Text of speech given by St. Catherines CAW activist Bruce Allen at a
Toronto New Socialist meeting in June.
Labour in a Globalized Economy
by Bruce Allen
Over the past three years four critically important and protracted
labour struggles have exemplified Capital's increasingly aggressive
onslaught against workers in the context of capitalist globalization.
Chronologically, the first of these four struggles was the strike and
subsequent lockout of the newspaper workers employed by the Detroit Free
Press and the Detroit News. Together the two newspapers comprise the
Detroit Newspaper Agency or the DNA.
This dispute began on July 12, 1995 as an unfair labour practices
strike. Detroit's newspaper bosses prepared for the strike for months in
advance with the obvious goal of imposing a crushing defeat on the
newspaper unions representing the workers at both newspapers. The DNA made
advance preparations by hiring security guards and scabs and by making
arrangements with the police so that the cops would be mobilized en masse
against the strikers.
The newspaper bosses also consciously provoked the strike by taking
unilateral actions such as imposing a system of merit pay on reporters the
moment the existing contract expired. The ultimate goal of the newspaper
bosses was to impose sweeping contract changes to weaken the unions and be
able to streamline and downsize their workforces. Indeed, this is exactly
what they did during the course of the ensuing strike.
During the first two months of the strike major picket line
confrontations took place on a routine basis. The strikers managed to
disrupt the production and distribution of the newspapers that were
operating with scab workforces. The strike was strong and enjoyed broad
support within the labour movement and the community. But the balance of
forces began to decisively shift in September 1995 when the DNA got an
injunction to limit picketing. The Metro Council of Newspaper Unions (the
umbrella organization for the newspaper unions) responded by obeying the
injunction thus ending the most effective efforts to disrupt the production
and distribution of the scab newspapers. The MCNU shifted its focus on to
legal action against the newspaper bosses in the courts and at the National
Labour Relations Board and to conducting boycotts of circulation and
advertising in the scab newspapers. The newspaper unions also began a
nominal boycott of USA Today which is owned by the same media conglomerate
as the Detroit Free Press.
Despite the injunction periodic confrontations continued to take
place at distribution centres for the scab newspapers. However, in early
1996 the MCNU called these off as well in response to legal pressure from
the DNA. The MCNU capped its course of capitulation in July 1996 by
signing a "consent agreement" with a U.S. District Court and the NLRB
pledging not to interfere with the scab newspapers' operations anywhere.
From early 1996 onwards, rank and file militants initiated virtually
all of the actions taken by the strikers that were designed to put real,
direct pressure on the newspaper bosses. These militants were initially
organized into a grouping called the Unity Victory Caucus and then into the
Action Coalition of Strikers and Supporters (ACOSS). Their actions
included acts of civil disobedience. But most notably, there were
concerted efforts to compel the AFL-CIO to organize a national mobilization
on Detroit in support of the striking workers. The call for this national
action got the backing of the MCNU and the Detroit AFL-CIO Council. But it
was strongly opposed by AFL-CIO President John Sweeny. Even so, the
pressure built as the striking newspaper workers and their supporters
across North America managed to compel the AFL-CIO Executive Council to
back a national march on Detroit at its February 1997 meeting. It did so
over Sweeny's objections.
But, as one striker put it, this victory was a consolation prize. Just
days before the AFL-CIO Executive Council's decision the MCNU informed the
newspaper bosses they were making an unconditional offer to suspend the
strike and return to work. The offer was made without the approval of the
rank and file of any of the striking unions. The newspaper bosses
responded by verbally accepting the offer and then proceeding to say that
they were going to continue to employ the replacement workers who had been
employed by them during the strike. The strikers, they said, would only be
called back as openings became available and this would not apply to those
who were fired during the course of the strike. The strike became a
lockout in which most of the workers who struck remained on the street
while the scabs continued to do their jobs.
On June 20 a judge found the newspaper bosses guilty of provoking an
unfair labour practices strike but the DNA appealed and the matter remains
tied up in the courts to this day. The AFL-CIO's national march on Detroit
took place the following day but had no discernable impact on the dispute
other than to show that the locked out workers had broad moral support
within the rest of the U.S. labour movement. The lockout is still on and
Detroit newspaper boss Frank Vega's claim that the dispute will be tied up
in the courts until all of the strikers have either died or left town is in
danger of being born out. Mobilizations are still taking place. But they
are only the ones organized by ACOSS and its supporters elsewhere in North
America.
