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Visit www.shopunionmade.org to buy items from artwork to chocolate, from books and clothing to clocks, computers, and vacation packages.
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At Justice Clothing we don't think fashion should hurt. Justice Clothing's mission is to support democratic principles, workers' rights and economic sustainability through the sale and distribution of goods manufactured by workers protected by collective bargaining agreements. http://www.justiceclothing.com
Monday, November 26, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
UN Says Market Privatizations Would Be the Worst Scenario for the Environment
By Herv Kempf
Le Monde
Saturday 27 October 2007
The planet's ecological future directly depends on the political choices that will be exercised: this observation had never before been clearly spotlighted by a United Nations decision-making body. Now it's done: the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) asserts in a thick report, the so-called "GEO 4", published Thursday October 25, that generalized privatization of resources and services would be the worst scenario from an environmental perspective.
That's the conclusion of an original approach to possible futures that a group of international experts has been conducting the last two years: it models each scenario as a function of the type of policies put into place. The point of departure for this modeling effort is the major ecological crisis, which the planet is already experiencing.
By actualizing the description through numerous sources, the UNEP report synthesizes changes in climate, biodiversity, soils' health, water resources ... It highlights the shrinkage in available resources per inhabitant, with the available earth surface for each human being going from 7.91 hectares in 1900 to 2.02 hectares in 2005.
The rapidity of the phenomenon is emphasized: the breadth and the composition of terrestrial ecosystems that "are being modified by populations at an unprecedented speed." The experts insist on the concept of a threshold: "The cumulative effects of the continuous changes in the environment may reach thresholds that will manifest themselves as abrupt and irreversible changes." This idea of "tipping points" is applicable not only to climate change, but also to the phenomena of desertification, drops in water tables, collapse of ecosystems, etc.
Tipping Points
The continuation of present trajectories inescapably leads to these tipping points, the UNEP indicates. That's where the work with models comes in. The experts have defined four scenarios, according to the type of policy that is followed. In the first model, the State takes a back seat to the private sector; unlimited trade develops; natural goods areprivatized. The second scenario is based on a centralized intervention that aims to balance high economic growth with an effort to limit its
environmental and social impacts.
A third route would be to favor security to respond to civil disorders and external threats: a significant effort would then be devoted to security. Finally, the fourth option is one in which society chooses environmental sustainability and equity, with citizens playing an active role.
Modeling allows the influence on the environment of each one of these scenarios to be measured in terms of energy consumption, polluting emissions, the type of agricultural activity, water extractions and numerous other parameters.
The last scenario (sustainability) appears preferable from a social and ecological point of view, while the first scenario (privatization), although it assures the strongest growth, also manifests an environmental impact deemed unbearable, all while generating ever-greater social inequalities. In that case, "the environment and society rapidly reach, even cross over the tipping point."
The scenarios that are less bad for the environment are not exempt from flaws, however: the second scenario, which favors a strong policy intervention, may generate bureaucracy; the fourth, which emphasizes sustainability, demands that much time be devoted to cooperation among actors. And they do not guarantee a carefree future: in all these cases, "climate change and the loss of biodiversity will remain significant challenges."
Le Monde
Saturday 27 October 2007
The planet's ecological future directly depends on the political choices that will be exercised: this observation had never before been clearly spotlighted by a United Nations decision-making body. Now it's done: the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) asserts in a thick report, the so-called "GEO 4", published Thursday October 25, that generalized privatization of resources and services would be the worst scenario from an environmental perspective.
That's the conclusion of an original approach to possible futures that a group of international experts has been conducting the last two years: it models each scenario as a function of the type of policies put into place. The point of departure for this modeling effort is the major ecological crisis, which the planet is already experiencing.
By actualizing the description through numerous sources, the UNEP report synthesizes changes in climate, biodiversity, soils' health, water resources ... It highlights the shrinkage in available resources per inhabitant, with the available earth surface for each human being going from 7.91 hectares in 1900 to 2.02 hectares in 2005.
The rapidity of the phenomenon is emphasized: the breadth and the composition of terrestrial ecosystems that "are being modified by populations at an unprecedented speed." The experts insist on the concept of a threshold: "The cumulative effects of the continuous changes in the environment may reach thresholds that will manifest themselves as abrupt and irreversible changes." This idea of "tipping points" is applicable not only to climate change, but also to the phenomena of desertification, drops in water tables, collapse of ecosystems, etc.
Tipping Points
The continuation of present trajectories inescapably leads to these tipping points, the UNEP indicates. That's where the work with models comes in. The experts have defined four scenarios, according to the type of policy that is followed. In the first model, the State takes a back seat to the private sector; unlimited trade develops; natural goods areprivatized. The second scenario is based on a centralized intervention that aims to balance high economic growth with an effort to limit its
environmental and social impacts.
A third route would be to favor security to respond to civil disorders and external threats: a significant effort would then be devoted to security. Finally, the fourth option is one in which society chooses environmental sustainability and equity, with citizens playing an active role.
Modeling allows the influence on the environment of each one of these scenarios to be measured in terms of energy consumption, polluting emissions, the type of agricultural activity, water extractions and numerous other parameters.
The last scenario (sustainability) appears preferable from a social and ecological point of view, while the first scenario (privatization), although it assures the strongest growth, also manifests an environmental impact deemed unbearable, all while generating ever-greater social inequalities. In that case, "the environment and society rapidly reach, even cross over the tipping point."
The scenarios that are less bad for the environment are not exempt from flaws, however: the second scenario, which favors a strong policy intervention, may generate bureaucracy; the fourth, which emphasizes sustainability, demands that much time be devoted to cooperation among actors. And they do not guarantee a carefree future: in all these cases, "climate change and the loss of biodiversity will remain significant challenges."
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Canada's Rich Not Contributing Fair Share in Taxes: CCPA Study
CANADA'S RICH NOT CONTRIBUTING FAIR SHARE IN TAXES: STUDY
TORONTO – More than a decade's worth of tax cuts have disproportionately lined the pockets of Canada's most affluent families, says a new tax study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The study finds the top 1 percent of families in 2005 paid a lower total tax rate than the bottom 10 percent of families.
"Canada's tax system now fails a basic test of fairness," says Marc Lee, senior economist with the CCPA's B.C. office and author of the study. "Tax cuts have contributed to a slow and steady shift to a less progressive tax system in Canada."
The study, which is the first comprehensive review of tax changes at all levels of government in Canada within the past 15 years, finds the system is delivering larger tax savings for high income families. This reinforces the growing gap in market incomes between high income families and the rest of Canadians.
"Most Canadians will be surprised by these findings because they believe we have a progressive tax system – but looking at all taxes combined, that's no longer the case."
The study, Eroding Tax Fairness: Tax Incidence in Canada, 1990 to 2005, is available at http://nl1630.policyalternatives.ca.
TORONTO – More than a decade's worth of tax cuts have disproportionately lined the pockets of Canada's most affluent families, says a new tax study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The study finds the top 1 percent of families in 2005 paid a lower total tax rate than the bottom 10 percent of families.
"Canada's tax system now fails a basic test of fairness," says Marc Lee, senior economist with the CCPA's B.C. office and author of the study. "Tax cuts have contributed to a slow and steady shift to a less progressive tax system in Canada."
