God, kong, er, queen and country

Discriminatory against whom, for Pete's sake? A symbol of a knownn case of wrongdoing and the display of another symbol that signifies standing up for one's turf, who does that discriminate against? We could as well claim discrimination against TROC'ers whenever we see a Quebec license plate!

You might question why the dude does not display his own country's symbols, however: A depiction of the CN tower, which was to have been blown up, and then a very aggressive beaver, er...well, that would maybe have been more fitting when representing a Canadian law enforcement outfit. So, if he is an American (don't get me wrong, many of my best friends are Americans), then we might make a case for discrimination by exclusion of all Canucks, who treasure their national symbols.

OOOooops indeed.

In the headline, 'kong' should of course have been 'king'. Just so nobody draws any conclusions about stupid Freudian slips and so on, I wish to explain that the 'o' is the vowel used in that place in my first language, stemming from the Old Norse 'konungr', king, which is Old English became 'cyning', hence 'king'. It is seldom I do stumble into Danish spelling, but I must chalk it up to being really quite upset at the 'discrimination' being misused. I truly resent the easy slapping of 'racist', 'discrimination', and 'harrassment' that has become so commonplace as to nearly lose its impact. There are real cases of these errors, and we do not help by using the words where not warranted.

'Oops' is right!

Oops - seems you forgot to consider your privileged place in the world before your posted, Dorothy!

"I truly resent the easy slapping of 'racist', 'discrimination', and 'harrassment' that has become so commonplace as to nearly lose its impact. There are real cases of these errors, and we do not help by using the words where not warranted."

This is hilarious if one is correct in assuming from your Danish heritage that you're white... which kind of makes your comment itself a bit racist. "Oh, those uppity *insert race/ethnic group here*! When will they ever learn to just keep their heads down, shut up, and drive the bus without causing any trouble?" It's so easy to condemn the racialized other's struggles when you never have to experience them yourself, hey?

Seriously, is it so hard to try and put yourself in Marwan's shoes, no matter what your skin colour or place in society is? I know we're not supposed to have any kind of solidarity with (or compassion for) others in this hyper-individualized society, but when you try, it's not actually that hard - and it's a pretty powerful thing.

Cop Workplace Mentalities...

I am pleased to see my old union, CAW-111, with whom I had my own disagreements, nonetheless standing by this worker. And in the prevailing workplace environment, especially for anyone of Lebanese/Middle Eastern background right now, in an increasingly highly charged political environment, it is only naiveté and ignorance of the real "grunt level" realities that would make anyone think one could sweet talk "Enforcement" into more "understanding" attitudes.

Ain't going to happen, not short of racist and reactionary views first, simply not being tolerated by unions, coming from within their own ranks or management. It's around that principled position that "discussion" best takes place and views get changed (or not), especially given prefailing "police mentality" tendencies, not atypically unlike what we saw during the G20 in Toronto, except in a more day to day reality context.

This is NOT a time for nicey-nicey or kissy-face from a union standpoint with either the "elitist" public sector or the Holy Private, on any issue involving the working class interest... to which unions have been too prone and bending as is. (And part of the reason the working class is standing in the shit reality it is.) There are appropriate times for nice guy, or what one might appropriately call here "good cop" attempts at persuasion, especially with managements and their "enforcement" arms, when the playing field is at least level or in your favour. In this economic and political environment, the retreat and suckholing has all been going one way for too long, and has encouraged this kind of racism and reactionary politics display.

And while "cops", even transit cops are really just working stiffs, unfortunately, too often their less than subtle identification is with defending the worst face of "The System", and the attitudes and interests of the most anal elements of the ruling class and its elites.

Hang in there Marwan Marwan and CAW-111. When it comes to racism and political reactionaries, like sexism, it has no rightful place in the workplace. (It wasn't that long ago these guys would have had Penthouse pinups where that pro-Amerikan poster affront to Middle East descended folks was hanging. Rightfully, this finally came to be intolerable as well, by push and shove as much as nice.)

Attitudes, such as these transit cops displayed here, will indeed come to be changed... buy not by kissy-face nice guys.

Further comments

@ zalm --
If you investigate the role of the "peace officer" in society further than just accepting the institution's own stated claim to 'protecting' and 'serving', you might start being honest about a lot of other things, too. For instance, the worker-manager relationship! I agree there are times to challenge one's supervisors on certain issues, but it's not often that you'll get very far in criticizing their decisions and get them to change. The power differential and antagonism inherent to the relationship just doesn't allow for it.

