#StagehandView: Organizing Opportunities Are Everwhere

My last work day was long, even by stagehand standards, a six a.m. start with a load-out from one p.m. until … depends on who you asked. And this lengthy work call came at the end of ten early starts to ten long days. By about eight that night I was crispy. And that’s my excuse for missing an organizing opportunity.

Like I said, I was pretty fried when a longtime non-union Austin stagehand irritated me by hurrying up when it didn’t really make sense to hurry up. At the time, most of the carpenters were involved in a repetitive multi-person heavy lifting situation, so steady and safe would have been the right way to go even if we were all fresh and rested. But this guy kept moving faster than the group at a moment that required the group to move as one. I barked – I was the local department head, so it was my week to give f**k. He back-talked. I barked again. He figured out he needed to listen to me and eventually slowed down. We continued picking the heavy things up and putting them in their road case. End of incident.

Until that same stagehand came up to me later and introduced himself and apologized. Completely unexpected behavior. I certainly didn’t feel he had done anything that merited an actual apology. I had probably barked at a dozen people during that particular load-out. It’s kind of how we do. That’s what made his choice all the more remarkable.

I thanked him and assured him things were good between us. By then the call was mostly wrapping up so we chatted some. I learned he was a veteran of some of Austin’s more, shall we say, union unfriendly venues and stage labor providers, which explained his speed-up mindset. Then we went back to work and I didn’t really think about it anymore.

Anti Union Poster by Party9999999 The next day it occurred to me that I had missed an organizing opportunity. I should have done more than just accept his apology and shake his hand and make small talk. I should have pointed out that our little mini-conflict lies at the very heart of why unions exist in the first place. We had each taken a side in a debate as old as capitalism: who controls the speed of the work? Or, to put it more fundamentally, should America’s ideals of democracy apply to workers while they’re doing their jobs?

Through his actions – namely, his go-go-go, work-as-fast-as-possible-all-the-time attitude – my new non-union acquaintance tacitly sides with management against democracy in the work place. His willingness to exhaust himself and put himself and his co-workers into dangerous situations, for whatever personal reasons, has the effect of ceding workplace power to the boss, in effect creating a little dictatorship.

On a union gig the stagehands are supposed to have a say in how fast a job happens (mostly because generations of workers have fought and died to win that right). And no, that does not mean we should all get out our milking stools. Union proud stagehands work as fast as the particulars of a situation allow. We work steady and we finish as quickly as possible without pushing past the speed of safety. That’s why fewer stagehands get hurt on union protected work calls.

These are some of things I should have said.

Of course, to be honest, I would have also needed to acknowledge that working union doesn’t fix everything. For example, there’s a national convention company my local is forced to work for (under a CBA we didn’t ratify that our international union shoved down our throats) where the contract completely sucks and where concepts like workplace democracy don’t apply. But that raises another democracy related question that won’t be answered here.

Because I just wanted to tell you about the organizing opportunity I missed. I just wanted to say that we should all be organizing all the time. And sometimes that simply means recognizing the chances we’re given and being willing to have the right conversations.

#StagehandView: First, We (Re)Organize Ourselves …

You’ve heard me talk about organizing. A lot. I’ve written about it here and elsewhere. But I can be a little stupid sometimes, so it only just dawned on me that all the local 205 members I’ve been talking organizing with probably assume I mean the external kind where a union targets a group of unorganized workers, brings them into the union, and negotiates a new CBA.

That type of organizing is a big part of the equation. We definitely need more of it.

But there’s a more fundamental, intra-union type of organizing that has to happen first because it serves as the foundation for the external kind. This kind of drive for primary, internal organizing has to grow out of the culture of a union local. Which is probably why it only seems to happen when the members actively run things instead of sitting back and relying on their e-board to handle all the work. It manifests in well-planned (and well-executed) bottom-up contract campaigns featuring strategic collective actions that back up the representatives at the bargaining table. Another sign that a union has embodied the organizing model is the presence of a lot of diverse, pro-active committees that accomplish assigned tasks on schedule. Internal union organizing boils down to the members making their local work for them by [You’ve figured out where I’m going with this, haven’t you?] working for their local.