The study, which is the first comprehensive review of tax changes at all levels of government in Canada within the past 15 years, finds the system is delivering larger tax savings for high income families. This reinforces the growing gap in market incomes between high income families and the rest of Canadians.
"Most Canadians will be surprised by these findings because they believe we have a progressive tax system – but looking at all taxes combined, that's no longer the case."
The study, Eroding Tax Fairness: Tax Incidence in Canada, 1990 to 2005, is available at http://nl1630.policyalternatives.ca.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
LABOUR DAY SEPTEMBER 2007: Reviving the Labour Movement Through Reviving Class Solidarity
by Socialist Project Labour Committee
As Canada and Ontario's labour movement marches in this year's Labour Day Parade it does so with something to celebrate: an increase in the provincial minimum wage. That victory, all the more significant for victories being so rare in recent times, was partial – amongst other things it is only being phased in over three years – but all victories for working people are partial. Why this achievement merits special celebration is that:
- It materially matters for hundreds of thousands of workers.
- It demonstrated the exciting possibilities of creating spaces through which immigrant workers and youth could express their frustrations and mobilize to improve their conditions.
- It opened a new door through which the unionized labour movement – in various stages of crisis since the Days of Action – might be revived: supporting the struggles of non-union workers because it is both the morally right thing to do and because it contributes to uniting and building the working class as a potential social force agent.
What next?
That victory poses a number of questions. First what will the labour movement now do to build on this momentum? One option is to move on to fight for improvements in other standards (such as paid time off). Another is to raise the ante and get unionization itself more clearly on the agenda. New minimum standards are themselves an opportunity to do so because in many cases, these minimum standards are not enforced. And so there is a powerful opening for the need for a union just to get what the law allegedly guarantees you. A further campaign might be to take on the 'temp agencies' – parasites that live off the back of workers – and restore this function to public agencies providing a social service.
Second, having experienced the potentials of collective action at the community level, how can the labour movement strengthen these capacities? One step is internal: if we really want to make some organizing breakthroughs, we will have to overcome our sectionalism (divisions over who 'gets' new members) and develop an effective degree of cooperation that puts workers and the movement first. Another is external to formal unionism: there are groups like the Workers Action Center in Toronto that currently provide services to non-union workers (and have been long-time activists in the struggle for raising the minimum wage); they should be encouraged and supported in expanding their work.
What about the people on welfare?
A third question relates to the shameful conditions of those members of the working class who, for various reasons, are currently not in the workforce or only marginally attached and who consequently depend on welfare. Welfare rates are today 40% lower in purchasing power than they were when the Conservative government launched its own version of the 'War on Poverty' in the mid-90s (and they were hardly overgenerous before then). This too must be of fundamental concern to all working people simply because of the injustice it exposes in how we treat those with disabilities, single mothers trying to raise a family on their own (poverty rates are stunningly higher for women and 280,000 Ontario children live in families who rely on social assistance), and workers who have been laid off (such as those now benefiting from the higher minimum wage but at risk of not getting full-year employment or seeing rising housing prices and the lack of affordable housing eroding any gain they thought they made). Furthermore, the low standards brought on by unemployment represent pressures to stay at any job, no matter how poor the pay and conditions and no matter how sick you might be. And this can't help but increase pressures on standards for other workers.
A coalition of anti-poverty and related groups is planning a protest this fall (September 26) to profile their plight as the Ontario election takes place. Their goal is to 'raise the rates' (bring the $10 minimum wage forward and return welfare and disability rates to their former levels with a 40% increase), build affordable and accessible housing, and access without fear to government services for non-status immigrants. This coalition – Toronto Anti-Poverty (TAP) – is committed to continuing that struggle after the election. For organized labour, the question is where do we stand? Will we identify the fight against poverty as not just a matter of charity, but a dimension of solidarity against all the manifestations of exploitation and injustice working people experience?
We have no alternative
It is crucial, in all our struggles, to recognize that we are not simply fighting against 'bad policies', but something deeper. Governments seem to have concluded that capitalism in its present phase can only reach and maintain the profits it needs by: a) limiting 'diversions' to those not in the labour market and therefore not contributing to profits; and b) keeping those in the labour market insecure and fragmented from each other – insecure about their jobs, increasingly cut off from essential services, and struggling to survive on their own rather than collectively. This will not be fundamentally changed unless we can mobilize in a way that scares them the way they have worked so hard to scare us. Real change will only come if we reject their cramped and debilitating vision of what is possible and develop the solidarity, structures and capacities to move towards an alternative vision. Their own mantra of 'there is no alternative' within capitalism is essentially an admission that capitalism has itself become a barrier to human progress and that we 'have no alternative' but to challenge capitalism itself. •
This article was originally published in The Bullet, a Socialist Project e-bulletin.
Friday, September 7, 2007
TORONTO STAR: Public historically cool to faith-based funding
Doug Hart and D.W. Livingstone
September 06, 2007
Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory's new position on funding all faith-based schools is a poor fit with public opinion.
In 20 years of polling, we have never found more than a minority in favour of any extension of public funding to private schools.
Moreover, the views of this minority do not privilege faith-based schools but prefer funding extended to all private or independent schools meeting provincial standards.
Since 1984, the OISE Survey of Educational Issues has asked Ontarians every two years about extending public funding beyond the current public and Catholic systems. In 10 separate surveys over this period, support for funding religious schools has only once reached 10 per cent (in 1992) and has usually languished at between 4 per cent and 7 per cent. In contrast, support for extending funding to all private schools has fluctuated between 17 per cent and 27 per cent.
In 2004, the last year for which specific data are available (a different question was used in our soon-to-be released 2007 survey), 7 per cent favoured government funding of religious schools but 20 per cent wanted financial support extended to all private schools. This strongly suggests that among the minority who favour extended funding, the key issue is parental choice, not equity among faith communities. (In 2000, in the wake of the United Nations Human Rights Committee finding that Ontario's policy of funding Catholic schools but not other denominational schools was discriminatory under international human rights provisions, we asked people their preference if they were forced to choose between funding schools for all religious groups or no
religious groups, including Catholics. Forced to choose on this basis, the public split down the middle: 46 per cent to fund all religious schools, 47 per cent to fund none.)
Overall, willingness to extend funding at all to private schools has been and remains a distinct minority position. Between 1984 and 2004, support has fluctuated between 25 per cent and 35 per cent. Most Ontarians continue to support either a single public system or the status quo of public and Catholic systems.
The split between these options has fluctuated over time but neither option alone has ever come close to commanding majority support.
Since full funding was extended to Catholic schools by the Conservative government in 1984, around 40 per cent have supported this option. Support for funding a single public school system, with Catholic schools converted into it or losing their public funding, has hovered around 30 per cent.
Our 2007 survey uses a more general question (suitable for the national survey conducted with the Canadian Education Association this year) asking whether only currently funded public schools or all public and private schools should receive funding. In Ontario, we find 58 per cent in favour of currently funded public schools and 39 per cent willing to extend funding to all public and private schools.
The Conservative party proposal is in line with public thinking in making acceptance of the provincial curriculum, province-wide testing and teachers certified by the Ontario College of Teachers necessary conditions for public funding.
