Modern School
Modern School's JournalWhen Political Action Trumps Direct Action Working People Lose
A GOP- and venture capitalist-backed initiative to limit union spending on elections has collected sufficient signatures to make next year’s November ballot in California, according to the Sacramento Bee. The bill would prevent unions and corporations from using automatic payroll deductions for funding candidate-controlled committees. However, the bill primarily targets public sector unions, leaving large loopholes for corporations, which outspent unions by a ratio of 15 to 1 over the past decade, even without this new law.
California Teachers Association President Dean Vogel complained that the new law would only worsen the political spending gap between Wall Street and unions. “We can’t create a better future for our students and our state by silencing the voices of California’s working class—especially teachers, firefighters, police and nurses.”
The problem is that working people need far more than a voice—they need real power, something they already have through their ability to withhold their labor. Direct Action (e.g., strikes, slow-downs, work-to-rule, boycotts) is far more powerful than campaign contributions as it puts pressure directly on employers, rather than indirectly through legislators. Unfortunately, this power is largely ignored by the unions, which rarely strike anymore, devoting far more resources to political campaigns than to organizing, educating and mobilizing their members. Yet these are the key building blocks necessary for successful job actions.
While it could be argued that preserving the automatic payroll deduction is better than losing it, as it gives unions a “fighting chance” against the corporations, this is hardly an inspiring or compelling argument, as it merely ensures that workers’ voices remain 15 times less audible than their bosses’ because of the campaign spending gap. It is also pretty convoluted, as it is a de facto acceptance of a system in which union members are compelled to “donate” money from their paychecks whether or not they want to, so that union representatives for whom they did not necessarily vote can give money to political campaigns they do not necessarily support, in order to elect political representatives who may (or most likely will not) vote for legislation that might or might not help them. And even then, the legislation might not even pass.
Workers are much more likely to get their interests met by going directly to their bosses and backing their demands with the threat of a strike. This method has fewer middle men and steps and it directly empowers workers.
Political Action is a Dead End for Working People
While labor can sometimes get “their guy” elected, they will never be able to get enough of “their guys” into office to make any significant impact. In the long term, labor can never win the campaign financing game. The corporations and the wealthy have far bigger war chests, and always will, so long as an economic system persists that allows the few to get rich by paying their employees a fraction of the value of their labor.
Ironically, and against their own economic interests, workers indirectly help fund the same political campaigns supported by their bosses, since their bosses’ ability to fund campaigns comes from underpaying their employees. Employees of Koch Industries, for example, contributed to the campaign of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker simply by working for the Koch brothers, who used their profits to help get Walker elected and push his union-busting legislation.
Union activists have argued that this is exactly why they must use their members’ dues to support pro-labor candidates, that this is the only foil to the union-busting efforts of the right. This simply is not true. The best foil to union busting is a strong labor movement that is willing and able to quickly mobilize direct actions that halt profits and force the bosses and/or politicians to back down. This can only happen through organizing, not through political action. At the same time, this argument—that the union bosses must take a cut of workers’ paychecks without their consent in order to counter the political effects of the money stolen from their paychecks by the bosses—is completely irrational and does not inspire much trust or faith in the union and probably contributes to the declining public support for trade unionism.
Campaign funding by unions can be alienating and divisive. Many workers do not want their dues spent in this way at all. Others may support different campaigns and candidates than their unions. And the decisions on which campaigns and initiatives to support are generally made from the top down, without rank and file input. All of these factors have the potential to weaken workers’ support for their unions, thus undermining future efforts to mobilize them for protests, pickets and strikes. This is one of the reasons why the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) eschewed political action not long after its founding, emphasizing direct action instead.
Campaign funding is also a phenomenal drain on union resources for an incredibly indirect and fickle goal: getting someone elected who might propose and vote for a modest reform that might not even pass. If unions spent the same time and money on organizing, educating and mobilizing their members, strikes and other direct action tactics would be far more common and far more effective, not only at winning grievances against specific employers, but also at influencing public policy, potentially even leading to the prevention or termination of wars.
The biggest problem with unions’ obsession with political action, however, is their incorrect presumption that the political system truly is “of, for and by the people,” and that they merely need to get “their guys” elected in order to achieve the American Dream. According to this logic, if we get enough of “our guys” elected, the laws will be changed to benefit us and everyone will become a member of the middle class, with material security, home ownership and access to the good things in life for all.
