oppression---and the nature of the
state (how come the cops aren't beating the bosses heads?). It is another
thing, though, to plow into this side of a relationship (reform and real
change) without critically examining what is up. People interested in
equality and democracy need to investigate both the reform and revolution
sides of this tension, and try to figure out where they might be more
clearly linked.

 To the reform side, most people on the list have pointed out the UPS
strike's strenghts--no need to repeat. There are significant weaknesses.
While it is true that part time jobs are a central issue, so is the pension
fund, long a source of Teamster corruption. The demand to make part time
jobs full time is hardly equivelent to the more progressive (and long part
of the AFL program, though hardly pr'd) demand to shorten the legal work
week, say from 40 to 30 hours, with no cut in pay. More significantly,
nothing is being said about the continued bossism within the Teamsters. TDU,
which virtually called the police to get some of the gangsters out of the
union, has hardly succeeded in building a base of class conscious
activists---if that is the goal at all. Carey, TDU's candidate, stands for
nearly nothing that the IWW stands for. He really is in a bit of a bind,
having to amke a militant showing to stave off charges of his own corruption
and to fend off future attacks from Jimmy Hoffa Jr. Still, while he appears
to be a fairly honest AFL trade unionist, that is all he is, and it is
hardly enough.

But to me, the question of fundamental change is also at issue here.
Recently the left has grown jubilant over the rise/rebirth of the labor
movement. This is in part reiterated in the post below and in recent very
thoughtful editions of Monthly Review. Part of the argument is that there
are new people in labor (presumably the AFL) and that these new people will
be more militant. Surely, there has been more action in the last two years
(Detroit newspapers, a variety of auto strikes, etc). Yes, this kind of
social practice has intrinsic value. But examining the data does not lead me
to think that there are many new people in the labor movement (most
industrial workers really are white and middle class in this country---over
40, having watched hundreds ofthousands of their comrades lose jobs and
wages and done little to resist) and does not lead me to believe they are on
the verge ofdemanding anything but "more" from capital---which, for the time
being in the U.S., might be available. Moreover, the AFL leadership
certainly does not want to shift its expert/client relationship with the
rank and file. Secret negotiations hardly send the messagethat one can be in
charge of one's own life.

Relations between the AFL unions and owners are uneven, reflecting more the
needs and ideas of the owners than the willingness of the AFL to make
challenges. It is no mistake that Ford, in the recent contract, agreed to
organize plants on the behalf of the UAW. Ford wants and needs the UAW to
discipline the work force, and they're willing to spend some money to gain
this labor peace. The Teamster's strike is well within this framework, well
in control for the time being. Unlike the newspaper strike, UPS isn't saying
smash the Teamsters, they're saying take a little less.  Note that the AFL's
US Post Office locals are not out, and are not planning anything of the
sort. Carey does not want to bite off UPS's ear, to even talk about the
realities of class struggle, to upset the applecart. Nobody in AFL
leadership positions is saying anything about the fact that today's
victories can be tomorrow's concessions, as long as capital is in charge. If
there is an injunction, Carey is unlikey to say, "Taft can load it, Hartley
can carry it, we're staying out", The Teamsters, who helped elect Reagan,
remain well with in the common political arena,

While it is true that the ability to wage technologcial war is hardly a
permanent base of strength, for the present (absent an international
financial collapse), capital in the US is going to be able to offer a
relatively good life to its more skilled or strtegically placed
workers---most of the key leadership in the AFL. The continuing appeal of
nationalism (which has paid off to many skilled white workers in the US) is
dangerous stuff. If war started tomorrow, most of the AFL unions would be
recruiting centers for the military.

So, what? Well, I've been down to the picket lines too. I've met with some
terrific people. I've tried to add my little bit of support to the strike.
And I've tried to do so in a way that lets me make friends with the folks on
the lines. I hope these friendships will last long beyond the boundaries of
the strike. As I return I hope to raise issues beyond support, like what do
we do when this is over? Who is next? What would it take to turn this into a
city strike? What if the teachers go out? How can we build community--and
international--worker solidarity. Why should we obey their laws?

Still, the egalitarian left doesn't have unlimited resources. People cannot
dance from one strike to the next, without leaving capital in charge of the
music. There needs to be some strategic focus. It looks to me that the the
moves into the Job Corps, and into the schools (now the centers of life in
the US--not the old industrial focus of days gone by) makes more sense than
hoping that "people in motion" within the AFL are going to transform demands
for more into demands for equality. Sure we should support the rank and
file---and criticize the union and boss bosses---but we need our sights
steadily on a target too.

What capital cannot offer is the chance to own and control the processes and
products of our labor, to exercise real community life, and the possibility
that one day we could be on a planet sith social systems designed so people
can love one another. How we decide to get there goes directly to the depth
of our losses  in the future.

I appologize for being long-winded.