There is widespread unanimity on these conditions among all political parties and the general public. In 2002, when the issue was tax credits for parents of private school students, the OISE
survey asked whether the public agreed or disagreed that to be eligible for the tax credit system private schools should have to accept each of those three conditions. The overwhelming
majority (around 80 per cent) agreed that all three should be conditions for eligibility.
The whole issue of which schools should be funded is caught in a long-term gridlock as far as public support is concerned. There is no consensus on any basic option – a single public system, the status quo or extending funding to all private schools.
Hence, there is no net public pressure for change. The current Conservative policy to fund faith-based private schools charts a course through a political landscape at odds with most public opinion on the issue.
If politicians are going over this ground again, they might pause to check that their maps take account of the landscape as the electorate actually sees it.
Finally, while strong views on each of these options surely will be expressed in the current election, it should be kept in mind that whatever their views on extended school funding, Ontarians show similarly strong support for greater government funding of elementary and secondary education, and a willingness to accept higher taxes to improve public education.
In groups of all religious persuasions there is a similar acceptance of the need to improve the resource base for public schools.
Doug Hart and D.W. Livingstone are authors of Public Attitudes Towards Education on Ontario 2007: the 16th OISE/UT Survey.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
September 06, 2007
Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory's new position on funding all faith-based schools is a poor fit with public opinion.
In 20 years of polling, we have never found more than a minority in favour of any extension of public funding to private schools.
Moreover, the views of this minority do not privilege faith-based schools but prefer funding extended to all private or independent schools meeting provincial standards.
Since 1984, the OISE Survey of Educational Issues has asked Ontarians every two years about extending public funding beyond the current public and Catholic systems. In 10 separate surveys over this period, support for funding religious schools has only once reached 10 per cent (in 1992) and has usually languished at between 4 per cent and 7 per cent. In contrast, support for extending funding to all private schools has fluctuated between 17 per cent and 27 per cent.
In 2004, the last year for which specific data are available (a different question was used in our soon-to-be released 2007 survey), 7 per cent favoured government funding of religious schools but 20 per cent wanted financial support extended to all private schools. This strongly suggests that among the minority who favour extended funding, the key issue is parental choice, not equity among faith communities. (In 2000, in the wake of the United Nations Human Rights Committee finding that Ontario's policy of funding Catholic schools but not other denominational schools was discriminatory under international human rights provisions, we asked people their preference if they were forced to choose between funding schools for all religious groups or no
religious groups, including Catholics. Forced to choose on this basis, the public split down the middle: 46 per cent to fund all religious schools, 47 per cent to fund none.)
Overall, willingness to extend funding at all to private schools has been and remains a distinct minority position. Between 1984 and 2004, support has fluctuated between 25 per cent and 35 per cent. Most Ontarians continue to support either a single public system or the status quo of public and Catholic systems.
The split between these options has fluctuated over time but neither option alone has ever come close to commanding majority support.
Since full funding was extended to Catholic schools by the Conservative government in 1984, around 40 per cent have supported this option. Support for funding a single public school system, with Catholic schools converted into it or losing their public funding, has hovered around 30 per cent.
Our 2007 survey uses a more general question (suitable for the national survey conducted with the Canadian Education Association this year) asking whether only currently funded public schools or all public and private schools should receive funding. In Ontario, we find 58 per cent in favour of currently funded public schools and 39 per cent willing to extend funding to all public and private schools.
The Conservative party proposal is in line with public thinking in making acceptance of the provincial curriculum, province-wide testing and teachers certified by the Ontario College of Teachers necessary conditions for public funding.
There is widespread unanimity on these conditions among all political parties and the general public. In 2002, when the issue was tax credits for parents of private school students, the OISE
survey asked whether the public agreed or disagreed that to be eligible for the tax credit system private schools should have to accept each of those three conditions. The overwhelming
majority (around 80 per cent) agreed that all three should be conditions for eligibility.
The whole issue of which schools should be funded is caught in a long-term gridlock as far as public support is concerned. There is no consensus on any basic option – a single public system, the status quo or extending funding to all private schools.
Hence, there is no net public pressure for change. The current Conservative policy to fund faith-based private schools charts a course through a political landscape at odds with most public opinion on the issue.
If politicians are going over this ground again, they might pause to check that their maps take account of the landscape as the electorate actually sees it.
Finally, while strong views on each of these options surely will be expressed in the current election, it should be kept in mind that whatever their views on extended school funding, Ontarians show similarly strong support for greater government funding of elementary and secondary education, and a willingness to accept higher taxes to improve public education.
In groups of all religious persuasions there is a similar acceptance of the need to improve the resource base for public schools.
Doug Hart and D.W. Livingstone are authors of Public Attitudes Towards Education on Ontario 2007: the 16th OISE/UT Survey.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
TORONTO STAR: Textbooks economical with words about co-ops
Jack Quarter, Daniel Schugurensky, Erica McCollum and Laurie Mook
Sep 5, 2007
A recent study conducted through the Social Economy Centre at the University of Toronto raises questions about the narrow focus of business and economics textbooks in Ontario's high schools.
The research by professor Daniel Schugurensky and MA student Erica McCollum of OISE/ University of Toronto, examined the contents of 22 business textbooks containing 11,375 pages currently used in Ontario high schools.
In general, these textbooks had very little about non-profits and co-operatives.
When all of the materials referring to co-operatives were totalled, they amounted to 35 pages, or 0.3 per cent of the 11,375 pages in the 22 books.
For non-profits, this amounted to 107 pages, or 0.9 per cent of the total pages. In other words, there is not a lot about these types of organizations within the business texts used in Ontario high schools.
A similar study in 1995 (by professor Jack Quarter and then PhD student Alison Davidson also of OISE/UT), upon which the current study was based, had strikingly similar findings.
Not much has changed in the past 12 years with regard to the treatment of co-operatives and non-profits in business textbooks in Ontario.
Do these types of organizations have a place in business textbooks and business programs?
Arguably, these organizations are not in the mainstream of the business world, but they do have a significant impact upon the economy. A survey of the non-profit sector undertaken by Statistics Canada in 2003 (the National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations) found that there were 161,000 incorporated non-profits in Canada, about half of which had charitable status registrations.
The same survey estimated that non-profits had revenues of $112 billion, employ 2 million people (54 per cent full-time), and have a volunteer labour force estimated to be another 1 million full-time equivalent jobs (about 2 billion hours).
The stereotype of non-profits is that their revenues are unearned (donations and grants), but the Statistics Canada survey indicates that 35 per cent is earned through the marketplace; in fact, there are a significant number of non-profits that compete successfully in the market with private sector firms (for example, the YMCAs).
Likewise, the stereotype of co-operatives as small and economically insignificant is belied by the data. For instance, the Co-operatives Secretariat, a federal government agency, reported that in 2003 approximately 9,200 co-operatives brought in $35.8 billion of revenues and employed around 155,000.
Agriculture co-operatives, although having declined in importance due to the demutualization of some of the largest ones, were still marketing and processing a large share of farmers' production, notably in poultry, dairy and hogs. Two co-operatives are among the top 12 corporations in the food and beverage-manufacturing sector in Canada.
