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Kiewit workers still off the job

WebPosted Dec 3 2003 09:02 AM NST

ST. JOHN'S — Workers at the Kiewit Offshore Services facility in Marystown are ignoring their union's call to go back to work. The employees set up picket lines Tuesday morning to protest the firing of two electricians for breaching the company's safety regulations.

From Dec. 2, 2003: Unionized workers protesting firings at yard

A court injunction was issued ordering them back to work, but the workers are still off the job. The two dismissed workers were not wearing proper harnesses and line when they were working on top of a module. The facility, which used to be the Marystown Shipyard, is building parts for the White Rose offshore oil development.

Strike not sanctioned by the union

David Locke, president of the Marine Workers' Union local in Marystown, says the workers aren't listening to the union executive. "The company will not discuss the firing with the executive or anything else until the workers return back to work," Locke says. "We're telling them to go back to work ... and let the process run its course." He says the collective agreement has a grievance and arbitration clause that can be used. The company says it isn't backing down from its decision to fire the workers.

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[ 04 December 2003: Message edited by: Mick ]

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White Rose wildcat strike ends
WebPosted Dec 4 2003 01:00 PM NST

ST. JOHN'S — Workers at Kiewit Offshore Services are back on the job in Marystown.

They staged a wildcat strike this week after the company fired two employees for violating safety regulations.

They'd been working without harnesses or safety lines on a module for the White Rose oil production vessel without. The company called that a serious safety violation.
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The union says the company has agreed to expedited arbitration on the firings. Depending on the outcome, the two workers may be rehired.

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I think they're some of the sharpest manifestations of rank and file militancy and self-organization.

At the same time, I think that the ultra-left argument that workers don't need legal unions is wrong and that more wildcats happen at unionized workplaces than non-union ones due to the protection that a union provides workers.

There seems to be a tension between the legal and collaborative trade-unionism and the ability of workers to self-organize and fight the boss regardless of union contracts and other legal limitations.

The fact that many union pie-cards try and 'get the workers back to work' underlines this contradiction.

I don't always blame the "pie-cards" as you call them, for fulfilling their legal and fiduciary duty to get workers to comply with laws and contracts. It's not just their necks on the line, but also the union treasury, if the state exercises its power to impose punitive fines.

That being said, I am all in favor of constructing a 'firewall' between the official union and a militant, but independent, support group that can coordinate more radical action.

[ 05 December 2003: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

In final offer arbitration, each side gives a final offer and the arbitrator has to decide which side to choose. Therefore if either side makes a totally unreasonable offer, the other side's offer would be accepted.

To make this work, you would have to have a system of picking a neutral arbitrator. Under most laws now, if the two sides can't agree, the government picks the arbitrator which usually favours the employer.

As many strikes are over the right to unionize, you would have to make unions mandatory in every larger workplace, whether that be a real union or a company union. This is not going to go over well with the right wing.

Final offer arbitration was used in professional sports in the past, in addition the physicians in Manitoba had such an agreement with the government.

The reason we don't see this anymore is that both sides hate it which means it must be a pretty good system.

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Face it though its hard to think of any strike over the last 20 or so years where the employees have really come out ahead.

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That's due to several factors, though. One, admittedly, is that the political and economic ground has shifted against workers over the past two decades, leaving more and more unions in a desparate fight to hold on to past gains rather than to make new ones.

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:
I don't always blame the "pie-cards" as you call them, for fulfilling their legal and fiduciary duty to get workers to comply with laws and contracts. It's not just their necks on the line, but also the union treasury, if the state exercises its power to impose punitive fines.

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I aggree. It's not a case of 'misleadership' or not having "leftist" union officals - it's the structure of unions and the burreacracy itself that is designed to control shop-floor militancy and autonomy.

You're also quite right when you point to the sanctions that the state can use against the unions - that sort of agreement was integral to the legalization of the trade unions way back when.

Now, I'm not arguing that we should go back to the days when trade unions were illgeal, though more confrontational and subversive, organizations. But I am saying that we need other forms of organization that aren't bound to the limitiations of legalized trade-unionism.

The names and forms these groups take can be different. Some examples are; flying squads, workplace resistance groups, rank and file (or shop-steward) committees, and workers councils'.

These groups usually develop during periods of struggle. For example, the flying squads movement in Ontario developed out of the days of action mobilizations and strikes (such as Falconbridge, and York Univeristy).

The overall workers movement in Ontario is quite tepid so that's one reason that flying squads and other groups of autonomous, militant, rank and file workers is near non-existant.

