"INTERNATIONAL" UNION MEMBERS DISGRUNTLED
TO SAY THE LEAST!

From: Gene McGuckin
To: "Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@coffee.sohoskyway.net
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 1:45 PM
Subject: Open Letter to CLC Pres. Ken Georgetti
======================================
Hi All,

Well the sentiments expressed below are certainly justified. And the challenge to our existing leaders is bang on - for right now. But maybe we should recognize the problem with calling on the same old leaders to change their spots and do something different. "Elect the NDP" is their mantra, and they don't seem to be able to blend that perspective with anything resembling a real fight back.

Given the HUGE number of things the labour movement is not moving on, it's time for us - the dissatisfied - to start thinking about the need for putting forward an alternative leadership based on the articulation of a militant strategy and a truly democratic structure.

Solidarity,

Gene

----- Original Message -----
From: Ray K - mailto:rgkbc1@hotmail.com
To: rgkbc@telus.net 
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 10:43 AM
Subject: Open Letter to Ken Georgetti
----------------------------------------
From: about unions [mailto:about_unions@ufcw.net]
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2003 9:49 AM
To: president@clc-ctc.ca
Cc: cawpres@caw.ca; jdarcy@cupe.ca; dhaggard@iwa.ca; remote@ufcw.net; Fred Muzin; ala46405@bc.sympatico.ca; Michael Moore
Subject: Open Letter to Ken Georgetti
=============================
Open Letter to Ken Georgetti:
Sweetheart Deals & the CLC - Its about our future

When all the broken lives are tallied up and all the crying done, the Hospital Employees Union (HEU) a division of Canada's largest union - CUPE, expects that and estimated 9,000 members will be laid off as a result of British Columbia's Bill 29 which allows long-term health care employers to layoff existing workers and contract out the support services they provide.

A stroke of the government's pen last year wiped out the HEU's negotiated contracting out provisions, the seniority and bumping rights that gave preference to years of service where layoffs did occur and guarantees of job training to help those affected take on other jobs in places where many had spent most of their working lives. Gone also were the benefit plans, the 8-hour day, leave for family emergencies and many other benefits for which many people had fought long and hard.

As thousands of health care workers were shown the door dragging their dignity out with them, their contracted-out (http://www.ufcw.net/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic
&f=4&t=000536) replacements began arriving. Hard on their heals were the Industrial Wood and Allied Workers of Canada (IWA), coming to "save" the newly hired workers.

IWA Canada (<http://www.iwa.ca/hubpage.htmI>) is based in British Columbia where it has 10 locals. The union has been trying to expand across Canada. There is currently one local in Alberta, one in Saskatchewan, two in Manitoba, five in Ontario (which also serves all of Quebec) and a local in New Brunswick but the IWA wants more. Its objective is to evolve from a shrinking craft union of woodworkers to a union that represents a diverse national workforce.

The IWA's expansion plans haven't materialized yet and, in recent years, the union has been struggling to hang on to what it has. At one time Local 1-3567 had over 5000 members but over the years the local's dues base has declined as plant closures and downsized operations have put many members out on the street.

The opportunity to expand into the health care sector must have been awfully tempting. All it took for IWA Local 1-3567 to get into the new money was a wink wink, nudge nudge and a few wet kisses from a multinational health services corporation (http://www.cupe.ca/ www/corporateprofiles/4328) that was looking to get a piece of BC's privatized health care action and shopping for a friendly union partner to represent its workers at the same time.

Last fall, before you could say "pass the pen", Local 1-3567 did a quickie deal with Compass (http://www.compass-group.com/ir/CSR.cfm). The deal gave the union representation rights for Compass's workers and gave the company the management-friendly contract it was looking for. The IWA's contract with Compass also extended to its subsidiaries, Morrison Management Specialists, Morrison Health Care Food Services and Crotha Services Canada.

The collective agreement between Compass and IWA provides wages that are nearly one-half of what HEU members earned for the same work and benefits that are a shadow of what the HEU's contracts called for.

Whether the IWA was out to help the workers or help itself is debatable. With a reduction in dues revenue of nearly one-third, the cash depleted local was looking, like any business, to shore up its sagging bottom line.

This high profile sweetheart deal quickly drew criticism from a number of unions, HEU, HERE, CAW, SEIU, USWA, RWDSU and UFCW local 1518 all condemned the IWA's actions. HEU representatives complained to the Canadian Labour Congress and the BC Federation of Labour.

CLC President Ken Georgetti expressed concern (https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/project-x/2003-March/002591.html) but did nothing more than ask the IWA to "reconsider" its involvement in the health care sector. Nothing else could be done, Georgetti explained, as the CLC's constitution didn't address circumstances such as these.

Georgetti, who is quick to chastise workers who want to leave unions that do sweetheart deals, is disinclined to take on unions that do them. While Brother Ken - or Bro_Ken as we call him - looks the other way, other sweetheart deals are cooking.

In Ontario, three large locals of the United Food and commercial Workers just finished cooking up a nice one with Loblaw Company without even consulting any of the thousands of dues paying members who are going to eat it. The UFCW slice of the sweetheart pie includes automatic ownership of thousands of lower-paid workers hired by the phenomenally profitable Loblaw Companies - and $450,000 for educating and communicating with them. Loblaw Co.'s will get lower labour costs and more management flexibility. Under the terms of the UFCW's "forward-thinking accord", everybody wins - except the workers.

