Mary Peters should be fired …

I spend a considerable amount of time these days thinking of a woman I barely knew of three months ago; the Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters.

Mary is another Bush administration lawbreaker with a blatant disregard to working Americans and the safety of all citizens. It is her department that has chosen to interpret a law that was passed on on December 26, 2007 that would have scrapped the Mexican trucking progam.

When the North American Free Trade Agreement passed 11 years ago, it carried a promise for a cross-border trucking program between Canada, Mexico and the United States.  For the last 11 years, the program that stretched Mexico into the US was halted by the Teamsters Union and other groups, such as the Sierra Club.  The program was pushed back because it was known (as it is now) that the Mexican trucks are not up to snuff, to say the least … and to make matters even more unsafe, the Mexican drivers are not held to the same standards as the American counterparts.

This affects a lot of people – and more people are affected in a negative manner than in a positive. You see, there are hundreds of drivers whose whole business plan is based on off-loading — which means the truck’s cargo is unloaded after it traveled a maximum of 25 miles into the US border; the load is then put on an American driver’s truck and is delivered to its final destination.

With the advent of the Mexican trucking “pilot program” that Peters is pushing through, the trucks and drivers from South of the Border are free to roam the entire United States and bypass the off-load. The problem, other than that this leaves a lot of American drivers unemployed, is that the trucks are not safe at all. The drivers don’t have to pass the same kind of tests that we do in the States, and … well, it is dangerous all around for everyone.

So, why would Mary Peters disrespect the law that scrapped this program? She is under the impression that this is good for business. She is under the delusion that the trucks are not only up to standard, but are often times better than the American trucks … Unfortunately, she is full of crap or simply has no idea what she is talking about.

One thing that I like to point out to folks about this program has to do with the hours -of- service.  Most everyone knows, or should, that a commercial driver in the United States cannot drive more than 11 straight hours before pulling over for a set amount of rest. Eleven hours is too long as it is, and though that too was hard-fought on the Hill, it was held down … and 11 it remains. So … what happens if a Mexican driver has driven for 8 -10 hours just to get to the border? They are then given another 11-straight hours to drive their cargo on. That’s nuts … I don’t want to be anywhere near a 40-ton truck driven by a Mexican on hios 18th or 19th hour … it is simply an accident waiting to happen.

While Mary says the Mexican trucks are just fine, the reality is that there is no requirement for these trucks to have anti-lock brakes. I think about that one  … a lot. There is not a vehicle legally driving in the United States that does not have anti-locks on them, can you imagine a 40-ton truck full of cargo driven by a brother who has not slept in 18-hours barreling past you on a slippery highway? It is dangerous … all around dangerous.

All of these little fact and findings are well explained at the Teamster-driven website www.FireMaryPeters.com.  If anyone is getting this Weblog, please take a minute to go over there and take action to help get Mary sacked from her job, clearly she sucks at what she does.

I Suppose It Is Interesting

I spent a few hours wandering the Internet looking at countless blogs. I would read a few lines here and browse there but there was one thing I found kind of interesting: the sites that I visited boasting the most amount of traffic and carrying the largest number of ads don’t allow for just anyone to write on them — other than DailyKos. I am sure there are that many other blogs that do allow everyday people to speak their minds, but they weren’t coming up for me tonight.

I thought that if I were to get to write at a blog regarding race relations, perhaps I would babble on a little about Dr. King’s birthday and how New Era Cap compmany violates its workers Civil Rights and this country’s labor laws at the same time. I would bring up the worker story I heard about the pregnant woman who was told that if she goes into labor while on the job, the boss would bring her a towel and a bucket … Yea, it is 2008, and as I alluded to the other day, we have a woman and an African-American running for president. Perhaps one of the two should visit Mobile this weekend — or do their votes count?

Maybe if I could find a blog about busing school kids I would have written a little about the outstanding organizing campaign taking place with the Teamsters. In a little more than a year and a half they have organized more than 5,000 workers! While it is a great campaign, the primary company involved, FirstStudent, does some strange things — no … perhaps stupid is a better word. The other day I reported about the company hiring a monitor to monitor the unionizing effort of his employees. That might sound good, but … what the hell is he monitoring? Policies? If so … where are they? In its infinite wisdom, the company chose to NOT consult with the Teamsters in setting up this monitor office, a very bad move. While we can talk about the stupidity of the company making this move, I am more concerned with getting the word to school bus workers that there is a message waiting for them from the union on this new monitor BS. Here … read this.