However, even if a majority of Congress was pro-labor—which could never happen because the capitalist class would never permit it—inequality would still persist because the fundamental relations between bosses and workers would remain unchanged. Workers would continue to have to sell their labor to the bosses at whatever price bosses were willing to pay. Bosses would continue to make huge profits by selling their goods and services for far more than they paid their workers. The wealthy would retain control over the machinery of production, with the power to hire and fire. Workers would therefore have to continue prostrating themselves out of fear of being fired, leaving them without any control or influence over their working and living conditions. The fundamental laws of the land would remain unchanged, thus ensuring that private property and profits remain sacrosanct in the courts and Congress, and dominant over human needs.
Contrary to popular belief, the political system never really was “ours” to take back. It is and always has existed to serve the interests of the wealthy and promote the profitability of their businesses. On the rare occasions in which laws have been passed that seemed to benefit working people, as has been claimed for the National Labor Relations Act, these laws were merely social bandages designed to mollify the working class and get them back to work after periods of protracted strikes and unrest. They were not the result of “our guys” being elected and acting in our interests, and certainly not a solution to inequality and exploitation. Unemployment, poverty, homelessness and other social ills continued to plague society.
As the Wobblies noted in the preamble to their constitution back in 1904:
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life . . . [The] struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class [and prepare] not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, [but] take possession of the means of production [and] abolish the wage system.
Modern School
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2011/12/when-political-action-trumps-direct.html
Disabled Teacher Vows To Resist Eviction By Greedy Bank
A disabled and bedridden schoolteacher in Murrieta, California, has joined the Occupy Our Homes movement and is vowing not to leave her home if evicted. She is hosting a one-night occupation of her home on Thursday, December 15, at 3:30pm and is asking the occupy movement to join her resistance to an eviction by the First Mortgage Corporation.
According to the OB Rag, Lesliane Bouchard has been approved for the federal government’s Hardest Hit State Fund, which is supposed to pay down enough of her principal balance to keep her in her home, but First Mortgage Corporation has refused to participate in the program. Ms. Bouchard is completely bedridden due to a spinal injury. As a result of her injury, she had to quit teaching last year, leading to a 40% drop in her income.
A change.org petition has already collected 3,000 signatures. She has also garnered the support of her synagogue and neighbors, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, OccupySanDiego, OccupyTemecula, OccupyOceanside and www.occcupyourhomes.org.
While certainly no solution to poverty or economic inequity, the Occupy Our Homes arm of the OWS movement has one of the more tangible, practical and winnable tactics of the larger movement. If enough people remain long enough, they can delay or even prevent a foreclosure and eviction and force the banks to negotiate terms acceptable to residents. This is clearly an easier task than getting stronger banking regulations or the prosecution of white collar crooks (let alone closing the wealth gap or ending corporate greed).
It is also a great organizing tactic as it brings neighbors and community members together to support each other on a single, concrete goal. This can be empowering and inspire participants to engage in other acts of solidarity. It is also an opportunity to discuss the broader context of the action and engage with people who might not consider themselves activists or otherwise participate in the movement.
Modern School
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2011/12/disabled-teacher-vows-to-resist.html
With Friends Like These—NEA Adopts Kapo Evaluation System For Teachers
The National Education Association (NEA) has released a plan that would do away with tenure and seniority, according to an article in the Washington Times. Under the new plan launched by the nation’s largest labor union, performance, not seniority, would become the primary factor determining whether teachers keep their jobs.
The new plan veers dramatically from the union’s traditional stance, which was to defend seniority and tenure. Madaline Fennell, the chair of the NEA’s Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching, told the Times that the new system replaces the need for tenure.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Tenure is designed to protect teachers from arbitrary, vindictive or punitive firing. The new system does not replace tenure with any sort of equivalent protection. Consequently, teachers could be stifled from advocating for students, criticizing bad policies and collaborating freely and openly with colleagues and administrators out of fear that saying the wrong thing could get them canned.
The NEA is calling for the establishment of 100 peer-review programs across the country over the next three years, to be created in collaboration between district administrators and teachers. However, this simply turns teachers into snitches and weasels and will make them distrust each other. It is the boss’ job to fire, hire, evaluate and discipline, not the employees’. Of course if the teachers truly ran the show and administrators were completely abolished this would be another matter. In reality, this new system sounds more like the Kapo system used in Nazi concentration camps, where the “trustees” were expected to police the other prisoners.
The union is correct in asserting that feedback and criticism from fellow teachers are very effective ways to drive improvement. However, this should not be connected to disciplinary actions or firings. In many districts, peer review already exists as a way to support teachers who are struggling or who have received bad reviews from their administrators. A union should support teachers in this way and certainly not be complicit in their members’ firings.
