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2006 Labor Notes conference

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Kelsey	Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2006 7:14 am
Site Admin Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 133	Quote: What do you need from me? I have an RSS feed that includes articles but also other items (new links, etc). Tell me what you need and any hints about how to set it up on my end and I'll do it. If you're producing your feeds manually it's going to be a pain in the ass for you. I'd need a feed containing only the content suitable for discussion, or some sort of flag on items in the feed so I could parse out only the content suitable for discussion. The flag would probably be the category element. It's in the spec so you wouldn't have to worry about breaking anything. Code: <item> <category>link</category> <title></title> <link></link> <description></description> </item> <item> <category>article</category> <title></title> <link></link> <description></description> </item> A neat thing about this is that you'd be able to use a feed from our generator to publish links on your site to our discussion of your articles. It's like a bandwidth co-op or something. _________________ The PG is your friend.
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Matt Noyes	Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 11:52 pm
Joined: 07 Feb 2006 Posts: 28	I'm going to be adding some articles soon and I will see if I can set up categories as you suggested. In the hopefully not too distant future the AUD site will rise on new foundations and this should be much easier. _________________ "the practice of democracy in organizing is the organizing of democracy in practice"
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Pearson	Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 12:29 pm
Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 1417 Location: Sun City AZ	So is the goal here Matt to get some of Aud's stories on Uncharted as discussion points or threads? Seems to me that would create some pretty cool/interesting discussions. I am curious Matt...is there concern that orgs who exist first as print media would help or hurt themselves by adding a strong web based component? AUD is certainly further advanced than LN when it comes to the net, but neither have the presence they should, IMHO. _________________ If we don't do it, who will?
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Matt Noyes	Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 1:44 am
Joined: 07 Feb 2006 Posts: 28	I added just the category (<category>article</category>) to the item bit of the RSS feed. Does it work? Can you use it? Let me know when you get a chance. Bill, the idea to begin with is to make the AUD rss feed more usable for sites like uncharted, so that information and content is more closely shared across sites. I'm following Kelsey's lead on this. My ultimate goal is to create some kind of integrated/aggregated thing that collects and sorts items from various rank-and-file feeds, a kind of meta-feed, so that the many conversations already taking place can be read as one big conversation... As it is, I scan the AUD Feeds list to see what's new on several different lists/forums/blogs. That's not bad, but wouldn't it be interesting to see one big feed, that could be sorted by category, subject, author, union....? As to your other question, I don't think there is any fear that a strong web-based component would hurt an organization that has relied on print media. There are two big concerns: 1) how to raise enough money to sustain independent organizations that provide not just information but a kind of infrastructure for union reform/transformation? Subs to print publications are a traditional fund-raising vehicle, in addition to playing a crucial role in discussions, education, etc. 2) how much to expect of the internet? I think we do need to alter our way of thinking about our work, based on the new tools. At the Labor Notes conference, one person said the new tech is "just a tool, and you choose the tool you need based on the task at hand." But the new tech creates new tasks, alongide the old ones. So groups need to figure out how to assimilate not just the tools but the new tasks and new possibilities. _________________ "the practice of democracy in organizing is the organizing of democracy in practice"
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Kelsey	Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:28 pm
Site Admin Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 133	Quote: Does it work? Can you use it? Let me know when you get a chance. Yeah, that'll work. How often do you update your feed? And what day or days of the week do you typically update the feed? The bot needs to be scheduled - conservatively. For example, if you update around once a week and usually do it between Monday and Thursday I'll schedule the bot for Friday mornings. If you typically update on weekends, I'll schedule it for Monday mornings. If you update daily, I'll send it daily. _________________ The PG is your friend.
