Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Thoughts on labor revitalization and UCSC
I've had to PELP and move to the East Coast to crash on my mom's couch, I only recently found a job which I start tomorrow, so dissertating is far from my mind these days
But after a comradely exchange with a friend about the relationship of members and formal organizations I have decided to write down some of what I've been thinking about in regards to my dissertation's theoretical perspective (minus all the citations and such) and how it relates to my orientation toward the recent events at UCSC.
------------
Sociologically speaking a social movement is "a specific form of collective social action in which excluded or marginalized groups with a shared sense of purpose and solidarity mobilize themselves to affect social change and achieve specific goals through extra-institutional channels.”
So before the New Deal structured the legal relationship of labor and the next couple of decades saw the emergence of business unionism as the dominant model through the development of organizational bureaucracy, workers took direct action - strikes, work stoppages, slow downs, etc. because there were no institutional channels set up to displace or mediate this conflict.
However, the web of relationships workers find themselves in today can only be described as institutionalized - labor law structures the relationship between workers and bosses, which unions get recognized and which don't, which employers have to negotiate and which don't, how those negotiations take place and who is involved. It tells workers when and how they can strike or picket, and gives workers less 1st amendment rights than any other group (formally, obviously some groups have less in practice).
Then on top of that structured relationship we get the contract to further structure the relationship between workers and bosses. The contract spells out workers pay and benefits and working conditions. Nearly all union contracts have "No Strikes" clauses - this emerges around WWII. Nearly all have "management's rights" clauses which waive the rights of workers to negotiate over nearly all decisions made by management that don't violate the contract.
And then there is the grievance procedure. The grievance procedure usually entails filling out a form and dropping it off at HR, then there is usually a meeting involved or multiple steps of meetings, and a ruling by HR about whether or not the boss violated the contract. Of course HR works *for* the boss, so their only motivation to rule against the boss is the risk of pissing workers off and escalating the conflict or the liability of losing arbitration - as arbitration is the final step in the grievance process if the union and the boss don't agree then they either go to an agreed upon third party who will rule on the grievance or a state labor board. This whole process can take weeks, months, even years if it goes to arbitration. Meanwhile the problem continues. And this is what the grievance process has done, it has also institutionalized conflict. It has disciplined the workers, making them patiently wait for the matter to be discussed and settled by experts at another time and place. Whereas before the conflict happened on the "shop floor" - the problem arose there and the action was taken there. Workers own agency was the key to solving the problem, now a union rep, and HR consultant, and a retired judge acting as arbitrator decide in an office far away on a much later date.
If your union leadership is selling you out in negotiations, not taking grievances seriously, or even taking kickbacks from the employer your only recourse is through the channels formally laid out in your union constitution/bylaws. If that means members don't get a vote on a contract - as we saw with professors in NYC who only could vote by electing delegates to vote on the contract then that is your only channel. If you haven't gotten to vote for your union president for over 10 years because the constitution says your local doesn't hold an election if more units are brought in to the local and your leadership pursues a strategy of gobbling up smaller locals into its local than you have no recourse but to wait until the next election to fix that, whenever that may be, in the case of a certain UFCW local.
Tilly et al distinguish between two types of collective action, contained contention and transgressive contention. Contained contention is when two parties have essentially ritualized their conflict, as it is so structured the behavior is patterned and predictable, whereas transgressive contention is conflict that brings in new actors, new tactics, and doesn't fall into a pattern or habit.
Contained contention I would argue is the product of institutionalization - when the relationship of conflict has become buffered through structures and organizations have developed a symbiotic (if not contradictory) relationship through organizational changes - like theemergence of union bureaucracy whose financial and professional existence relies more on the continued perpetuation of capitalism and its growth than the destruction of capitalism, as we saw with win-win negotiations in the auto industry where the UAW saw its future tied to the success of the Big 5.
