"Trust everybody, but cut the cards"

Im seeing the workers sold out far to many times... Also I don't see the Unins looking for a fight ...

It seems that everyday socialist ideas and what limited socialist policies we have are being attacked and nothing is being done aboutit..

For example , just look at Ontario over that last 10 plus years.... We went through the Harris government and nothing was done except a few protests...

Its not just the Unions, its the whole socialist outlook . Its like after the fall of the USSR , socialists are selling out left right and center...

We need to rethink what is going on, do some serious analysis of what socialist has achieved, what its downfalls are and were it needs to go..

What is working and how do we fix what is not?

quote:

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Im seeing the workers sold out far to many times... Also I don't see the Unins looking for a fight ...

---

Once again, unions can't "sell out" workers. Unions are cooperative associations of workers who decide things via various forms of democratic process, including elected leaders. It's certainly possible for leaders to sell out their members, as we do see from time to time, and often the resulting rebellions causing those leaders to be voted out.

But it's also very possible, and happens much more often, that unions and their elected leaders are backed into corners and sometimes need to compromise. It's a harsh and horrible reality of the capitalist system all over.

As to looking for a fight, that depends on the union and the situation it's in. A union is only as militant as the general sentiments of its membership. When members get angry and organized to fight, it happens, as we see all over throughout history.

In addition, unions actually rarely need to look for a fight. Quite often the bosses bring it to them with demands for concessions, union busting, layoffs and closures, etc. There are many different ways unions deal with this across the globe: everything from revolution and overthrow to total cave-in and surrender. It depends on the mentality, the degree of intimidation, the severity, etc.

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Its like after the fall of the USSR , socialists are selling out left right and center...

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First, that depends on the socialists in question. In the UK currently, that's largely true. In Scandinavia, not hardly at all. In most parts of South American now, it's the opposite.

Second, you forget the so-called "USSR" was itself largely a scam job, especially after Joseph Stalin & Co. took power. The Bolsheviks re-organized that economy as a primarily state capitalist model in the years following the 1917 revolution as a supposedly transitional program toward developing a socialist economy. But with the 1929 Stalinist coup that made that state capitalist model the permanent basis for the Soviet economy , and that regime arguably killed more socialists and communists in order to keep it that way.

quote:

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What we need is a serious look at the Unions, not just here in Canada but the intire world over..

We need to rethink what is going on, do some serious analysis of what socialist has achieved, what its downfalls are and were it needs to go..

---

Agreed. The question is where, who and how.

Here are a few examples of what various people and organizations are doing out there:

Labour Unions and Economic Democracy

Labour Reform UK

Socialist Ideas and Labor Reform

World Socialist Labour Reform

Labour unions and the New Cooperative Movement

[ 27 April 2007: Message edited by: Steppenwolf Allende ]

quote:

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It's certainly possible for leaders to sell out their members, as we do see from time to time, and often the resulting rebellions causing those leaders to be voted out.

But it's also very possible, and happens much more often, that unions and their elected leaders are backed into corners and sometimes need to compromise. It's a harsh and horrible reality of the capitalist system all over.

---

I find it very troubling when you say this over and over again to my acusations about Workers being sold out by the Unions......

Ive thought about what we two say ... This is the way I see it...

You have conservative views about what is happening to the workers and what they should do... and I would represent the militancy that one finds in the socialist movement...

Let me make this one statement .... The capitalists do not compromise with us...

When they want to cut our wages they find ways to do it. When they want to go to war they find ways to do it. When they want to use us as fodder they inact conscription. The list goes on and on and on.

The Unions may be individual representatives for various companies but that does not mean they come from various ideals.. They are socialist ideal ... the same socialist ideal that we all wnat... Which I will assume , mainly comes form Marx teachings.

The people that have brought the socialist movement closest to fruition were the leaders of the Bolshevic Revolution... Though it did not lead to all out socialism and then communism , they did bring it the furthest.

In so saying... were are the Trotsky and Lenin elements in the Unions today?

I lived in a Union house my whole life. Why did I have to learn about these people from the WSWS.org?

At the same time you can not say that the leadership of the major Unions in Western worlds are not selling out the workers...

Look at what is happening in all the major manufacturing in the western world. Everywere you do a serious analysis of the Unions possition and what they are asking their members to do , you will find that the Unions are class colaberating with the bourgeoisie....