Moreover, eight non-financial co-operatives are among the top 500 corporations in Canada; two of these are among the top 100 corporations.
Le Mouvement des caisses Desjardins, the umbrella organization for credit unions/caisses populaires in francophone Canada, is the largest employer in Quebec and, with a workforce of more than 39,000, is the sixth largest financial institution in Canada with assets of $118 billion in 2005.
These organizations, a group that we classify as part of the social economy, provide flexible, sustainable and innovative approaches to achieving social and economic objectives.
Although they are not the mainstream of the economy, they employ and train people, create economic growth, provide social support, foster community development, and have valuable assets.
Furthermore, they mobilize large numbers of volunteers who contribute to these organizations but whose contributions are typically ignored in conventional accounting.
These organizations are critical to our diverse Canadian landscape, yet the business and economics textbooks of our high-school students and future leaders are strikingly silent about them.
Our research has focused upon the approved textbooks in Ontario's high school business and economics courses.
We haven't reviewed the major business programs in universities, but we know the terrain there is also relatively barren. Something is missing!
Jack Quarter and Laurie Mook are co-directors of the Social Economy Centre at the University of Toronto; Daniel Schugurensky is director of the collaborative graduate program in community development at the University of Toronto, and Erica McCollum is completing her MA at OISE/UT.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Sep 5, 2007
A recent study conducted through the Social Economy Centre at the University of Toronto raises questions about the narrow focus of business and economics textbooks in Ontario's high schools.
The research by professor Daniel Schugurensky and MA student Erica McCollum of OISE/ University of Toronto, examined the contents of 22 business textbooks containing 11,375 pages currently used in Ontario high schools.
In general, these textbooks had very little about non-profits and co-operatives.
When all of the materials referring to co-operatives were totalled, they amounted to 35 pages, or 0.3 per cent of the 11,375 pages in the 22 books.
For non-profits, this amounted to 107 pages, or 0.9 per cent of the total pages. In other words, there is not a lot about these types of organizations within the business texts used in Ontario high schools.
A similar study in 1995 (by professor Jack Quarter and then PhD student Alison Davidson also of OISE/UT), upon which the current study was based, had strikingly similar findings.
Not much has changed in the past 12 years with regard to the treatment of co-operatives and non-profits in business textbooks in Ontario.
Do these types of organizations have a place in business textbooks and business programs?
Arguably, these organizations are not in the mainstream of the business world, but they do have a significant impact upon the economy. A survey of the non-profit sector undertaken by Statistics Canada in 2003 (the National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations) found that there were 161,000 incorporated non-profits in Canada, about half of which had charitable status registrations.
The same survey estimated that non-profits had revenues of $112 billion, employ 2 million people (54 per cent full-time), and have a volunteer labour force estimated to be another 1 million full-time equivalent jobs (about 2 billion hours).
The stereotype of non-profits is that their revenues are unearned (donations and grants), but the Statistics Canada survey indicates that 35 per cent is earned through the marketplace; in fact, there are a significant number of non-profits that compete successfully in the market with private sector firms (for example, the YMCAs).
Likewise, the stereotype of co-operatives as small and economically insignificant is belied by the data. For instance, the Co-operatives Secretariat, a federal government agency, reported that in 2003 approximately 9,200 co-operatives brought in $35.8 billion of revenues and employed around 155,000.
Agriculture co-operatives, although having declined in importance due to the demutualization of some of the largest ones, were still marketing and processing a large share of farmers' production, notably in poultry, dairy and hogs. Two co-operatives are among the top 12 corporations in the food and beverage-manufacturing sector in Canada.
Moreover, eight non-financial co-operatives are among the top 500 corporations in Canada; two of these are among the top 100 corporations.
Le Mouvement des caisses Desjardins, the umbrella organization for credit unions/caisses populaires in francophone Canada, is the largest employer in Quebec and, with a workforce of more than 39,000, is the sixth largest financial institution in Canada with assets of $118 billion in 2005.
These organizations, a group that we classify as part of the social economy, provide flexible, sustainable and innovative approaches to achieving social and economic objectives.
Although they are not the mainstream of the economy, they employ and train people, create economic growth, provide social support, foster community development, and have valuable assets.
Furthermore, they mobilize large numbers of volunteers who contribute to these organizations but whose contributions are typically ignored in conventional accounting.
These organizations are critical to our diverse Canadian landscape, yet the business and economics textbooks of our high-school students and future leaders are strikingly silent about them.
Our research has focused upon the approved textbooks in Ontario's high school business and economics courses.
We haven't reviewed the major business programs in universities, but we know the terrain there is also relatively barren. Something is missing!
Jack Quarter and Laurie Mook are co-directors of the Social Economy Centre at the University of Toronto; Daniel Schugurensky is director of the collaborative graduate program in community development at the University of Toronto, and Erica McCollum is completing her MA at OISE/UT.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Immigrant nonunion workers in a Chicago factory: Victory on the picket line
August 17, 2007
LEE SUSTAR and ORLANDO SEPULDEVA report on a victorious strike by immigrant workers in Chicago who walked out over threats to terminate them based on immigration status--and the implications of this struggle for the labor and immigrant rights movement.
THE REMARKABLE struggle of immigrant strikers at South Chicago’s Cygnus Corp., a nonunion soap factory, ended August 10 as improbably as it began two weeks earlier--with dozens of workers jammed into a temporary staffing agency’s office, voting on the spot to accept the agency’s offer to send more than 100 back into the plant without penalty--and with the threat of termination withdrawn.
The Mexican immigrant workers prevailed over a plant management backed up by its parent company, Marietta Corp., a large manufacturer of private-label soaps and detergents for huge retailers like Wal-Mart, Target and Walgreens. Marietta, in turn, is controlled by Ares Management, a private equity firm worth $16 billion.
Striking Cygnus therefore meant striking Corporate America, a struggle with impossibly long odds.
Nevertheless, there was no hesitation when workers decided to strike over management’s plan to terminate anyone whose immigration status couldn’t be verified by August 10.
Cygnus had used Social Security “no-match” letters--notification from the government that the Social Security numbers on file don’t match those given by employees--to threaten the jobs of Cygnus’ few permanent workers.
For their part, the temps were told that the company was switching to a new agency, and workers would have to reverify their status. Similar threats loom for immigrant workers across the U.S., as the government implements new rules in which no-match letters can be used as grounds for termination of employment, or worse.
Already, employers across the U.S. have begun using no-match letters as a pretext to fire workers. Cygnus management no doubt felt it could do the same, having long kept workers toiling for minimum wage or a bit more, and with no benefits.
Instead, the company faced a near-total strike, spirited picket lines and growing solidarity, including a promise of support from organized labor. A strikebreaking operation fizzled, and more and more trucks left the Cygnus plant without loads. The handful of people still working inside the plant passed word to strikers about plummeting production.
So nearly two weeks after provoking the walkout, management invited permanent employees in for four hours of negotiations that ended in an offer: Would they come back to work for the old rates of pay, with all threats of termination withdrawn?
The workers didn’t say yes. After all, they weren’t in negotiations for themselves, but as the chosen representatives of all the strikers. They told Cygnus boss John White that they’d get back to him once they reported to the rest of the workers.