Back to the police. If their stated function is to protect the most underprivileged ('weak' is your term) sectors of society, then would it logically follow that most of an officer's time is spent harassing and arresting groups and individuals from those very same sectors? Wouldn't you think that the police, if they truly cared about the 'weak', would instead be searching out the oppressors of the non-privileged rather than punishing them for circumstances that they have very little power to change? Why do people like Conrad Black and the officers caught on film killing harmless people (Oscar Grant, Robert Dziekanski) get off with little more than a slap on the wrist, while tens of thousands of non-white youths go to jail every year for petty crimes?

When you start thinking about the police in this way, it begs the question: so what, then, is the real purpose of the police? I'll leave that to you to figure out for yourself, with a hint – haven’t you ever wondered why the police always seem come down on the side of power and the state?

@ dorothy --
I also have to say that I was so saddened by your completely uncritical analysis of the twin towers and screaming eagle symbology, not to mention that your solution was to replace it with equivalent Canadian symbols that would mean the same thing: war, aggression, nationalism, xenophobia, racism, hatred, buying into the mythology of 'terrorism', and so on. One day being called a 'nationalist' will be just as abhorrent as doing something to be labelled a 'racist' or 'sexist' is today. That won't happen, though, until we all start thinking about what it really means to be 'Canadian' or to 'support Canada'.

Again: war, aggression, violence, hatred, racism, sexism, xenophobia, state terrorism, destroying the very environment that we depend on for survival, exploiting those who most need protection and help, the genocide of indigenous populations and the continuation of the same colonial policies that killed and enslaved them for the last 500 years... I could go on and on about what Canada really stands for, but I think you get the picture.

So, the question is: How could you ever be proud to stand for those things?

Offensive window display

So who owns Coast Mtn. Bus Co. and Translink? Are they US subsidiaries? And what on earth is that window display doing in a Canadian police office? Surely some customers have complained about that.

A good man

"She said Marwan had been very effective defending his own and other drivers' rights under their union contract, citing his protests against unsafe work conditions and management-defined schedules for completing certain routes which many drivers see as unrealistic and demanding."

From my read of this article Marwan is indeed "a good man".

But to be both "a good man".... and "very effective" in these warped times, is often to be branded "dangerous"...and perceived as a threat.

Good on his union for standing by him.

The Secret Lives of Bus Drivers

Biblitz commends Mr. Marwan for his strong opinions and for compelling the Tyee's attention to his dismissal from the somewhat chequered fleet of local bus drivers.

I would feel doubly bad for him if he could assure me that he is not among the loathsome miscreants driving the 99 who routinely clear the bus of passengers on 10th Avenue, refusing for no apparent reason to continue or, just as bad, the 41, whose drivers routinely clear the bus at Dunbar and 41st, usually at night, again for no apparent reason, at a stop where there are no streetlights, shelter from the weather or protection from the usual tough customers roaming about at night.

How often have I reported occasions of this most mysterious and unexpected interruption of service, which imperils and certainly inconveniences the public to no effect whatsoever?

Mr. Marwan, conversely, seems to have acted comparatively reasonably in the course of his duties.

working...

In my little town a few years back, city hall contracted out garbage pick-up service because it was so much cheaper. Of course, the employees went from half-decent wages to utterly abysmal ($10/hour) but that is not even the worst of it, to my mind. No, the worst of it is the long hours they work; officially 10 per day/ 4 days a week on the record, but often longer. One can hear the garbage truck from blocks and blocks away...engine screaming as it revs to a higher speed, brakes squealing as the driver jams them on to make a stop. The employees are working like machines...

Since when did it become acceptable to work people like this? Of course these particular workers are non-union, but even in my favoured union workplace (I have since left) the pace is brutal, and no one gets coffee breaks nor more than a 20 minute lunch break.All else aside in this article, human beings have an inherent right (although apparently not enshrined in the province's Employment Standards) to work at a human, not a machine pace. To suppose otherwise is to invite a myriad of social costs that are too great to be borne. These costs are borne by us the people, not the companies...

Coyoteman, good point about the 'pin-ups pictures' of by-gone days. I was horrified and offended at the sexism in my then all-male workplace as a young woman, but that kind of thinking was so taken for granted that complaints rolled off, pretty much. Same for the photo described in the article: we can only hope that one day it too wil be seen as the silliest and most vulgar of all reactionary symbols...