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Matt Noyes	Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 1:08 am
Joined: 07 Feb 2006 Posts: 28	Are at least monthly, often every two weeks or so. No particular day of the week. This may change, but not for the next six months or so anyway. Thanks. By the way, I will also add a category for links in case there is some use for that -- links with a forum for people to comment on new sites? Feeding links into another links list? _________________ "the practice of democracy in organizing is the organizing of democracy in practice"
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atuuschaaw	Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 9:45 am
Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 781 Location: an ahwangan	Quote: I am curious Matt...is there concern that orgs who exist first as print media would help or hurt themselves by adding a strong web based component? BP, I'm also curious, but not only about orgs who are built via print media emerging into a more web based community. I'm just as curious about the life expectancy of any structured org which operates within the closed door model and doesn't adapt to the community model of interaction via free flowing views, ideas, strategies, and discussions. An open, connected, and growing community is the real life blood of the future and the only way to better the people's conditions, IMHO! I may be wrong, but the feeling/intuition I get is the change is upon us and there's absolutely nothing we can do to stop it! All we can do is help build it or remain closed and wither on the vine of knowledge! Does anyone else feel this or am I just having a flashback from my alternative learning years and my imagination is running wild? _________________ "Speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." George Orwell
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Pearson	Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 1:45 pm
Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 1417 Location: Sun City AZ	Quote: Does anyone else feel this or am I just having a flashback from my alternative learning years and my imagination is running wild? As i read the link and the comments regarding George Bush you posted the other day, i sat wondering how much is too much? It is clear there are so many folks with so much information and so many ideas, thoughts and comments that it may just be too much. As much as i love the net (and hate computers and all things electronic), i think information has become a mirror image of our society. We have too much. One of the reasons i wanted either LN or AUD to become more web based was to start to pare down the options and to begin to connect the dots. Think about it in terms of one of those connect the dot puzzles. If all we do is add another thousand dots every day, month or year; the picture never ever becomes clear. The other thing i find is; the more time i spend on the computer, the less social i become (and frankly i was never very socialized to begin with). It is a love/hate relationship and as much as i love what the net can do, i hate how it keeps spiraling away from us. Guess one of these days i'll have to get back on my meds and try and rejoin the human race. _________________ If we don't do it, who will?
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wm pasz	Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 4:11 pm
Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 1219 Location: Toronto	Quote: An open, connected, and growing community is the real life blood of the future and the only way to better the people's conditions, IMHO! I may be wrong, but the feeling/intuition I get is the change is upon us and there's absolutely nothing we can do to stop it! All we can do is help build it or remain closed and wither on the vine of knowledge! Does anyone else feel this or am I just having a flashback from my alternative learning years and my imagination is running wild? I'm totally on the same page as you A. Your alternative learning years are making it easier for you to deal with this big transition. I think that maybe you were never that wedded to the existing order so an alternative order isn't scary or overwhelming. "All we can do is help build it" - yes, the participant/contributor will replace the passive consumer as the "role" of the human being in society. We are building it as we speak. _________________ Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else. - Malcolm X
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SharynS	Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 7:09 pm
Joined: 28 Jan 2006 Posts: 2939 Location: the 'puter	Of course! The next generation(s) is way over our heads. Just as it was for the generation which came before, there's little way to truly understand how it will work, how it could work. This is a picture of previous generations trying to maintain some assemblance of that which we know, in the midst of what is setting up to be an apocolyptic generational changing of the guard. - OCZS (old comfort zone syndrome) Every epoch has had it's apocolyptic prediction and each generation on a smaller scale. Quite obviously based on it's own experience and knowledge of what is possible. And for sure there have been small such events and to some extent there's been the demise of, not always a bad thing and subjective at best. But there's been no falling into a burning hell, each generation has more than 'made it'. they've evolved, expanded. Why would it be any different this time? Humans adapt, grow, change, evolve. It can be a curse or it can be life. (note that only the Fundies have hung tightly to the biblical prediction, despite a whole whack of new ones on the scene - why is that?) I wonder if those less fortunate or who didn't benefit as much in previous generations, and in ours, are or were as skeptical of change, any change and/or of what's to come? Anyone talk to them yet? _________________ Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. - Salman Rushdie