Don’t sneer. Sure it’s trite, but that’s because it’s basically what JFK said.

You got a problem with JFK? I mean besides his pharmaceutical and sex dependence? … Or his refusal to push civil rights legislation. … But I’m getting off topic.

I kind of feel like our local might be starting to move toward embracing an organizing culture. At least a little. Maybe I’m just a starry eyed dreamer, but according to President Magee, we had over 70% voter turn-out in the last election, and that was despite all of the balloting silliness. We just need to figure out how to keep up this momentum and use it to our advantage.

Like the human body, if an organization sits still for too long it calcifies and starts to decay. Entropy affects collectives as much as it does individuals. And local 205 has been sitting still for a long, long time. So we need to keep figuring out ways to lube our squeaky joints and grind away at our shared rust.

I’m a writer and an editor. That means I’ve started writing and editing for the local. It helps the union and it helps me build my online platform. Everybody wins.

What are you when you’re not a stagehand? How can your unique skill set help?

Or, even more fun, what do you want to learn how to do? Our newsletter’s layout editor, Brother Ellinger, is a great example of how a lot of times you don’t have to be qualified to start volunteering, just interested and available. You can learn on the job. Years ago when we first started Stage Call, he volunteered to do the layout because he wanted to master the program he uses to put each issue together. I’d say we all benefited.

Because it’s not just about voting, though high election turn-outs are a good thing. It’s not just about paying dues either, though the money we amass can be a great weapon. It’s about the business union system – along with the thousands of passive, seemingly helpless members it continues to create – being just as much a part of the problem as Radical Right assholes like the Koch brothers and Grover Norquist.

Unlike America’s seemingly inexhaustible ability to spawn rich, Nazi-esque dickheads, which I don’t pretend to understand or know how to curtail, union members can control how we organize our reactions to those dickheads. We’ve cowed these guys before and we’ll do it again. If we we’re willing to work for it.

Unions have always been attacked from the far right, that’s a constant. Kind of like stagehands bitching about stuff, it’ll never stop. Unfortunately that means the union reaction to it can’t either. And, worse, we will never achieve any sort of ultimate victory. All we can do is choose to fight or choose to surrender.

I agree that the neverending class conflict caused by cannibal capitalism sucks. But how’s that relevant?

#StagehandView: Buying (sort of) American Made

Everybody got the run-off election results, right? Thanks again to Sister Miller for keeping on what’s seeming to be an endless process. Anyway, the results in case you haven’t heard: Treasure, Rita Kelso; BA, Lupe Perez; Convention Delegate, Rachel Magee (with one more to be determined at the April meeting). Congratulations to all and thank you for your continuing service to the local.

So I had to go buy new general use “tennis” shoes yesterday. I went to Academy and was surprised to notice they actually had some of New Balance’s (sort of) American made lines of walking and running shoes. I went ahead and paid the premium to wear shoes with the flag under their tongues.

The whole experience left me feeling wildly conflicted. On the one hand, I was happy to be able to buy a (sort of) American made product at a semi-big box store, even if that product was significantly more expensive than its Indonesian and Chinese made counterparts. But on the other hand, I kind of hated the fact that New Balance only keeps a token level of production in the U.S. (five factories) to take advantage of suckers like me.

The shoes actually came with a little micro-pamphlet highlighting the company’s so-called commitment to the American worker. It opened by congratulating me on buying “a pair of shoes that were made or assembled” in the U.S. Literally, the first word is “congratulations.”

I don’t exactly feel cheated. Just baldly and blatantly manipulated. After all, the vast majority of the New Balance shoes sold in the world are not made in the U.S., or anywhere in the Global North. Like most so-called American companies, for the most part, only their upper management remains on this continent. While its marginally better than nothing, what New Balance is doing with its (sort of) American made shoes is really just marketing. It’s kind of like a carnie showing the crowd ahead of time that the two headed cow isn’t actually alive, that none of the freaks or wonders inside the tent are real. And I’m the rube who smiled and handed over my money anyway.