Yes, a little more compassion for those not privileged by middle-class earnings and workplaces would go a long way toward the beginnings of change.

Surely you could have found

Surely you could have found a 'retired' driver who had worked more recently than Julius Fisher - when he was driving they were propelled by pedals, for pete's sake - I'b be surprised if he's even taken a bus in the last twenty years.
For Pete's sake - or Marwan's - dig a bit!

Case in point...

If it wasn't so sad, I would laugh. But then again, maybe I will. Here is the most Danish sentiment I can come up with in response to the tirades some people endeavored to throw at me:

THE ETERNAL TWINS

Taking fun
as simply fun
and earnestness
in earnest
shows how thoroughly
thou none
of the two
discernest.

(Piet Hein, Danish poet)

Ever since I hit this country thirty-odd years ago, I have been met with this stiff-lipped 'how can you SAY that?' when I was never entirely serious, only somewhat, and no one ever realizing they were showing me,at the very least, cultural chauvinism so thick you could cut it with a knife.

As for 'privileged', where did you dig that one up? You really don't know there is just as much discrimination based on culture and resulting 'otherness' in behavioral patterns as there is on mere skin color? I can assure you there is. My children met it in school. and my family met it in the neighborhood, and I met it in the workplace. It was so much more of a shock, as we never expected it in Canada, touted as this country is as being the stronghold of tolerance and diversity.

Not that it was entirely unknown to me from Denmark either. I spent my school years being regaled with references to my 'mean' or 'sharp' eyes, which are a dark color rather than blue, to go with my non-indoeuropean blood type. So, the 'privilege' is fast evaporating there as we speak, ain't it?

As for the national symbolism, I think the notion of a very aggressive beaver should have been a dead giveaway. I can only conclude that people are wanting me so badly to be a racist/fascist/elitist etc., and are just so ready to jump on that bandwagon that they don't think twice before doing so. Just like my next up in line person at work, who tries at least twice a year to nail me for wrongdoing where none is, because I sometimes stand up for others and sometimes am successful. I do my job and don't mess with the overtime. You can be sure if there had been something to get me for, I would have been gotten. So I do know whereof I speak.

otherness...

Indeed, Dorothy, otherness is the very thing not tolerated in most societies. Though I would point out it is the very thing we like you for...

More and more, the 'privilege' in this society at this particular time and place rests with those who have jobs, of any sort, against those who don't. Those who can pay their rent (or maybe are lucky enough to have a mortgage), and those who can't. Those who can buy food, and those who go to the food bank.We never used to think of it as privilege...

I don't know the intimate particulars of Marwan, but zalm suggested he find a job he enjoys doing. How many untold thousands of us are searching for that very thing? And then, the others who would just like the privilege of shopping for their food.
Enjoyed the poetry. We need much of that in these here pages.

An outrage!

Time theft? These blood suckers are the ones stealing our time for their profits. What an outrage to accuse a worker of time theft! Hang in their Marwan and lets hope CAW can beat back these vermin.

Thank you, VivianLea

for your kind words. And I agree, that I DO get to do a job that has meaning and which I love doing, and for that, I feel privileged, skin color or lack thereof be damned. But I also have tried being out in the cold and at the edge of despair, and know all the little trade-offs and the stuff one swallows in order to hang in there. Marwan has managed to come down on the wrong side of that whole intricate bundle of politics, and where the deuce was his union rep when he fumbled around in the jungle? The problem is that people think it won't hit them, until it just does. If I work alone, I clock in and out even if so far I never have been asked for proof of full attendance. It's in the bag of tricks one needs to know if one will talk back to the powers that be. I wish the man all the luck in the World and hope he won't have to pay that dearly for his wisdom gained.

dorothy, you kill me...

"I wish the man all the luck in the World and hope he won't have to pay that dearly for his wisdom gained."

Ok, at first glance that seems like a fairly compassionate sentiment, until - wait, *what* wisdom are you implying that Marwan gained? Reading the rest of your post about tricks and trade-offs and hanging in there, I can only assume, once again, that you mean to say he should have shut up, kiboshed the politics, and learned some tricks to help him win tiny little private victories of no risk or consequence whatsoever (sorry).