Manuel, a permanent employee, proposed a meeting in a nearby public park to discuss the deal. There, Edith, a permanent employee and strike leader, put it this way: “There are no permanent and temporary workers--we are all workers.”
Martín Unzueta, the organizer of the Chicago Workers Collaborative and an adviser to the workers, proposed a solution: showing up the following morning at 7:30 a.m. at the temp agency, Total Staffing, to demand the same deal as the permanent employees had received. The workers would return to work together--or not at all.
It turned out that the temp agency, Total Staffing, had prepared a letter offering individuals the opportunity to return to work at Cygnus. But for the temp workers--who comprised 110 out of the 118 workers in the plant, even though many had been on the job for years--the deal wasn’t quite done. It had to be voted on first.
As they made a unanimous show of hands in the office on Chicago’s South Side, all a flustered Total Staffing manager could do was order reporters and solidarity activists to get out. The manager didn’t dare ask the permanent Cygnus employees to leave, however. They remained to discuss the offer with the temps, vote on it, and, afterward, exchanged congratulations.
One striker, Julia, explained how unity among the Cygnus workers and solidarity from others led to victory. “We went on strike, you could say, with our eyes shut, but now we know that there are people who we can count on,” she said. “Y que los demás no piensen que no se puede, porque si se puede--let no one think that it can’t be done, because it can be done.”
As Ignacio, a temp worker who’d been working in the plant for 11 months, put it, “One of the lessons is that unity makes us strong. Even if we were simple employees, we made a big company tremble and move. This victory is for us workers, but also for all the working class and for all the community groups that were here supporting us.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IN FACT, community support for Cygnus workers first took shape more than a year before the strike, when they made contact with young immigrant rights activists in the South East Chicago Committee for Immigrant Rights (SECCIR).
One SECCIR activist, Olga Bautista, had worked in the accounting department at Cygnus in 2004. Two years later, she passed out leaflets in the parking lot to build support for the March 10, 2006, mass immigrant rights march that sparked a wave of similar mobilizations across the U.S.
One of Cygnus’ permanent employees, Edith, took a flyer and asked for suggestions on how to deal with the no-match letters that the company had received a few months earlier. Bautista put her in touch with Unzueta of the Chicago Workers Collaborative, which focuses on immigrant workers’ rights.
Unzueta contacted the company and informed them that the no-match letters were not intended to indicate immigration status, and required no action on their part. Management let the issue drop.
Cygnus workers, meanwhile, began organizing. Many attended the March 10 protest, and almost all of them turned out for the follow-up protest on May Day 2006, as Edith negotiated with management to give workers the day off in exchange for a Saturday workday to make up for lost production. “We even had a bus pick them up at the plant to take them to the march,” Bautista recalled.
Over the next few months, workers discussed problems in the plant--not just low wages, but unsafe working conditions. According to one worker, management issues only gloves, but not masks or work boots, to workers who mix chemicals to manufacture detergents and soaps.
The unlabeled storage tanks outside the plant contain many toxic chemicals, which often spill out of vats and create noxious fumes and slippery floors. According to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, six workers were taken to hospitals last December 18 after a hazardous material got on their skin.
Smaller-scale accidents are routine, a worker told reporters on the picket line. He pointed to chemical burns not only on his forearms, but his chest and stomach, where acid had burned through his street clothes. “They have the masks, but they don’t give them out,” he said. Another worker complained that only one person in management in the plant was authorized to call an ambulance in case of emergencies.
Another simmering grievance was racism and discrimination. Workers in the plant complain that Mexicans were treated badly by management and had to endure open racist abuse. One woman was demoted from a supervisory position because she couldn’t speak English; her pay was cut.
So as this year’s May Day protest approached, the mood at Cygnus was different. Workers were more confident, and they began asking for a raise. Management took a tougher line, saying no to any negotiated time off for workers to attend the march this year.
A few weeks later, Cygnus’ new human resources manager, Mary Ann Vasquez, told permanent employees that they would have to clear up the no-match letters. At the same time, she informed temporary workers that they’d have to switch from Total Staffing to a different temp agency, Staffmark, and verify their immigration status in doing so.
Anyone who failed to comply would be terminated by the August 10 deadline. The workers’ response: an indefinite strike.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE CYGNUS plant is an unlikely place to become a focal point of labor solidarity. Never unionized, it is located literally at the southern edge of the Chicago city limits, sandwiched between two highly active freight railroad lines that regularly back up local traffic.
Semi-trucks loaded with freight and cartage haulers on their way to nearby landfills are often forced to wait 20 or 30 minutes for trains to pass. When they’re finally able to roll, the drivers, well behind schedule, hit the accelerator hard, kicking up great clouds of dust as they rumble past the plant without a glance.
But on July 30, it all looked different. Surprised drivers looked down on an improvised picket line, with homemade signs and chants. Many waved and honked to show their support.
Each day after, the picket line was better organized--a schedule worked out, donated food and drinks distributed, a bullhorn to amplify chants. Activists from a number of organizations walked the line--including the Chicago Workers Collaborative, SECCIR, the Juan Diego Community Center, the International Socialist Organization and individual immigrant rights activists.
The owner of the house next door to the plant, himself a Mexican immigrant and factory worker, allowed workers taking a break from the sun-scorched picket line to sit on his shaded front steps, store their supplies and use his bathroom.
Strikers soon produced a leaflet explaining to drivers who were delivering to Cygnus that a strike was on, and asking them not to cross the picket line.
One nonunion driver, an African American, felt compelled to make his delivery. But he later came to walk the line and pledge his support, identifying the immigrant rights movement with the civil rights struggles of decades past. His presence had a visible impact on strikers, especially since Cygnus management had played the race card by hiring African Americans as strikebreakers.
In more than a few cases, however, Teamster drivers caught sight of the picket line, took a leaflet and drove on without making deliveries, to the cheers of strikers and their supporters.
And on August 1, the second workday of the strike, organized labor appeared on the picket line itself in the form of four business representatives from International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 8. The union had gotten a call about the strike from Ramón Becerra, an official of the Chicago Federation of Labor, who is also a leader in the Chicago chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement.
Becerra learned of the strike from Jorge Mújica, a journalist, labor organizer and leading figure in Chicago’s March 10 Movement, the coalition central to the area’s mass immigrant rights marches. Mújica, like Unzueta, had become an adviser to the strikers and moved to enlist union support.
The difficulty was that District 8 had no Spanish speakers on staff. But with Mújica interpreting, union business representative Karl Sarpolis made it clear that the union supported the workers. “We know how these companies discriminate against minorities,” he said, leaving behind a petition to join the union. When he returned two days later, 90 workers had signed up.
In a picket-line meeting, the workers elected a provisional bargaining committee in case the union was successful in getting management to negotiate, and decided to hold a meeting with the union the following Saturday, August 4, at the Juan Diego center on the East Side.
Some 60 workers turned out to meet with IAM District 8’s directing business representative Carl Gallman, along with Sarpolis and Armando Arreola, a business rep from IAM Local 701 and a native Spanish speaker who had been sent by his local president, Bill Davis, to provide additional support.
