COMMENT
'The new voice of labor has laryngitis.* —Dave Watts, former president of the Staley workers' union Comment Labor Takes Its Lumps In late January, some Staley workers came through Madison,...
...Indeed, the whole idea behind NAFTA!»' GATT is to allow the Kentucky Fried Chickens of ll* world to run over all the local competitors...
...Id early December, striking workers at Caterpillar voted against accepting the company's latest contract offer...
...There must be a democratic, responsive union lead-rship at the international level...
...Tate & Lyle of England, should have been the target of strikes by workers there...
...Forbidden language includes the word "scab," slogans as apparently innocuous as Families in Solidarity, UAW (for which two employes have already been suspended), and union stickers on lunch pails...
...Now the age-old riddle can at last be solved...
...Getting people off welfare, without causing enormous suffering, would require a serious job-creation program, as well as training and day care, all of which are more expensive than handing out cash grants...
...Never mind what this means for the poor themselves...
...Why did the chicken cross the road...
...The UAW says that eighty-eight union members have so far been suspended or firedfo' peech intractions...
...The vote was close—286 to 226—on a settlement virtually equivalent to the two that the United Paperworkers Local 7837 had already defeated...
...too...
...Here was a local that ad put itself on the line...
...The coup de grace came on January 16, at a meetine at the union hall...
...And the workers took their cause to the streets: they organized mass protests, for which they were pepper-gassed by police...
...The American leadership eeds to remember the meaning of solidarity...
...As at Slaley's Decatur plant, scabs—5.fi50 m all— emain on the job at Caterpillar...
...The scene at Caterpillar was not much prettier...
...as the next election nears...
...The era of big government is over...
...In real life, there aren't enough well-paying jobs around to allow single parents to raise their children and cover day-care costs...
...After the settlement, Staley offered 349 jobs to the 601 eligible union members...
...the Republicans are goading him that he hasn't made-good...
...Kentucky Fried Chicken has 2,200 restaurants in Asia, and it intends to' set up thirty restaurants in India for an extra-crispy turn...
...Sweeney has the right idea about organizing, but or-anizing itself is not enough...
...He even heaped praise on Gingrich's reckless warriors...
...Clinton would infuriate many liberals in his own party," The New York Times says...
...But the international union had already informed members that their votes didn't matter-whether they approved the contract or not...
...Staley depended on PepsiCo's usiness: PepsiCo workers should have gone on strike...
...The AFL-CIO itself has to take democracy seriously...
...James Talent, Republican of Missouri, told Jason DeParle of The New York Times: "If you're going to say everyone is going to work, like John is saying, it's going to be very expensive...
...Caterpillar employees are now working without a contract, but the company has begun to impose the terms the local union rejected anyhow...
...the strike was finished...
...Their fears are not unwarranted...
...Ain't capitalism grand...
...International organizing is one ot the only ways to have an impact on these companies...
...All for naught...
...To replace it, Clinton made a platitudinous plea for voluntarism: He mentioned self-reliance, teamwork, and the importance of involvement in religious and charitable organizations—a longstanding Republican He that the nonprofit sector, plus individualism, can conquer the major problems that confront this country...
...The Staley workers voted to accept a contract designed to bust their union on December 22...
...The many replacement workers who have been hired on at Staley will now have union membership, making Local 7837 a union of scabs...
...Kentucky Fried Chicken was the first U.S...
...And in January, W farmers ransacked the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Bangalore...
...Why pay dues...
...the allure of a dues-paying membership is proving so attractive to unions organizing chicken-proc-ssing plants in the Southern states that unions are •ften competing against each other for the same mem-¦ers...
...Watts, a union man for twenty-eight years at Staley...
...In September...
...In the end, the politicians who take the credit for doing away with welfare this year can also take the blame for the suffering that is sure to follow...
...Seems the secret herbs and spices are not being met with universal favor...
...KFC is owned by PepsiCo, which also ownsFta Hut, which plans to open thirty of its own restaurants in India...
...He brayed about those Americans who work hard for a living, suggesting like Ronald Reagan that there are legions of shiftless people out there who are sucking the government dry...
...President Clinton ran on the promise to "end welfare as we know it...
...it has some poor leadership...
...How-ver...
...These were the very same cops that had pepper-gassed us...
...In June 1993, Staley, a subsidiary of Tate & Lyle, locked out its workers...
...While an expansive mobilization of service-sector nd temporary workers is essential if the union move-lent is to have any future in the United States, this ort of fratricidal rivalry amounts to a splintering of he labor movement, at a time when cohesion is despatch' needed...
...says Watts...
...This decline has accompanied a fall in real in-ome since 1973...
...To hell with the ban on secondary strikes, the labor movement would be nowhere if workers in the 1930s didn't risk breaking the law to stand up for their rights...
...As far as entitlements are concerned, President Clinton has already given away the store...
...These included two-tier wage structure, the right for the companyto demand work periods longer than eight-hour days with no overtime pay, and new "standards of conduct," including "temporary special moratoria...