For example... Airtraffic Controllers were fired by Ronald Reagan and the Unions across the USA let it happen, the Big Three laying off workers and now at the point were they are buying the work force out, Airline industry workers fighting against eadh other and judges siding wiht the company, Airbus cutting jobs and the various Unions pointing the blame at each other causing the division of workers, the capitalists using the low wages workers of foreign countries to drive down the wages in the West, NY Transit workers going on strike last year and no Unions backing them, Harris Government of Ontario attacking workers and leadership of the workers doing nothing but having a few days of protest.

Were is the leadership of the workers when the governments of Canada have been attacking our welfare state?

Let me show you what you have to say about all of this.....

quote:

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But it's also very possible, and happens much more often, that unions and their elected leaders are backed into corners and sometimes need to compromise. It's a harsh and horrible reality of the capitalist system all over.

---

They are not "backed into corners". The only "harsh and horrible reality " is that after all of the betrayals of the workers, by the leadership of the workers, has brought us here to this point.

The workers of the big three would not be forced to take the buy out if the Capitalists were beaten when they fired the Air Traffic Controllers.

After the burgeoisie were defeated in Vietnam, we had them, but were was our leadership.... gone with the Mc Carthy area...

When you watch movies like Saw I, II, and III or Hostel or Kill Bill of the show 24 you can thank the black listing in Hollywood and the workers leadership not doing anything about it.

quote:

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Originally posted by trippie:

How are the workers going to bring about socialism if their leadership does not even show them how to do it?

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quote:

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In yet another example of the inexorable shift to the right of the Canadian Auto Workers union bureaucracy, CAW President Buzz Hargrove ushered Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty onto the podium of a CAW National Council meeting in Port Elgin, Ontario, April 13.

“I believe this (Liberal provincial) government has done an incredible job for people,” gushed Hargrove. McGuinty’s appearance marked the first time in the CAW’s history that an Ontario premier had been invited to address the CAW leadership. Hargrove went on to tell the 800 delegates assembled at the union’s Lake Huron retreat that he was “absolutely thrilled” to introduce McGuinty, whom he characterized as a “champion” of the automobile industry.

---

or maybe...

quote:

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In the 1999 Ontario election, Hargrove and the CAW called for a “strategic vote” for the Ontario Liberals in select ridings, in the name of defeating the provincial Tory government of Mike Harris, a position effectively endorsed by the leader of Ontario’s social democratic party, the New Democratic Party or NDP. Continuing the same tack, Hargrove declared in 2003 during the election campaign that ultimately brought McGuinty and his Liberals to power, “People know how to bring about a change in government and you don’t do that by voting for someone who doesn’t have a prayer of winning. We are looking at information riding by riding, to see where there are opportunities to knock off a Tory.”

With Hargrove’s full support the NDP sustained a federal Liberal government headed by Paul Martin, who previously had imposed the greatest social spending and tax cuts in Canadian history, in office for six months in 2005. But Hargrove ran afoul of the NDP leadership when he publicly stumped for Paul Martin and Belinda Stronach, daughter of the boss and principal owner of Magna International, and had his union explicitly call for the reelection of a minority Liberal government in the January 2006 federal election.

---

or maybe...

quote:

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While Hargrove and the CAW bureaucrats laud the McGuinty Liberals, under Liberal rule workers in Canada’s most populous province have continued to see their living standards eroded, social services slashed, and jobs lost.

On coming to power in 2003 McGuinty announced, in the tried and true manner of incoming governments, that because the deficit was larger than the ruling Tories had admitted, Liberal election promises were no longer applicable.

Refusing to roll back the all-out legislative assault on working people undertaken by the previous Conservative governments of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, McGuinty upped the ante even further by imposing a $900 per person healthcare “premium” that has a disproportionate impact on working people and the poor.

Making further inroads into the province’s public healthcare system, McGuinty removed restrictions on private healthcare facilities and ended provincial funding for eye exams, physiotherapy and chiropractic services. His government also reneged on other election promises, removing the cap on hydro electricity rates and refusing to end the Tories vicious clawback of Child Benefit Supplements to the poor that takes $2,700 per year out of the wallets of single mothers on welfare.