Gallman, a veteran of the IAM’s glory days in the 1970s, recognized what was in front of him: a roomful of determined, militant strikers. The union was willing to try to organize the plant--permanent and temporary workers alike, he said. “We’re going to help you, whether or not you join the union,” he declared.
The union officials and the workers had independently come to the same conclusion: First, negotiate to get everyone back to work, and leave wages and conditions for later. After Gallman and the other IAM officials left, Mújica chaired the meeting, as workers discussed how to improve picket lines and organize support.
Even though these mostly minimum-wage workers had gone a week without wages, and of course had no strike benefits, no one complained. The highly focused discussion was all about how to take the struggle forward. Afterward, solidarity activists began to say out loud what they had barely begun to think: The strike could actually win.
The victory, as it turned out, was not the result of organized labor’s support. The following Monday, the IAM’s Gallman called Cygnus to speak to management and claim the right to represent the workers. While this certainly added to the pressure on management, his message wasn’t returned, and matters went no further.
The Democratic presidential debates in Chicago, sponsored by the AFL-CIO, offered an additional chance to enlist labor support. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka took a copy of the fundraising letter, expressed sympathy and said the federation’s organizing department should follow up. Linda Chavez-Thompson, the federation’s executive vice-president, said the same. Local Chicago labor leaders also showed interest.
In the end, however, the workers won without much material support from unions, where the organizing machinery is often rusty and, even in the best cases, takes time to gear up.
A notable exception was United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 881, which pledged $500. In hindsight, solidarity committee members realized they should have taken up a collection directly from the 17,000 union members who attended the AFL-CIO-sponsored debates.
But while labor was slow to move, the workers’ own organization developed daily.
Two days after meeting with the IAM, several workers rallied alongside Dunkin Donunts workers fired after receiving no-match letters; that evening, 30 turned out to meet with labor lawyer Chris Williams, who provides legal resources to the Chicago Workers Collaborative.
On August 8, workers’ morale got a boost when the Chicago Tribune made their struggle the top story on its front page, adding to widespread coverage in the Spanish media. A delegation from the Juan Diego community center managed to get into the plant to demand negotiations with workers, succeeding where a previous attempt failed.
That same day, several workers joined dozens of supporters at a fundraiser organized by the Cygnus Workers Solidarity Committee, which had itself formed four days earlier. More than $1,300 was raised, including the UFCW donation--money that was quickly turned into bags of groceries for hard-pressed strikers’ families.
Just as notable, though, was the character of the event itself, which linked immigrant rights and labor activists in an evening filled with music and interspersed with emotional speeches by strikers and supporters. Performers included Chuy Negrete, a well-known singer; the dance group Azteca Nahuil; and Iván Resendiz, a young classical guitarist. The event ran late as the crowd sang folk songs from the Mexican Revolution and the labor movement.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THAT SAME evening, the workers’ chosen negotiators sat down for several hours with a representative from Cygnus’ parent company, Marietta Corp.
Edith, the strike activist, said he presented himself as a neutral arbitrator prepared to settle the dispute. But Edith and the rest of the workers didn’t buy it. They said they would negotiate only in the presence of their attorney, Chris Williams.
At a picket line meeting the following day, the workers reiterated their demands: Everyone would come back to work, or no one. No agreements would be made in the bargaining sessions. Workers would vote together on whether to accept any management offer.
“That’s the Mexican tradition,” explained Jorge Mújica. “A negotiating committee is not a signing committee. When there’s a strike, workers declare themselves to be in permanent assembly,” voting on whether or not to accept management’s offer.
Although none of the leading strike activists had any experience in unions in the U.S. or Mexico, workers were acting in that tradition. “Everyone has an uncle, a brother, a cousin who has done this,” Mújica said.
As the ensuing four-hour negotiations wore on, it became clear that management was ready to throw in the towel. Loading docks were vacant, trucks left the gates empty, and a huge spill of dishwashing soap washed out into the parking lot, a mess that would cost at least a couple of hours of production, according to the workers.
The scabbing operation had descended into farce, with high-school aged youths swarming around a beleaguered Cygnus manager trying to sort out assignments during the afternoon shift change. Pallets loaded with dish soap had been dropped at crazy angles just inside the plant entrance, well away from the loading dock.
Security guards, who days earlier had blustered about arresting strike supporters, wandered about listlessly, ignoring two reporters who roamed the employee parking lot.
Management capitulated, and Total Staffing fell into line. The only outstanding issue at press time was the status of a supervisor who had joined workers on the picket line.
Even so, workers had won a victory with far-reaching implications for both the immigrant rights movement and the unions. “The labor movement has a lot to learn from these workers, because the labor movement can’t be strong if it sets immigrant workers aside,” said Martín Unzueta, who has met dozens of workers in recent years who want to organize, but can’t find a union to follow up. “The immigrant workers are ready to be organized.”
Like Unzueta, Jorge Mújica thinks the Cygnus victory can inspire further advances. “People remembered how to fight,” he said. “We’re used to having street demonstrations in Mexico all the time. But when people get here, they live hidden, very silent lives.
“But this whole process, from March 10 last year to May Day this year, is about showing that you can fight. It was after May Day this year that they asked for a pay raise. This wouldn’t have happened without the marches. If the workers hadn’t participated once or twice, they wouldn’t have gone on strike.”
Edith, the strike leader who organized workers to participate in the marches, said the struggle for better wages and conditions would continue. “I’m happy because while we started with fear, now we realize that we can do lots of things if we’re united,” she said. “If [the issue of the temporary workers] didn’t get resolved, we would have continued the strike, but with the help of everybody, because we have no union.
“The workers have to realize that they don’t have to be afraid, because here we taught them that unity is the way forward.”
Shaun Harkin contributed to this report.
-----------------------------
What you can do
Cygnus workers are still in need of financial support after surviving their walkout without strike benefits. Make out checks or money orders to the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative (with “Cygnus workers” in the memo line), and send to: Cygnus Workers Solidarity Committee, c/o Chicago Workers Collaborative, P.O. Box 08048, Chicago, IL 60608. Call 773-653-3664 for more information.
From Socialist Worker Online - http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/640/640_06_Cygnus.shtml
LEE SUSTAR and ORLANDO SEPULDEVA report on a victorious strike by immigrant workers in Chicago who walked out over threats to terminate them based on immigration status--and the implications of this struggle for the labor and immigrant rights movement.
THE REMARKABLE struggle of immigrant strikers at South Chicago’s Cygnus Corp., a nonunion soap factory, ended August 10 as improbably as it began two weeks earlier--with dozens of workers jammed into a temporary staffing agency’s office, voting on the spot to accept the agency’s offer to send more than 100 back into the plant without penalty--and with the threat of termination withdrawn.
The Mexican immigrant workers prevailed over a plant management backed up by its parent company, Marietta Corp., a large manufacturer of private-label soaps and detergents for huge retailers like Wal-Mart, Target and Walgreens. Marietta, in turn, is controlled by Ares Management, a private equity firm worth $16 billion.
Striking Cygnus therefore meant striking Corporate America, a struggle with impossibly long odds.
Nevertheless, there was no hesitation when workers decided to strike over management’s plan to terminate anyone whose immigration status couldn’t be verified by August 10.