I think that the growing anti-neo-liberal fight-back in Quebec and BC hold the most promise currently for these types of groups. However, as this article shows, there's been a couple wildcat strikes out east, there was one recently at a Goodyear tire factory in Toronto, and the workers at air-canada almost did a wildcat walkout (they were set to go, but at the last minute a national CAW staffer told them to go back to work lest the union get fined. They seemed pretty pissed off at the CAW after that.)

However, if the employer feels that the leadership hasn't got the ability to get the workers back to work, then there's little bargaining leverage to be had with it.

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Point of information: I gather that pie-cards are either stewards or local executives? Anyone know where this term comes from?

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Well, a quick google search gives a few options.

1. Pie Card:

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#82 A paid union official.

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Source: Labor-Union Trivia Quiz

2. Pie Card:

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I was the piecard in the union. The piecard was the guy who ran the union and he would hand out to the guys who were unemployed, looking for jobs, who were members of the union, he would hand out a pie card, which meant you could go across the street to get a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. This was just an old union idea that we all used to say. An old-fashioned AFL-CIO thing, to hand out pie cards.

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Source: Interview with Lu Haas, early leader of Los Angeles Newspaper Guild

3. Pie Card (Synonym - Labor Skate):

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To be sure you know what I'm talking about, I will specifically define 'Labor Skate':

Union Boss.

Union Bosses are part of the corrupt bureaucracy of a 'pie card' union. Non-democratic unions such as those in the AFL-CIO are 'pie card' because they offer pie-in-the-sky but dole out crumbs to their workers, kiss ass to the boss and rake in the cash from dues payments and kickbacks.

In contrast, we will call the IWW the 'red card' union, because, simply, our membership cards are red and represent our ethic. We're radicals and revolutionaries. America, which was once built on radicalism and revolution, has lost both these ethics to complacency and ignorance. Americans, once known as the most brazen anti-monarchal rebels on planet Earth, are now the slavish time-card punchers the capitalist Boss class wants them to be.

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Source: IWW - Black Cats of Sabotage

[ 06 December 2003: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

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Well, a quick google search gives a few options.

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... sakes. And I'm usually the first either to head there, or to point others there, sometimes with an exasperated eye-roll. Thanks.

New Year's Resolution: I will do my own homework.

[ 06 December 2003: Message edited by: 'lance ]

[ 06 December 2003: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:
So here's my question (with my advance apologies for further thread drift): is there a difference between a "pie card" and a "pork chop?" Or is it just a matter of different discourse for different eras?

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I think that the terms are more-or-less synonymous.

I have heard some use the term porkchop to refer to paid union staff (which are separate from people employed by a union such as office workers) and reserve piecard for the union executives.

On a related note, what do folks think of the role of shop-stewards?

On one hand, some of the best union activists are elected shop-stewards and they can play important roles in workplace struggles. They are elected directly by their co-workers and remain in the workplace – never escaping direct capitalist exploitation.

On the other hand it is the first rung on the union hierarchy, and they can also play collaborative and reactionary roles controlling class struggle just like the bureaucrats. One story I remember is an autoworker shutting down the line at an auto plant over a safety issue with the machine he was operating. It was unsafe and after his complaints had no effect he decided to shut down the line until it was dealt with. Both the shop-steward and the foreman were yelling at him to get back to work. He refused and the safety issue was fixed, but the shop-steward was the union hierarchy’s man on the ground to ensure production and labour peace.

So, while I don’t count them among the rank and file, I also don’t call them piecards.

The following sums up my views on the role shop-stewards should play.

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7.4 Members elected as shop stewards consider their position as that of a delegate rather than that of a 'representative' who can act over the heads of the members.

7.5 When going forward for elective positions we make it clear that we are not accepting the structure as it now exists. We will fight for more accountability, mandation, information for members, etc.

From: An anarchist strategy in The Trade Unions

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There are certainly individual union leaders who have betrayed the trust of the membership. As a general rule, too, there are certainly institutional factors that separate union leaders from union members and bind them to the capitalist system. But I think there are also social and cultural factors that cut the other way.

Maybe it's my own background in the broader social service / nonprofit advocacy field that makes it difficult for me to see people like union staffers as an enemy. We have too much in common. Maybe that means I'm the enemy, too - I don't know. But I still maintain that your analysis is too simplistic.

