Unions and Bloggers Unite to Organize
Note to reader: Natasha Winegar, Jonathan’s assistant, wrote this post. While Jonathan is away on vacation for the next week, I will be posting in his place.
There has been quite a buzz on DailyKos the past few weeks about a new campaign to organize school bus workers. Progressive bloggers have often written about labor issues, but this particular campaign is creating a real stir because it employs a somewhat new tactic – unions and bloggers organizing together.
The campaign, School Bus Workers United, is an initiative by the Teamsters to organize thousands of school bus drivers who work for a company called First Student. First Student is a subsidiary of a U.K.-based, global company called First Group. According to the Teamsters campaign website:
So while First Student and its executives rake in the cash, its school bus workers are paid low wages, work long hours and don’t always have adequate health insurance. This is a pretty huge fish to fry and the workers and the Teamsters need all the help they can get.
This is where the netroots comes in….
A few days after the Teamsters BBQ at the YearlyKos convention (see video on WorkingLife TV), a blogger named Shockwave posted a Call to Action to Kos bloggers asking them to get involved in helping the Teamsters organize school bus workers. The result has been an ongoing conversation on DailyKos about the different ways that the netroots can work with the Teamsters on this campaign. Click here for the most recent discussion on DailyKos.
Here’s what Shockwave says about the power of the blogsphere and unions together:
The past few decades have seen labor laws weakened, an increase in union-busting tactics, and the proliferation of vast multi-national corporations, and now many unions are looking for new, creative ways to organize. A partnership between unions and the netroots is a very powerful organizing tool that can help unions deal with these challenges.
While unions have used the Internet for years, maintaining websites with info about their campaigns – some even have blogs, the use of the netroots community brings the possibility of a whole new Internet strategy and much more.
Shockwave mentions that bloggers have keyboards and unions have boots. So, bloggers can help create new Internet strategies –researching, getting info out there, etc. - to help win campaigns. But they can also pull out their boots (they must have them somewhere!). When the time comes, bloggers have the ability to pound the pavement. Not only can they help spread the word on the net, but when necessary, I think they can take to the streets. The school bus workers campaign is starting to do just this – sending bloggers out into the community to talk to their PTA and send messages to their school boards about the importance of school bus workers organizing.
The (enormous) netroots community is another community that unions can look to get solidarity from - the same way unions have always sought solidarity from clergy and local community groups. This community is filled with people who may not have gotten involved in union campaigns before.
So, WorkingLife bloggers - Let’s spread the word. Get involved in the conversation here and post information about this campaign on other blogs. And get ready to strap on your boots….
You can volunteer to work on the campaign by emailing schoolbusworkers@yahoo.com. Shockwave is right - we can do this.
There has been quite a buzz on DailyKos the past few weeks about a new campaign to organize school bus workers. Progressive bloggers have often written about labor issues, but this particular campaign is creating a real stir because it employs a somewhat new tactic – unions and bloggers organizing together.
The campaign, School Bus Workers United, is an initiative by the Teamsters to organize thousands of school bus drivers who work for a company called First Student. First Student is a subsidiary of a U.K.-based, global company called First Group. According to the Teamsters campaign website:
• In 2005, FirstGroup, which employs 67,367 employees, reported sales of $5.06 billion and operating profits of $397.6 million.
• The company is led by Chief Executive Officer Moir Lockhead, whose salary, bonuses, benefits and stock options package totaled more than $2.6 million in 2005.
So while First Student and its executives rake in the cash, its school bus workers are paid low wages, work long hours and don’t always have adequate health insurance. This is a pretty huge fish to fry and the workers and the Teamsters need all the help they can get.
This is where the netroots comes in….
A few days after the Teamsters BBQ at the YearlyKos convention (see video on WorkingLife TV), a blogger named Shockwave posted a Call to Action to Kos bloggers asking them to get involved in helping the Teamsters organize school bus workers. The result has been an ongoing conversation on DailyKos about the different ways that the netroots can work with the Teamsters on this campaign. Click here for the most recent discussion on DailyKos.
