Safeway Protest a Study in Contrasts

For those who do not know the local political scene well, Ignacio de la Fuente is a good Democrat and a staunch supporter of landlords on the Oakland City Council, opposing tenants' demands for strong rent control laws. He was a representative of the Ironworkers' Union, the folks who built our bridges, etc. I do not know how much iron work he ever did in his life, but if he did, it was a long time ago.

The numbers we are seeing at these rallies are pathetic. There are 7 million people in the SF-Oakland Bay Area, hundreds of thousands of whom are union members. It is clear the union bureaucrats are doing as little as possible to promote solidarity.

Instead, they allow Democrats like de la Fuente in Oakland, and Nazi election fraud mayor Democrat Gavin Newsom in San Francisco to appear at these rallies, along with lots of other Democratic Party politicians, all of whom demonstrated their contempt for the workingclass by supporting the pro-landlord, anti-labor, utterly reactionary Democrat Gavin Newsom to become mayor of San Francisco.

It is insulting that Democrat Atty Gen Lockyer is planning to file a phony baloney anti-trust lawsuit against the grocery companies, obviously running for governor as a "labor candidate." Such a lawsuit does not win a strike; it is just grandstanding.

There is a good story of a pending betrayal of this grocery worker strike by the union bureaucrats on the World Socialist Website of 1/31/04 at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan2004/groc-j31.shtml.
Some highlights:
"* The union has done nothing throughout the course of the strike to stop the supermarkets’ strikebreaking through the use of scab labor at the stores and distribution centers.

* On October 31, the UFCW pulled down the pickets at Ralphs, maintaining that this would put increased pressure on the other chains to settle. This claim was made despite the fact that all four of the grocery chains are sharing profits over the course of the strike. The removal of the pickets at Ralphs only served to weaken the workers’ struggle. Furthermore, it came under conditions in which there was widespread public support for the strike, with little traffic in the stores.

"* After weeks in which it refused to organize pickets at the supermarket distribution centers, the UFCW instituted lines at the warehouses only to pull them down three week later.

* At the end of last year, the health benefits of the membership were allowed to expire without the union undertaking any measures to prevent the loss of coverage.

* In January, strike benefits for picketers were cut between $100 and $150 a week, reducing strike pay by 50 percent or more at six out of the seven southern California locals.

* For the last three and a half months, the workers have been kept completely in the dark about the course and progress of negotiations with the grocery chains.

* In December, the union made a concessionary offer that would have saved the grocery chains just under $400 million over the course of the contract."

"The AFL-CIO’s intervention in the strike, in the form of Trumka’s arrival, is the logical culmination of these tactics. He has a long history of betraying workers’ struggles. In the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, as head of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), he implemented a corporatist policy of labor-management relations that, in the name of improving productivity and reducing labor costs, led to the widespread destructions of jobs and the operation of non-union mines. Among the concessions granted by Trumka was the weakening of the principle of the 8-hour day. Under his stewardship, UMWA membership declined from 120,000 to 30,000 active members in the span of 13 years, transforming what had once been one of the most militant and powerful unions in the United States into a hollow shell of its former self."

"Most recently, in California in December 2002, Trumka played the central role in selling out the locked-out longshore workers represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). The contract hammered out under his supervision resulted in the elimination of hundreds of jobs through technological changes, while preserving a position for the union bureaucracy in the implementation of all future technologies at the docks."

Obviously, the way to win such a strike is to stop deliveries. The above article has other suggestions as follows:
"Workers must organize a struggle against the strategy and tactics of the UFCW and AFL-CIO bureaucrats and mobilize the rank and file to take control of the strike. This includes the creation of a negotiating team elected directly by the workers, an end to all closed-door negotiations with the supermarkets, the initiation of an immediate campaign to stop strikebreaking, the institution of mass picketing, and the issuing of calls for sympathy strikes from workers in other sections of industry. Such a fight can only succeed on the basis of a completely new political strategy—one that defends the working class as a whole from the onslaught against their living standards by both the Democratic and Republican parties."

The writer makes some valid criticisms. I would just make one point: He or she does not give enough credit to the fight, the grit, the determination of the workers. This is what really shines through in this strike. Unfortunately, if things don't turn out too well, then this will be lost from view.

One detail: de la Fuente was a business rep for the Moulders, not the ironworkers. But the other interesting thing is that when he was business rep, he was the most militant business rep around. I remember during the first greyhound strike, de la Fuente got his shoulder dislocated by the cops, went to the hosptial, came back to the line that same evening with his arm in a sling, and I had to hold him back from getting into it with a cop again. My point is that it was the wrong orientation that led de la Fuente down the road he's on now.

It was a very structured protest, from a long list of speakers to a march with a red and blue team up Broadway along the sidewalks. The end of the protests was when the arrests occured.

It was a publicity stunt by the unions but that was the point. Stopping a few dozen people from going into Safeway for a few hours doesnt put much pressure on Safeway, but getting the corporate media to cover the protest gets the message out to a lot more people and could have a more significant effect.

I heard a lot of activists say they liked the SF protest last week better. That makes sense in that the protest in SF was much more dominated by antiwar protesters showing solidarity. Yesterdays protest seemed to contain a lot more workers than at the SF protest. The crowd was much more diverse and there were quite a few families that brought their children. I also noticed that the workers at the Oakland Safeway looked a lot more sympathetic to the protest than in SF. This could have just been a reflection of who worked at the two stores but its very important in that the strike may move up here next summer and the last thing a solidarity protest with Southern California grocery workers should do is alienate Northern California grocery workers.

At antiwar rallies I hear a lot of complaints about long lists of speakers and how people would prefer action to speach, but I think thats different at this type of labor rally. I was glad to here all of the talk about healthcare, talk about how this was effecting Southern California workers etc.. A leftwing boycott of a chain like Safeway has little if any impact but getting a message out to the general public about attacks on healthcare could resonate with people who otherwise might not be active politically.