And all of that might be okay if the damn shoes weren’t so hideous to look at. They’re mostly black with neon orange highlights. Even though I’ve been assured they’re quite fashionable, I find them downright distracting. They’re just so bright. But they sure are comfy. Again, major internal conflicts.

That’s it. Except to say that it’s not looking like there’s any need for me to write that story I had talked about doing on the Atlantic City casino stagehands and their fight for fair wages. But you can get involved by joining their Facebook group at IA917.

#StagehandView: IA917 Atlantic City Update

3/9/14

4:19 p.m.

Yesterday’s Facebook action for the Atlantic City casino workers’ union, Spread the Word Saturday, seems to have gone well. I ended up figuring out to work my phone enough to finally start copying and pasting into casino pages by the second show. But some folks really went to town until they got blocked from posting comments. Here’s how Michael Barnes summed up on the IA917 page:

The casinos changed the settings on their Facebook Page to delete and block our message. This a win for workers as it demonstrates we have motivated activists and the casinos are sensitive to the message. First mission can be ruled a success.

We will be launching a second wave of messages this week using secondary targets, beautiful faces, Twitter and from a suggestion today, Yelp.

Thanks to everyone for their help today. It’s Miller Time.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read yesterday’s Stagehand View.

Otherwise, I’m happy to report that I’ve been in contact with both Michael Barnes and Darrell Stark (see his comment on yesterday’s post). Anyone reading this should feel free to slap me on the back of the hand when you see me for my mistakes in the previous #StagehandView. I have corrected the piece.

But enough of that. It looks like Vice President Barnes is interested in talking to me for an article that I will write and submit to Labor Notes. Hopefully they’ll publish it and spread the word a little wider. At the very least, you’ll be able to read it here.

That’s it. Now I’ve got to go eat and do the final Austin show of Wicked … until the next time.

Don’t forget to join the IA917 Facebook page. The casino workers can’t participate in these kinds of actions without risking their jobs. That’s why it’s up to the rest of the union to do it for them.

#StagehandView: Call for Help from Local 917

This post has been corrected. The original contained factual errors. I apologize. In my haste to move at the pace of unfolding events I failed to figure out some rather important details about the major players. Again, I apologize.

March 8, 2014

9:17 a.m.

I recently and belatedly joined the You Know You’re a Stagehand If group on Facebook. I was almost immediately sucked into a cool little cyber campaign recently started by 1st International VP Michael Barnes on behalf of the IATSE local 917 in Atlantic City. He is asking people to cut and paste a message about how the casinos in his town have double crossed union workers. I can tell you that local 917 doesn’t have anything about the Facebook group IA917 or Barnes’s claims about a “sleazy” double cross by the casinos in Atlantic City. I think it’s only fair to mention that, as far as I could tell, Local 917 doesn’t really have much of a web presence at all. After hitting that dead end I did a couple of preliminary – i.e. very fast and un-thorough – Google searches which didn’t mention anything about the local having a beef with the casinos, either. However, I did find a couple of December, 2013, newspaper articles talking about a casino bankruptcy and an executive bonus judgement from the courts. These stories corroborated at least part of Vice President Barnes’s story.

None of which means much of anything, of course.

Granted, my bias inclines to believe his claims about the double-dealing casinos. Here’s what he wrote and asked members of the IA917 group to share on various casino Facebook pages:

WORKERS DOUBLECROSSED BY SLEAZY CASINO GAMES; The Atlantic City Stagehands Local 917 was chartered in 1978. Our mission is to represent the people working in the entertainment departments at the Atlantic City Casinos. In 2011, our union like many other unions in Atlantic City were asked to roll back cost to get Atlantic City back on track. The members of Local 917 agreed to a 20% roll back in wages and a three year wage freeze. The casinos asked and we agreed to take this step back to allow us to move forward. We were told we were in this together. We were gamed. The casinos took our roll back and immediately distributed management bonuses. The non represented workers in the casinos were given raises and in some cases now earn 25% more than the represented workers. Help us spread the message. Share and Tweet this post.