What’s with all the Teamster news? I spend a bunch of hours with the IBT these days and get it all first-hand … but there are other things taking place at other unions and in labor in general that I would have got on other sites tonight … if I could.

For example, the Tentative Agreement between the Directors and Hollywood studios, as was well-reported by our friend and UR contributor Joe638NYC here on his own blog.

Over at Union Review, you know, anyone could write to the site … I have only ever censored one person — but that is old news by now. Once I had to change a headline because it was innacurate and I didn’t want to have any troubles … we didn’t.
Anyway, this little ramble is coming to an end. I just found it very interesting that with all of the sites (aside from Joe’s) I could not post my own stuff. I got frustrated and decided to go back to my net-roots and just post to MYSPACE and then cross-post this to Union Review and now here at my private little diary: Writethrough’s Weblog (which no one seems to come and visit — or if they do, they don’t say much when they get here). Hell, maybe people will realize that if they want to be heard …they have to find a way to take matters in their own hands. I am.

With that, if anyone tries to get on Union Review and has a problem with the technology or whatever, by all means let me know. My email address is Richard@unionreview.com.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that (take 2)

As Thanksgiving came and went, Black Friday crowded streets that are generally desolate and Writers around the United States continue to win a PR war in their labor dispute, I spend time thinking of School Bus Workers trying to organize with the Teamsters, Delta Air Line Flight Attendants who desperately need to organize into the AFA and countless other disputes around the country.

The other day I posted to Union Review a piece about staying active during the holidays, but it appears that no one wanted to comment on that … My thought is that even among family and friends we can communicate what is taking place in and around the union movement in this country. I posted some links that lead boycott lists of hotels so folks can truly consider where they stay if not in their family’s spare room.

While I prepare to take on a new full-time job with an International union in Washington, DC I contemplate what I am going to do with WriteThrough.com — if anything at all. It would be ideal if there was a business-minded union worker who wanted to buy the site and its mission. It would be ideal if some business straggled in and I was able to consider myself having a part-time job … all these ideal scenarios and nothing is happening –and somehow I am sure there is a reason for that, just not certain what that reason is just yet.

With all the transitions taking place I had to take a part-time job driving. I am working at the old Holiday Inn (old in that I worked there years ago doing the same job). I am driving a passenger van/bus with airline pilots and crews to and from the airport … that’s it! The wages are horrible and the tips are pocket money for gas, cigarettes and my two bottles of beer per week. I like the work and found that talking unionization all day with the crews very rewarding. I have even taken it upon myself to contact the AFA to help them organize the Delta Flight Attendants. I hand out newsletters, sign up cards, and pins to anyone who wants them  … I am just about out of my little stock but won’t re-order them as I am leaving the job in less than 10 days to prepare for Washington.

It is interesting how I fall right back into “mode” when driving, lifting and … well, even organizing in a sense. It is like I never left this work … but the reality is that it has been years and years since I worked a vehicle of any size for anyone other than myself. This work does remind me of my small moving gig and I have to admit that I miss that more than anything else. Perhaps one day I will return to that … for now there are more important things calling me.

This is a real stream of conscious babble … I will close here.

Activism – debating the mainstream media

Unless there is some kind of odd trend going on, it appears that many workers that I meet are not even sure how they can be active in the union movement. What upsets me about this is that if the workers don’t know how they can be active then does this mean they are not being communicated with from the locals, stewards or organizers?

I am not sure who is reading this blog babbling that I am doing — but I can say this: If anyone wants to be active now they can watch how the mainstream media presents working people and labor disputes, and then speak up on Union Review and other like-minded blogs with our side of the story.

I am concerned more than worried that many people are about to see things in the media regarding the Waste Management strike in Los Angeles. The workers, today, decided to end the strike and go back to work — but this is not a victory at all. From what I understand, the workers got the shit scared out of them when they saw 40 spineless scab morons get hired. These people began to believe that the last offer the company made, which was rejected originally, was the best that they would get and feared they’d all lose their jobs to scabs.

Whether I agree with these workers and their decision is irrelevant, what is relevant, however, is how this will be played out in the press. I am concerned that the press will write of press releases the company will circulate saying that this is the best thing the workers did, that they provided a just and sound contract, etc. If you should see that kind of rhetoric know this: it is bullshit!