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Chris Kutalik	Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 6:05 pm
Joined: 24 May 2006 Posts: 16	So some followup from my last post (btw this whole thread had made thinking long and hard about any number of questions and assumptions--thank you all for stirring the pot.) Here is some of the output of our webwork with that airlines group I mentioned: http://web.mac.com/airlineworkersunited/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html Obviously still a work in progress, but they're trying to tap some of this web potential to build their organizing. Speaking of potential pot stirring, I wrote a bit of a pot boiler (sorry I didn't like it) of a review of Solidarity for Sale after taking some of your advice to read the damn thing. Pasted below. Review: Is the Fight for Union Democracy Corrupt? by Chris Kutalik Solidarity for Sale, by Robert Fitch, PublicAffairs 2006 In Solidarity for Sale, Bob Fitch argues that the defining weakness of U.S. unionism bubbles up from a single poisoned well: corruption. Much of his book is a well-written account of the rise of business unionism in this country—and business unionism’s ability to hold onto power for as long as it has. He describes a history of U.S unions acting as private patronage systems for leaders, which he calls “the fiefdom syndrome.” Fitch defines the syndrome as, “a kind of protection system based on exclusive jurisdictions, exclusive bargaining, and job control…It’s an ethic of dependence rather than solidarity, one that promotes the most wide-ranging corruption. Corruption in turn produces atomization, weakness, demoralization, and apathy…” Fitch links labor’s woes (declining memberships, failed organizing, historic lows in strikes, lack of member control/participation, dependence on the Democrats, etc.) to this history. Many union members would undoubtedly bob their heads in agreement—until reading the conclusions Fitch draws. Fitch broadens the definition of corruption put forward in what he calls the “populist left.” For him corruption is not something limited to leaders, but extends to the members themselves. Fitch writes of the AFL-CIO split, “Ultimately, the source of the Federation’s crisis lay in its deepest foundations—the corrupt relations between members and the leaders.” According to Fitch, neither individual leaders nor members truly run unions. Instead, a long-standing historical culture of corruption does. He writes: “The fundamental actors in American labor are institutions—the unions themselves. It’s the union institutions that act and have identity, that manage or succumb to trends, and that shape the character of their leaders.” Importantly for the author, this corruption also infects union reformers who stay “inside the box.” REFORMER AS ENEMY By Part IV (titled the “The Failure of Reform”), Solidarity for Sale takes a 180-degree turn from accounts of fiefdom unionism to an attack on union reform efforts. He writes about “reformers,” “union democracy,” and the “AFL-CIO left,” who he says work with a “boring from within” strategy. According to Fitch, “For too long ‘union democracy’ has served as a kind of political Hamburger Helper in AFL-CIO reform circles: it pads out a program that’s too thin to truly revive the labor movement but provides the appearance of an agenda and an excuse for action.” In another section titled “Goodfellas and Redfellas” he claims that reformers have fallen into the “Roach Motel” syndrome. “Leftists go in but they don’t come out,” writes Fitch. Cynically he states that they only “build a base or move up in the hierarchy” if they adjust “to demands of a corrupt patron-client system.” His characterizations lump broad, diverse opposition movements into one vague category—and create a convenient strawman to knock down. The reality is that labor “reform” (called by some “transformation”) comes in all stripes. It encompasses a wide range of people, organizations, experiences, and viewpoints. It also attracts a range of people to its ranks: rank and filers, local officers, community supporters, activists—and opportunists that may dance to the business union beat once in office. In some places reform is focused tightly on a particular local or national union, such as Teamsters for a Democratic Union, Pipe Trades for a Democratic Union, the Longshore Workers Coalition, Carpenters for a Democratic Union, Grocery Workers United for a Democratic Union, etc. In others, reform groups like Airline Workers United or Rail Operating Crafts United work industrially across union and work group boundaries. Some are mostly focused on creating a fight back campaign at a particular company like Soldiers of Solidarity at Delphi. Reform even includes allies working outside traditional unions: workers centers, non-majority unions, labor-community alliances, and independent unions. (In follow-up interviews, Fitch only tips his hat to workers centers, stewards’ councils, or a vague “alternative unionism” as an uncorrupted way out of the box.) Fitch’s take on