This puts the union in the impossible position of potentially having to defend teachers against other teachers. If a teacher gets a bad review from an administrator and wishes to grieve it, the situation is very clear cut: the union represents the employee against the employer. However, if a teacher gets a bad evaluation from other teachers and wishes to grieve the matter, the union must defend one teacher against one or more other teachers, all of whom belong to the same union and are entitled to the same union protections and services.
The union is also pushing a three-tiered pathway for teachers, with more “effective” teachers earning more money. Novice teachers would have to prove themselves before they could become “professional teachers” and earn higher salaries, while “master teachers” would work year-round, earn the most money, and mentor younger colleagues.
All this begs the questions of what constitutes an “effective” teacher? What if a teacher has excellent technique, content knowledge and relationships with his or her students, but still has a lot of Fs and low test scores—will they get fired or forever consigned to the lowest pay scale and status? Will those teachers who volunteer for all the committees and extracurricular programs and who embrace every administrator-led reform quickly rise to the top, while single mothers and others who are unable to work 16 hours a day remain forever in the “novice” category? Will only those teachers who are trying all the latest new techniques and reforms be considered top notch, while an “old school” teacher who nonetheless has a great rapport with students, motivates them, inspires a love of learning and succeeds in getting them to learn be relegated?
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said in the Times article that the goal was to weed out ineffective teachers before they get into the system. The NEA believes the fact that 47% of teachers leave the profession within five years is evidence that some of those instructors shouldn’t have made it into the classroom in the first place.
However, it is more likely that this incredibly high attrition rate is due to the low pay, low status, high stress, and overwork the job involves. Certainly there are some people who aren’t cut out for the job, but what about all those who really are passionate about teaching and who are highly skilled, but who simply got chewed up and spit out by the system without sufficient support from their administrators or unions?
In fact, to suggest that 47% of employees in any industry quit because they aren’t any good at their job is not only absurd, but it is cynical and heartless. It does not take into account the steep learning curve and long hours required those first two to three years. It does not give credit to the phenomenal amount of patience and tolerance for confusing, conflicting and sometimes stupid rules and regulations the job requires. It completely discounts the endless empathy and compassion required to deal with children who come to school hungry, homeless, sick, depressed, abused, frightened, or unable to speak a word of English, not to mention those who are suffering from anxiety, anorexia, post-traumatic stress disorder, sickle cell, addiction, or the grief and horror of surviving a PG&E gas line explosion or seeing their father murder their mother.
For the 53% of us who survived those first five years, it was not simply because we were competent or effective. We also had a high threshold for pain and suffering (ours and our students’), a willingness to work much harder and longer than we were paid, and the support and understanding of colleagues, mentors, friends, family and our unions.
Unfortunately, the NEA would rather serve as the police force for the bosses, than act like a fighting union that supports the interests and wellbeing of its members. They would rather accept all the assertions and accusations of the Ed Deformers than resist the ones that are detrimental to students and teachers.
Modern School
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2011/12/with-friends-like-thesenea-adopts-kapo.html
Where are the 99%?
OWS attempted to shut down all of the West Coast ports from San Diego to Anchorage today. The OWS groups in all the major West Coast port cities agreed to join in the protest, as did Houston and even OWS groups in a few landlocked cities decided to participate by blockading Walmart stores.
While the action was ambitious, aggressive, and partially effective (several terminals in various cities were closed and their workers sent home for “safety” reasons, according to the San Francisco Chronicle), it suffered several substantial flaws.
The first problem was that OWS did not have the support of the unions. In fact, none of the unions officially supported the action, while some union members were outright hostile, claiming their unions hadn’t even been consulted by OWS. Many said they sympathized with OWS, but felt like this was attack on their livelihood rather than a direct hit on the “1%.” Others called the protest presumptuous meddling by outsiders (see here and here).
The fact that the ports sent workers home and did not try to have the police break the pickets indicates that they believe their employees will blame OWS for their lost wages and not the terminal operators. Furthermore, it suggests that they are willing to lose some profits for a day if it will help discredit and crush the OWS movement.
Even so, the pickets were not sufficient to shut down all the terminals at all the ports. In order to completely shut down a port the workers themselves must to refuse to work. Citizenry can picket and try to blockade the port and hope that workers will honor their picket. However, if the workers want to work and the police break the picket, the best they can hope for is a disruption or slow down. In contrast, if the workers refuse to work nothing gets done except by the few scabs who manage to squeeze past the picketers.
Clarence Thomas, President of ILWU local 10, in Oakland, said he wouldn’t cross the picket line and he thought his ILWU brothers and sisters would honor the picket, as well, since his local had a long and proud history of honoring pickets, even community-based ones. He also felt that the unions’ reticence reflected the conservativeness of their leaders, and not the sentiments of their rank and file.