I went ahead and joined his IA917 page and shared his message on some casino Facebook pages.

Okay, I admit it; it’s my first time. I’ve never done this kind of cyber-activism before. I only shared his message twice, at Harrah’s Atlantic City and Trump Tower Las Vegas. I was nervous and almost chickened out. But then I pushed Post. After the second time I did lose my nerve and went and had breakfast. It’s been about a half hour and my computer has not caught fire. Nor has my Facebook page fallen victim to some massive and irrecoverable hack. In fact, nothing’s happened. … I think I might be a little disappointed.

Two performances of Wicked today. The plan is to do some more posting of Brother Barnes’s “Double Cross” message between half-hour and top-of-show. I honestly don’t know if this kind of thing – Am I ‘”trolling?” – works or not. But it seems like it might. If anybody else does it, let me know how it goes.

9:51 a.m.

I can tell you that my posts at both Harrah’s and Trump have been removed. Though I just liked about a half dozen postings of it on the Harrah’s AC page. According to Barnes, there are at least 200 people working on this action.

Like I said, I have no idea what the result of this will be. But it’s kind of fun.

Next up, I’ll reach out to Vice President Barnes and see what he has to say. If you join in, let me know by commenting here. Or not. That’s cool, too.

#StagehandView: The Rumors of Labor’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

For those who don’t know, the UAW is appealing the Chattanooga VW election. The auto workers’ union is claiming (in my opinion, rightly so) that the anti-union campaigns mounted by Tennessee’s public officials crossed a line into voter coercion and intimidation. I retweeted a blog post from The Nation the other day (@bpwilsonlit is my handle) which does a really nice job of explaining why the UAW’s appeal is important to the larger union vs. anti-union debate. Here’s a link.
But today I want to talk about Wisconsin. You remember Wisconsin, right? Where the people occupied their state capitol in 2011?
What’s happening in Wisconsin is emblematic of a big reason why U.S. labor is on the defensive. Governor Scott Walker’s Act 10 eviscerated the public sector unions, taking away their ability to negotiate over pretty much anything but wage levels. It also outlawed automatic paycheck deductions for union dues. Correction, Act 10 eviscerated all but two public sector unions. The two unions that endorsed Walker in his initial bid for governor, the firefighters and the police, somehow managed to avoid the gutting.
Jay Gould, one of the original robber barons, put it best when he boasted in 1886 “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.”
Sad commentary that over a century later unions are still being divided and conquered so easily. But I have to admit I find it hard to argue with at least one of Governor Walker’s critiques of organized labor: when unions get entrenched and powerful, the leadership does tend to become reactionary and inflexible. Though, it is only fair to point that unions are just acting like every other hierarchical grouping of human beings in the history of the universe. It’s nothing new for the leadership of any established institution to prioritize short-term self-preservation over all else.
The problem for unions is they have let that their flaws become the main focus of the public discourse. The Radical Right’s been framing the debate since the Carter Administration. Worse, the mainstream unions have let their detractors create the very language society uses to critique organized labor. Think ‘right-to-work’ or ‘labor boss.’
At this point the only way for big labor to get back into the fight is to nullify the very labels they’ve allowed to Right to pin on them. And the only way for them to do that is to stop acting like calcified sphincters. And I’m not just talking about the police and firefighter unions selling out the rest of the Wisconsin public sector unions. That kind of breakdown in solidarity is a huge and constant problem, don’t get me wrong. But I’m talking about a fundamental, completely self-created and almost universal issue: the leaders of organized labor need to stop thinking of the membership as their clientele. Conversely, the rank and file need to stop seeing themselves as mere consumers of services. And both groups need to stop kidding themselves into thinking they aren’t in the same exact boat as the vast majority of non-union workers in this country.
Unions are not a group of like-minded businesses, we are a social movement. What we are seeing right now in American labor is the result of workers letting their unions become the very thing they organized to stand against in the first place, conservative institutions that only react from a position of immediate self-interest.
A February New York Times article (in the business section) called “The Wisconsin Legacy” by Steven Greenhouse focuses on the despondent executive director of the State Employees union’s and his take on post-Act 10 Wisconsin. The man has a right to be angry and frustrated; his budget has dropped by two thirds and so has his membership. It’s also understandable if he doesn’t really have a plan for how to respond. Towards the end of the piece Greenhouse quotes the executive director as saying that “Now 99 percent of what the staff does is organize.”
It’s a sad irony that he was bemoaning what he can only see as a hopeless situation. Because unions should be organizing and, more importantly, reorganizing. Unfortunately, I think that guy’s depression is indicative of how most of big labor’s leaders are feeling. I don’t blame them. I’d probably be shocked and depressed, too. And I wish there was time to give them the chance to work through the process of completely changing their views of the world. Because I think most of them are honestly doing their best. But the American worker just doesn’t have time to wait for them to catch up with a situation that passed them by long ago. We need leaders who will see this crisis as an opportunity for organized labor to become a movement again.
If you’re wondering where these leaders will come from, you should read publications like Labor Notes. Then you’d know they’re are already mobilized and working hard. They just need the rest of us to support them.

