Unions don't always act in their own best interest.

I'll take some exception to rantnic's comments that "not one of the three major parties are union friendly." I think it depends on what you mean by union friendly. Certainly the NDP has been but since not all union members support the left there has never been a real progressive shift that is sustained for long. Union leadership may recognize that under the NDP they may have less obstacles to unionization but they have never been able to convince their membership. The membership is more interested in how how consistent their job prospects are even if they get paid minimum or lower wages. The membership tends to resent paying union dues to union leaders who behave more like fat cats than they do rank and file membership. Very few union members are interested in the larger struggles of workers around the globe. THey are not interested in equality in the workplace or raises in minimum wage, they are only interested in their own pay check.

That is not the fault of the political left . On those rare occasions when the left gets into power unions want to see overnight changes not realizing that even if those change occur the membership will still not support the left. The Leftist (NDP) government has to be cognizant of alienation of part of the moderate electorate unless they can rely on increased support from union members. They can't in most cases.

Yes unions need to unite, but they also need to spend a lot more energy in making sure they are still being followed by the membership. That might mean changing some union practices which isolate the leadership from the rank and file.

If there is disapointment in the NDP from labour then it cuts both ways. The current crop of NDP which removed labour affiliation must accept some of the blame but it is not all theirs.

Real Power I...

"Not one of the three major political parties are truly union friendly." complained Ratnic.

Followed by, of course, " Certainly the NDP has been but since not all union members support the left there has never been a real progressive shift that is sustained for long. Union leadership may recognize that under the NDP they may have less obstacles to unionization but they have never been able to convince their membership. ", written by Skywalker.

I, of course, am one of those who has remained unconvinced of the serious "labour friendliness" of the NDP, save where they attempted to use it to augment the careerist and political ambitions of their own brand of social democratic capitalism.

Part of the problem has been, of course, what has long passed for "the left" in this country, and elsewhere more often than not... and in that I include not only the NDP, but what were other, no less equally anti-democratic tendencies on what was perceived as the "harder left". First, you have NDP brand capitalism, and then what you had were the by now clearly understood "authoritarian" left brands of what we now also understand was a kind of State Capitalism. It is now clear, or should be, that "the left" (perhaps outside the anarchists) never really offered anything near approaching real working class power AND democracy at the "bottom levels" of the class, within the economy firstly, where everybody really knows, the real power in society resides. All equated "socialism" or what very often, in the NDP case was never defined other than as a kind of "motherhood view of the state", with more simply what was/is in fact a "bureaucratic state" which either controlled the economy itself, and over time created a new ruling class, or simply left it in the hands of the old capitalist class. All, the entire left proclaiming that they had now rendered "the state" benign and "working class friendly".

Really it was all more of the same old, same old bullshit, and in some cases actually more repressive... and we in the actual working class knew it, sensed it, or came to know it soon enough. You can only fool some of the people some of the time... unless like the ruling class, you keep doing it differently through shape shifting, of course. (As Russia and China, and their new, by now outright capitalist class are doing.)

Certainly, other than to the true believers who were in on the ground floor of the New Order, in line to become cadre and bureaucrats themselves, there was and is nothing yet being seriously advanced that was or is going to get "the class as a whole" seriously up and excited about it.

Continued next post

Real Power II

Continued from previous post...

You want working class candy that will seriously begin to get the working class excited, try offering them real ruling power, as a class, over the economy, the plant and factories, retail outlets etc.... in short, their jobs... means of subsistence and existence. Short of that, you ain't talking jackshit.

Then you will be talking real democracy we understand, with some real meaning and teeth in it, that will empower the working class itself, as a class, a community to begin to take care of and get up for the other issues of more formal and political/state democracy. 'Cause if they don't right away, they'll soon enough come to know "they" have been given serious leverage in society.

The prize is really the economy, not the state. Which is not to say that the state is irrelevant, of course. :-)

Short of that, except for brief periods of illusion and delusion that suck us in, they "know" whose real interests are being served. And it's not theirs/ours. And over the greatest amount of time, all you will get is token participation and support, from those who haven't figured it out yet, along with about half the "eligible electorate" not even bothering to participate or even mark an X. Which may not make sense to you politicos, but makes total sense to the likes of me.

The working class needs real power in society, not more bullshit and purveyors of it.

I agree with Ratnic. Not one of the political parties, including the Greens, is friendly to the working class... as differentiated from "just" the unions. But including them.

THE END...

Globalism's

rise in the 1980's and 90's made it plain that First World labour, particularly in North America, was going to take a big hit. The notion that we should all compete with $2 a day workers in Viet Nam is ludicrous, but that is, in fact, the kind of wage structure North American elites would prefer.

Globalism has functioned precisely to delimit the power of the state. Even when governments might (rarely) wish to treat labour better, they are continually hamstrung by competitive pressures. It is not only a rising dollar that has killed manufacturing in North America. When the owner class was confident that it was safe to remove production from North America and transfer it to Asia without losing North American markets, they leaped at the chance.

Until there is a more realistic possibility for states to control their own economies with greater vigour, we can anticipate further attacks on organized labour, and wages in general.

You'll not that campaigns for "six bucks sucks" and raising the minimum wage to $10 went nowhere in BC.

Coyoteman you keep forgetting...

...that all NDP governments have had to operate within a narrow provincial framework. There has never been the advantage of having a national leftist government to add to the effectiveness of a provincial one. The major economic decisions are made nationally and there is often so little a provincial government can do. Think about FTA and NAFTA and how they limit any return to a people interest government. You are not being realistic in your judgments.