Transgressive contention on the other hand is when collective action turns away from institutionalization and back to social movement activity - engaging in new tactics, drawing in new parties, and centering the power and agency of the rank-and-file. We see this with Red for Ed, where the fight against neoliberal school reforms and austerity has spilled outside of the structures of the Democratic Party and the union leadership which supported No Child Left Behind and into the streets where teachers, students, and communities see themsleves as the change makers, where their actions not the actions of others acting in a bureaucratic space through formal channels were what was going to change our education system.
What does this all mean for union activists? Firstly that "organized labor" and the "labor movement" aren't necessarily the same. Labor has become more of a 501c3, it resembles the nonprofit industrial complex more than the Haymarket martyrs. That this change has been contradictory, that while working people have benefited from the institutionalization of labor as they could depend on these structures to provide some check to employer power, that it has been a dual-edged sword, that it has also led to the stagnation and decline of the actual movement aspect of the labor movement, and probably also to the actual decline of union membership and power. Secondly this implies that the revitalization of the labor movement requires a shift from contained contention to transgressive contention that can likely only come about through struggle against existing union structures and leadership, as current organizational forms and relationships developed as part of the containing/disciplining of rank-and-file militancy and democracy.
Lastly, that the wildcat strike, an act against labor law and against union leadership is the ultimate act of anti-discipline, anti-institutionalization, and it is an expression of the purest form of social movement activity that labor can engage in.
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Second Round of Appeal of UAW 2865 Contract Ratification
This is a document sent out tonight that I am copying here for the sake of transparency and historical record. It was sent to the Statewide Recording Secretary, the President, and the E-board googlegroup.
If you want to see the original appeal click here. The e-board denied that appeal - notably with two e-board members who were either bargaining team members or alternates voting on the legitimacy of the claim - and therefore their own actions - despite the Davis unit sending a request to the e-board not to let people with these direct conflicts of interest participate in this appeal process.
TITLE: Appeal Against the Executive Board’s Determination on the Mussman Appeal
We the undersigned lodge an appeal against the UAW 2865 (hereafter “Local”) Executive Board’s decision on the Appeal relating to the contract ratification process in August 2018, filed by Lead Appellant Mary Mussman (Comparative Literature, Berkeley) and 48 other Appellants, on September 16, 2018 (hereafter “the Mussman Appeal”). The document titled “Final Appeal Findings”, communicating the Executive Board’s determination on the Mussman Appeal, was sent to the Appellants by Local President Kavitha Iyengar on January 18, 2019. We appeal the Board’s decision to a higher decision-making body in the Local, on the basis of Local Bylaws Article 19, Section 5, which states that “[w]ithin thirty (30) days of receiving notice of such decision, the grievant may appeal further by submitting her/his appeal to the Recording Secretary in writing for consideration by the membership at the next statewide membership meeting or Joint Council meeting, whichever is sooner.”
We appeal the Executive Board’s determination on multiple grounds, including but not limited to the following;
1. The Executive Board makes false and/or misleading claims on the following points regarding actions by Kit Pribble and the Elections Committee.
a) Kit Pribble, the Local Elections Committee Chair until 5:32pm, August 20th, did not approve "the body of the email itself", which was written by Garrett Shishido Strain and Alli Carlisle. While Pribble did approve the "text of the ratification ballot", that only concerned the ballot itself and did not include the ballot email, contrary to the Board's claim. The ballot email with the extremely biased content was sent to members in the morning of August 20 without approval by Pribble, let alone by the Elections Committee, in violation of the Article 13, Section 1 of the Local Bylaws. It is the ballot email, not the ballot itself, which the Mussman Appeal contends as particularly egregious and pernicious.
b) While Pribble did "sen[d] out the ratification vote ballots to members of the Elections Committee on each campus" and "distributed the official in-person ballots" at Berkeley until her resignation, she conducted these actions under duress, due to the false claims regarding the Elections Committee's legal authority, made by Mike Miller (UAW International Representative) and Jonathan Koch (then UCLA Unit Chair). Miller and Koch claimed that the Elections Committee did not have the power to interfere in the Bargaining Team's decision about when and how to hold the vote, which is false in light of Article 13, Section 1, prompting her to take actions which she would otherwise have not taken.
c) Pribble's approval of certain actions regarding the ratification vote does not, on its own, constitute "the supervision of a democratically elected elections committee". The Chair's approval, without a proper majority vote by all committee members, does not equate to the Committee's approval. Pribble objects to her actions being construed as supervision or granting of approval by the Elections Committee, in the absence of a Committee vote.