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or maybe ....

quote:

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In March Hargrove and the CAW leadership exhorted workers at the DaimlerChrysler assembly plant in Brampton, just northwest of Toronto, to agree to a significant package of concessions that they had strongly voted down in a February plant-wide vote. Riding roughshod over its own constitution that restricts re-votes on matters duly settled, Hargrove and his assistant Bob Chernecki made it clear to the membership that they must vote to accept $5,000 in annual givebacks through the elimination of shift premiums, the intensification of work practices, and the contracting out of union janitorial jobs or accept the consequences. Should they reject the concessions, Chrysler would move auto production out of Brampton without opposition from the union bureaucracy. “It’s just a matter of smart bargaining,” explained Chernecki.

After a heated meeting in which denunciations of the leadership were hurled from the floor, the autoworkers, bitterly noting their total abandonment, ratified the concessions. “A lot of us voted ‘no’ to speak out against the unfolding mistrust with our union,” said Dan Ciurlia, a 27-year plant veteran. “We understand the big threat of globalism. We understand that our jobs can go away. People are scared. But we are being told to make decisions with really no information and very quickly. The workers want to know if the union leadership is truly going to stand up for us.”

---

or maybe....

quote:

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A grateful DaimlerChrysler summed up the role played by the union in forcing through the concessions package. “We could not have moved forward without the CAW,” said company spokesperson Dave Elshoff.

---

or maybe....

quote:

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The response of the CAW bureaucracy to the current financial crisis of the Big Three has been to deepen its longstanding corporatist relationship with the auto bosses and the big business Liberals. In the name of a “national auto strategy,” the CAW lobbies the federal and Ontario governments to make further tax concessions and outright grants to the Big Three to assist them in competing against Toyota, Honda and other foreign-based automakers. Meanwhile it works to pit North American workers against each other in a fratricidal struggle over jobs, actively campaigning for the Big Three to close US and Mexican facilities in preference to those in Canada, while urging Ottawa to adopt aggressive trade war measures against Asian automakers.

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quote:

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Union leaders get elected and I have seen vocal socialists run for election to top spots in various unions and never seen them elected. Unions are their membership not a separate entity.

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Just like we elect the people to our governments????

What type of socialists? what was their tentencies?

quote:

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You have conservative views about what is happening to the workers and what they should do... and I would represent the militancy that one finds in the socialist movement...

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I would say that I take seriously the level of practical understanding of what's happened over the centuries and what's happening now to workers, and am working on practical economic democratic solutions that one finds among serious people in the socialist movement.

You, on the other hand, seem to represent the traditional bombastic hollow rhetoric of religious-like fanatics who belt out revolutionary slogans with little concern or understanding as to what they mean or what's practically involved in making democratic sustainable economic change actually happen.

You continued refusal to even consider the practical historic definition of what a union is exemplifies this.

quote:

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In so saying... were are the Trotsky and Lenin elements in the Unions today?

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This is what I mean. Lenin and Trotsky were great pamphleteers. But the fact is they played and key role in suppressing workers' organizations (like unions, workers' councils, co-ops, etc.) to the new state capitalist economic structures they were setting up supposedly as a "transitional" stage toward a socialist economy--a stage that the Stalinists made permanent while slaughtering millions of working people, and ruthlessly exploiting the rest, in the process.

You still want to hold them up as examples for unions to follow? Might as well hold up Bill Gates as an example too. He said, after his Microsoft professional staff organized, that he likes unions in principle and could work with them, as long as they let him stay in charge of everything.

quote:

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The people that have brought the socialist movement closest to fruition were the leaders of the Bolshevic Revolution

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Nope. Not even close. The practical socialistic efforts of labour and cooperative movements across the globe, like the examples I have linked to here numerous times, have done that far better, since they actually do it, not just preach about it, and show it can be done.

The day some idiot hyphenated Marxism and riveted it to Leninism was the beginning of a long slow painful decline for the socialist movement.

quote:

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They are not "backed into corners". The only "harsh and horrible reality " is that after all of the betrayals of the workers, by the leadership of the workers, has brought us here to this point.

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Garbage. Capitalist economics are all about backing people into corners and trying to wring concessions out of them. To deny this is to deny the system exists at all.

Often, as we have seen throughout history, unions have been successful at fending this off and turning the tables on the halls of undemocratic wealth and power. That's why much of the world no longer lives like peasants in the feudal Dark Ages.

But, sadly, with the advent of so-called "globalization" in the last 25 or so years, unions and public interest and democratic forces have been on the retreat, and our standards of living and freedoms have suffered for it, as the world seems to have been put on a course toward totalitarianism, mass poverty and ecological disaster.