Here’s what Shockwave says about the power of the blogsphere and unions together:
In the next few years about 2000 consultants and lawyers with $billions from 10,000 corporations who are doing everything they can to prevent 100,000,000 American workers from exercising their right to form a union will have to deal with 10,000 union organizers, 300,000 progressive political bloggers and 15,000,000 union members. I bet on us.
We have complementary strengths. Unions have boots on the ground, bloggers have keyboards on the Web (the most powerful and democratic form of communication and organization.) Unions have deep knowledge of union-busting and union organizing tactics, bloggers can help craft Internet based strategies that are effective and cannot be duplicated by the union busting forces.
Disseminating information, winning the war of ideas, digesting mountains of data, facilitating communications between all pro-worker stakeholders, educating union rank and file and workers on how to use the Internet to organize under the radar of union busters. We can do all this.
The past few decades have seen labor laws weakened, an increase in union-busting tactics, and the proliferation of vast multi-national corporations, and now many unions are looking for new, creative ways to organize. A partnership between unions and the netroots is a very powerful organizing tool that can help unions deal with these challenges.
While unions have used the Internet for years, maintaining websites with info about their campaigns – some even have blogs, the use of the netroots community brings the possibility of a whole new Internet strategy and much more.
Shockwave mentions that bloggers have keyboards and unions have boots. So, bloggers can help create new Internet strategies –researching, getting info out there, etc. - to help win campaigns. But they can also pull out their boots (they must have them somewhere!). When the time comes, bloggers have the ability to pound the pavement. Not only can they help spread the word on the net, but when necessary, I think they can take to the streets. The school bus workers campaign is starting to do just this – sending bloggers out into the community to talk to their PTA and send messages to their school boards about the importance of school bus workers organizing.
The (enormous) netroots community is another community that unions can look to get solidarity from - the same way unions have always sought solidarity from clergy and local community groups. This community is filled with people who may not have gotten involved in union campaigns before.
So, WorkingLife bloggers - Let’s spread the word. Get involved in the conversation here and post information about this campaign on other blogs. And get ready to strap on your boots….
You can volunteer to work on the campaign by emailing schoolbusworkers@yahoo.com. Shockwave is right - we can do this.
Comments
Fantastic article!
Thank you for posting this incredible piece; it is very informative and terribly validating to something that many of us have been saying for a while. This article really helps paint a clear picture of the need to have bloggers and labor come together. For many of us we are doing this "netroots" business in our boots everyday!
At Union Review there are a few articles around this very topic:
Online organizing tools are available and should be used by every union
This posting deals with two thoughts:
- There is a need to further the use of online organizing with unions of every trade.
- There is a need to gain greater union membership among the very writers and Bloggers endlessly posting material on the web.
My thought is that if bloggers who are interested in labor are out there (as we are well aware they are), they should consider being members of NWU Local 1981. I believe that the more of us that are actually members of a union will be more apt to write about a labor issues with an even greater sense of solidarity.In another article/press release:
Prometheus Labor Communications is revolutionizing the way unions use the Internet!
Here I tried to spread the word about this union dues-paying company of long-time labor activists who have a finger on the pulse of technology. We have to admit that while labor could be some 10 years behind when it comes to the Internet, much of that lag time is due to "tech-phobia." Many of us believe that the union movement is going in the direction of Drupal-driven technology. Prometheus truly mastered the execution of this technology for unions, specifically making a mysterious Internet very friendly, if not fun.
In speaking with a lot of local and international unions throughout my work week, I have to tell you that among many top priorities is to make the Internet a tool to organize, campaign, mobilize, and of course spread news and views. Your article should be / could be a pamphlet piece for this argument.
In Solidarity,
-Richard Negri / Union Review.
Re: Fantastic article!
I also think, as Steve pointed out, that this is a great way to get the youth involved in the labor movement.
