Where do your rights come from? The courts? The United Nations? Your employer? The ‘people in charge’? Pfft, as if.
No one is going to hand you your rights on a silver platter then check back with you later and ask if everything is still okay. Not gonna happen boychuck.
Going with what you know.
Humans are nothing if not creatures of habit. In times of economic strife we look to the traditional stewards of social progress and protection – the trade unions. Okay, maybe we don’t look for them so much anymore but the news machine needs to fill space so there they are. I put it to you that unions have become moribund and toothless. They contribute to the very problems we’re trying to solve today in our streets. (Disclaimer, I’m a unionized employee and disabled.)
Walmart, outsourcing, unemployment, employment equity, benefits, living wage, pensions, health and safety… What happened? How did we get here?
Up until the past 12 months, when is the last time we have witnessed such militancy and wide spread support by the masses? Been a while hasn’t it? We’ve allowed ourselves to become soft, lazy and complacent. One only has to look at the news any time the unions show up – fat, male and pale. (They can usually be found anywhere Michael Moore is.)
Hey male and pale, whatcha doing? Meetings, input, mediation, conciliatory gestures, feedback, workshops, strategies, committees, reports, planning sessions, stakeholder input, ya gotta meet me half way here or we’ll never get ahead. Lies. All of it. Lies.
Hijacking the Occupy Movement
Unions have become institutionalized and have lost their way. If they did what they say they do, life would be grand.
They’re trying to scramble now to stay relevant by glomming onto whatever is the cause d’jour, but the thing is they’ve lost touch so badly they can’t read the portents. I’m not your brother, you’re not my sister and raising your fat white fist in the air while singing a song about solidarity only makes me laugh at you while I wonder why I can’t access my rights that YOU are supposed to be championing. Even the political parties in Canada who were long time supporters of the union movements are stepping away. I cannot say if that is due to business pressures or a recognition that unions are not what they were.
From the Regional Executive Vice-President (even their job titles have gone corporate) of Ontario, Public Service Alliance of Canada Union: “The Occupy movement’s demands are wide-ranging and are a means of raising awareness to crucial issues such as job losses, defending quality public services, affordable public education, human rights and other priority concerns of Canadians.” The Occupy Movement hasn’t released any demands or manifesto. The unions are trying to hijack this movement to improve their image. I don’t remember the last time a union did anything of substance or made real changes on that list of issues.
Spitting into the wind.
Unions have lost the plot and that is a crying shame. We are witness daily to the reality of strength in numbers, we need to work together – in true unity of the like that is being seen every day in the streets of North America. Unity works when done properly. If unions spent less money going on all-expense paid trips to conventions and self aggrandizing power trips and spent more money on communication, outreach and lawyers they wouldn’t be on the verge of extinction and I put it to you, we’d be in far better shape. Posters of Rosie the Riveter don’t make my life any easier, nor does changing Disabled to (dis)Abled change my life, it just makes it harder to spell.
How it was: The history of the United Mine Workers of America
How it could be: Sun City October 11, 2011 “Unions mustn’t become walking zombies”
I’m not anti-union, I’m pro-militancy. I don’t know what the future will look like, but I do know the ‘face’ of the labour movement is changing rapidly.
The milk of human tolerance has curdled. And it’s about fucking time.