>From Detroit to Liverpool
Just over two months after the newspaper strike began in Detroit
another critically important marathon struggle began. The struggle in the
Port of Liverpool was also a response to a pre-planned effort designed to
crush a unionized workforce. In September 1995 the Mersey Docks & Harbour
Company (MDHC) took advantage of Margaret Thatcher's labour laws to
eliminate the bulk of its unionized workforce. The MDHC replaced it with a
non-union workforce comprised of scab, casual labourers and tailored to the
needs of just in time global transportation systems and standardized work
procedures. In other words, the Liverpool dock bosses consciously put in
place a lean workforce to match an increasingly lean global transportation
industry.
The MDHC found the pretext it wanted for making this change when an
overtime dispute occurred at a sub-contracting firm in the port. The
dispute was provoked by management and led to several workers being fired.
The fired workers and their counterparts proceeded to set up a picket line
that the main body of dockworkers in the Port of Liverpool would not cross.
This refusal to cross a picket line constituted the same thing as a
secondary strike under Britain's labour laws and enabled the MDHC to fire
the entire workforce and replace it with the workforce the employer wanted.
Since this was an unofficial dispute not recognized under British labour
laws the leadership of the dockworkers' union, the Transport &General
Workers Union (T&GWU), refused to officially back the workers. Like the
MCNU in Detroit they were not prepared to defy the law and effectively left
the fired workers and their Shop Stewards to fight on their own. The
union's top leadership also persistently tried to settle the dispute
without the involvement of the Shop Stewards who remained accountable to
the fired dockworkers. Worse still, the fired dockworkers and their Shop
Stewards also quickly found themselves at loggerheads with the leaders of
Britain's Trades Unions Congress and the International Transport Workers
Federation (ITF) to which the T&GWU belongs.
Nonetheless, the fired dockworkers enjoyed widespread public support and
the support of countless other dockworkers around the world who were also
under attack because their bosses wanted lean operations. Consequently,
over the 28 months that the dispute lasted the fired Liverpool dockworkers
and their counterparts held dockworkers' conferences to discuss their
common problems and plot strategy. These events marked the emergence of an
international dockworkers' movement united in opposition to capitalist
restructuring of their industry and meant that the MDHC had quite
unintentionally prompted the emergence of an embryonic, industry-wide
organization of dockworkers on an international scale. The ITF denounced
the participants as members of a "counter-organization".
Thus, in the absence of secondary strikes in Britain in support of the
fired dockworkers, there were secondary strikes in support of them around
the world. These secondary strikes were facilitated by the use of
information technologies and they offered a glimpse of the incredible
possibilities offered by these technologies in terms of facilitating
efforts to counter Capital's global offensive against labour. Most
notably, on January 20, 1997 an international day of action saw job actions
and other protests take place in 27 countries around the world and in 105
ports and cities. Ports along the entire U.S. West Coast came to a
standstill.
Such mobilizations left a lasting impression upon militants around the
world. But ultimately even they were not enough and after 28 months the
fired dockworkers could not hold out any longer. Their struggle came to a
disappointing conclusion in January of 1998 when they accepted severance
packages. Liverpool's dock bosses got the type of workforce they wanted
to meet their perceived needs within an increasingly lean, just-in-time
global transportation industry and at a price they were prepared to pay.
From Liverpool to Australia
One of the unions that had been solid in support of the fired
Liverpool dockworkers was the Maritime Union of Australia. In a matter of
weeks following the conclusion of the struggle in Liverpool the dockworkers
represented by the MUA would see the "Liverpool solution" exported to
Australia.
As in the Liverpool dispute the employer, Patricks Inc., consciously
set out to rid itself of a unionized dock workforce in favour of a
non-union dock workforce tailored to what Capital deems necessary for the
global transportation industry. Patrick's wanted a highly flexible
workforce employed on the basis of individual, as opposed to collective,
agreements and not protected by traditional union workplace rules.