Now you can criticize many unions—both leaders and members alike—for not knowing exactly what to do about this; or for taking a narrow reactionary position of trying to hang on to what they have, instead of pushing for newer and better things—but you can’t blame them for creating that situation.

quote:

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At the same time you can not say that the leadership of the major Unions in Western worlds are not selling out the workers...

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Hey, the truth is some are and some aren't, and "selling out" can be very subjective, as I have tried to explain.

I have also posted more than enough info on how many unions, especially in parts of Europe, Asia and more recently in South America are coming up with innovative socialistic initiatives to try to democratize the economy and shift it away from the coercive control of various power cliques; how some are leading the charge on addressing economic reforms to deal with GHG emissions; to fight growing world poverty; to stand up against injustice and repression.

It’s true that in Canada, and especially in the US (shocking inaction around the air traffic controllers, etc.), this has been lacking to a much greater degree, and it’s cost us big time. But even here, as again I have shown before in other threads, various unions are putting forward these types of practical socialistic/economic democracy initiatives to change things.

This stupid cult-like “vanguard party” view that everybody and everything is a sell-out or a conspiracy because they aren’t listening to their bombastic rhetoric is equivalent of what most people flush down the toilet every day.

quote:

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How are the workers going to bring about socialism if their leadership does not even show them how to do it?

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Again, see what I mean? Elected leaders don’t automatically initiate change out of nothing. In fact, quite often they are elected based on a change in consciousness among the membership. Sitting around expecting leaders to solve all your problems is a pretty much an anti-socialist way of thinking. Leaders can certainly facilitate change and development; but they don’t necessarily create it.

quote:

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Originally posted by trippie:

Dude Ive been around Unions for 40 years, don't tell me what Unions represent....

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quote:

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So why does your profile say you were born in 1969.
In 1969 I was a member of the United Steelworkers of America Local 6500. My father was a union activist before I knew how to spell union but I don't usually count his years of activismm when talking about how long I have been active in the labour movement.

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First off, Im a pig and I like the number 69.

Secondly , You've been in the Labour movement that long and were do you advocate full out socialism?

Here is more evidence of Unoins class colaberation selling out of workers....

quote:

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Australia: Unions embrace Labor’s anti-working class industrial relations laws,,,

Labor’s IR proposals were introduced by new Labor leader Kevin Rudd and his deputy Julia Gillard, who is also shadow industrial relations minister. None of the many union officials present raised a murmur of opposition, signalling their willingness to act as the enforcers for the proposed legislation.

The unions have thrown their weight behind Labor’s IR plan because it protects their traditional role as primary bargaining agencies and as industrial policemen for enforcing employers’ demands.

Rudd announced that a Labor government would dispense with the present Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), declaring “there will be no place for statutory individual contracts... collective [that is, union-negotiated] agreements will be at the heart of Labor’s industrial relations system”.

---

you can read the rest of the discusting betrayel of the workers here....

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/labor-m02.shtml

And then there is this one.....

quote:

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Union pressures Air New Zealand workers to accept loss of jobs and conditions

New Zealand’s national airline, Air New Zealand, announced on April 2 that it would rescind a plan to outsource airport services after the country’s biggest private sector union agreed to concessions that include 300 “voluntary” redundancies, a more flexible rostering system and cuts to pay and conditions amounting to more than $NZ7,000 per worker a year

EPMU officials protested that the company’s bullying tactics meant the union had no “bargaining power” and was just “making the best of a bad situation”. EPMU national secretary Andrew Little had earlier described the deal as unpalatable, saying members were being required to “swallow a dead rat”. However, these feeble protests were no more than a smokescreen for the union’s own role in imposing the company’s agenda.

The union organised no industrial campaign to challenge corporate prerogatives and defend jobs and conditions. By way of a diversion, it launched a petition calling for a parliamentary investigation into the airline’s breaches of so-called “good faith” provisions in the Labour government’s industrial laws. However, the union’s real message all along was that the only way to block outsourcing was to accommodate the company’s demands.

As part of its collusion with the company, the EPMU recommended workers accept a management offer of $1,000 each to agree to the settlement. The one-off taxable payment and an offer of targeted “voluntary” redundancy and severance packages only applied if all the conditions of the deal were accepted by EPMU members. The payment was available only to those who agreed to stay on with Air NZ under the new pay and conditions. To get the crude bribe, workers had to be an EPMU member or agree to an individual employment agreement

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read the rest here...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/nz-m02.shtml

But, sadly, with the advent of so-called "globalization" in the last 25 or so years, unions and public interest and democratic forces have been on the retreat, and our standards of living and freedoms have suffered for it, as the world seems to have been put on a course toward totalitarianism, mass poverty and ecological disaster.