this movement is astonishingly simplistic, painting the thousands of workers who’ve struggled—and continue to struggle--for power in their unions with a single, selective brush. Solidarity for Sale focuses exclusively on the negative aspects of union reform, conveniently omitting obvious examples that don’t suit Fitch’s arguments, and in some instances relying on outdated, discredited sources. FRAMING Perhaps the most egregious sins of omission arise in Fitch’s handling of the Teamsters. Despite the current Teamster leadership’s well-publicized troubles with the continued presence of organized crime in their union, the Hoffa Jr. administration musters less than a page of material. Yet an entire chapter of the book is devoted to reviving charges around former Teamsters President Ron Carey, while another chapter purports to be an expose of the reform group Teamsters for a Democratic Union. Debunking the chapters on Teamster reform could keep a writer busy over several articles, and has been the focus of other reviewers. Interested readers should direct their attention to a heated, online exchange between Joe Allen, a Chicago UPS worker, and Fitch on the Counterpunch website (www.counterpunch.org/allen03112006.html and www.counterpunch.org/fitch03232006.html). In all, the failings of union reformers are dedicated an entire quarter of the book. The failings of reformers in New York’s AFSCME District Council 37 receive their own chapter, and yet another chapter is spent attacking SEIU president Andy Stern. THE BIG PROGRAM Finally, Fitch ends the book with a series of proposals to get “outside the box.” If he was driving close to the cliff before, this is where he heads into the canyon. To be fair, Fitch’s five starting point principles of “consent, solidarity, accountability, participation, and autonomy” seem reasonable enough. But from these initial principles, Fitch heads in an alarming direction. Fitch argues that decades of union corruption and entrenched bureaucracies are in large part due to a “forced unionism” that traps people in a “dead organization.” This system must be blasted away by what he calls “revolutionary proposals.” Since unions are bounded by turf, writes Fitch, they have become “weak, corrupt mini-states.” Instead of merely reorganizing them, he believes that exclusive union jurisdictions must be eliminated--all the way down to the local level. “Let the locals take care of workers’ shopfloor grievances, while ceding bargaining, organizing, and public policy to higher-level organizations,” he writes. And what would those “higher-level organizations” be like under this scheme? Would they just become a pack of general, national unions organized willy-nilly around balkanized local workplace unit ceding activities? How and why would these competitors act cooperatively in a strategy inside of a particular industry (already a key weakness in the sectional minded unions of today)? Similar nagging questions come to mind around Fitch’s call to end automatic dues deductions from union members’ paychecks and union hiring halls. Fitch’s preoccupation with eliminating union “exclusivity” and “coercion” shares uncomfortable political ground with the right-wing “right-to-work” lobby. It's not surprising then that National Right-to-Work Committee newsletter praised Fitch’s book as “an important new step in the critique of compulsory unionism from inside Organized Labor.” According to that review, Solidarity for Sale “shows the power of the Right to Work principle to unite people who otherwise hold disparate political and social views.” Fitch has rejected charges of right-to-work fellow traveling, noting that he believes his other proposals--such as easier union recognition--distance him enough from anti-union forces. One is left, however, with the impression that in the real world—where employers violate labor laws to attack workers and their unions daily, and where political and legal structures are deeply anti-union--that the impact of Fitch’s proposals would look a great deal like the Right-to-Work Committee’s dream. WHERE ARE THE WORKERS? Perhaps more importantly though, Fitch’s program disregards the agency of the very workers he seeks to liberate. For the author, change seems to be possible only when the whole rotten edifice of American unionism is razed. Once free of “forced unionism,” working people will regain their critical faculties and fighting spirit. The bulk of Fitch’s reforms hinge on changes to labor and employment law at the federal level. By implying that fighting with the current reform movement offers no real avenue for change at the workplace or union level, Solidarity for Sale leaves workers few ways to fight--the ballot box or local organizing around a “solidarity evangelism.” Fitch’s program reads as much like “reform from above” as that of any of the labor leaders whose reforms he derides. It’s not enough to say that everything is rotten and to advocate for a vague alternative unionism without a base. Labor’s crisis is deep and the stakes too high for workers to wait around for the right leader to get elected and finally upright the business union apple cart. The seeds of an alternative must be planted in an “actually existing” alternative unionism that reformers continue to struggle for, day in and day out, when they demand power and democracy in their unions—so they more effectively fight the boss. Warts and all, it is this struggle for democratic control that must be supported and strengthened if U.S. unions are to become weapons in the struggle for worker justice.