Marwan's story isn't about a stupid worker not knowing any better and mishappenly "coming down on the wrong side of a bundle of politics." It's about a marginalized worker - because of both his ancestry and his activism inside and outside the workplace - being targeted for speaking up about what he believes is right. I find it impossible not to feel for him, and at the same time see his struggle connected inextricably to what's going on at a systemic level: the crushing of dissent and marginalization of the other, the dismissal of alternative views and control of public spaces for serious discussion and debate, and the ultimate prioritization of profits over people and the environment in the face of all common sense and decency.

Go ahead, make it about being Danish - "oh, you just don't get me, but I'm really so funny!" - and blame everyone else for their "cultural chauvinism" when in fact the truth is much simpler: you just seriously need some liberation, my friend. :)

Start with a healthy dose of Zinn, Chomsky, Albert, Klein, and you'll figure out where to go from there. "A People's History of the United States", "Hegemony or Survival", "Liberating Theory" and "The Shock Doctrine", respectively, are great places to start... and if you've already read them, then, well - best of luck.

Action and Solidarity...

"...until - wait, *what* wisdom are you implying that Marwan gained? Reading the rest of your post about tricks and trade-offs and hanging in there, I can only assume, once again, that you mean to say he should have shut up, kiboshed the politics, and learned some tricks to help him win tiny little private victories of no risk or consequence whatsoever..." Social_Texture.

Which, of course, is about the only conclusion one can draw from these comments of Dorothy... another one of her contradictory positions from which she frequently comes and vacillates.

Workers, organized or unorganized (union or non-union), should have and DEMAND the right to express their own political views and live with the judgement of their class peers without molestation in any form from owners or their managers. There should be no exemption of the workplace as a place where workers have the right to talk about their interests and, if they feel it necessary, to organize.

Unfortunately, this is not the real world we, as workers, live in. But whereas Dorothy would say "accept it", and just cover your own butt, I would say "organize" and "fight back", surreptitiously if you have to. Which should not have to be the need in a unionized workplace, and which the bus drivers' union seems to understand.

In Dorothy's world, it seems to be here, though carefully danced around, everyone just looks after themselves, while speaking of compassion and other frankly, in isolation, quite meaningless AND empty good Samaritan stuff. Just don't act. Everything must remain in the realm of "pure thought", where it is unsullied by the grit and grime of the real world.

I disagree with this, as does the basic principles of worker unionism. We need to speak not only in "nice" words and "compassionate thoughts", but also to ACT and stand in SOLIDARITY with each other.

It's ACTION and SOLIDARITY that alone give real meaning to otherwise empty ideals that go nowhere.

doing as you are told I...

Talking to ASKBiblitz.com and others.

Unions are not the gathering place of the saints, but of real working class men and women. That's the first thing one has to understand.

And the reality is, workers organized in Unions, in most regards, except that they have "some" more modest power and influence over their working lives, have attitudes and "beliefs" not entirely unlike all other "unorganized/non-union" working people. And the essential hallmark of this "connection" is, at least to here in time, that the majority of the entire working class buys into the dominant morality/ideas/ethic system of capitalism... more particularly its "business" ruling class... as shocking and surprising a notion as this MAY seem. Including union workers, even if I say regrettably.

First, they submit to the "ruling system's Laws", in large part, in addition to the system's real, if ambivalently expressed "attitudes" that, we are all responsible for looking after ourselves, the world does not owe us a living, and in most day to day regards, you do as you are told to those with "power/authority" over you.

And this submission to ruling class authority thread runs, if imperfectly and with contradictions, because again, we are dealing with real people rather than saints, through unionists as it does the non-union populace. It is one of the contradictions of our time, and what stands in the way of the working class dealing definitively with the ruling class system. They still believe there is no other option.

Now, one of the small ways this manifests itself in the day to day world, outside of the Really Big Issues, is... according to The Law, it is "management" alone that has the right to "manage". And it comes under a leading section in all union contracts known to me as "Management Rights".

And those "Rights of Management" mean, in part, that if they tell you because of scheduling, hours of operation or other operation issues... Say you are running very behind schedule during rush hour, and "Control" knows that one or many buses are closing in behind you. ...it may be decided by this management "Control" that you should unload at Broadway and Dunbar and let the near empty buses behind you take your load, so that you can "short turn", get back downtown and pickup other massed folks who have been waiting "forever" for a bus. Guess what? Surprise! Surprise! That's what you do.

Continued next post...

doing as you are told II...

From previous post...

Most folks do as they are told by their bosses at work, including union workers. That's just the way it is. Even union workers are still NOT their own bosses.