Unquote

You have just proven my point..... Unions and their leadership are selling out the workers...

___________

Quote:

Garbage. Capitalist economics are all about backing people into corners and trying to wring concessions out of them. To deny this is to deny the system exists at all.
Often, as we have seen throughout history, unions have been successful at fending this off and turning the tables on the halls of undemocratic wealth and power. That's why much of the world no longer lives like peasants in the feudal Dark Ages.

Unquote.

Your are so close to what I am saying . But you insist that I am wrong..... In every fight , there are times in the struggles, that the workers must win... The workers have lost very important fights. There were times when we had them on the run ..Why did we loose so much ground and are now at a point were the Union leaderships are openly helping out the corperations?

Here is what i think.

Bad political ideas and a miss understanding of the situation.

a few examples would be..

- political tendencies towards petty bourgeios thinking
- capitulation at key times of the struggle.
-seperation of workers into competing countries and or jurisdictions.

________________
Quote:

Elected leaders don’t automatically initiate change out of nothing.

Unquote

From my understanding, Marx said the the proletariat will not spontaniuosly figure out what needs to be done. That is what I am talking about. The Union leadership should be educating the people... People like you should be educating the people .

But what are you going to educate them about? Aparently you are not going to educate them about Lenin and Trotsky even thou those two people were instrumentle in leading the workers of Russia to take control of the country. A point and fact that no other socialists were able to do.

I don't know all the itricacies of what went wrong, that is why I constantly advocate the objective analysis of the USSR... Where the socialists went wrong. Why was Stalin able to gain so much control? Was Trotsky right in his analysis and book "the Revolution Betrayed"? etc, etc....

_____________
Quote:

This is what I mean. Lenin and Trotsky were great pamphleteers. But the fact is they played and key role in suppressing workers' organizations (like unions, workers' councils, co-ops, etc.) to the new state capitalist economic structures they were setting up supposedly as a "transitional" stage toward a socialist economy--a stage that the Stalinists made permanent while slaughtering millions of working people, and ruthlessly exploiting the rest, in the process.

Unquote.

You failed to mention that Trotsky was part of the Left Opposition to Stalin . That Stalin had many of the left oppisition killed ..That Trotsky was in exial and then murdered by Stalinists.

So the question is . Were the Bolsheviks being truthfull when they set up the dictatorship?

quote:

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You have just proven my point..... Unions and their leadership are selling out the workers...

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No, I don't think you even know what your point is.

I give you an example of how corporate-driven so-called "globalization" has hammered many unjions and working people generally, and you twist that into how they are the ones selling out.

I guess if you run a pedestrian over with your care, you would blame them for being in your way.

quote:

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Your are so close to what I am saying . But you insist that I am wrong.....

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I’m not close to what you’re saying. I maintain the historic factual reality that in a class capitalistic economy (which every economy is for the most part), undemocratic power structure try to maintain their accumulated wealth and power, while working class and public interest movements (especially labour unions) push for greater freedom and security against these. Sometimes they win, some times they don’t.

You seem to blame unions and their member and leaders for supposedly bringing these horrible situations on themselves.

quote:

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From my understanding, Marx said the the proletariat will not spontaniuosly figure out what needs to be done.

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Marx, in both the Communist Manifesto and the Critique of Political Economy, was quoted (actually probably his most famous quote) saying:

quote:

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The emancipation of the working class is inevitably a conscious act of the working class itself.

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That means he, and many others, recognized the fact that as material conditions change and people consciousness grows, they learn over time how to do things and set things up in a better way. Leaders can clearly facilitate (or not facilitate) this as it is happening. But Marx adamantly believed that no one individual or small group, no matter how enlightening or well-meaning, could change things by themselves—nor could they all-knowingly lead the whole people to freedom, like some messiah—and I think history shows he was right.

quote:

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People like you should be educating the people .

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As I said before, that’s what people like me try to do—not because we’re stupid or arrogant enough to actually think we can “lead the masses”—but because the more people know about things, the more options they have and the more abilities they have to change things for the better.

quote:

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Aparently you are not going to educate them about Lenin and Trotsky even thou those two people were instrumentle in leading the workers of Russia to take control of the country. A point and fact that no other socialists were able to do.