These workers will get some added wages but it is nothing in comparison to other municipalities of the same size. They did not get what they wanted and this final offer from the company should have, in my opinion, kept the workers striking and the local fighting for another round of negotiations – but that is just me. I am not supporting my family from Waste Management and if I were, who knows, maybe I would have broke too.

For now, if any worker interested in being more active in the union movement comes to the point of not knowing what they can do … I’d suggest starting with reading how the media will handle this story.

Promotion and Patience

All week people have written in requesting hardhat stickers from Union Review; this is an awesome feeling and a great experience to enjoy as the site continues to grow.

The promotion of the site is a full-time job as much as keeping up with the news that should get posted. The biggest obstacle is getting workers to write in or comment on the articles that are up already. Today, for instance, I was at an online forum where a worker chimed in with the question, “Why is no one talking about this…?” The “this” he was referring to was the Teamster strike in LA against Waste Management. The reality is that Union Review and the International have been blogging about this issue for a while already; or at least since the strike was announced. My question is how come that worker doesn’t know where we are at?

This will take time – getting folks to Union Review and other sites that are discussing the issues facing working people. While we are definitely making a little dent there is still so much work to do. Sure, if I had a bundle of dollars I would do all kinds of things to get the word out on the street, but right now … it is good ol’ fashioned netroots.

I am working on doing less and less WriteThrough stuff and more on Union Review because it just doesn’t make sense to get torn into too many directions. In addition to that, the WriteThrough business is all leading back to Union Review anyway, which is a good thing, but what is the point of keeping the WriteThrough site up and running? It doesn’t get a tremendous amount of traffic, I say to myself.

I suppose the answer is the same answer that I have for the worker wondering why no one is talking about a current labor dispute – that is, it will take time to get pro-labor businesses and the unions on board with what WriteThrough can offer them – and, yea … with a bundle of dollars … blab la bla.

As they say, “more will be revealed.”

Why unions in the United States need to consider WriteThrough Communications?

 

I have long thought about writing this post for the public to see. I might have even written a few versions of it over the years and never let it be seen; however, now more than ever, it is time to just let it rip.

 

The deal is this: Unions in the US are clearly 10 years behind the rest of the world when it comes to the Internet. Many of the unions are on sites that look and feel like they were built in crayon by a retired worker’s 4 year-old granddaughter. Some of the union locals don’t have a site at all. A large number of unions that have sites, some that are actually well-done, have content dating back to 1999, which is … well, old.

 

In other articles that I have written and in letters or in discussions I shared that it is imperative that a worker who comes home at the end of a day, who checks his or her emails and goes on MYSPACE or wherever, needs to have their union with them. And what does that mean? That means the unions need to communicate with this worker and lead the worker back to their site to get caught up on current events, no matter what those current events are. Workers want to be kept informed and I believe it is the union’s responsibility to keep the workers informed … especially online where so many folks go before they leave for work and soon after they return home.

 

All the excuses from the unions regarding why they are reluctant to go forward online are exactly that … excuses. There should be none … period. Even if the union sends out one story a week that it either has written for their publication or something they found in the NY Times or wants to give their counter-punch, the union and the worker needs to be communicated via online content, it is just a matter of fact, Jack.

 

Write Through is, for the most part, just me … until it is too busy and I need to hire another unionized freelance worker. That said the unions can use us to help with the content, get fresh material on the site, conceptualize and help re-build their current site if it needs a face lift, and just know that it is like having a staff member with them because I (and anyone I have to hire) cares about the union movement.

Online organizing and Mobilizing

How do we go about getting more people online involved with the union movement (or any other) and then guide them toward what we need to do to increase numbers online?

The reality is that it is part anyone’s guess and part common sense – that is at least my take. When it comes to spreading information about a union’s campaign, an election, or even a new business launch; we have to consider the tools at our fingertips. If we cannot afford the higher-end PR engines, than we have to take advantage of all the free sources available – and there are many.

We need to get into the news stream, up in the search engines, and use words carefully enough to entice the reader to click over to the site(s). Once they are there, however, it is up to you to keep them there with a well-delivered good looking message or call-to-action.