At 09:17 AM 8/14/97, you wrote:
>From: MichaelP <papadop-AT-peak.org>
>Subject: UPS -- The Rebellion of the Young and Part-time (fwd)
>
> PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE
>450 Mission Street,  Room 204
>San Francisco, CA 94105
>415-243-4364
>
>http://www.pacificnews.org
>
>OPINION AND ANALYSIS-830 WORDS
>
>UPS -- THE REBELLION OF THE YOUNG AND PART-TIME
>
>EDITOR'S NOTE: Those Americans who think unions are made up of
>middle-aged white men should take a second look at who's on the UPS
>picket lines. Young, multi-racial and militant, a new generation of
>part-time workers are breathing new life into the Teamsters -- and
>possibly other unions across the United States. PNS associate editor
>David Bacon is a former union organizer who writes widely on labor and
>immigration.
>
>BY DAVID BACON, PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE
>
>OAKLAND, CA. -- John Cortez isn't a kid anymore. So why is he still
>trying to survive on the same part-time job that he got when he was young
>and single?
>
>Because he works at United Parcel Service.
>
>Cortez got a job at the main place thousands of young people think of
>first, especially when they're going to school and trying to earn a
>living at the same time. The word has been out for years -- if you can
>hook a job at UPS, you can work part-time on an off shift, earn a union
>wage, and get benefits.
>
>You can put yourself through school. With no dependents, you can live on
>that part-time wage.
>
>But young people grow older. They get married and start families. They
>need a stable life and a paycheck which can pay the bills.
>
>That's the fuel behind the strike at UPS.
>
>"I've been working 26-28 hours a week for years," Cortez explains. "It's
>really hard now. I have a wife and two kids. It's just not enough hours
>to pay the bills. My wife and I both work, and we still need government
>support to help us out. It's gotten to be more than we can tolerate."
>
>Before the strike started, the waiting line to get a full-time job was
>still five years long. Cortez's oldest child will be in middle school
>before he gets there. "I can't wait five years. I need a change right
>now," he explains when asked why he went out on strike.
>
>That full-time position would not only increase his hours. It would give
>him a substantial raise. Cortez makes $11.60 per hour as a part-timer. A
>full-time driver can make over $20.
>
>Many part-timers at UPS, like Scott Biales, don't really work part-time
>at all. Biales puts in a week which regularly runs from 48-50 hours.
>Sometimes he replaces a truck driver for a few hours, and gets a higher
>wage when he does. But mostly, he's working the original part-time
>position in the terminal into which he was hired years ago. And at a
>part-time wage.
>
>Part-time workers provide UPS with many advantages. "They're usually
>young people, and they work them to death for those four hours. Then they
>just bring in more," according to Chuck Mack, secretary-treasurer of
>Oakland's Teamsters Local 70. The union tried to hold down the workload
>with a mid-contract strike two years ago, which sought to limit to 70
>pounds the weight of packages workers were required to lift.
>Nevertheless, the present contract took the limit to 150 pounds, and UPS
>now wants the right to increase it even further at any time, with no
>negotiations.
>
>"In a lot of terminals, two-thirds, or even three-quarters of the
>employees are part-timers," Mack says. They make up 80 percent of new
>hires since 1993. The lower-tier wages the company pays them helped
>generate a one billion dollar profit for UPS last year.
>
>That gives the company a big reason for asking President Clinton to
>intervene to stop the strike, instead of sitting down with the union and
>making some compromises. UPS pooh-poohs the part-timers' complaints. "The
>part-time issue is just a smokescreen," according to Kristi Wolfgang,
>UPS's spokesperson in Atlanta, who said the union was really after
>preventing changes in the benefit and pension plans.
>
>UPS is asking for union concessions which would make the problem even
>worse, however. The company wants to subcontract out the jobs of feeder
>drivers, who drive between terminals. These jobs are promotions for the
>delivery drivers in the familiar brown trucks, and are held by the most
>senior workers. If feeder driver jobs are contracted out, delivery
>drivers won't move up into them, creating openings for part-timers in the
>terminals. That would make the waiting line for Cortez and Biales even
>longer.
>
>Some 185,000 Teamster members are on strike, and the union, riven by
>internal discord over reforms, has closed ranks behind them. Mack himself
>ran unsuccessfully against President Ron Carey's slate last year. Now,
>however, "I agree totally with the stand Carey has taken," he says.
>"Politics is a luxury when we've got the future of our members at stake."
>
>On the picketlines, strikers seem energetic and confident, knowing they
>have the company shut down tight. At the big UPS terminal near the
>Oakland airport, the largest hub in northern California, they break all
>the stereotypes about union members. Picketers' average age is in the
>20s. African-Americans rub shoulders with whites, Latinos with Asians.
>The loudest picketers are women.
>
>Older workers in union halls used to bemoan the apathy of the young --
>"They never went through what we did," the complaint would go. "They
>don't understand why the union is important."
>
>These days, it's the young strikers at UPS -- multiracial and militant --
>who are giving the union a new breath of life.
>
Rich Gibson
Wayne State University
College of Education
Detroit MI  U.S.A. 48202





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