-Natasha
WHY DON'T WE SEE NATASHA WINEGAR'S BYLINE AND PIC, SINCE SHE ACTUALLY WROTE THE ARTICLE??
Sister Winegar,
Since you wrote the article, why is your boss' pic and byline placed on it? He didn't write it, you did, so why don't you get the credit? There's something fundamentally wrong with that!
A Different Point of View
I've been reading with interest the myriad of blogs dedicated to the struggle of the oppressed school bus drivers against their corporate giant masters. Brothers and sisters, bloggers and Kossacks, workers unite, etc., etc., etc. It sounds positively Bohemian. It must be a kick for all of you to sit back with your technology, most likely sitting in a comfy chair at the local Starbucks sipping a double latte with skim milk. I'm soooo jealous. But alas, not all bloggers are socialists.
Has anyone considered for a moment that this movement is barking up the wrong tree? Have any of the Kossacks stopped drinking the Teamster kool-aid long enough to actually understand how things really work - like where the money comes from to pay for the school bus drivers and the school buses? Of course not. This is a case of one business enterprise trying to make money at the expense of another business enterprise. What! You don't consider a union to be a "business". Please. Even Kossacks can't be that naive. Have any of you bothered to stick around after a union election has been won - or lost - at a real live bus lot, with real live bus drivers? Of course not. It's never pretty. But what do you care, you're back at Starbucks planning on how you'll help the Teamsters or the SEIU (I actually respect David Stern) try to win over their next batch of oppressed workers so they can begin collecting dues. That's right, collecting dues - the way that unions make money for unions, not workers. It's amazing how many workers are so surprised when the union wins them a twenty-cent raise, only to take fifteen cents of it in dues for their effort. But I digress. That's not the real purpose of this post.
Here's how it works in real life:
School districts used to run their own school bus operations - and many, particularly in the south, still do. By the way, you should see what those drivers make - and they work for the county - not a corporation. Anyway, they bought the buses, hired the drivers, fixed the buses, paid the drivers, figured out the routes, directed the drivers, etc., etc. The drivers and the staff were municipal employees. Great gig - a municipal employee. Just like a teacher, police officer or fireman. Good salary, great benefits (except in the south). Nice deal as long as the tax revenue was rolling in. Then municipalities figured out that they couldn't just keep raising taxes to pay for these wages so they had to find a way to cut expenses. Next thing you know school districts began to outsource the busing to private companies. This was how they could save money on wages and benefits, not to mention capital costs involved in owning and maintaining the buses. Great deal for the municipality, bad for the drivers, because the private companies didn't offer health insurance, pensions, vacations, etc. If they did, they would have to charge the school district so much that there would ultimately be no savings. Municipalities are not-for-profit. Corporations are. And please, this is America, home of the free, land of the brave, and it's corporate America that provides the paychecks, whether or not it's GE or Bill's Manufacturing or Betty's Diner. Profit is not a dirty word. Please understand that it would take a novella to explain all of the nuances here, but you get the general idea.
How do you fix this?
It's actually quite simple. The money to pay the contractors comes from taxpayers. Capitalists, Kossacks, yuppies, hippies, gen-x'ers, boomers - everyone who pays taxes regardless of their politics, race, religion, creed of national origin. The taxpayers, through their school district, county, municipality or whatever, "contract" with companies - almost always through a bid process - to run the school buses. It's all very up & up. Which makes it incredibly easy to fix the plight of the bus drivers.