Then there is the social networking platforms, like MYSPACE, that are pivotal to our combined plight. With both Union Review and Write Through I realized that I had to go to where the people were. I was on MYSPACE for sometime with my creative work and one night started to do a random search for various union locals. What came from that is a community of nearly 500 workers- and growing, & many of these folks have converted over to Union Review. (Converted over means that they are “friends” on MYSPACE and have since signed up for a user name and password at Union Review as well). This is paramount for online organizing and get the word out there.

When it comes to call-to-action campaigns, like those that many unions, the AFL-CIO and Change-to-Win, not to mention Labourstart.org handle, it is very important to ask people to pass those Take Action notices along to folks in their address book. Asking people to be active is the first step (and while that is painfully obvious, I see many Take Action emails on any given day and rarely see the request to pass the message around). Yea, it is important they fill out the online form to get counted, but it needs to be as important, if not more important to have folks exercise one more step of activism by simply cutting and pasting a link into an email to friends and family — if you don’t ask them to, don’t expect it will just happen.

In July of 2007 I wrote and published an article on Union Review called “Online organizing tools are available and should be used by every union.” In that piece I wrote:

For the past few months I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about online organizing in the union movement. There was one well-done article at mydd.com that I enjoyed a great deal and commented on – and one article on the subject by someone who thinks the idea of organizing online workers is absurd.

 

In speaking with a lot of people, mainly through email, there are two things that seem prevalent to me:

 

1. There is a need to further the use of online organizing with unions of every trade.

2. There is a need to gain greater union membership among the very writers and Bloggers endlessly posting material on the web.

 

In this article I go into the idea that while we need to take advantage of all the tools available to us, we also have to take into consideration that not everyone is cut out to be sitting in front of a computer for 12-14 hours a day, give or take a pee break . Why is that important? It is important because we have to make sure that our expectations of workers are appropriately leveraged. We cannot expect more than what they can give, especially after a full day or night on a trailer; on a line – or wherever. What we do need to expect though is that when these workers get home and sign on to the Internet, their union should be with them.

The only way that our unions can be there when we get get home from work is to have a site that is updated, functional, and one that is reaching out to its members with a message of importance or a question they’d be foolish not to reply to.

So, we have come full circle. In order to to reach out to folks and get them involved we need to have the tools in place to have them do what we need. We need to make it easy for folks that are not typing 75 words-per-minute or have the skill to navigate as easy as others sitting in front of their computers day and night.

In all of my research, there is no company better than Prometheus Labor Communications to handle the building, designing and hosting of a union-made website — and being it is of paramount importance for WriteThrough to use only union workers on any jobs, I have teamed up with this group in a way that makes it easy for me to trouble shoot and deliver a well-done site.

In the final analysis, the time to think about online organizing and mobilizing is at the set up or re-design of a site. The technology needs to be put in place, taught to the union officers, and explained in a way so that they can handle a simple knowledge-transfer to the workers. Once we have that … success will be based on how many fingers are typing out the messages that need to spread out in this web.

If anyone wants to discuss this stuff with me, feel free to write me at Richard@writehtrough.com

Hate Crimes

 The case of the Jena 6 echoed around the United States and sparked what could possibly be the largest Civil Rights protest in many many years. The incident also had everyone talking, finally, about hate crimes. Whether all that talk will solve anything is yet to be seen; I have my doubts.

I remember reporting about James Byrd more than a few years back. He was the African-American guy who was dragged to his death after being roped up to the back of a pick-up truck in Texas. I remember writing about Matthew Sheppard, the 21 year-old kid in Wyoming who came out about being gay. In that case he was pistol whipped, tied to a fence, and more or less left to die. The stories are endless, some are more brutal than others, but at what point does this kind of hatred stop? Will it ever stop?

I think about the fact that we have lost nearly 4,000 soldiers in a war in Iraq, about the fanaticism that is being played out in the name of someone’s god, and I just shake my head and wonder … what the hell is wrong with everyone?

I am a dreamer who dreams of Utopian landscapes where the color of one’s skin, the god to whom they pray, and the lovers that they choose, etc., that none of it is reason to brutalize the other. Are we really a planet that insecure with ourselves that we need to beat on one another because we disagree with fundamental characteristics of our beings?

I am all pissed off because of a story that I posted to Union Review about a black worker in Philadelphia who has become the latest victim in a string of noose-related hate crimes. A fellow worker, from what I understand, swung the noose in the nose of this man and said that he wanted to hang someone that day … what the hell is that about?