Patrick's, like the DNA, wanted a workforce that could be substantially
downsized yet sufficiently utilized to still meet its needs. And as was
the case in both Detroit and Liverpool the employer was prepared for a
decisive showdown in order to get such a workforce.
The dock bosses at Patrick's consciously set out for a decisive
confrontation well in advance and did so with the full collusion of the
Australian government. Thus, in late 1997 Patrick's was caught training
serving and former members of the Australian military in the United Arab
Emirates as scab longshore workers to be deployed against the MUA. They
were being readied as paramilitary strikebreakers in the event of a
breakdown of contract negotiations with the MUA. The public exposure of
these activities and the response of the MUA brought them to a halt but did
not alter the basic game plan of Patrick's and Australia's conservative
government of John Howard.
Consequently, when the MUA's collective agreement with Patrick's
neared expiration at the end of this past March the stage was set for an
attempt to crush Patrick's unionized dock workforce. When workers at
Patrick's terminal in Sydney voted in a mass meeting to reject the
employer's final pay offer and to endorse a seven day strike Patrick's went
into action. Patrick's deployed what amounted to a private army under the
cover of night. Hundreds of security guards with dogs stormed the wharves
on Australia's waterfront to take control of dock operations and fire 1,400
full time and 600 part time unionized dockworkers. The MUA members were
abruptly dismissed on the spot and ordered to leave the facilities.
The MUA's response was to turn to the law thinking this could result
in a full reversal of the employer's actions. Specifically, the MUA sought
to obtain a legal order prohibiting Patrick's from hiring scabs or
transferring its assets. And in this case the ITF did what it would not do
for the fired Liverpool dockworkers by rallying international support for
MUA. The difference in the ITF's response can be simply explained. The
ITF saw that the law was on the MUA's side and that the MUA's leadership
fully backed the struggle against Patrick's so it offered support.
Likewise, for the same reasons, the Australian Council of Trade Unions did
what the British Trade Unions Congress would not do and pledged its support
for the dockworkers. The manoeuvres of these union bureaucrats
notwithstanding, the MUA got immediate support from across the base of the
labour movement in Australia and considerable support from the same
dockworkers who had supported the struggle in Liverpool. Thousands of
construction workers responded by marching through Sydney in solidarity
with the dockworkers and Australia's oil workers threatened industrial
action in spite of trade union laws that would have forbid it and resulted
in damage suits. Numerous protests were staged outside of Australia.
Once again, the contrasts in what took place compared to what happened in
response to the struggle in Liverpool were obvious.
Patrick's chairman Chris Corrigan subsequently stated that his firm
had to take action because of what he called the failure of the MUA to
negotiate acceptable, meaning flexible and lean, work practices.
Australian PM John Howard showed whose side he was on by calling Patrick's
action a "defining moment" in the industry. He had promised two years
earlier to break the MUA, which is considered the backbone of the
Australian labour movement.
Very significantly, the framework for an end to the confrontation
began to emerge on May 6. An Australian high court "upheld the right of
the unionists to be reinstated, but found the administrators must have the
freedom to make commercial decisions". Consequently, the MUA's initial
delight over what it perceived to be a legal victory would prove to be
short-lived and a massive show of force in solidarity with the MUA by
Australia's labour movement on the same day as the ruling was handed down
would prove to be quite inadequate. In practical terms, the ruling meant
that not all of the 1,400 full time dockworkers were going to be guaranteed
their jobs.
The MUA's President John Coombs then began to say that the MUA was
willing to negotiate on workplace efficiency once all of the fired
dockworkers were reinstated. And that was just his opening position.
Protracted negotiations ensued. By mid-June the fired dockworkers had
received only 60% of the wages owed to them since they were illegally
discharged on April 8.
By June 13 the MUA and Patrick's were reportedly close to an
agreement. All indications were that the agreement would "almost certainly
include major concessions to the company" and it was expected to include up
to 600 redundancies. So Patrick's had committed a wholly illegal act by
organizing a military assault on the docks and firing their unionized
workforce the company. Yet it was going to be rewarded with the kinds of
workplace changes that Chris Corrigan said he wanted in the first place and
with a substantially downsized workforce. There was no victory for the MUA
and the failure of it and the Australian labour movement and the ITF to
mobilize a response powerful enough to force a full employer retreat rather
than rely on the courts produced these key gains for the dock bosses.