Cygnus had used Social Security “no-match” letters--notification from the government that the Social Security numbers on file don’t match those given by employees--to threaten the jobs of Cygnus’ few permanent workers.
For their part, the temps were told that the company was switching to a new agency, and workers would have to reverify their status. Similar threats loom for immigrant workers across the U.S., as the government implements new rules in which no-match letters can be used as grounds for termination of employment, or worse.
Already, employers across the U.S. have begun using no-match letters as a pretext to fire workers. Cygnus management no doubt felt it could do the same, having long kept workers toiling for minimum wage or a bit more, and with no benefits.
Instead, the company faced a near-total strike, spirited picket lines and growing solidarity, including a promise of support from organized labor. A strikebreaking operation fizzled, and more and more trucks left the Cygnus plant without loads. The handful of people still working inside the plant passed word to strikers about plummeting production.
So nearly two weeks after provoking the walkout, management invited permanent employees in for four hours of negotiations that ended in an offer: Would they come back to work for the old rates of pay, with all threats of termination withdrawn?
The workers didn’t say yes. After all, they weren’t in negotiations for themselves, but as the chosen representatives of all the strikers. They told Cygnus boss John White that they’d get back to him once they reported to the rest of the workers.
Manuel, a permanent employee, proposed a meeting in a nearby public park to discuss the deal. There, Edith, a permanent employee and strike leader, put it this way: “There are no permanent and temporary workers--we are all workers.”
Martín Unzueta, the organizer of the Chicago Workers Collaborative and an adviser to the workers, proposed a solution: showing up the following morning at 7:30 a.m. at the temp agency, Total Staffing, to demand the same deal as the permanent employees had received. The workers would return to work together--or not at all.
It turned out that the temp agency, Total Staffing, had prepared a letter offering individuals the opportunity to return to work at Cygnus. But for the temp workers--who comprised 110 out of the 118 workers in the plant, even though many had been on the job for years--the deal wasn’t quite done. It had to be voted on first.
As they made a unanimous show of hands in the office on Chicago’s South Side, all a flustered Total Staffing manager could do was order reporters and solidarity activists to get out. The manager didn’t dare ask the permanent Cygnus employees to leave, however. They remained to discuss the offer with the temps, vote on it, and, afterward, exchanged congratulations.
One striker, Julia, explained how unity among the Cygnus workers and solidarity from others led to victory. “We went on strike, you could say, with our eyes shut, but now we know that there are people who we can count on,” she said. “Y que los demás no piensen que no se puede, porque si se puede--let no one think that it can’t be done, because it can be done.”
As Ignacio, a temp worker who’d been working in the plant for 11 months, put it, “One of the lessons is that unity makes us strong. Even if we were simple employees, we made a big company tremble and move. This victory is for us workers, but also for all the working class and for all the community groups that were here supporting us.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IN FACT, community support for Cygnus workers first took shape more than a year before the strike, when they made contact with young immigrant rights activists in the South East Chicago Committee for Immigrant Rights (SECCIR).
One SECCIR activist, Olga Bautista, had worked in the accounting department at Cygnus in 2004. Two years later, she passed out leaflets in the parking lot to build support for the March 10, 2006, mass immigrant rights march that sparked a wave of similar mobilizations across the U.S.
One of Cygnus’ permanent employees, Edith, took a flyer and asked for suggestions on how to deal with the no-match letters that the company had received a few months earlier. Bautista put her in touch with Unzueta of the Chicago Workers Collaborative, which focuses on immigrant workers’ rights.
Unzueta contacted the company and informed them that the no-match letters were not intended to indicate immigration status, and required no action on their part. Management let the issue drop.
Cygnus workers, meanwhile, began organizing. Many attended the March 10 protest, and almost all of them turned out for the follow-up protest on May Day 2006, as Edith negotiated with management to give workers the day off in exchange for a Saturday workday to make up for lost production. “We even had a bus pick them up at the plant to take them to the march,” Bautista recalled.
Over the next few months, workers discussed problems in the plant--not just low wages, but unsafe working conditions. According to one worker, management issues only gloves, but not masks or work boots, to workers who mix chemicals to manufacture detergents and soaps.
The unlabeled storage tanks outside the plant contain many toxic chemicals, which often spill out of vats and create noxious fumes and slippery floors. According to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, six workers were taken to hospitals last December 18 after a hazardous material got on their skin.
Smaller-scale accidents are routine, a worker told reporters on the picket line. He pointed to chemical burns not only on his forearms, but his chest and stomach, where acid had burned through his street clothes. “They have the masks, but they don’t give them out,” he said. Another worker complained that only one person in management in the plant was authorized to call an ambulance in case of emergencies.
Another simmering grievance was racism and discrimination. Workers in the plant complain that Mexicans were treated badly by management and had to endure open racist abuse. One woman was demoted from a supervisory position because she couldn’t speak English; her pay was cut.
So as this year’s May Day protest approached, the mood at Cygnus was different. Workers were more confident, and they began asking for a raise. Management took a tougher line, saying no to any negotiated time off for workers to attend the march this year.
A few weeks later, Cygnus’ new human resources manager, Mary Ann Vasquez, told permanent employees that they would have to clear up the no-match letters. At the same time, she informed temporary workers that they’d have to switch from Total Staffing to a different temp agency, Staffmark, and verify their immigration status in doing so.
Anyone who failed to comply would be terminated by the August 10 deadline. The workers’ response: an indefinite strike.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE CYGNUS plant is an unlikely place to become a focal point of labor solidarity. Never unionized, it is located literally at the southern edge of the Chicago city limits, sandwiched between two highly active freight railroad lines that regularly back up local traffic.
Semi-trucks loaded with freight and cartage haulers on their way to nearby landfills are often forced to wait 20 or 30 minutes for trains to pass. When they’re finally able to roll, the drivers, well behind schedule, hit the accelerator hard, kicking up great clouds of dust as they rumble past the plant without a glance.
But on July 30, it all looked different. Surprised drivers looked down on an improvised picket line, with homemade signs and chants. Many waved and honked to show their support.
Each day after, the picket line was better organized--a schedule worked out, donated food and drinks distributed, a bullhorn to amplify chants. Activists from a number of organizations walked the line--including the Chicago Workers Collaborative, SECCIR, the Juan Diego Community Center, the International Socialist Organization and individual immigrant rights activists.
The owner of the house next door to the plant, himself a Mexican immigrant and factory worker, allowed workers taking a break from the sun-scorched picket line to sit on his shaded front steps, store their supplies and use his bathroom.
Strikers soon produced a leaflet explaining to drivers who were delivering to Cygnus that a strike was on, and asking them not to cross the picket line.
One nonunion driver, an African American, felt compelled to make his delivery. But he later came to walk the line and pledge his support, identifying the immigrant rights movement with the civil rights struggles of decades past. His presence had a visible impact on strikers, especially since Cygnus management had played the race card by hiring African Americans as strikebreakers.
In more than a few cases, however, Teamster drivers caught sight of the picket line, took a leaflet and drove on without making deliveries, to the cheers of strikers and their supporters.
And on August 1, the second workday of the strike, organized labor appeared on the picket line itself in the form of four business representatives from International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 8. The union had gotten a call about the strike from Ramón Becerra, an official of the Chicago Federation of Labor, who is also a leader in the Chicago chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement.