#StagehandView: The Hope of Chattanooga

So the representation election at VW didn’t go as I’d hoped. Oh well, live to fight another day and all that other crap we tell ourselves when we lose.

It sucks, sure. But maybe the U.S. labor movement isn’t as agonal as some are intimating. I’m a week behind, but I just read Steven Greenhouse’s NY Times article about the election in Chattanooga (Feb. 16, Section A-19). He paints a pretty bleak picture of a decidedly anti-union Tennessee and greater South. And maybe he’s right. I’m sure he’s studied the problem more than me.

But he left out the part about a certain, rather contentious clause that was allegedly in the neutrality agreement between the UAW and Volkswagen. It was the clause where the UAW and VW committed to “maintaining and where possible enhancing the cost advantages and other competitive advantages that [Volkswagen] enjoys relative to its competitors in the United States and North America.”

DISCLAIMER: The previous quote is from film maker Michael Moore’s website. The links to the source material for the quoted text are not working. Nor are any of the links I recently followed to the neutrality agreement. In the days right before the election, those links had led to what was presented as a legitimate copy of that document. All I get now is a “404 error” page. Read into that what you will.

But the legitimacy of the “sell-out” clause is ultimately irrelevant because the plant floor anti-union group, No2UAW, seems to have used it to successfully make the case that the Chattanooga VW workers would have been signing on to a permanent two-tier wage situation if they voted yes. They convinced enough of their fellow workers that “maintaining and where possible enhancing cost advantages” meant keeping VW’s wages lower than the Big Three’s. It’s not like there isn’t historical precedent. The UAW negotiated two tier wage structures for their members years ago.

By itself, the controversial neutrality agreement clause might not be bad enough. But when I place it in the context of the multiple intimidation and propaganda campaigns those Chattanooga folks were enduring, I can start to understand why some who might be undecided would vote no. It’s sad to think about how little effort it takes to convince people unions suck, or at least shouldn’t be fully trusted.

I suppose you’re wondering why I put the word hope in the title of this post.

It’s this: even with all of the millions spent by the likes of Carl Rove and the Koch brothers, even with the threats from the state and local governments, even with the alleged prearranged semi-sellout by the UAW, the election in Chattanooga was decided by less than a hundred votes, 712 to 626. Mr. Greenhouse of the Times buried a hopeful little nugget under his pile of pessimism that I think bears highlighting: if just forty-four people had voted yes instead of no, that plant would be a union shop.

