Just when I thought I could get some sleep, this pops up.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x5041843brooklynite (1000+ posts) Fri Oct-28-11 11:21 PM
Original message
Unions Say They Won't Strike with Occupy Oakland
Source: Atlantic Wire
On Thursday Occupy Oakland announced a general strike that would "shut the city down," but while the unions have expressed support for the political movement, labor representatives said on Friday they wouldn't be striking. Protest organizers met with labor unions to get the support of labor, which they have, but only to a point. Occupy Oakland organizer Cat Brooks told Reuters on Friday the goal of the Nov. 2 action was a total general strike. "We mean nobody goes to work, nobody goes to school, we shut the city down," she said. But representatives from the Peralta Federation of Teachers and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union both said their organizations wouldn't call a strike for their members.
"It’s virtually impossible for any union to endorse a work-stoppage because all contracts have no-strike clauses, which unions are bound to honor. However most of the unions on the west coast, including ILWU, have been involved in supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement in their local communities," ILWU communications director Craig Merrilees said.
Separately, Peralta Fedration of Teachers labor representative Sara Connors said that while that union did have a process by which to call for a strike, it involved a union-wide vote that the organization's leadership had not as yet scheduled. "We’re going to do what we can to have members there participating. We didn’t call a strike vote, but we’re participating in the day of action," she said. The plan for Thursday's action includes three separate assemblies -- at 9 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m. -- to be held in downtown Oakland. Unions have encouraged their members to attend when they can, but not to skip work.
ILWU members have a recent history of taking the day off on their own volition when there's a cause they support. In 2008 about 25,000 members walked off the job at ports along the West Coast to protest the war in Iraq. In 2003, workers joined protesters at the Port of Oakland to protest the U.S. invasion. Merrilees refused to speculate on whether port workers would join the general strike next Thursday, but he said: "The ILWU members have a long and well-deserved reputation for exercising their fisrst-amendment rights on a wide variety of issues, all based on bedrock principles of social justice. That goes back to the times shortly after the union was founded, when workers refused to load ships bound for fascist Germany or Hirohito’s Japan, and includes actions that members took to oppose the apartheid regime in south Africa, and the war in Iraq during our time."
Read more: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/10/unions-... /
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As I said before, calling for a strike you can't deliver is a major tactical error.
Oops.
Right out of the blocks..
Ian David (1000+ posts) Fri Oct-28-11 11:23 PM
Response to Original message
1. Maybe they should have asked the unions FIRST. n/t
>snort<
Imajika (1000+ posts) Fri Oct-28-11 11:48 PM
Response to Original message
4. Seriously, quit with the general strike stuff...
...it's not going to happen. Nowhere near enough people will participate even in the most progressive cities.
Besides, it makes us look like bigger fools than we already are.tcaudilllg (1000+ posts) Sat Oct-29-11 03:41 AM
Response to Reply #4
14. You are wrong...
but people need to step outside of fantasy land first. What's in it for the unions, eh?
They have. That's why you're whining like a home sick puppy.
UnrepentantLiberal (475 posts) Sat Oct-29-11 03:52 AM
Response to Reply #5
15. Occupy may well burn out...
but if it does it will leave embers burning. The message that the banks are looting the treasury and our polititions are bought and paid for won't be forgotten like last year's dance craze.
Got that right. We all love old jokes.
stockholmer (1000+ posts) Fri Oct-28-11 11:53 PM
Response to Original message
7. 3 words, National....... General....... Strike
Edited on Fri Oct-28-11 11:55 PM by stockholmer
Just viscously, intelligently, confidently, verbally repeatedly rip into the despicable collaborators (unions, non union, rich, poor, friends family, ALL and ANY who try to not go along). Make the sheep and the sell-outs lives a living hell of shunning, ostracizing, and despair. Make the nexus of big business/banksters/government terrified of the masses. It (bringing the icy fear to the power matrix and starting the destruction of the free-flow of the systemic controller's multi-variate wealth-power consolidation schema) is the only way out at this late hour to save the USA.
Shut the whole ****ing thing DOWN, before they shut you down.
The gasp and the grab.
pasto76 (792 posts) Sat Oct-29-11 01:07 AM
Response to Original message
11. Anyone versed in modern union reality knows that the only people who lose in a strike is Labor
No on is forced to use a union workforce. They can choose to use non union at any time. Im beginning to fear that OWS is unraveling, much like Cain, under national review.
Calling for a strike is a Jr High move when the rest of us are working on our doctorates.
I smell a slightly toasted mole.
There's more.