Global Capitalism's Undermining of the Nation State...

"Globalism has functioned precisely to delimit the power of the state." wrote Birch.

And conversely... pass it (power) direct from the post Social Democratic Capitalist nation state to the newly invigorated, even newly created global corporations of this late capitalist period, without the need for regard of the wishes of national populations everywhere.

Yes, insightful comments, Birch.

This IS the much touted and vaunted "New World Order" of the late seventies and eighties, as was used to whip trade unions and the entire working class into line and accept the various "cutback/austerity" regimes. Before which assault "Labour" hastily retreated and sought refurge in becoming "part" of the new "global system", as was signalled by the defeat of Solidarity in the 80s, by the betrayal cut of "official labour".

It was a strategy, on the part of the leadership of "official Labour" that has failed, and deteriorated the socio-economic positions of the "broader" working class even worse than for unions, who have themselves paid a price on many fronts (though less, to be sure).

A fight for the "soul" of official Labour needs to arise from within it, to change course, ambitions, the relationship with the ruling class of capitalism, to recover lost ground, and secure meaningful power within and over the economy as a whole. (After that or over the course of the same struggle... the State.)

Until this occurs, what is will only continue to deteriorate.

no one should

be surprised campbell has declared war on working people and has the support, unfortuneatly of many, what`s really foul is that trade unions such as the teamsters would allow an extreme anti union weasel like kevin falcon to sponsor a portion of their golf tourament, I mean don`t these people have any sense of propriety? further to that, just remember how short sighted the unions were in supporting the then premiere glen clark in the building of the fast ferries when it was known by everyone, and i mean everyone with any knowledge of our waters and vessel constuction that these ships were not suitable in any way , period. But did these same union people ever mention to the ever arrogant clark he was digging his own political grave and handing campbell a club with which to pound the life out of not just the trade unions but ensure that a lot of working people and their children will suffer long term hardship? The answer of course is no.the trade union movement has no vision, just short sighted "whats in it for our people now" mentality. just for the record I was a shop steward prior to being a self employed trademan and small business owner, a lifelong ndp supporter (no more with carole james as leader) and certainly no supporter of what passes for government in victoria, or for that matter Ottawa.

I quit

As an HEU worker in 2002, I decided that I had not moved to the middle of nowhere to take a pay cut, and quit as soon as I could find a job doing anything else.

I loved my work, bosses and coworkers but I felt betrayed and hope to never work in a union job again as long as politicians like Gordon Campbell can just rewrite the rules.

BC Fed

A good jump-start for labour in this province would be getting rid of Jim Sinclair and giving the rest of the BC Fed executive a good kick up the ar*e and a lesson or two in union avtivism in BC. Ginger Goodwin, Joe Naylor and the likes must be turning over in their graves. The BC Fed is all talk and no action over and over and over again.

IS NOT THE B.C. FED A UNION OF UNIONS?

Why do they sit on their hands while the rank and file members that pay their salaries are Scampbellized. Union activism is one of the few remaining tools we have left to wrest control from the neo liberal and neo socialist politicos that are presently running us.

Self Reliance of Labour...

"Why do they sit on their hands while the rank and file members that pay their salaries are Scampbellized. Union activism is one of the few remaining tools we have left to wrest control from the neo liberal and Noe socialist politicos that are presently running us." Rantnic wrote.

Again brother, or sister, as the case may be, I agree with you.

The working class generally, but in particular the trade union movement, which the class as a whole "should" be able to look to for leadership, needs to start relying more on itself and its own collective activism/action, and less on outside "political party" forces or "the State" to guarantee its interests are served. Too often, indeed invariably the history demonstrates, these outside forces use the working class and their class organizations for their own particular purposes, electoral and other purposes, and in fact sell working people short, if not outright betray them sooner or later. And its into this trap that the current leadership of the labour movement has pretty much led official "Labour", rendering itself but another tool of the State and Management serving the ruling class, in controlling the working class, keeping it passive and serving the interests of corporate capitalism. (Which still gets them no respect, or place at Boards of Directors or participation in actual management of the workplace. Labour-Management co-operation is another one of those things ever talked about and idealized, as it suits the moment, but is never achieved, unless its the working class backing up.)

This needs to change... the current leadership crop of labour largely removed, and a new, more combative leadership brought forward, prepared to actually lead the broader working class, not just the trade unions per se into the class warfare already being set upon us. And there is nowhere else this can arise from, but within the working class and its trade union movement itself: Its rank and file. If it doesn't arise there, it will never happen, and the current period will only continue to deteriorate, along with the conditions of the working class.

The neo-socialists and social democrats have nothing to offer. They have already by now proved themselves too timid and policy bankrupt. It is time for them to go. The class must prepare itself to rely on itself, create and control new leadership from its own.

Neo-liberalism is the enemy. The neo-socialists and social democrats are the collaborators and scaredy-cats.

unions fault

If the unions had not caved during heu's May 2004 strike, our province would be happier and healthier. Unfortunately lord campbell has recklessly ruled. Selling out our public resources.Selling out the security and well being for tens of thousands of children all in the name of gordum's God,privatization. A God that only facilitates the few. A God that sucks our souls selling them to private share holders for dividends sake. Once mighty unions now quake having lost credibility. Not with the public but God forbid their own members. Ultimately, the biggest mistake in our B.C. labour history. Hang your heads in shame!