The people of Tennessee aren’t all anti-union. Quite the contrary; they’re organizing themselves. Private sector union density is actually increasing there, as well as in Georgia. And North Carolinians are mobilizing, too.

So, let’s not give up quite yet.

#StagehandView: Chattanooga Volkswagon Workers Decide for Themselves

Another busy week for me, so I’m sharing a second article on what’s happening right now in Chattanooga. This time it’s an opinion piece from Reuters. I think it might be particularly relevant to Local 205, given that we are currently involved in our own NLRB representation election. So, happy reading. (By the way, all of the links are the original author’s and they connect to other interesting pieces on both sides of this issue.)

To me, the most interesting point Logan hits on is the hypocrisy of the anti-union billionaires who have inserted themselves into this fight. These same Radical Right activists who normally insist that corporations should never, under any circumstances, be told by the evil federal government how to run themselves seem to have changed their tunes. Apparently what they’ve actually been saying all this time is that corporations should only be free to make choices which are in line with the Radical Right’s medieval views on employer-employee relations.

One last thing from me: don’t forget about that other election tomorrow. It’s a couple of months late, but it looks like we’ll actually get to vote on new officers. Many thanks to Sister Joan Miller for serving as the elections judge this time around. As we saw during last year’s cluster f**k, screwing up a local election is a lot easier than getting it right. -BPW

Why the Far-Right Fears Change in Chattanooga
Posted By John Logan On February 11, 2014 (6:49 pm).

On Wednesday through Friday, 1500 autoworkers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee will vote on whether to join the United Auto Workers union in a landmark National Labor Relations Board election. Like other U.S. outposts of foreign auto companies, the facility, which opened in 2011, has never had a union.

A vote for unionization at Volkswagen would be a historic victory — not only for the UAW, but for the entire labor movement. It would provide unions with a key victory in the South, even in the face of a lavishly-funded external anti-union campaign, and may lead to transformative changes in labor-management relations, especially among European-owned firms.

If the Chattanooga workers vote to unionize, they will provide another example that when companies remain neutral in union elections, employees usually choose unions. Instead of pressuring the employees to vote against the UAW, Volkswagen management has let workers make the choice on their own. This is exactly what should happen in union elections, but rarely does. Volkswagen would probably have recognized the union on the basis of documented interest among workers, but Republican politicians and anti-union groups such as the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) demanded that the company hold an NLRB election. Ironically, the NRTWC has insisted that Volkswagen provide employees who oppose the UAW with an opportunity to make their case to the workforce, something that pro-union workers never enjoy during standard U.S. anti-union campaigns.

Unionized workers at the Chattanooga plant would almost certainly get the first works council in the United States — a type of organization that deals with issues of employee welfare and management, such as flexibility in work schedules. Works councils, which operate at the plant level, have long been a key aspect of employment relations in many European countries. Currently, every one of Volkswagen’s 61 major production facilities outside of China has both a union and a works council, except for the Tennessee plant. A successful works council at Volkswagen may lead to other corporations adopting this innovative (for the U.S.) form of worker representation.

A vote for unionization would provide the UAW with a key victory in the “foreign auto transplants” — the U.S. plants of European and Asian auto manufacturers, most of which are located in southern right-to-work states. The UAW has encountered robust opposition when it has attempted to organize in these facilities. Nissan is currently resisting efforts by autoworkers in Canton, Mississippi to form a union. The company is also fighting pro-union workers in Smyrna, Tennessee, where it defeated organizing campaigns in 1989 and 2001, after it allegedly threatened job losses, plant closings, relocation to Mexico, and a loss of wages and benefits if the union prevailed. The UAW has organized in several U.S.-Japanese joint auto ventures, but not in any wholly-owned foreign automakers.