The above facts regarding Pribble’s actions and those of the Elections Committee, misrepresented in the Board’s “findings”, invalidate its claim that “Neither the Executive Board nor the Bargaining Team violated Article 13, Section 1 of the Local Bylaws, nor did either body violate the spirit thereof.” The ratification vote in August 2018 occurred in clear and explicit violation of Article 13, Section 1 of the Local Bylaws, which explicitly states that “all Local Union elections, strike votes, and contract ratification votes shall be held under the supervision of a democratically elected election committee” (emphasis ours). Therefore, the contract ratification vote, and hence the contract itself, is null and void.
2. The Executive Board makes an unjustified claim regarding distribution of power and democracy in the union. The Board claims that the Bargaining Team members are “invested with the strength and the will of the union’s membership” and therefore “the Bargaining Team’s position to ratify constituted the union’s official position to recommend a ‘yes’ vote.” This claim has no basis in the Local Bylaws. While the Bylaws generally do not make explicit reference to what constitutes the union’s “official position”, it is explicit that the Bargaining Team must present “the final contract to the membership for ratification”. (Local Bylaws Article 9, Section 2) Furthermore, the Local Bylaws affirms that “the membership is the highest authority of this Local Union” (Article 5, Section 1). We reject the claim that, on an issue for which a membership vote is explicitly mandated in the Bylaws, any position taken before that vote constitutes the “official position” of the union.
3. The Executive Board claims that the use of paid staff time to campaign for a YES vote in a contract ratification vote is “consistent with the union’s democratic principles”. This claim has no basis in the Local Bylaws; we strongly reject the claim to justify use of staff resources to promote a particular position in a contentious membership vote, which drastically and systematically biases its outcome, in the name of the Local’s “democratic principles.”
4. The Executive Board’s “Findings” fail to address the substantive point that it is fundamentally anti-democratic to hold a ratification vote during the summer; as the original Mussman Appeal stated, “for all but two UC campuses, both August votes took place a full month prior to school being back in session. The timing of the vote particularly infringed upon members on campuses on the quarter system, whose fall quarter begins in late September. Nevertheless, even for the two UC campuses that begin the fall semester in August, the initial straw poll and the ratification vote took place only as graduate student workers were returning to campus, and over the course of the hectic lead-up to the coming semester.” The comparatively high turnout in the ratification vote reflects the extremely contentious character of the issue, and does not prove the absence of significant obstacles against participation.
Furthermore, our claim concerns the possibility of a substantive deliberation regarding contract ratification, not simply that of voting; as the Mussman Appeal stated; “during this time, an extensive portion of the broader union membership was not available to deliberate with peers over the details of the contract. Further, there was no official union meeting to discuss ratification on any of the nine campuses.” The Board fails to address this point. Voting does not equal participation.
Finally, in light of the Board’s claim to have considered “the processes used by our sibling unions”, we note that many other graduate workers’ unions guarantee the members’ right to substantively take part in a democratic process on ratification. The Teaching Assistant Association (TAA) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Graduate Teaching Fellows’ Federation (GTFF) at the University of Oregon both stipulate explicitly that a membership meeting must be held to discuss the contract offer (and in the case of TAA, approval at the membership meeting must be obtained), in addition to a membership vote to ratify the contract. (TAA Bylaws D. 3, TAA Constitution Article VI. Section B, D, GTFF Bylaws Article 12)
The above reasons for appeal do not preclude any other applicable grounds for appeal.
The erroneously ratified contract hardly meets the needs of our members. Offering pay remaining below the living wage and barely at pace with inflation, without any measures to address the ever-worsening housing crisis or to secure protection from the militarized police on campus, this contract has undermined confidence in this union by many members across the state, who have rightly expected more. This crisis of confidence has been exacerbated by the Executive Board’s failure to engage in sincere dialogue with the members who have profound concerns with the process in which this contract was proclaimed ratified, as well as its content. Therefore, we reject the Executive Board’s decision and call for a truly democratic and legally sound ratification vote. We appeal because we, as workers and members of this union, deserve better.