>From Australia to Tijuana
Finally, the last of the four struggles I will deal with is of a
quite different nature but has everything to do with labour's situation in
the context of capitalist globalization and, in fact, is more explicitly so
because it is squarely situated within the context of the NAFTA. A month
ago, on May 22 a critically important strike began at the Han Young auto
parts plant in Tijuana. Han Young is the sole supplier of chassis for
truck tractor trailers for Hyundai and its workers weld and assemble them.
The strike is actually the climax of a one year long struggle. That
struggle is rooted in worker protests against health and safety conditions
that have produced a high rate of industrial accidents, wages of $8.00 U.S.
per day, and Han Young management's failure to pay profit-sharing payments
as required by Mexican labour law. The struggle at Han Young is also one
for the removal of a phantom union in the pay of the company and loyal to
Mexico's ruling party. It never held union meetings and negotiated
contracts without the workers' knowledge. The workers wanted to replace it
with a union that fights for their interests but the local labour board in
Tijuana, acting in the interests of the employers in the MZ, would not let
this happen. The struggle at Han Young consequently exemplifies the
complete failure of NAFTA's labour side agreement to offer any meaningful
protection of basic workers' rights.
Throughout the last half of 1997 Han Young's workers fought a
seemingly endless battle against an employer whose management did
everything possible to frustrate the workers' efforts to certify an
independent union. Han Young used intimidation tactics. They hired a
union-busting consultant as their personnel manager and they threatened to
close the plant. Furthermore, they did all of these things with the full
collusion and backing of the local labour board, backed by the Mexican
government. The local labour board openly tolerated blatant fraud
(non-employees and members of management were allowed to vote) in union
certification elections late last year and threats of violence against the
workers in relations to those elections. The workers fought back
throughout this time by staging demonstrations, work disruptions and even a
28 day long hunger strike. Their supporters in the U.S. and Canada staged
protests at Hyundai dealerships and launched a boycott of Hyundai to back
their demand for the certification of an independent union. They also
filed a NAO complaint and put concerted, international pressure on the
Clinton Administration to compel the Mexican government to respect the
rights of the Han Young workers as set out in Mexico's labour legislation.
The Han Young dispute even became a major focus of the debate in the U.S.
Congress on NAFTA "fast track" legislation and directly contributed to
Clinton's temporary retreat on the issue. In other words, it led to the
first setback to U.S. government efforts to promote a hemispheric free
trade agreement.
It is also worth noting that the violations of the Han Young workers
rights was so blatant that even the U.S. Dept. of Labor investigated the
situation. It published a report earlier this year that charged the local
labour board in Tijuana with failing to enforce local workplace law.
By the time the strike began on May 22 the workers had already voted
twice in union certification elections and, despite voter fraud, the
results went in favour of an independent union both times. However, the
local labour board refused to acknowledge the results. Consequently, the
strike's goal was union certification for the independent union at Han
Young.
Despite this the Tijuana labour board allowed a pro-government union
affiliated with Mexico's dominant labour federation to have a third
certification vote on May 29. The independent union won that vote as well
and the labour board has not recognized this result either.
Nor does the labour board recognize the strike. This is because when the
strike vote was held 64 votes were cast against the strike and 52 in
favour. But 48 of those who were allowed to vote were either hired after
the union gave Han Young its strike notice or have never worked for Han
Young at all. The labour board did not even require Han Young to provide a
list of workers eligible to vote prior to the start of the strike and the
local head of the labour board openly stated that, "Anyone who presents
themselves to vote will be allowed to do so." Some of those who voted were
apparently rounded up at a local flea market on the day of the strike vote.
Significantly, the labour board has also charged that the strike was
provoked by foreign unions and their purpose was to discourage investment
in Mexico.
It should also be noted that a special force in the pay of the employer
went into the plant to stop the workers from shutting off their machines to
start the strike as they are allowed to do according to Mexican labour law.
In a legal strike in Mexico the workplace is also supposed to be locked
and no one is allowed in. This special force also tore down the
independent union's strike banners and forcefully dispersed the strikers.