---

Educating people about Lenin and Trotsky is fine IF you are actually educating and not trying to mislead them with BS.

The fact is, by Lenin's own reports and business plans , the post-revolutionary restructuring of the Russian economy was taking shape as a primarily State capitalist economic model, complete with state-owned top-down corporations run by dictatorial profiteering managers and hacks (including many from the pre-revolutionary Czarist era) as a supposedly “transitional” stage toward developing a socialist economy (because, as said, the material conditions and level of social consciousness and education were not yet there among the people to do so).

Sadly, those capitalist bosses rallied around Joseph Stalin and gradually centralized more and more of the economy under their control. After his 1929 coup, the Stalinist regime further entrench that elite and its capitalistic economic and ended that supposed “transitional” period by make it permanent. That state capitalist model dominated the economy right up until the break-up of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union, and still exists in partial form there today.

Trotsky also basically admitted this (although he was too gutless to call it state capitalism, since he helped set that up and therefore would have to admit to his own complicity in creating the very economic model that allowed Stalin to come to power in the first place) in his book The Revolution Betrayed, which he published before the Stalinists had him killed.

The fact is, there are more practical ways to educate people and engage them in discussion about alternatives to capitalism and neo-con baloney than historic doctrine.

Rather, I try to point out the huge successes of socialistic economics and enterprises at the regional and sectoral level in Canada and around the globe .

[ 02 May 2007: Message edited by: Steppenwolf Allende ]

quote:

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unions and public interest and democratic forces have been on the retreat, and our standards of living and freedoms have suffered for it, as the world seems to have been put on a course toward totalitarianism, mass poverty and ecological disaster.

---

Reread what you have said. Here it is again...

quote:

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unions and public interest and democratic forces have been on the retreat

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Whom exactly is on the retreat? You , me; or the leadership of the organizations that represent us?

When the people are angree we have no problem going out on strike. You can see is all over the world and in our own back yard. Who leads these strikes? Is it individual people? Or do we act as aunit with some form of leadership?

yes there is a time to retreat but not every single time we reach a critical point. I woud say we should be stopping and resting rather then retreating.

Your not much different then me. You only hold something else to blame... You say it is the capitalists system and globalization...

Marx said that capitalism will give the prolitariat the tools to distroy it. You seem to think that it is giving the proletariat the tools to retreat....

i personally blame the undereducation of the proletariat and the sell out from the ones that lead us...

Look at me, you know far more about history and Marxism then me. But with every crumb that i learn i turn into a revolutionary filled will a desire for change.

When I want to charge ahead and can not I look for the people holding me back... That would be my leaders. I fully expect the capialist to tell me that I can not produce change but I do not expect it to come from the people on my side.

For example..

last year the NY Transit workers went on strick at Christmas time... The capitalist were all over them but he proletariat were on the side of the workers.... How come the strike went no were....??? how come the workers got nothing????

They were sold out...

This was a very important fight the the workers of American needed to win at all costs but the Unin leadership would not support it....

And you are telling me that its globalization ??? BS.....

quote:

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I’m not close to what you’re saying. I maintain the historic factual reality that in a class capitalistic economy (which every economy is for the most part), undemocratic power structure try to maintain their accumulated wealth and power, while working class and public interest movements (especially labour unions) push for greater freedom and security against these. Sometimes they win, some times they don’t

---

You gonna tell me I don't agree with this??? Come on give me a break???

The problem is we are losing big time right now... Why is that ?? Globalization...??? Bullshit...

The work force has been globalized for over a centery....Trotsky came up with the idea of permanent revolution because he realized it. And now you are going to tell me that over the last 20 or so years globalization is bringing us down?

Yo dont get it because you don't want to...

The capitalists realized they need to free capital globoly to save themselves.... Trotsky realized the workers needed to go globely to save the world, way before them.....

Globalization is the only logical thing to do.... its not a curse its a god send.

quote:

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You seem to blame unions and their member and leaders for supposedly bringing these horrible situations on themselves

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No, I am blaming them for giving up the fight and selling out to save their own ass..... and keeping us tided to the slave wage system...

They should be pushing full out socialism not... reduced wages and constant consessions...

quote:

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Leaders can clearly facilitate (or not facilitate) this as it is happening.

