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NEWS & LETTERS, August-September 2007Waste Management lockout is first battleBy Htun Lin Waste Management locked out 500 workers after their contract expired on June 30. The workers, members of Teamsters Local 70, collect garbage in Oakland and several other northern California cities,. They had not voted to strike, and had pledged to stay on the job under the old contract. As garbage started piling up after a week, alarm spread through Oakland over the growing health hazard. City officials have taken Waste Management to court over its failure to meet its contractual obligations. The company resumed some garbage collection, especially in wealthier neighborhoods, by recruiting 200 scabs. Many from the community have come out to support the locked out workers, as have other unions in a 24-hour picket line. Waste Management waged this pre-emptive strike in order to try to set an example for southern California. They hoped to come in with a precedent-setting settlement to present as a fait accompli for even larger contracts coming up there. The company is hell bent on forcing workers to pay for more of their health care expenses and imposing new disciplinary measures for safety and health violations. Despite the real health risks they have caused, Waste Management had the gall to declare, ÒWe want nothing more than to get an agreement with the union that will keep our drivers and our communities safe.Ó Using words to deceive, for the capitalists Òpublic health and safetyÓ is nothing more than public relations. Waste ManagementÕs first priority, in its concern for health and safety, is to blame individual employees for all health and safety violations. The people who genuinely care about health and safety and public welfare are those who actually do the work, the garbage workersÑjust as in other workplaces it is housekeepers, nurses or teachers. IÕve worked in a hospital for 20 years. IÕve seen many nurses and service workers blamed every time something goes wrong with a patient. If it werenÕt for the strong nursesÕ union, standing up to managementÕs deceptive use of the quality-care concept, and if it werenÕt for our contracts which spell out formal disciplinary procedures which guarantee workers a modicum of union rights and a proper investigation, many more of us would not be working here today. ThatÕs because the first thing managers do whenever a patient is harmed is to blame individual workers, even though we workers have been pointing out problems and risk patterns leading to deficient care for years, warnings which went unheeded. Waste Management is out to scapegoat individual workers for health and safety violations while simultaneously trying to cut back on workersÕ healthcare. For management, workersÕ health care is nothing more than a cost. They see nothing immoral about their Òcost-shiftingÓ or Òcost-cuttingÓ which has resulted in the deterioration of many a workerÕs health. But once thereÕs a particular Òhealth and safety violationÓ supposedly by an individual worker, he is to be punished. Waste ManagementÕs twisted logic includes a demand for a no-strike clause. Their logic is that strikes harm customers and cause unnecessary inconvenience and headaches. ThatÕs why they want a no-strike clause for the new contract. They intend to do anything to get it, including locking out workers. If the lockout causes tons of garbage to pile up, it is because they don't really care about community health. Employers are sensing a total retreat when there are labor mis-leaders like Andy Stern of the Service Employees actively promoting no-strike clauses in sweetheart deals with nursing home mega chains. Stern parrots the capitalistsÕ own banalities about globalization, calling for a global union movementÑbut by surrendering to capital. His idea is to give capital what it wants, including exporting jobs. All this twisted logicÑthrough which Stern subscribes to health take-backs, concessions on working conditions, and the erosion of job securityÑis just part of capitalÕs ongoing war on labor. The only effective way out of this is through thoughtful rank-and-file self-activity. This includes holding firm to laborÕs key leverage, the right to strike. It also means working out our own concept of cooperation and community well being that doesnÕt tail-end capitalÕs logic. |
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