...Labor Notes reports...
...Sure enough...
...And he used the word "challenge" fifty-two times, But he could have used it a fifty-third time: challenging all of us to distinguish him from a Republican...
...It has some good membership...
...1995 aw only 3N5...
...Real Welfare Bums Democrats and Republicans are holding a contest to see who can abolish welfare first...
...Workers take it in the back...
...he said repeatedly...
...lam not proud at all to have been a member of the International Paperworkers Union...
...This was the most dishonorable, disgraceful part of unionism I've ever been involved in...
...and a tendency of corporations to lav >ff workers, downsize, and transfer plants overseas, 'he Times blames the death of the strike weapon on he increasingly popular practice of hiring on replace-nent workers, and on corporations' willingness and bilitv to function during a walkout...
...As in many unions, the overning body of the United Paperworkers Union is ot elected by the full membership...
...But if he vetoed it...
...He vowed, as his Republican predecessors have to crack down on drugs, and he appointed General Barry McCaffrey, head of the U.S...
...He has endorsed the idea of eliminating the federal guarantee of support for poor children...
...If he signed the bill, Mr...
...The international worked hard behind the scenes to overthrow Dave Watts, the local president, and to replace him with a president willing to cut a deal, any deal...
...Other, more fundamental changes are needed if la-or is to learn the Staley lesson...
...which restrict freedom of speech...
...None of the politicians who are rushing to end welfare have explained what will happen to poor people when the safety net is gone...
...But several aspects are bound to be very expensive: Engler is promising 7.001) welfare recipients in six areas of Michigan whatever services they need to hold a job—either in private industry or state-funded community service...
...And in some plants hey are receiving preferential treatment...
...The strategy succeeded on December 12, when the membership threw out Watts and elected Jim Shinall by a 249-to-201 vote...
...Clinton endorsed a Senate bill to rescind the federal entitlement to AFDC...
...gives the company unlimited subcontracting rights...
...We now have had more czars than imperial Rus...
...The local union responded aggressively with a corporate campaign against Staley's corn-syrup customers, including the Miller Brewing Company and PepsiCo...
...On social issues, Clinton sounded like a cross between Ronald Reagan and Bill Bennett, talking about "restoring our fundamental values," condemning welfare, denouncing violence in the media, and even advocating school uniforms for kids...
...He did speak well...
...The leadership is living pretty high on the hog off of dues money, and giving very poor service...
...He did not mention the word abortion or the subject of women's rights...
...There are more limousines, thousand-dollar suits, and twenty-dollar cigars down there than the average working man ever needs to know about...
...The war included the workers at Caterpillar and at Bridgestone/Firestone...
...Staley Company in Decatur, Illinois, had come to represent a new labor militancy among the rank and file, a willingness to stand up and fight against predatory multinationals...
...multi national to strut into the Indian food market last year But its restaurant in the southern city of Bangalon was shut down in September for using excessive levels of MSG—a claim that somehow has the ring of truth about it...
...and grants no amnesty to workers fired for union activities The international union is in no small part responsible for the capitulation to Staley...
...They pleaded their case before the AFL-CIO executive council, and one Staley worker went on a hunger strike for several weeks to dramatize their plight...
...management made union members wear their afety glasses and ear plugs at lunch, while scabs and aanagement cat without them...
...They're still eating fine finger foods off the workers...
...Original Recipe The colonel's gone to India: Colonel Sanders, thai is...
...and that was a 20 percent drop from 994...
...Now the Republicans are trying to embarrass him by waving that bill under his nose...
...he would disappoint voters hoping that he would fulfill his campaign promise to 'end welfare as we know it.''" Whatever happens with the Senate bill, the erosion of welfare benefits is already taking place in thirty-five states, where the Clinton Administration has granted waivers for experiments far more draconian than Engler's...
...Southern Command, our brutal outpost in Latin America, to be our new drug czar...
...Strikes ha\e fallen to their lowest number in fifty years, according to The New )'<>rk Tunes...
...Then KFC's New Delhi restaurant was temporarily shut in November by the city government after inspectors found flies in the kitchen...
...Talent, apparently, would rather see single mothers starve...
...Governor John Engler is embarrassed to find himself the object of liberal admiration for coming up with a plan to get people off welfare that, in theory at least, could actually work...
...The new contract cuts the number of union jobs from 762 at the time of the lockout to 250 by 1997...
...It need not be...
...It's a concept cru-lal to labor's survival...
...Replacement ,'orkers continue to perform important jobs while management consigns reluming strikers to "work >ools...
...State-level experiments like Engler's are destined to fail if the federal government pulls the rug out from under them by doing away with welfare entitlements...
...Within a few days, the strikers settled with Staley...
...Fewer than 180 have chosen to return...
...He did not talk about mass layoffs, he did not talk about the maldistribution of wealth and income in this country...
...Such an expensive program runs counter to the popular message voters hear from politicians: "You shouldn't have to pay for these lazv welfare bums...
...The Staley workers demonstrated thai American unionists have the guts and the creativity to fight back...