One positive thing has happened. On June 3 a higher body in the
labour board suspended the local labour board's decision to rule the strike
illegal. Nonetheless, the workers are on strike with no source of income
whatsoever and Han Young management is continuing to hire new workers in an
obvious effort to further weaken support for the union.
The stakes are enormous because a victory for the independent union
would be a pivotal breakthrough in the Maquiladora Zone. None of the more
than one million workers employed in some 3,000 plants in the Maquiladora
Zone, and where some $41 billion in exports were produced last year, are
represented by a legitimate union that is accountable to the workers.
Some Conclusions
One can draw some conclusions from these four struggles simply by
considering them in relation to the labour laws of the countries involved.
Thus, in the case of the Liverpool dockworkers, the MDHC took advantage of
anti-trade union laws to fire its unionized workforce and then to stonewall
for 28 months until the dockworkers gave in and the bosses got the
workforce they wanted. In the case of Australia the dock bosses conspired
with the Australian government to fire their unionized workforce in direct
violation of the law and still managed to extract many of the concessions
they sought in the first place. These actions are symptomatic of the
increasing willingness of employers to take decisive action against a
unionized workforce that denies them the workplace flexibility they desire
within the context of capitalist globalization and the declining rates of
profit it engenders. Furthermore, it shows they are increasingly prepared
to do so regardless of whether the labour laws in place facilitate their
plan of attack or not and shows they can succeed in reorganizing their
respective workplaces as they wish in either case.
Similar conclusions can be drawn with respect to the newspaper strike and
lockout in Detroit. The DNA blatantly broke the law by clearly bargaining
in bad faith. Yet the DNA is getting away with doing so and has proceeded
to decimate its unionized workforce in the process. Evidence of this can
be found in the fact that during the course of the strike the newspaper
bosses changed work practices and reorganized the workplace in such a way
that they can now produce their newspapers with a substantially smaller
workforce. The bosses acknowledged as much after verbally accepting the
MCNU's offer of an unconditional return to work. They specifically
stated that they had learned how to run their newspapers with substantially
fewer people and would never need all of their previous employees back. In
other words, they had successfully made their operations much more lean and
better positioned to succeed within the context of capitalist globalization.
The situation at Han Young is different. But it is different only in the
sense that the employer and the government are brazenly violating Mexican
labour law in order to maintain a workforce without an authentic union.
The employer obviously wants to continue to run the workplace in a manner
consistent with the situation prevalent in the export processing zone along
the U.S. - Mexican border and, above all else, the Mexican government wants
to maintain the status quo in the border region. In other words, the
government wants to preserve a situation where employers in the Maquiladora
Zone retain optimal flexibility in utilizing their workforce and very lean
operations conducive to corporate success in the context of capitalist
globalization. The government also knows and realizes this will expedite
the continued, rapid expansion of the Maquiladora Zone and wants nothing
less. Hence, it's endless efforts to obstruct and beat the Han Young
workers into submission and the similarity between what it is doing and
what the Detroit newspaper bosses are doing to their locked out workforce
because of the failure of U.S. labour law to rectify the situation.
In short, these four struggles show that in the context of capitalist
globalization employers are increasingly inclined to take off the gloves
and wage an all or nothing fight. They are quite prepared to do this
unless unions capitulate and give them the optimal flexibility they desire
and enable them to lean or downsize their workforces to the maximum extent
possible. In short, labour laws will be used wherever possible to
facilitate this but where they do not they will be defied much as employers
routinely violate agreements with unions and governments will be put under
pressure to change them. In the face of this it is obvious that unions
will continue to beat a rapid retreat if they continue to respect and rely
upon existing labour laws. Furthermore, the retreat by unions will
continue. It will continue until unions have fully accountable leaderships
who thoroughly grasp the full magnitude of the assault taking place and a
mobilized rank and file. That is a rank and file prepared to both defy
labour laws and fight the bosses on a scale that corresponds to scale of
Capital's global offensive against Labour within the context of capitalist
globalization. In other words, workers need a movement that emulates the
kinds of actions carried out by dockworkers and their supporters around the
world in support of the struggle in Liverpool and do so with respect to
every struggle now underway. We are increasingly faced with an all or
nothing situation and must act accordingly.
June 23, 1998
(
geocities.com/capitolhill)