---

Thereyou go again stating what I am saying... presently they are not facilitating the advent of world wide socialism.. They are selling out their own class to save their own asses.....

but then you go on to say this....

quote:

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But Marx adamantly believed that no one individual or small group, no matter how enlightening or well-meaning, could change things by themselves—nor could they all-knowingly lead the whole people to freedom, like some messiah—and I think history shows he was right

---

Did he actually say this or did you come to this conclusion????

quote:

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Educating people about Lenin and Trotsky is fine IF you are actually educating and not trying to mislead them with BS.

---

Were do I advocate Bullshitting people about what did or did not happen...

There is no question that there are many challenges facing the working class and their organizations out there - repeating rhetoric from the early 1900's and trying to simply flip it onto today without following the development of those ideas over the past 100 years is kind of hollow thinking.

Don't let any group tell you what to think or allow them to restrict your thinking. The world needs good activists who can think on their feet and stay committed to workers and think for themselves. Expand your horizons. There is plenty of good material out there.

quote:

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Yo dont get it because you don't want to...

Were did the Bolshevik party go wrong? And how do we change it for the future.

They should be pushing full out socialism not... reduced wages and constant consessions...

Did he actually say this or did you come to this conclusion????

Globalization is the only logical thing to do.... its not a curse its a god send.

And you are telling me that its globalization ??? BS.....

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Tell you what, trippie: instead of repeating yourself over and over and dismissing the facts and perspectives I have offered here, why don't you take some advice from the Wicked Chicken and start doing some of your own serious reading and research?

You can start with the links I include in my posts. They are in red type. All you need to do is click on them and they will take you to the sources where the information I use to help form what I say are available--and read it yourself.

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You obviously don’t accept anything I say, so go learn it from someone else

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Were do you come off saying things like this?
Ive learnd that you have far more knowledge on history then I do and that in actual fact we want the same thing...

but here is an article that I happen to come across taht can explain my point of view much better...It is posted at Socialist Voice.

http://socialistvoice.com/Soc-Voice/Soc-Voice-120.htm

here are some high lights....

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have been a wage worker and union member for my 35-year working life. I have been a member of diverse unions, including postal workers, railworkers, steelworkers, and paper workers. For the past 10 years, I have worked as an aircraft assembler. I am a member of the Machinists union.

In all this time, I have been on strike three times

That’s not much strike action over 35 years, especially as each one was rather tame

In Canada and Quebec, the modern working class has never waged a fight for political power. But we have seen many examples of a "fighting labour movement." The years following both world wars were tumultuous and saw, at various times, mass trade union organizing drives, general strikes for improvements in living and working conditions, and mass farmer-organizing drives

The HEU strike touched a very deep chord in the working class, and we saw strong and forceful acts of solidarity coming forward from all sectors of society. The strike began to take on the elements of a political strike, one that would challenge the very legitimacy of the hated Campbell government. Had the actions of solidarity continued, they would have forced the resignation of the government and the calling of an election in which quality health care and the ruthless, class character of the existing government would be front and center.

A strike of teachers in British Columbia in the fall of 2005 followed a similar pattern. Teachers were demanding an end to cuts to their jobs and salaries and attacks on the public education system as a whole. In so doing, they sparked a broad and growing movement of solidarity from other unions and from working-class people as a whole. Once again, the entire government policy of sharp attacks on social services was being challenged.

The teachers strike also presented the possibility for unions in British Columbia to come to the aid of embattled workers at the Telus telecommunication corporation. Several tens of thousands of Telus workers were engaged in a very bitter and sometimes violent strike that began weeks before the teachers walked out and was dragging on with no end in sight.

The health care and Telus strikes went down to very painful defeat. A four-day strike by 4,000 ferry workers in December 2004 was also defeated. Teachers won limited concessions because they were in a stronger moral and political position to resist legal and political threats to break their strike.

Some Lessons
During the HEU and teachers’ strikes, some unions were walking off the job in support, and many others were giving signs that they, too, were willing to walk off the job. But the BC Federation of Labour and its affiliates did not mobilize to defend these workers; they thereby signaled to other potential allies of the strikers that nothing could be done. This doomed the strikes to defeat. An historic opportunity to fight the federal and provincial governments’ attacks on social services and democratic rights was lost. The poorest sections of society in British Columbia continue to suffer under the lash of government policy with barely a peep of protest from the unions and their political party, the New Democratic Party.

Yet, cuts to social programs are continuing apace. Health care services and standards are in decline. Public education is suffering. The federal government’s unemployment insurance program has a $50 billion (!) surplus, and access is harder than ever. Homelessness is rampant and growing, and welfare rates cannot sustain human life. So why are workers’ conditions worsening in a society of seeming abundance?