Almost a year ago to this day, an about-to-be-unemployed Brother from UFCW Local 1518 wrote to Bro_Ken about a sweetheart deal between the RWU (another CLC and BC Fed affiliate) and a large warehousing company. That deal was the icing on the cake of a long process of union wheeling and dealing that put him and 250 others out on the street. Bro_Ken wrote back three months later saying he'd have one of his minions look into the matter. He's not been heard from since.

Labour-management coziness is on the rise in this country and the self-proclaimed leader of the Canadian labour movement has nothing to say about it except an impotent "our constitution doesn't address it". If any of the newly-acquired members of either the IWA or the UFCW ever get it in their heads to choose a different union (as is their legal right), Bro_Ken will waste no time reminding them that the CLC Constitution addresses that in clear and unambiguous terms: Hell no, you can't go! That would be raiding. So sweetheart unions that care nothing about members' rights can roll happily along, filling their dues bags because the CLC Constitution doesn't address their egregious actions. But if their dues bag is about to get a little lighter because their members have had it with getting screwed by their employer and their union, hey, that's where the CLC puts its foot down. Give us a break.

The privatization of health services in BC came about because brothers and sisters in CUPE courageously challenged the B.C. government by rejecting the government's own concessionary demands. Instead of lining up behind these workers, the CLC-affiliated IWA went to the front of the line for a sweetheart deal. The CLC rung its hands impotently. Labour juggernaughts like CUPE mumbled something about "strengthening the constitution" and went back to business as usual. Other public sector unions have been hemming and hawing about launching a meaningful fight back. Support at rallies and street demonstrations has dwindled drastically as union members disappointed with the empty rhetoric and all the bullshit lose hope.

Workers in the unionized grocery industry once had decent wages and working conditions. Those are getting lost in backrooms from coast to coast. Workers are taking a beating while their leaders sing the anthem of competition and level playing fields and cashing their own hefty pay cheques. Missed opportunities to secure decent contracts in hotels, restaurants, nursing homes and other low wage ghettos in favour of sweetheart arrangements for voluntary recognition are too numerous to count.

Where is the almighty army of Georgetti the Great, leader of the CLC?

Where is the frontal assault by the outspoken Jimmy Sinclair of the B.C.?

Federation of Labour? Are they just content to get their per diems off the sweetheart deals so that their affiliates can continue to maintain their pork chopping lifestyles? That's the view from the ground.

The apparent reluctance of mainstream labour to confront the concession-seeking bosses, their obliging union partners and governments that hope the partnering goes on and on has begun to manifest itself in a malaise that has spread throughout the community of workers. Why bother mobilizing and protesting when the only real solidarity is at the trough? Mainstream union leaders have abandoned the interests of union workers and have hung them out to dry. You've got to admit there just ain't much to love.

Jack Higgin, a member of the Communication Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) raises the mother of all questions: What will it take to mobilize and motivate senior labour leaders to a militancy state that is required in today's political and economic climate? "The short answer," Higgin says, "is us the members."

Our task is a daunting one given senior labour leaders' current penchant for collaboration on all fronts says Higgin. It is therefore of necessity that it becomes incumbent upon each and every one of us as an integral part of membership to demand at every level, a vigorous protection of those policies and programs which we have adopted in our collective interest from the shop floor, from the local level right up to the CLC.

The biggest problem with the CLC and labour's senior leadership is that they are obsolete, their purpose extinct. The fact that sweetheart deals are hatched and implemented right in the CLC's backyard is a sure sign that the Tyrannosaurus Rex's at the top of our mainstream unions and their safe houses like Bro_Ken Georgetti's CLC are dead.

Perhaps it's time we gather some of the treasures of our great labour leaders and lay them on the doorstep of the CLC to see if the dead will rise. At present there are no sanctions for labour leaders or their labour umbrellas for selling out the working people who they so sanctimoniously claim to represent.

What have you got to say Georgetti? Are the sweetheart deals a sign that the CLC has in fact passed into extinction? Why has no action been taken against the IWA for a sweet heart deal that hurts all workers? Why the silence about the thousands who are being sold down the river (http://www.ufcw.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000606) in Ontario? Where's the investigation into the sellout at Loman's Warehouse at (http://www.ufcw.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000362)?

Does it have anything to do with the fact the president of the national IWA sits on the CLC executive council of the Canadian Labour Council and is also an officer of the B.C. Federation of Labour? Or how about the UFCW's enormous contributions to CLC coffers? Have you just been too busy peddling LSIF's lately to attend to the concerns of "the labour movement" or would you rather wait until your house falls down on your head than piss off your biggest contributors?

To be proactive we, the inquiring members, have sent this letter to you Mr. Georgetti, our supreme labour leader, seeking answers. We expect you to take time away from your wheeling and dealing and pork chopping and show us you care about the survival of the labour movement. After all it's only our future that's not covered in your constitution.

Please direct your response to (mfd@ufcw.net subject=MFD Weekend - Open Letter to Ken Georgetti)

In Solidarity

Inquiring Members