Hate is an illness. The first step toward being cured is admitting your illness. I wish a lot of folks would wake up, get cured, and spread their accomplishment of healing to others who are still suffering. Is that so much to ask for in this day and age?

The Union Review Experience

I began working on Union Review in my spare time in 2005. I wanted to provide information to a few friends in NYC who were calling me with concerns about the news they were reading in the morning papers. The site has grown a lot since then and has practically become a full-time job for me. It is a labor of love.

In the couple years since launching the site and doing any kind of mobilization, organizing, or information transfer, I have only come across two individuals who were truly not with the program. One guy, a carpenter out of Albany named Richard Durrough and another guy who pretended he was from a PATCO local — both shown themselves as being a big waste of my time. The guy from PATCO disappeared when his union abandoned its workers on the eve of an election and Durrough spends his time building websites about people he hates -some folks sent me links to blog posts about me (I am honored).
The thing about this guy Durrough is that he seemed fairly intelligent. He has a sizable and valid beef with his local union, but the guy never once offered up any solutions to his problems, all he did was endlessly bitch and moan. Eventually he started coming out at me because he thinks I am a propaganda machine or whatever he said, and words were exchanged. When some of those words became threats I thought it was time to block him from Union Review. I had no more head for this guy … it seemed like he was only around to tell me and others what was wrong with our opinions and then brought it all back to his issue with the Carpenters – and specifically his Local 370 in Albany. Oh well, good luck to Durrough and his sites bashing me and others.

Aside from Durrough, however, I have been fortunate to see the site grow day after day. I have seen us go from 200 hits in a month to 20,000 in a day … we are boasting a membership of well over 750 between the site and the MYSPACE counterpart, and I believe we are doing a great job starting and then maintaining an online community of working people.

When I was in the news business it was impossible to side with one party over the other … and I must say that with Union Review I try to be somewhat objective, though I am always coming from a pro-union point-of-view. It is a touchy time when there is news that is positive coming from a union that is in tremendous need of reform itself, but I have chosen to try and stay away from a lot of that personally. I would rather point people to other reforming sites so that they can discuss their issues and find solutions, or publish material from the AUD, TDU, Future of the Union, etc.

The only time, that I remember, watching two unions really battle it out at the site was with PATCO/FPD and PATCO, Inc. It was not long after I interviewed both presidents that I clearly sided with PATCO, Inc. in that little tug-of-war. I felt that though PATCO/FPD was the incumbent union and had the backing of AFSCME and the AFL-CIO, they were not doing their job as a union; at least to the four or five rank-and-filers who contacted me about the situation. I am not at all for a raiding union, but I didn’t see that PATCO, Inc was raiding; they were presenting an alternative and the workers, shop after shop, continue to choose to go with them. In the end, the incumbent union abandoned their workers all together in a strategy that I can’t fully understand — and I am not sure if that was for all of the elections or some of them, but I gave up trying to figure them out.

It is intense, at best, for me to report about various Teamster issues that go on. I think of my own childhood a lot with this stuff. I remember going out on Steve’s truck when I was 10 years old and how he was so proud of what he did and with whom. Eventually he moved on to Yellow before passing on. I think about my time with UPS loading in Maspeth and the endless driving jobs around the City, and there is a certain pride writing about the bus drivers, the freight division or any other …with the mindset that I know who I am speaking with directly.

There is so much to write about when it comes to the Union Review experience for me personally. Whether it was the night the miners were trapped in Utah, the day the TDU wrote about and informed everyone that the Indianapolis drivers were not to get the NMFA, the weeks with PATCO stuff unfolding, or labor disputes in my own backyard in South Florida: The Fisher Island issue and the Nova Southeastern University stuff. Every campaign is important, all the news should be told, and there is not enough hours in the day to get it all out there, at least for one person.

That is why when Charles Lezette and Joe W. began volunteering so much time to the site it became a great deal easier – still, there is a lot of important work to do and I think it is just the beginning.

Long before I started this WordPress blog I would write little journal entries surrounding the days when the site was starting to show its first spike in tremendous growth. I think it would be cool to go look those over and if they are worthy, publish them up on this site. I want people to know the experience that I have with Union Review … and I am not sure why other than that I hope it moves them to get active with the site or a site of their own.