The working classes around the world need to organize politically and take control of government in order to reorganize society. But we face two interconnected problems along that road:

One, our political and trade union officials are not leading. They offer no vision and no program for a fight to defend and advance workers rights. Thus, at the critical moments of the hospital, ferry, teachers, and Telus strikes, leaders of the BC Federation of Labour and its affiliates backed down from a head-on fight with the provincial government and blocked mass action.

And two, workers see no alternative but to seek individual solutions to societal problems. Your rent is too high, or there’s no social housing available? Take out a mortgage and buy a house, or renovate your basement and become a landlord. Inadequate pension income? Put money into an RRSP. Wages too low? Take a second job, or push your children into the labour force. And so on.

A fighting labour movement would have welcomed the challenges of the HEU, ferry workers, teachers’ and Telus workers’ strikes in British Columbia. It would have mobilized the unions and others to win these strikes and to force changes in government policy. Equally important, it would champion the causes of the most oppressed in our society—indigenous people fighting for land, social and national rights; young people unable to find a job; people needing a higher minimum wage or welfare rates; women victimized by systematic sexism; drug addicts receiving police abuse instead of treatment for their addictions.

Is Electioneering the Answer?
Instead, we are told to tighten our belts, wait for the next election, and elect an NDP government that may legislate to meet our concerns. In British Columbia, we have the embarrassing spectacle of the unions and the NDP supporting the 2010 Winter Olympic boondoggle and all its consequences — growing homelessness, rising taxes and housing prices, expanding roadways, and consequent air pollution. And where opposition to the Olympics has surfaced in official circles, such as among some members of the Vancouver COPE municipal party, that opposition has been ineffectual.

In reality, the NDP today, when in power, acts much like other capitalist governments. So when workers elect this party to government, we must mobilize to ensure that the modest reforms in the NDP program are enacted. No deep-going process of social change is possible unless working people unite in their communities and their workplaces to press it forward.

Marxists Face Up to the Challenges of Our Times
The challenge facing Marxists today in Canada and internationally is to be a part of the unfolding resistance to the employers’ offensive. We must join and provide leadership to the struggles waged by unions, the poor, and women’s rights advocates. We must also learn from popular struggles, such as those of the indigenous peoples. We have a special responsibility to join with the worldwide anti-imperialist struggle and deepen solidarity with the peoples in countries like Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, where working people are struggling to use political power to refashion society in their interests.

Marxists have a unique and vital contribution to make to the working class struggle in all its dimensions. We bring the lessons from previous struggles and we bring a clear outlook on what is needed to put an end to war, environmental destruction, and other injustices.

To do all that, we must ourselves become better organized and more unified. All of us who organized this conference are keenly aware of past failures to do this. Some of us come from political organizations that are no longer playing a unifying role, that have succumbed to narrow group interest and sectarianism. But if Cuba and Venezuela teach us anything, it is that the challenge doesn’t go away; we must draw the lessons of past accomplishments and then move forward.

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Amend Bill 80: Dionisio to McGuinty

Law restricts locals from leaving parent unions

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Originally posted by Proudtobeadp:
I was a labour leader for some 13 years as a staffer who saw members being sold out time after time. I did not compromise my ideals so towards that 13th year I was targetted to be sold out and that sellout was all Quebec led with their form of cooperative unionism that eventually sold out everyone else too that did not see the Quebec way.

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Did you at least fetch a decent price?

If Proudtobeadp chares are correct we should be able to see some of the evidence and we can.

The labour leaders of Quebec openly support the big business parties in that provence.

What did the labour leaders do during all the years of tax cuts and social program cuts?

Buzz Hargrove has done much to raise the profile of the middle of the road unionist. But he hasn't changed the political culture in Canada which has always been neoliberal and right wing.

I think Maude Barlow and the Council of Canadians make a stronger statement about the needs of Canadians by being non-partisan and sticking to the issues.

Unions could provide visions, look into the future and develop their own agendas as the CAW sponsored Centre for Policy Alternatives does. This is the future of unionism because it is a rational future.

The capitalist neo-liberal order we know is predicated on the majority premise of exploiting labour for profit. They can inovate and micromanage all they want but the managerial classes thrive in undermining workers and replacing them with machines. Unions have been effective in overcoming the great disadvantages the capitalist class exploits.