AFL-CIO Offers Feeble 'Civil Disobedience'

[pnorman]

By Harry Kelber

The National Labor Relations Board could decide, as
early as the end of August, to take away the rights of
millions of U.S. workers in unions or who may want to
join unions, and strip them of their collective
bargaining rights and other protections by redefining
whole categories of workers as "supervisors."

In three cases, known collectively as "Kentucky
River," the Bush-appointed Board will rule whether
nurses, construction workers, journalists, TV
employees and workers in other occupations should be
reclassified as supervisors and denied the right to
join or maintain their rights as union members.

The Board has thus far refused to hold public hearings
where workers can have an opportunity to provide
evidence that they are not supervisors and should not
be excluded from joining or remaining in a union. It
is imperative that unions exert maximum pressure to
force public hearings before the Board acts on the
three cases.

To respond to the danger of losing millions of current
and future union members, the AFL-CIO called for a
"Week of Action" that would promote rallies and other
forms of protest in 20 cities during the week of July
10-14.

Change to Win had no plan to protest a possibly
unfavorable NLRB ruling. It ran a news story from the
Boston Globe with the headline: "Labor fears ruling
could hurt efforts to organize."

AFL-CIO's Notion of 'Civil Disobedience'

The key demonstration was in Washington, D.C., with
the media alerted that there would be "civil
disobedience" action by the protesters. Here is what
actually happened, as confirmed by the AFL-CIO's Media
Outreach Specialist, Steve Smith:

There were about 1,000 participants, who were
addressed by eight or nine speakers during the
noon-hour demonstration that lasted two hours. The
"civil disobedience" action consisted of about ten
leaders, linking their arms and standing in front of
the NLRB building to block the entrance for about 15
minutes. That was it.

The labor movements in Europe, Latin America, Asia and
Africa have a variety of ways to fight against
injustice to workers. (Remember the situation in
France, where strikes by unions and students forced
the government to withdraw an unfavorable law
involving the employment of young people.)

Unions in these countries also call "mini-strikes"
that can last two-hours, a day, a week or longer,
depending on the importance of the issue. Their
strikes are rarely limited to picketing; they
frequently involve entire communities. Workers,
unfairly laid off, have occupied factories and locked
out their employer. And they have gone on hunger
strikes.
>
>

http://www.laboreducator.org/aflcd.htm

pnorman