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:

There are certainly individual union leaders who have betrayed the trust of the membership. As a general rule, too, there are certainly institutional factors that separate union leaders from union members and bind them to the capitalist system. But I think there are also social and cultural factors that cut the other way.

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If you mean that there's a contradiction between class struggle and class collaboration in trade unionism I agree. I don't think that trade unions are reactionary, nor are they revolutionary organizations, I wouldn't even call them reformist as that would imply that they want to reform the capitalist system itself and not just defend what gains working people have been able to make through struggle. They're basically workers self-defence organizations.

I don't mean to personalize the reactionary nature of union officials, in my opinion it's not because they're bad, conservative, class-collaborating, individuals. It's because the structure of legalized trade unions need to be able to control their workers in order to enforce the negotiated agreements between their members and the bosses (such as contracts). I'm sure there's a lot of piecards who are honest, class conscious, labour activists from a working class background - that doesn't change the role of their positions though it can affect how they play it.

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Even if I accepted your analysis, though, I would have a lot of trouble extending it to shop-stewards who actually work alongside other rank and file members on a day-to-day basis. The fact that they volunteer their free time to try and help out their coworkers is absolutely not a reason to doubt their loyalty to their class.

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I didn't say that shop-stewards were piecards. In fact I said they were not. But I also don't consider them part of the rank and file.

I'm not sure what the role of the shop steward is, it's one that can be quite different depending on the workplace and union. In general, I think they're the most accountable level of union leadership and that many top-notch, militant, labour activists are shop-stewards.

At the same time, they can be the on-the-shop-floor enforcers of labour peace. I wasn't making the story up about the CAW shop-steward who yelled at a worker to work on an unsafe machine - that's something that actually happened.

I do think that union structures should be a federated structure of mandated, immediately recallable (by their co-workers) delegates and not the hierarchal system most unions currently have in place.

Also, no union official or staff should make more than they were when working on the shop floor and there should be a maximum term before being rotated back to the shop-floor. I know that CUPW does this but it should be standard practice.

As a side-note that's actually a return to the topic, I think that the postal worker wildcats for recognition in the 1960s show how wildcat strikes can open an entire sector (in this case the public sector - which is now the backbone of Canadian trade unionism) for unionization.

[ 06 December 2003: Message edited by: Mick ]

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I do think that union structures should be a federated structure of mandated, immediately recallable (by their co-workers) delegates and not the hierarchal system most unions currently have in place.

Also, no union official or staff should make more than they were when working on the shop floor and there should be a maximum term before being rotated back to the shop-floor. I know that CUPW does this but it should be standard practice.

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Shop Steward's roles vary from unit to unit, usually depending on size.

In my plant, they're called committepersons because they handle bargaining, and the day to day grievances and other issues. At larger plants, such as Ford Talbotville, the bargaining committee is a seperately elected body, and there's a separate body for the representation of workers.

From my experience in the CAW, it is traditional that the Plant Chairperson is paid at the highest rate, usually top rate electrician. I think it's the same for the Local President; although I understand other locals might operate differently.

Local 222 comes to mind.

I've been a committeeperson in my plant. It's a challenge, and you are correct about accountability. You are part of a decision making body one minute, and you're out explaining those decisions to your constituency the next.

I wonder how many M.P.'s or M.P.P.'s could even think about that without needing a defibrolator?

It's true that many shop stewards seem to take on the roll of straw boss over time. I think it's because a steward, or a whole committe can get elected to effect change. If they are successful, then the changes become their way of doing things; so they are apt to protect it.

It's probably a good indication that change is needed.

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Annecdote on work refusals.

I'll skip the long and boring history of my work place. Suffice to say we had some very real safety issues, and issues surrounding how workers were disciplined, and we used the right to refuse to great effect to make this plant much safer, and also to shift the balance of power between workers and supervisors.

As a measure of that success, we actually had a worker refuse to use a hoist-- part of the settlement to some serious ergonomic work refusals.

His reason: Other workers might be picking thier nose and wiping boogers on it.

I kid you not. He did it to retaliate against those who had asked the supervisor to tell him to stop horking all over the floor.

We had a lot of hard battles over safety here. To see the right to refuse unsafe work used in such a fashion merited a yelling at from a shop steward, I think.

Shouldn't we be questionning the striking workers motivations in this particular widlcat strike? Everyday workers are killed and injured on the job because their employers refuse to provide safe working conditions. Yet we're supposed to support these workers who ignored regulations that make their job safer? Does anyone have any more info on their reasons?

[ 08 December 2003: Message edited by: Sara Mayo ]