...There won't be enough money to make the experiments work...
...Solidarity also has an international component, especially in this day and age...
...On issue after issue, Clinton struck Republican chords...
...Having voted once for the Republican plan, their outrage at what is essentially the same bill sounds hollow.' —Paul Offner...
...For two and a half years, the workers at the A.E...
...with minimal responsibility...
...They were from a nationalist farmers' group, and they claimed that KFC sells unhealtb) American food and that it will put local farmers out of business...
...After stirring up voter resentment around this issue, politicians of both parties want to claim the credit for "getting tough" on the poor...
...The Michigan plan doesn't include time limits, or anv cap on grants to women who have more than one child...
...Clinton did not talk about racism, he did not talk about homophobia, he did not talk about the increasing violence of the far right...
...Engler himself concedes he has no idea how much it will cost...
...Six to eight officers came and started removing people...
...It did not nder Lane Kirkland: so far it has not under John weeney...
...places the blame for the defeat squarely on a corrupt and overpaid international board...
...In the Decatur >lant...
...Clinton talked about getting tougher on illegal im-migrants, tougher on crime, tougher on juvenile offenders, tougher on drug dealers: It's now "one strike and you're out," Clinton said, stealing a slogan from Phil Gramm...
...The debate over welfare reform has taken on a surreal quality—it has everything to do with the political fortunes of the candidates in the next election, and nothing to do with genuine public policy or real people's lives...
...KFC said it used the same ingredients in India as it does abroad, and so it won a court order reopening the restaurant...
...It was planning the most propitious time to endorse Bill Clinton...
...But they fought alone...
...It's not ist a hoary old song to be mumbled at the end of nion meetings and on Labor Day...
...The new leadership of the AFL-CIO rightly empha-izes organizing, approaching formerly neglected in-lustries such as chicken-processing and nursing homes, nd attempting to recruit minorities and women...
...Caterpillar claims the number is omewhere around fifty...
...Thus, in Michigan...
...The next time, they ought to have their leaders behind them...
...the workers have lost...
...Oh, but he did look good...
...As one of those severed from Staley, Watts is no longera member of the union he now holds in contempt...
...He and other House Republicans want to do away with welfare without providing any alternatives...
...Workers in France leeenlly demonstrated the power that a vigorous labor movement can exert, as have workers in Ontario (see "On the Line," Page 13)- Here in the United States we seem more than oceans away from such a development...
...Staley and Caterpillar suggest another reason: a inion leadership that is loath to lead, too distanced rom its members, and too comfortable with the status iuo to challenge it...
...But he's not being welcomed with open arms-or open mouths...
...This has displeased some of the Republican gover'It's hard to take them seriously...
...Vhen union members are lighting for their livelihoods, s they were in Decatur, the federation has an obliga-on to throw its full support behind them...
...And he has proposed a five-year limit on eligibility for welfare...
...Said Clinton: "I compliment the Republicans for the energy and determination they have brought to this task" of balancing the budget, even though Clinton's own studies show that a balanced budget will increase unemployment and pose great risks to the economy...
...Only then will unions be more response to the needs of their members...
...The hot oil that KFC has landed in may bejusi a taste of things to come in this age of NAFTA a»' GATT...
...The newly elected president of the local union didn't want people in there who had opposed the settlement...
...Workers here, as there, are feeling the pinch: workers here, as there, are prepared to act...
...ishes scab harassment with immediate firing...
...Now...
...Clinton not only got on the balanced-budget bandwagon, he started driving the wagon and conducting the band...
...Whereas .005 strikes took place in 1975 and l.OKS in 19X5...
...The most obvious was his eagerness to preside over the demise of the New Deal...
...And where was the AFL-CIO when Stale) workers were trying to get a national bovcott of Pepsi oil the ground...
...institutes twelve-hour shifts rotating every thirty days and mandatory overtime without overtime pay...
...Now the war is over...
...the District of Columbia's commissioner of health<are finance, writing m The New Republic about the Democrats' welfare-reform posturing 'To businesses, we are saying: If you can find a cheaper, more efficient way than government regulations to meet tough pollution standards, then do it as long as you do it right.' —Bill Clinton in his State of the Union address nor's former allies...
...Union members showed remendous courage, ingenuity, and energy—and for lis they got the cold shoulder...
...The Staley workers were part of a valiant group of unionists challenging corporate power in what became known as a "war zone" in central Illinois...
...To make a buck...
...The new voice of labor has laryngitis.* —Dave Watts, former president of the Staley workers' union Comment Labor Takes Its Lumps In late January, some Staley workers came through Madison, Wisconsin, to tell their side of a tawdry story—the story of labor's demise, circa 1996...
...This must change, ivery international union head ought to be elected by opular vote...
...State of the Onion If you need any more evidence that Bill Clinton is a Republican, go back and read his State of the Union address...
...Staley's parent company...
...And so it was...
...When we went to the podium and put proper motions on the floor, the police were actually called in...
Vol. 60 • March 1996 • No. 3