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CUPE_Reformer	Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:56 am
Joined: 04 Feb 2006 Posts: 241 Location: Real Solidarity	Chris Kutalik: Union reformers' perspectives are formed based on their experiences with unions. The mobbed up laborers' union has had a profound effect on Robert Fitch. His writing should be understood in that context. Robert Fitch seems to advocate that workers should form independent unions instead of trying to reform corrupt unions. _________________ Real Solidarity
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Pearson	Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:23 pm
Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 1417 Location: Sun City AZ	Quote: Warts and all, it is this struggle for democratic control that must be supported and strengthened if U.S. unions are to become weapons in the struggle for worker justice. Sorry Chris, there's more than warts on this old toad called a labor movement. It's all but dead and the sad fact is, the boys in power just keep paying it lip service. I could pick fly shit over a number of the things Fitch said, but why would i? His point was stark and on target: Workers are getting the shit kicked out of them and nothing organized labor (institutionalized is such a better descriptor)is doing is working. Let's be honest...what has the reform movement done to secure democracy in our locals/internationals? How have members/workers faired better because of the battles we have fought? When do the fruits of our labor translate into meaningful gains and quantifyable outcomes? I doubt the fact that organized crime has flourished in some of our unions is the primary reason we have fallen on our faces. The biz union model is inept at best and corrupt at worst. The only way we ever rebuild this, transform it to a member driven model is by bold aggressive acts well beyond anything the boys are talking about or looking at. Fitch's book was an eye-opener and i think you gave the final chapter short shrift. Several sites have debated the merits of his proposal for voluntary unionism rather than compulsary. I know the horrors of a system where free riders kill you, but the concept was proposed in context of creating a more European style of unionism. I doubt it would work given the roots of our capitalist society vs Europe who is more socialistic. A good number of his suggestions in the final chapter are in line with what we have always talked about. The sad fact is, hardly an institution of labor has embraced the democratic principles most reformers have been battling for. Hell, when one of us gets in, as he points out, all too often we become one of them. It's all about failure Chris. We have failed workers. As a labor movement and as a reform movement; it just hasn't worked. Labor's leadership has done really well. If we could say the same for workers enmasse or members as a whole, i'd say his work was pure bullshit. I know, the first thing most want to do is pull out the stats showing union workers are better off than non. Those numbers speak nothing of what is happening today and in the last 5 years. We are on a direct nose dive to hell and Fitch's point was wake up now or soon you will hit bottom and all will be lost. I doubt the value of Fitch's book is in it being read by union's leaders. I more see members picking it up and coming to grips with the fact the biz union model has not served them nearly as well as it has those in power. _________________ If we don't do it, who will?
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Matt Noyes	Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:34 am
Joined: 07 Feb 2006 Posts: 28	A guy I worked with in Montana years ago once told me, "You can't beat Dame Nature's colors." We were watching a Kingfisher in the late afternoon summer light. He was right. I thought of it because this thread has an interesting push and pull around imagination and description -- what are we seeing and what do we want to see? Nothing is more radical than reality: the closer we look at what exists -- whether it's Dame Nature or our battered workers movements -- the closer we come to finding the threads of future growth that run through it. So, we need more description, more concrete stuff not just about the problems and obstacles we face, but about our work. Bill asks the right strategic question -- what have we (reformers, transformers, etc.) accomplished? What have we got to show? But then he just throws up his hands in despair, "nothing!" I think you're just impatient, Bill. The point is not to try to list all our great successes, but to accurately describe what we have done/are doing. We are still firmly stuck in a terrible period in our history, so of course we don't have the kind of victories that we want to see. But, I feel like I see all kinds of evidence of the value of efforts to reform unions,to build new types of organizations (workers centers, etc.); the work of people all over the movement, including bureaucrats like Pearson, may suck (measured against our goals) but it is indispendable. Examples? To take the latest, Tom Robbins has a new piece on ILA 1588 and the Jersey/NY docks. If you step outside North America, you can even find victories, warts and all. (Of course you can also find corruption, business unionism, and more.) Fitch doesn't want to tell this story because it detracts from his story of one big problem, one big cause, and one big solution: The problem is not business unionism but corruption, The fundamental cause is not the history of our struggles (and theirs), but the institutional framework of labor relations, and the solution is not rank-and-file insurgency, but becoming France. (I find the institutional argument odd, especially since I spend a lot of time in a country that manages to have both the kind of institutional structure Fitch wants and a collapsing union movement dominated by business unionism.) Uncharted is home to speculation and imagination, the kind of free thinking and exploration that its name suggests -- that's crucial and very helpful to me, I have to say. Especially because we are in the midst of a big transition, as Wanda says. But, the fact that the web is evolving so rapidly -- and inspiring so much rethinking and new thinking -- while at the same time the movements continue to stagger and fall shouldn't lead us to try to choose one or the other. We need to stretch our minds and our practices with the new tech/culture. We need to test our ideas like a bad penny. And we need as much inspiration as we can get; the best source is still Dame Nature's colors. _________________ "the practice of democracy in organizing is the organizing of democracy in practice"
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Elvis	Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:49 am
Joined: 01 Feb 2006 Posts: 661 Location: Toronto	_________________ Henri Ducard: Your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share. Bruce Wayne: That's why it's so important. It separates us from them.
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