I, myself, am one of those who think "management" like "ownership" rights of the ruling class should be challenged by unions and other workers. I am s minority however. Most union workers, like yourself most likely, still buy into capitalism, it's Laws, Rules and moral/ideological diktats. (If like Dorothy they still like to talk in flowery language about doing "good", in a kind of detached "abstract", lip service kind of way.)

Unions are merely positioned by the power of their numbers and organization to put a "finer" point on it. :-) And get what you, an unorganized worker cannot.

Too bad. But that's capitalism. And unions are part of it, in an odd kind of way.

I say this gently, I hope...

Yes, unions are a part of capitalism. And I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly with "It's ACTION and SOLIDARITY that alone give real meaning to otherwise empty ideals that go nowhere."

Solidarity means attempting to understand those we stand in solidarity with, and at times that is so very difficult, even as witnessed in these threads. I stand in solidarity with those in food bank line-ups (as one example) not just my working brothers and sisters...I do believe we have to explore one another's viewpoints before dismissing them. This is the truest metaphor for standing together, that we can explore another way of thinking/being without being threatened or alienated.

The 'ruling class' exploits those small differences for their gain.

Strike among a pack of coyotes....

Here's hoping you've read Aesop. or the Brothers Grimm, which eminent people are (sometimes) purveyors of the kind of wisdom of which I speak.

"Workers, organized or unorganized (union or non-union), should have and DEMAND the right to express their own political views and live with the judgement of their class peers without molestation in any form from owners or their managers. There should be no exemption of the workplace as a place where workers have the right to talk about their interests and, if they feel it necessary, to organize."

Eh, and on whose time are they supposed to do this? Last time I looked, any union man or woman worth his or her salt would tell you to 'work now and grieve later.'

Personally, nothing can raise my ire more than the state of affairs where one spends more time talking about how to do the job than one spends doing the job.

Secondly, the wisdom I speak of is that of a free person, who takes note of experience and learns from it. I never said anything along the lines of shutting up, keeping one's head down and grinning and bearing it. I said that before one talks back beyond one's well-defined jurisdiction, and I often do, one must have one's own house in order. Not being able to shove an accusation of time-theft back in the faces of management on the spot by use of documentation is NOT having kept one's house in order. What kind of battle do you think you're involving yourself in?

There is a difference between buying into and working with what you have available. One could, of course, sit comfortably and do nothing, claiming that since I can't do 100% what I want, I keep my hands clean until other people have done the dirty work to bring about my ideal set of conditions. Meanwhile, life goes on, and people can die of neglect while the purists are holding out for the big shiny one. Bon appetit.

Tiny little victories need not be private. It is a function of how much of your time you will volunteer on behalf of others. But nor should they be scoffed at. Again, you want the big bang or nothing, which position to me smacks of cop-out. I am not going to regale you with examples of my tiny little and some not-so-little anything but private victories. Suffice to say I can sleep nights, knowing I have sold out or bought into nothing.

No LOGIC

"...It's about a marginalized worker - because of both his ancestry and his activism inside and outside the workplace - being targeted for speaking up about what he believes is right. I find it impossible not to feel for him,.."

Ah, so you can see that in his case, but I am the culprit in my case, because I 'make it about being Danish'? Can you see the hypocrisy? I will buy that Marwan is 'marginalized' due to his activism. There is no need to top it off by him 'making it about being Lebanese'. And yes, if you start taking on the big guns and finger their pocketbook in any way, you must know they'll be gunning for you. So if you haven't guarded against what they might think to throw at you, you are, sorry, unforgivably naive, for how can you serve anyone from a position you have lost? If you want to be a social warrior, keeping a position from which to be one is one of the prerequisites.

VivianLea

Thanks again for being constructive. I hope that people will listen, but you might risk a lecture from the pure on how these differences are not small at all...

You are so right about the solidarity and the action being the lifeblood of unions rather than ideological blather. And there is a need for union 'activists' (don't really understand the word as I never met a union passivist) to deny that creeping corporatism that does sneak into union business these days. There is an unwitting tendency to buy into the preference by management of dealing with paid staff in union offices rather than local reps, as these people tend to be less partisan and so easier to come to terms with. The song and dance is that these people are 'professional', while, we are supposed to understand, elected reps in the workplace are amateurs by comparison, although I never heard the word used, only implied. So yes, there is danger afoot and one should not leave home without one's weapons of war as Odin has it.