Signed,
Mary Mussman, Lead Appellant
Marcelo Mendez, Contact Liaison*
Kevan Aguilar
Kyle Galindez
Connor Gorman
Veronica Hamilton
Shannon Ikebe
Sarah Mason
Ana McTaggart
Tara Phillips
Kit Pribble
Michael Rawls
Mick Song
Duane Wright
Blu Buchanan
*Please direct all relevant correspondence to Marcelo Mendez
If you want to see the original appeal click here. The e-board denied that appeal - notably with two e-board members who were either bargaining team members or alternates voting on the legitimacy of the claim - and therefore their own actions - despite the Davis unit sending a request to the e-board not to let people with these direct conflicts of interest participate in this appeal process.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TITLE: Appeal Against the Executive Board’s Determination on the Mussman Appeal
We the undersigned lodge an appeal against the UAW 2865 (hereafter “Local”) Executive Board’s decision on the Appeal relating to the contract ratification process in August 2018, filed by Lead Appellant Mary Mussman (Comparative Literature, Berkeley) and 48 other Appellants, on September 16, 2018 (hereafter “the Mussman Appeal”). The document titled “Final Appeal Findings”, communicating the Executive Board’s determination on the Mussman Appeal, was sent to the Appellants by Local President Kavitha Iyengar on January 18, 2019. We appeal the Board’s decision to a higher decision-making body in the Local, on the basis of Local Bylaws Article 19, Section 5, which states that “[w]ithin thirty (30) days of receiving notice of such decision, the grievant may appeal further by submitting her/his appeal to the Recording Secretary in writing for consideration by the membership at the next statewide membership meeting or Joint Council meeting, whichever is sooner.”
We appeal the Executive Board’s determination on multiple grounds, including but not limited to the following;
1. The Executive Board makes false and/or misleading claims on the following points regarding actions by Kit Pribble and the Elections Committee.
a) Kit Pribble, the Local Elections Committee Chair until 5:32pm, August 20th, did not approve "the body of the email itself", which was written by Garrett Shishido Strain and Alli Carlisle. While Pribble did approve the "text of the ratification ballot", that only concerned the ballot itself and did not include the ballot email, contrary to the Board's claim. The ballot email with the extremely biased content was sent to members in the morning of August 20 without approval by Pribble, let alone by the Elections Committee, in violation of the Article 13, Section 1 of the Local Bylaws. It is the ballot email, not the ballot itself, which the Mussman Appeal contends as particularly egregious and pernicious.
b) While Pribble did "sen[d] out the ratification vote ballots to members of the Elections Committee on each campus" and "distributed the official in-person ballots" at Berkeley until her resignation, she conducted these actions under duress, due to the false claims regarding the Elections Committee's legal authority, made by Mike Miller (UAW International Representative) and Jonathan Koch (then UCLA Unit Chair). Miller and Koch claimed that the Elections Committee did not have the power to interfere in the Bargaining Team's decision about when and how to hold the vote, which is false in light of Article 13, Section 1, prompting her to take actions which she would otherwise have not taken.
c) Pribble's approval of certain actions regarding the ratification vote does not, on its own, constitute "the supervision of a democratically elected elections committee". The Chair's approval, without a proper majority vote by all committee members, does not equate to the Committee's approval. Pribble objects to her actions being construed as supervision or granting of approval by the Elections Committee, in the absence of a Committee vote.
The above facts regarding Pribble’s actions and those of the Elections Committee, misrepresented in the Board’s “findings”, invalidate its claim that “Neither the Executive Board nor the Bargaining Team violated Article 13, Section 1 of the Local Bylaws, nor did either body violate the spirit thereof.” The ratification vote in August 2018 occurred in clear and explicit violation of Article 13, Section 1 of the Local Bylaws, which explicitly states that “all Local Union elections, strike votes, and contract ratification votes shall be held under the supervision of a democratically elected election committee” (emphasis ours). Therefore, the contract ratification vote, and hence the contract itself, is null and void.