This time around, domestic and international allies have supported the struggles of U.S. autoworkers. The fact that Volkswagen is allowing its workers a free and un-coerced choice on unionization is in part because of support from the two million-member IG Metall, Germany’s largest union. Nissan workers have received support from unions in Brazil, South Africa, Japan, England and Australia. Civil rights, faith and environmental organizations have also assisted their efforts. If Volkswagen goes union, Nissan, Mercedes and other foreign auto transplants may soon follow suit.

A victory at Volkswagen would signal that the anti-union South — where elected officials have frequently joined with the business community and right-wing organizations to stop workers from organizing — might not be so solid in future years. Unions have enjoyed some important recent victories, especially among predominantly Latino workforces, such as the Service Employees International Union’s janitors’ campaign in Houston, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union’s historic victory at Smithfield Foods in North Carolina. Union membership in the South is well below the national average of 11.3 percent, but in 2012, Tennessee had the biggest percentage growth in union membership of any U.S. state, with Georgia and Alabama not far behind.

Most importantly, a UAW victory would show that even billionaire anti-union zealots can be beaten. Right-wing groups are furious that Volkswagen is not fighting the UAW, so they have chosen to do so on their own. National organizations funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers and other right-wing activists have taken to the airwaves to demonize the UAW. State politicians have attempted to blackmail autoworkers to vote no by stating that Volkswagen may lose state financial support if it becomes unionized. Unionization, one elected official explained, “was not part of the deal.”

In their effort to whip up anti-union fervor, UAW opponents have called it the “vilest of cancers,” “Ichneumon wasp larvae,” and “black shirted thugs.” If Volkswagen workers resist this blatant attempt at intimidation by anti-union organizations, they will make clear beyond a doubt that they want UAW representation. They will have rejected the insidious lies about “Big Labor” — and the depiction of unions as narrow and self-serving — that the Koch Brothers and others have been peddling for far too long. And they will have participated in a historic union victory.

PHOTO:

Labourers work on the assembly line of the Volkswagen Kombi at the Volkswagen plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo December 9, 2013. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker

Article taken from The Great Debate – http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate
URL to article: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/02/11/why-the-far-right-fears-change-in-chattanooga/

#StagehandView: Makes Me Want to Buy a Volkswagon

This article was tweeted to me a couple of days ago from the UAW. It was published Tuesday, February 11th, 2014, in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. It’s a worker’s take on why he’ll be voting yes in what could be one of the most significant union elections in recent U.S. history. That, and I’m behind schedule with pretty much everything in my life. So here, learn some potentially good news. -BPW

King: Having a voice — VW worker supports UAW

Growing up in Chattanooga, I never had much real exposure to unions. Sure, I heard the word, but only used with the typical Southern implications of angry picketers and low-quality products. I had never actually encountered an angry picketer, and I couldn’t have pointed out a union-made car on the street. I just knew that “unions were bad” because that’s what I’d always heard.

I moved away for a few years, and got a taste of what supporting myself was like. As I started to think about settling down somewhere, Chattanooga was high on my list. In the time I had been away, Chattanooga had become a greener city; a culturally diverse city. More importantly, though, Chattanooga had once again become an industrial city, managing to add thousands of new jobs during an economic slump when most businesses were laying employees off.

Volkswagen had a huge impact on Chattanooga’s economy, hiring more than 2,500 direct employees and creating thousands more jobs through parts suppliers and other supporting companies. I was lucky enough to be hired by Volkswagen while they were still setting up shop. I helped build the first Chattanooga-made Passats before the factory even had heating or cooling equipment installed.

In the more than three years that I have worked for Volkswagen, I’ve gotten to see firsthand what some of the differences between union and nonunion workplaces are. Early in my Volkswagen career, I was sent to Wolfsburg, Germany, for advanced training. Wolfsburg is the international headquarters of Volkswagen AG, and a vast majority of its eligible employees are members of a union. The workers there couldn’t believe that the Chattanooga workers didn’t have a union. They told me, over and over again, that their union was the reason they had good wages, stable employment, and fair treatment.