Aaaargh!

'Start with a healthy dose of Zinn, Chomsky, Albert, Klein, and you'll figure out where to go from there.'

And what? Candlelight and a cup of chai, my cat purring in the corner and so on??
Why are you handing me such a bunch of theorists and armchair warriors for my supposed edification?

Maybe YOU should endeavor to read Guevara, Field, Alinsky and Heinlein?

And what is that with "you just seriously need some liberation, my friend. :)" For the record, I respectfully request that you specify liberation from what, and how you would propose to bring it about? These must be questions you are able to answer, having made the claim and even purporting it to be 'simple truth'

The Big Lie...

"I stand in solidarity with those in food bank line-ups (as one example) not just my working brothers and sisters...I do believe we have to explore one another's viewpoints before dismissing them. This is the truest metaphor for standing together, that we can explore another way of thinking/being without being threatened or alienated." vivianLea.

I couldn't agree more. One of the great weaknesses of the current trade union movement is, its lip service, absence of real standing in Solidarity with the poor and the unemployed. The morality of capitalism that it is "every man and woman for his and herself"... And the tendency is in unions, for them to look after themselves, I concede that. ...is the greatest, most harmful to the entire working class interest, feature of our neoconservative time. It even in the end winds up biting them on the ass, because these unorganized workers, poor and unemployed, come to resent unions, and make them feel justified in crossing their picket lines and taking their jobs.

While the poor and unemployed need to stand up for themselves, of course, in the final analysis, the day will only be won when the ENTIRE working class stands together... union, non-union, poor and unemployed. I get it. Unfortunately, many unions today, unlike in the founding days of old when and where there was a different breed of cat, don't get it, or only pay it lip service. It becomes a God Save The Queen kind of thing.

Like Dorothy. Whom I can waste precious little more time on in this conversation, except to say:

"There is a difference between buying into and working with what you have available. " her Danish ladyship wrote.

No, there is not. The net effect in real life, in the context of your line of argument here, is the same. And by the by, it's the same line of argument of the Union brass, in their pursuit of self-interest. "We,re just working with what is and what we have."

I've heard this opportunist argument many, many times.

In part, it's true of course, in that The Big Lie is what passes for current society, into which all, or at least almost all have been drawn, such as Dorothy.

We are in a difficult time. The working class is in near complete disarray since the defeat of Operation Solidarity in 1983, as a consequence of union betrayal of the entire class. We need to find a way back to where we were, before we can rediscover a way forward for ALL working people.

Stuck in the muck, the blood and the beer...

"Yes, unions are a part of capitalism. " wrote VivianLea.

Which wasn't always true, Vivian. In the early days of union building, the radicals who led the creation of the movement, frequently referred to as "terrorists", communists, socialists, anarchists, and wobblies etc, saw the movement themselves, as indeed did the ruling class, as the antithesis of capitalism. And was the reason for their long illegality and repression, and indeed the not infrequent assassination and jailing of the early union leaders and the rank and file.

But somewhere along the way, particularly in the post WW2, following a period of the ouster of this early radical leadership, by fair means and foul, and their replacement by "business trade unionism", as it has been called, and the signing of "contracts" with the ruling class, an typically unspoken, but not infrequently spoken (over drinks and on golf courses) "gentleman's agreement" emerged. And the essence of this agreement was, as it became clear over time, that unions would confine their disagreements with capitalism to more or less strictly wages and working conditions. They would not, for example, challenge "Management Rights", of which we have spoken, or the "private property ownership rights" of the ruling class over the means of production and distribution.

The result, effectively, has been, with exceptional times to be sure, under rank and file and broader class pressure, to reduce the class struggle to nickles and dimes, and to leave control of the "big issues" of investment, profit share distribution, day to day and strategic management and direction of enterprise to the capitalists and their assisting "tame" State. (1983, for example, was one of those exceptional times, where open class warfare almost broke out. Except, of course, the union leadership at the time rode to the rescue of "The System", cut a deal, and forced it down the throats of the class they assumedly represented.)

Which, essentially, is where we still are... stuck in the muck, the blood and the beer, spinning our wheels. While the ruling class deepens the crisis, and basically does as it pleases, unchallenged.

It's about how we get there.

"...unions would confine their disagreements with capitalism to more or less strictly wages and working conditions.."