2. The Executive Board makes an unjustified claim regarding distribution of power and democracy in the union. The Board claims that the Bargaining Team members are “invested with the strength and the will of the union’s membership” and therefore “the Bargaining Team’s position to ratify constituted the union’s official position to recommend a ‘yes’ vote.” This claim has no basis in the Local Bylaws. While the Bylaws generally do not make explicit reference to what constitutes the union’s “official position”, it is explicit that the Bargaining Team must present “the final contract to the membership for ratification”. (Local Bylaws Article 9, Section 2) Furthermore, the Local Bylaws affirms that “the membership is the highest authority of this Local Union” (Article 5, Section 1). We reject the claim that, on an issue for which a membership vote is explicitly mandated in the Bylaws, any position taken before that vote constitutes the “official position” of the union.
3. The Executive Board claims that the use of paid staff time to campaign for a YES vote in a contract ratification vote is “consistent with the union’s democratic principles”. This claim has no basis in the Local Bylaws; we strongly reject the claim to justify use of staff resources to promote a particular position in a contentious membership vote, which drastically and systematically biases its outcome, in the name of the Local’s “democratic principles.”
4. The Executive Board’s “Findings” fail to address the substantive point that it is fundamentally anti-democratic to hold a ratification vote during the summer; as the original Mussman Appeal stated, “for all but two UC campuses, both August votes took place a full month prior to school being back in session. The timing of the vote particularly infringed upon members on campuses on the quarter system, whose fall quarter begins in late September. Nevertheless, even for the two UC campuses that begin the fall semester in August, the initial straw poll and the ratification vote took place only as graduate student workers were returning to campus, and over the course of the hectic lead-up to the coming semester.” The comparatively high turnout in the ratification vote reflects the extremely contentious character of the issue, and does not prove the absence of significant obstacles against participation.
Furthermore, our claim concerns the possibility of a substantive deliberation regarding contract ratification, not simply that of voting; as the Mussman Appeal stated; “during this time, an extensive portion of the broader union membership was not available to deliberate with peers over the details of the contract. Further, there was no official union meeting to discuss ratification on any of the nine campuses.” The Board fails to address this point. Voting does not equal participation.
Finally, in light of the Board’s claim to have considered “the processes used by our sibling unions”, we note that many other graduate workers’ unions guarantee the members’ right to substantively take part in a democratic process on ratification. The Teaching Assistant Association (TAA) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Graduate Teaching Fellows’ Federation (GTFF) at the University of Oregon both stipulate explicitly that a membership meeting must be held to discuss the contract offer (and in the case of TAA, approval at the membership meeting must be obtained), in addition to a membership vote to ratify the contract. (TAA Bylaws D. 3, TAA Constitution Article VI. Section B, D, GTFF Bylaws Article 12)
The above reasons for appeal do not preclude any other applicable grounds for appeal.
The erroneously ratified contract hardly meets the needs of our members. Offering pay remaining below the living wage and barely at pace with inflation, without any measures to address the ever-worsening housing crisis or to secure protection from the militarized police on campus, this contract has undermined confidence in this union by many members across the state, who have rightly expected more. This crisis of confidence has been exacerbated by the Executive Board’s failure to engage in sincere dialogue with the members who have profound concerns with the process in which this contract was proclaimed ratified, as well as its content. Therefore, we reject the Executive Board’s decision and call for a truly democratic and legally sound ratification vote. We appeal because we, as workers and members of this union, deserve better.
Signed,
Mary Mussman, Lead Appellant
Marcelo Mendez, Contact Liaison*
Kevan Aguilar
Kyle Galindez
Connor Gorman
Veronica Hamilton
Shannon Ikebe
Sarah Mason
Ana McTaggart
Tara Phillips
Kit Pribble
Michael Rawls
Mick Song
Duane Wright
Blu Buchanan
*Please direct all relevant correspondence to Marcelo Mendez
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)