All of this highlights the fact that neither the OWS movement nor the unions are doing much organizing. The OWS movement seems to think that all they need to do is put out a tweet or a facebook call, and thousands will understand their goals and tactics and readily join in. They claim they represent 99% of Americans, yet even at their strongest, they have only mobilized a tiny fraction of the 99% in any given community to show up to their encampments and demonstrations. In the case of the West Coast port shutdown, it was clear that many of those whom they claimed they were supporting (i.e., union members) didn’t understand or appreciate the support.
OWS is in essence a vanguardist movement: a small group decides what are the appropriate tactics and demands, and calls on everyone else to follow (or join in). The movement mushroomed from such a call on the internet by Adbusters to go out and occupy Wall Street. The sentiment that the rich are too rich and jacking the rest of us appealed to the majority of Americans for very good reasons: They are jacking us. But it is a big leap to assume that this, alone, is sufficient to get the 99% to take collective action.
This is not Egypt, Tunisia, Libya or Syria, where people have lived under brutal dictatorships for generations. Most Americans still believe in the existing form of government and the prevailing economic system. They still believe that voting can resolve their grievances and that bosses create jobs and consequently financial security for us.
This belief is nowhere more evident than in trade union movement, where organizing has been virtually abandoned in favor of supporting political campaigns. If they were truly organizing their members, educating and mobilizing them, the unions would be able to launch massive strikes quickly and often. Taft-Hartley, which criminalizes General Strikes, would become insignificant because a well-organized and educated rank and file would see the power of a General Strike and would consider participating, even if their union leadership remained silent or oppositional on the matter. This may explain why there was a 15% increase in absenteeism by Oakland teachers during the attempted General Strike last month (according to the New York Times): Oakland has numerous veteran organizers in their teachers’ union who have been calling for a General Strike since last April (see here for one example).
Organizing is a slow, painstaking process. One cannot simply call for a strike and expect 80-90% of the people to be on board. Yet if you don’t have this level of solidarity, the strike is unlikely to succeed.
Community organizing, which OWS needs to do if they want to get larger numbers of the 99% to join them, is very similar to union organizing. Contrary to popular misconception, organizing is NOT simply getting people to show up to a demonstration or picket. This is more accurately classified as “Mobilizing,” something that is much more effective if preceded by organizing.
A good organizer starts by making connections with individuals, listening to their concerns and grievances, supporting them and building trust. When possible, the organizer helps resolve some of the smaller grievances. A union organizer, for example, might help get a broken tool repaired or replaced. A community organizer might help an evicted tenant access the community resources or a pro bono attorney. This not only builds interpersonal trust, but it also makes the union or whatever the larger organization is seem like it has the organizee’s back, rather than simply wanting something from them.
Once a positive relationship has been developed, the organizer can start educating the organizee, easing them beyond their current comfort zone, encouraging them to take part in low risk collective actions, like wearing a button or t-shirt or joining in a picket. After this, once the organizee trusts the organizer and the organization and feels self-confident participating in low-risk actions, the organizer can educate and agitate further and encourage the organizee to participate in more aggressive and risky tactics like strikes, occupations and civil disobedience.
Obviously, the time required to get an individual ready and willing to participate in the more risky and aggressive actions varies from person to person, but could take months or even years for some people. Add to this the fact that a given organizer can only reach so many people per week and the fact that it is much easier to build trusting relationships through one-on-one meetings rather than by speaking to large groups.
All this is to say that we have a long way to go before OWS or the trade union movements will be able to mount any sort of effective direct actions against the ruling elite. Of course, it would also help if there were some concrete demands associated with the actions. Protests can be fun, exciting and empowering and sometimes worthwhile for these reasons, alone. But for all the commitment and risk involved, a lot of people are going to want to feel like there are some attainable goals that can be achieved through their efforts.
Modern School
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2011/12/where-are-99.html
An Open Letter from America’s Port Truck Drivers on Occupy the Ports
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 12, 2011 — We are the front-line workers who haul container rigs full of imported and exported goods to and from the docks and warehouses every day.
We have been elected by committees of our co-workers at the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma to tell our collective story. We have accepted the honor to speak up for our brothers and sisters about our working conditions despite the risk of retaliation we face. One of us is a mother, the rest of us fathers. Between the four of us we have six children and one more baby on the way. We have a combined 31 years of experience driving cargo from our shores for America’s stores.
To see the full letter, please go to http://cleanandsafeports.org/blog/2011/12/12/an-open-letter-from-america%E2%80%99s-port-truck-drivers-on-occupy-the-ports/
Modern School
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2011/12/open-letter-from-americas-port-truck.html
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