And isn't that the proper jurisdiction of unions? Also, I believe, the parameters Marwan was trying to effect improvement on. If you want to get into bigger and wider societal disagreements, are you not talking about political partisanship? I know there is a school of thought that professes that the two should be synonymous, which I personally consider fundamentally undemocratic in a situation of closed shop. I do not buy into the dogmatic kind of unionism if you will.

I am OK with you, Coyote, not wishing to dedicate any more time to debate with me. Really. I do take exception to your notion of 'Danish ladyship', as I am a Canadian citizen and am not possessed of a title in my old country, so it is a misnomer. But I do not think you are trying to be seriously mischievous, so you are forgiven. I think it sad that we do so often see name-calling and personal acrimony come out. I believe most people in these columns are now abundantly aware that you consider me a misguided, semi-corrupt 'hack' completely beyond you ken, and so we need not go there again. It becomes trite.

So, let us agree to disagree. I do not believe in the path you feel we must take to see improvement, and you do not believe in my way. Peace, brother. Let history judge us both, as it certainly will.

Agreed....

"And isn't that the proper jurisdiction of unions? " Dorothy.

In a word, from my diametrically opposed view to yours, "No. Unions, in the radical social change spirit that was at their founding, should re-assume that role, work to help organize the entire class in fighting for itself against the predations of the system, and take capitalism and its assumptions of "right" on."

This discussion, more than any other that has gone on between us, I think, has made it clear to myself, and I presume everyone else here, who is on which side in the emerging crises of "the system". Certainly, you feel you are onto me. I know that I am as well onto you dahling.

And I am certainly not your "brother"... in any context.

We are agreed however upon one thing. I don't think we really have anything else we need say to each other.

And I'm obviously not your dahling, in any way,shape or form,

So please refrain from using this falsehood in future. You should be able to keep above that sort of double-talk.

Keep up the fight

Big companies hate it when the workers stand up for their rights and actually expect the company to follow the contract. Managers want nothing more that a bunch of sheep for workers. When someone comes along and stands up and says "No" they don't know how to manage. (most managers only know how to tow the company line and suck-up watching to cover their butt.)
Bus drivers it's time to stand up for one of your own. Say "no" and wildcat strike till Marwan Marwan is back in the drivers seat

Making it stick

diverdarren, you are right. It is about upholding the terms of the contract, and just achieving that would be an improvement on what the picture too often is today. In too, too many cases, employers get away with walking all over the contract, because people think filing grievance will look bad on their resume, and they have not had the experience of seeing one be won and people's rights upheld.. It is up to unions to pick the right fights and fight them in the right way, so as to win credibility with both the rank and file and employers. We should ideally get to the point where a grievance will not be needed, only the announcement that one will be filed if settlement cannot be reached. If every supposed contract-secured right still has to be won by a protracted and vexatious battle, then we are not in good shape, and we do not have the rule of law.

I also agree with knowledge of the collective agreements and knowing how to work under them and still get things done is an integral part of management skills, and one in which many are abysmally lacking. Truth is most managers do not want to be in deeps shit vis a vis capable and determined union reps. So, it is our job to come across as capable and determined in order to motivate managers to ask before they leap, if they are uncertain about contract points. I have been sitting in during lots of seminars meant for supervisors and managers and can testify to their fear of falling seriously afoul collective agreements. Maybe this has shifted somewhat, because we are slowly moving into an era, where there is a lack of skilled workers (in which category I would include bus-drivers), so employers now want to look good to outsiders and the public in order to be able to attract people of quality. Unions should take this and run with it.

We all have an interest in this particular case, for it is our buses, our safety on the road, our interest that people with self-respect and minded towards quality are interested in doing the job as driver. It appears this guy was asking questions about quality and safety. He just did not anticipate the vehemence with which 'the system' would defend itself. He knows now, and I feel pretty confident he will win his grievance. We have all been there. I have certainly stood up for colleagues to my own considerable detriment, until I read Saul Alinsky's reminder to 'play from a position of strength'. A wildcat strike may or may not be of help. At least it would have to be pretty unanimous and people must be willing to stick it out for the duration, or else it could do more harm than good. A union rep putting the right things to the right people should be able to accomplish as much.

NEVER HAPPENS

What the heck is the management over at Coast Mountain Bus thinking ?? You can't fire these drivers ! The union will dispute it and even if management wins the case, the union will carry out wildcat strikes until management re-hires the fired drivers. Anything short of a drives punching a passenger, there's NO WAY the driver will lose his / her job - period - NEVER HAPPENS.