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Factory Grabs by Workers Coming?

If bailouts fail to save jobs, unions may crank up militant tactics.

Tom Sandborn 31 Dec 2008TheTyee.ca

Tyee contributing editor Tom Sandborn focuses on labour and health policy issues. He welcomes your feedback and story tips at [email protected].

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Auto plant takeover, Flint, Michigan, 1937.

Earlier this month, in a scene reminiscent of militant labour struggles of the 1930s, Chicago members of the United Electrical Workers Local 1110 sat down in their worksite at Republic Windows and Doors and occupied it for five days.

By the time factory occupation had ended, the workers had won major concessions from their employer and from management's key financial backer, the Bank of America.

"We have achieved victory," Local 1110 president Armando Robles told his membership. "We said we would not go back until we got justice, and we got it."

Some observers are asking whether the current economic crisis will generate more factory occupations here in Canada. At least one prominent union organizer here in B.C. says he predicts more occupations if hard times stretch on and deepen.

"Ultimately, if the system doesn't produce results," John Weir, director of organizing for the B.C. Federation of Labour told The Tyee, "we may see more occupations -- not in the short term, but certainly if this goes on for years like the Great Depression."

Angela Schirra, the federation's secretary-treasurer, agrees. She said she expected to see more use of the factory occupation tactic as workers reached a "breaking point."

For a template for action, labour in Canada need not look back all the way to the Great Depression era. Within the past several decades, on a number of occasions, union members have taken over facilities where they worked in order to wrest a better deal, or the very survival of their jobs, from employers.

'You get bailed out, we get sold out'

The Republic occupation was organized by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, a fiercely independent union with its own militant roots in America's Dirty '30s. The union was expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations for alleged communist links during the Red Scare of the Cold War 1950s.

The Chicago action this month made headlines around the world and garnered support from president-elect Obama. Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, just before he became enveloped in scandal, backed the workers as well.

When over 200 workers marched triumphantly out of the Republic building supplies factory late on Dec. 10, chanting "We did it!" they set aside picket signs that read "You get bailed out, we get sold out."

The signs had targeted Bank of America, their employer's main financial backer. BofA, together with its newly acquired subsidiary Merrill Lynch, has received over $25 billion U.S. in bail-out money this fall, much of it used to purchase an enlarged share in a Chinese bank.

Despite the infusion of billions, BofA reportedly had refused to advance Republic's management a line of credit that would have allowed for proper severance pay for the company's workers.

"We're just shocked that Bank of America, after receiving $25 billion in bailout money, not only do they refuse to extend credit to companies but, to add insult to injury, they don't allow these companies to fulfil their legal obligations to their workers," union spokeswoman Leah Fried said on Dec. 7.

The post-occupation settlement at Republic, funded by lines of credit from Bank of America and JP Morgan, provided workers with eight weeks of severance pay, two months of extended health care coverage and all accrued and unused vacation pay. The union announced the creation of the Windows to Opportunity Fund, designed to find a way to reopen the plant.

Does seizing workplaces work?

Mark Thompson, professor emeritus at UBC's Sauder School of Business, has long observed Canadian labour relations. He told The Tyee that while it seemed possible to him that Canada would see the factory occupation tactic re-enacted in the future, he was skeptical about its utility.

"The tactic is essentially a political gesture, I think. My problem is how you define victory," he said. "How do you know when you've won? The United Electrical Workers were astute. Getting legally owed severance pay is an achievable victory, but re-opening a plant is harder."

This is not the first time workers have taken over a workplace to advance their demands. During the 1930s, French workers staged frequent factory occupations that won them favourable changes in national labour legislation. In America, the United Auto Workers brought industrial giant General Motors to its knees and won first contracts with the auto company by occupying plants in Flint, Michigan and in Detroit in 1936 and 1937.

And Canada has seen instances of this militant tactic too.

The occupations of 1981

British Columbians of a certain age will remember when members of the Telecommunications Workers Union occupied phone company offices across the province in 1981.

More recently, smelter workers took over an Alcan operation in Quebec in 2004, while Ontario saw several plants taken over by workers in 2007.

In Argentina, where the global economic crisis arrived earlier than it did in Canada, hitting in 2001 and creating unemployment figures over 20 per cent, desperate workers responded by occupying hundreds of factories. Even now, seven years later, more than 200 worker-controlled factories are still operating, providing employment to over 15,000 workers, although many are facing legal actions to evict the occupiers.

Bailout 'madness'?

What would it take for Canadian workers to revive such tactics? A key catalyst could be perceived unfairness as government defines whose needs to address in shoring up the economy.

The Canadian government has opted to mirror U.S. bailouts by providing $4 billion to the auto industry and a $3.5 billion loan guarantee for financial speculators. Now many other industries are lining up for their bailouts, at levels called "madness" in one Financial Post headline.

David Rice, now a regional director for the Canadian Labour Congress in Vancouver, was in the exultant crowd that greeted the union occupiers as they left B.C. Tel buildings in 1981. The Tyee asked Rice of he expected that workplace occupations might recur during the current crisis.

"I could see that," he said. "These are desperate times and workers are increasingly pissed off at management, especially as they see their jobs shipped away overseas."

Sid Shniad, a researcher for the Telecommunications Workers Union, sees his group's occupation of company property in the 1980s as a useful lesson for today's workers.

"They just want workers to play by their rules -- rules designed to kick the shit out of us. But if we are good little boys and girls, we lose. Workers have to break out of the straight jackets of the last few decades."

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