But, before I give you the mind-bogglingly easy solution, a word about bus drivers. In most cases, bus drivers go through a vetting process that is nothing short of invasive. Third party criminal background checks, local and state police criminal checks, FBI fingerprint checks, Motor Vehicle record checks, Sex Offender registries, social security number verifications, and on and on. Then there are the government mandated CDL, passenger and school bus endorsement training and testing, which often takes a month or more. Oh, did I forget the DOT physical, pre-employment drug & alcohol test, mandatory random drug testing and bi-annual DOT physicals? Then there is the ongoing - usually state-mandated - safety training that never stops. Once that is all done the school bus driver has the unenviable pleasure of trying to control a 40 foot-long, 30,000 pound vehicle on public roadways while dealing with up to eighty-four kids - that's right there are actually 84-passenger school buses - packed into the bus. Any of you organizers or Kossacks ever tried it? I didn't think so. Do any union organizers or bloggers really understand what is involved in executing a pick-up or drop-off of children flawlessly every day, every time? It's a very difficult task and demands someone who has been properly trained and is always vigilent. Most school bus-related fatalities happen OUTSIDE the bus, not as a result of a collision.
Trying to attack corporations with warchests available to thwart union organizing activities has proved to be fruitless for the most part. And please, don't think that everyone actually wants to belong to a union. That's just as naive. Many folks don't want to have anything to do with them - really - including retirees that blonged to unions in their previous jobs! It's important to note that, for all of the responsibility, training, checking, etc., etc., driving a school bus is - for the most part - a PART TIME job. Most drivers work a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon. It's a great gig for retirees looking for extra money and stay at home moms who can bring their kids on the bus with them, and be off when school vacations come along. It's easy to get caught up in trying to get school bus drivers a large enough weekly paycheck to support a family, but frankly, that's what FULL TIME jobs are for.
THE MONEY HAS TO COME FROM THE TAXPAYERS - NOT THE SCHOOL BUS COMPANY! School bus companies have to BID for the contract. The LOWEST BID virtually always wins (in some states the low bidder MUST be awarded the contract). What does that mean? You guessed it. School bus companies must bid as low as they possibly can to get the contract. If Company A decides that it values its drivers so much that they include an excellent wage in their bid calculation, what do you think their chances of also having the LOWEST BID are?!?!?! I'll help you - ZERO!! School districts put lots of requirements into their contracts. Safety devices, radios, and video cameras are often required. The type of school bus, the manufacturer, the seating capacity, and on and on. There is usually lots of language about driver requirements - but mostly that they pass all of the background checks and drug tests. Almost never is there anything about minimum pay or benefits. Some larger cities have "living wages" which are usually low because they are geared towards full time jobs, not part time jobs.
School bus drivers - if you're out there and reading this - stop barking up the wrong tree and giving your money to another business. The unions want you for your DUES!! Period! They are like real estate agents. Your house is on the market for $210,000. If they get you to drop your price by $10 grand, they lose $600 on a $12,600 commission - while YOU lose $10,000 - but the house is sold! Unions will promise you the world - and $2 an hour - but you'll inevitably end up with 25 cents, of which 15 cents will go to the union for dues.
GO TO YOUR SCHOOL BOARDS, COUNTIES, ETC., and demand that as soon as they are legally able they should put their school bus contract out for bid. And when they do, that they include a mandatory wage schedule for the drivers, and minimum requirements for health and retirement benefits as a part of the contract requirements. That way every contractor who bids will be playing by the same rules and will not be able to underbid a competitor by taking money away from the drivers. And here's the best part - it won't cost the school bus drivers a single penny! If your town is having trouble getting school bus drivers, you are literally in the driver's seat! Take your case to the people. I'm sure the Kossacks will come out and support you at the next school board meeting. If you really do your homework, you'll find that the school districts that work cooperatively with contractors to pay the drivers a responsible wage do not have problems finding drivers - and the drivers are quite happy with their jobs and wages. Duh!
I have the ultimate respect for school bus drivers because I know exactly what they have to deal with every day. I also have respect for companies that work hard to treat their employees fairly and pay them responsible wages. I also, believe it or not, respect the work that some unions do for workers in other industries that have not treated their employees fairly. I only ask that - in this case - you consider this as an alternative route to the same end.
It's at least worth discussing.
Great comments
I'll try to keep you posted.
http://www.dailykos.com/user/Shockwave
Thanks.