Their union gives them a voice in Volkswagen, but more importantly, it makes them a part of Volkswagen by giving them a stake in its success. Every Volkswagen-owned production facility in the world has worker representation and a place on the VW Group Global Works Council — except for Chattanooga.

When workers in the Chattanooga Volkswagen facility first began talking about representation and the UAW, it seemed like an obvious choice. Volks- wagen believes that all its employees should have a say in how the company is run, and be able to provide input on decisions that affect them. This policy of worker representation and co-determination is central to their business model, and they credit it with much of their success as one of the top auto manufacturers in the world.

No one who works at our facility wants to have his or her voice ignored. Some of us disagree about the best way to be heard, but we all want to have a voice. We all want to be able to discuss decisions with management, and find solutions that everyone agrees on. We all want to be a part of Volkswagen’s success in Chattanooga.

A majority of the employees here at Volkswagen Chattanooga have asked to have the UAW represent us because we feel that Volkswagen Chattanooga will benefit from the partnership. The UAW has committed to establishing a Volkswagen-style Works Council here, so that we can participate in Volkswagen’s co-determination system at an international level, not just here at home.

That’s why, this week, I’ll be voting YES for the UAW — because it’s time for us to join our Volkswagen brothers and sisters around the globe, and let our voices be heard with theirs.

Justin King is a worker at Chattanooga’s Volkswagen assembly plant.

#StagehandView: Labor Notes, It’s Not Just for Labor Geeks Like Me

First off, comments are enabled. So dig in. labornotes.org

That said, be aware that I am the moderator of your comments. And, while I encourage a lively debate, I won’t tolerate meanness. To quote myself in an earlier Stagehand View post, “don’t be a dick.” That’s my only rule and I am the only interpreter or enforcer of that rule. I’m not saying you can’t tell me you think I’m wrong. Quite the opposite, I hope you give full voice to your dissent from or critique of my opinions. Anything I write on this blog is fair game. But this is not the forum for any personal vendettas; if you go after individuals (especially by name) there’s a good chance your comment will not see the light of day. Like I said, my blog, my rules. Start your own if you want something different.

Oh, I guess I lied. There is one more rule for commenting: you have to register as a user of this website and give an email address to take part in the discussion. Sure you can make up a fake name and use a burner email address … if you’re too big of a wuss to stand by what you say. But I hope you don’t because that’s just not as much fun.

Otherwise, I’ve gone back and enabled the comments for all of past Stagehand View blog posts. You’re welcome to comment on those, as well as this and all future posts.

I think that’s all the housekeeping I’ve got to do.

Moving on to this week’s blog. I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve got nothing. I’ve been loading in and teching Austin Lyric Opera‘s Tosca this week, my bathroom remodeling project sits stalled at the halfway point because our original tile guy is a horse’s ass who bailed at the last minute, and a bunch of other crap you don’t care about has happened, as well. Put simply, I’m tired this morning.

Troublemaker's Union So here are some links to just a few of the great articles published by my one of my favorite news sources, Labor Notes.

My favorite article from last month’s issue debunks the myth of the so called skills gap in the U.S. Don’t believe the hype. The only gap that exists is between what employers are willing to pay for highly skilled workers and what those workers are willing to work for. Another good piece from that same issue talks about how Seattle has elected a socialist city council member who ran on a tax the rich/$15 minimum wage platform. Or, in case you still think organized labor should continue its unholy alliance with the Democratic Party, you should read the article about how the unions in Lorain County, Ohio successfully fielded about two dozen independent labor city council candidates. And my last recommendation is that you read Jenny Brown’s concise recap of 2013. All in all, last year had some glimmers of hope for the American labor movement. Mostly in places where union members decided to start acting like they’re part of a social movement again.

Not sure why every union local in the country (including Local 205) doesn’t subscribe to Labor Notes. They offer steeply discounted rates for union locals that want to get the print version in bulk. I think it might make a nice (and informative) attendance prize for our monthly meetings.

That’s it for this week. I’ll have slept more by next Monday, and I’ll try to do better.