Becerra learned of the strike from Jorge Mújica, a journalist, labor organizer and leading figure in Chicago’s March 10 Movement, the coalition central to the area’s mass immigrant rights marches. Mújica, like Unzueta, had become an adviser to the strikers and moved to enlist union support.
The difficulty was that District 8 had no Spanish speakers on staff. But with Mújica interpreting, union business representative Karl Sarpolis made it clear that the union supported the workers. “We know how these companies discriminate against minorities,” he said, leaving behind a petition to join the union. When he returned two days later, 90 workers had signed up.
In a picket-line meeting, the workers elected a provisional bargaining committee in case the union was successful in getting management to negotiate, and decided to hold a meeting with the union the following Saturday, August 4, at the Juan Diego center on the East Side.
Some 60 workers turned out to meet with IAM District 8’s directing business representative Carl Gallman, along with Sarpolis and Armando Arreola, a business rep from IAM Local 701 and a native Spanish speaker who had been sent by his local president, Bill Davis, to provide additional support.
Gallman, a veteran of the IAM’s glory days in the 1970s, recognized what was in front of him: a roomful of determined, militant strikers. The union was willing to try to organize the plant--permanent and temporary workers alike, he said. “We’re going to help you, whether or not you join the union,” he declared.
The union officials and the workers had independently come to the same conclusion: First, negotiate to get everyone back to work, and leave wages and conditions for later. After Gallman and the other IAM officials left, Mújica chaired the meeting, as workers discussed how to improve picket lines and organize support.
Even though these mostly minimum-wage workers had gone a week without wages, and of course had no strike benefits, no one complained. The highly focused discussion was all about how to take the struggle forward. Afterward, solidarity activists began to say out loud what they had barely begun to think: The strike could actually win.
The victory, as it turned out, was not the result of organized labor’s support. The following Monday, the IAM’s Gallman called Cygnus to speak to management and claim the right to represent the workers. While this certainly added to the pressure on management, his message wasn’t returned, and matters went no further.
The Democratic presidential debates in Chicago, sponsored by the AFL-CIO, offered an additional chance to enlist labor support. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka took a copy of the fundraising letter, expressed sympathy and said the federation’s organizing department should follow up. Linda Chavez-Thompson, the federation’s executive vice-president, said the same. Local Chicago labor leaders also showed interest.
In the end, however, the workers won without much material support from unions, where the organizing machinery is often rusty and, even in the best cases, takes time to gear up.
A notable exception was United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 881, which pledged $500. In hindsight, solidarity committee members realized they should have taken up a collection directly from the 17,000 union members who attended the AFL-CIO-sponsored debates.
But while labor was slow to move, the workers’ own organization developed daily.
Two days after meeting with the IAM, several workers rallied alongside Dunkin Donunts workers fired after receiving no-match letters; that evening, 30 turned out to meet with labor lawyer Chris Williams, who provides legal resources to the Chicago Workers Collaborative.
On August 8, workers’ morale got a boost when the Chicago Tribune made their struggle the top story on its front page, adding to widespread coverage in the Spanish media. A delegation from the Juan Diego community center managed to get into the plant to demand negotiations with workers, succeeding where a previous attempt failed.
That same day, several workers joined dozens of supporters at a fundraiser organized by the Cygnus Workers Solidarity Committee, which had itself formed four days earlier. More than $1,300 was raised, including the UFCW donation--money that was quickly turned into bags of groceries for hard-pressed strikers’ families.
Just as notable, though, was the character of the event itself, which linked immigrant rights and labor activists in an evening filled with music and interspersed with emotional speeches by strikers and supporters. Performers included Chuy Negrete, a well-known singer; the dance group Azteca Nahuil; and Iván Resendiz, a young classical guitarist. The event ran late as the crowd sang folk songs from the Mexican Revolution and the labor movement.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THAT SAME evening, the workers’ chosen negotiators sat down for several hours with a representative from Cygnus’ parent company, Marietta Corp.
Edith, the strike activist, said he presented himself as a neutral arbitrator prepared to settle the dispute. But Edith and the rest of the workers didn’t buy it. They said they would negotiate only in the presence of their attorney, Chris Williams.
At a picket line meeting the following day, the workers reiterated their demands: Everyone would come back to work, or no one. No agreements would be made in the bargaining sessions. Workers would vote together on whether to accept any management offer.
“That’s the Mexican tradition,” explained Jorge Mújica. “A negotiating committee is not a signing committee. When there’s a strike, workers declare themselves to be in permanent assembly,” voting on whether or not to accept management’s offer.
Although none of the leading strike activists had any experience in unions in the U.S. or Mexico, workers were acting in that tradition. “Everyone has an uncle, a brother, a cousin who has done this,” Mújica said.
As the ensuing four-hour negotiations wore on, it became clear that management was ready to throw in the towel. Loading docks were vacant, trucks left the gates empty, and a huge spill of dishwashing soap washed out into the parking lot, a mess that would cost at least a couple of hours of production, according to the workers.
The scabbing operation had descended into farce, with high-school aged youths swarming around a beleaguered Cygnus manager trying to sort out assignments during the afternoon shift change. Pallets loaded with dish soap had been dropped at crazy angles just inside the plant entrance, well away from the loading dock.
Security guards, who days earlier had blustered about arresting strike supporters, wandered about listlessly, ignoring two reporters who roamed the employee parking lot.
Management capitulated, and Total Staffing fell into line. The only outstanding issue at press time was the status of a supervisor who had joined workers on the picket line.
Even so, workers had won a victory with far-reaching implications for both the immigrant rights movement and the unions. “The labor movement has a lot to learn from these workers, because the labor movement can’t be strong if it sets immigrant workers aside,” said Martín Unzueta, who has met dozens of workers in recent years who want to organize, but can’t find a union to follow up. “The immigrant workers are ready to be organized.”
Like Unzueta, Jorge Mújica thinks the Cygnus victory can inspire further advances. “People remembered how to fight,” he said. “We’re used to having street demonstrations in Mexico all the time. But when people get here, they live hidden, very silent lives.
“But this whole process, from March 10 last year to May Day this year, is about showing that you can fight. It was after May Day this year that they asked for a pay raise. This wouldn’t have happened without the marches. If the workers hadn’t participated once or twice, they wouldn’t have gone on strike.”
Edith, the strike leader who organized workers to participate in the marches, said the struggle for better wages and conditions would continue. “I’m happy because while we started with fear, now we realize that we can do lots of things if we’re united,” she said. “If [the issue of the temporary workers] didn’t get resolved, we would have continued the strike, but with the help of everybody, because we have no union.
“The workers have to realize that they don’t have to be afraid, because here we taught them that unity is the way forward.”
Shaun Harkin contributed to this report.
-----------------------------
What you can do
Cygnus workers are still in need of financial support after surviving their walkout without strike benefits. Make out checks or money orders to the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative (with “Cygnus workers” in the memo line), and send to: Cygnus Workers Solidarity Committee, c/o Chicago Workers Collaborative, P.O. Box 08048, Chicago, IL 60608. Call 773-653-3664 for more information.
From Socialist Worker Online - http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/640/640_06_Cygnus.shtml
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