Unions should be democratized. One way to do that is to start getting workers talking to each other. I hear complaints on here and on email lists about how labor rallies should go but this really isnt the right audience to be talking to. Perhaps many grocery workers dont have internet access which makes this difficult, but talk among antiwar activists about how a labor rally should have gone seems just as vanguardist as similar talk that must take place among the union leadership (although I bet they at least poll workers).

If the goal is to win this fight against Safeway we should be united and not engage in too much infighting. Questioning the effectiveness or this or that tactic is useful, but this really should be a topic in which workers have the final say and not labor beurocrats or radicals who have other political goals.

>If the goal is to win this fight against Safeway we should be united and not engage in too much infighting. Questioning the effectiveness or this or that tactic is useful, but this really should be a topic in which workers have the final say and not labor beurocrats or radicals who have other political goals.<

But what if someone is a union member who supports more radical tactics? It's not as if radical unionism was invented yesterday.I look at the struggle between union leadership and radical rank and file as an ongoing one, not one that just dropped from the sky.

I'm also a little suspicious of the intentions of Mr. De La Fuente, given the path he as chosen in his career on the Oakland City Council. A look at his track record seems to have devolved into a mean-spirited bullying that is more indicative of a party boss than a democratic conduit for the community. For an example of Mr. De La Fuente's pugnaciousness (sorry for the twenty-five dollar word -- in other words, pit bull-like demeanor) in practice, look at his response to the City Council meeting with rank and file workers and activists who were at the Oakland Docks last year on April 7th. Rank and file supporters don't walk out of the room when the rank and file shows up to express their displeasure at being fired upon.

That all being said, I do agree that we all need to work together -- as workers, as students, as people who oppose the precarious path that this country is going down under the two sides of global hegemony. Is the union leadership and Mr. De La Fuente part of that hegemony? All due respect, it seems to me that that is best decided by workers and the communities that Mr. De La Fuente claims to represent, not merely by us.

AP, your one woman news wire

I was at the protest yesterday and I experienced the same type of analysis and frustrations.
I was marching with a family/baby contingent and the march monitors were yelling at us over bullhorns to hurry up and catch up. It was like they were bosses in their own minds. Which is something that I loath about highly orchestrated protest -- having people telling me what to do and how to act or react based on a pre-planned models.
Negotiating with the police to march on the sidewalk, felt really un-empowering. But all the various deals that seemed to be negotiated with the police, were frustrating and annoying and disempowering. But I was there to support the workers, not to push my own agenda and sometimes it is ok just to go with the flow. There will probably be other opportunities to take more direct action. There is no reason that groups like DASW cannot do their own actions at Safeway, and not piggy back on other peoples' actions. From what I understand there are pickets at that store all the time. Look at what Critical Mass did in LA did, they took direct action on their own and were effective.

Yes, of course the goal is to win the strike. That is exactly why I made the points I made. I was a union member for 30 years until I was expelled by my International for fighting for the members. I'm still active in the labor movement.

We've seen these strikes - one after another. Greyhound. Patco, Staley, Hormel, Detroit Newspapers, Chronicle... The list would fill up an entire web site almost. I can't remember one single one of them which succeeded. Even the UPS strike was a draw, despite massive public support.

You know, one definition of "insanity" is repeating the same actions over and over, under the same conditions, and expecting different results.

The simple fact of the matter is that the official union leadership has gotten so close to management (as well as to the politicians) that they can not distinguish between the needs of the employers and the needs of their own members. They are terrified of the membership taking any sort of collective action into their own hands. This is why they keep things on such a limited basis.

I am NOT coming at this from an ideological position of the ultra left; I've lived this for 30 years.

As for the arrests yesterday - this was purely for consumption of the strikers and a few rank and file members. It was to make themselves look good, to pretend that they'd actually been willing to sacrifice. (By the way, if they want to sacrifice something, why don't they start a campaign for every single paid union official to donate half their pay check to the strike relief fund?)

And, yes, I agree that there were more rank and file workers out there this time. Certainly more than a month ago, when they held the last rally. But to get a few hundred rank and filers out there (the rest were staffers) when the CLC represents something like 16,000 is pretty pathetic. I can tell you this: In my hiring hall there were no leaflets at all, no publicity for this rally. None. However, they were able to get the carpenter business reps out there to run interference for the scabs who shopped in there. They had no trouble in getting them there.

Am I bitter? Yes. I personally know one of those pickets who lost his house. He, his invalid wife and his two kids are living with his mother. Can peopole reading this understand what this means? To be making payments on a home, feel that maybe you have a little comfort and security for yourself and your kids, and then one day the sheriff comes knocking at your door and tells you to get out with all your belongings. I know another picket who is on life-support drugs. If this strike loses, he will be unable to afford those drugs. It will be a death sentence for him. But the union hierarchy -- they won't lose anything.

Yet these union officials drive around in their high priced SUV's (in which they arrived at the rally), make sure that nothing more militant is carried out, get their nice safe photo-op "arrest"... and do everything in their power to crush any rank and file militancy that might really make a difference.

1. Are the tactics being used useful in terms of winning this current fight with Safeway? Is the strike in Southern California being handled well by the unions? Is the boycott but lack of strike in Northern California the right way to go? Are symbolic arrests of union leaders a useful way to get media coverage?

2. Are the tactics being used good for the long term future of the labor movement? After this strike is over will more grocery workers want to be part of a union? Are these rallies around the grocery workers struggle a good way to get people involved with labor activism and unions?

3. How does one mix radical activists and nonradical workers at protests? How does one mix Northern California Safeway workers being told to go to work by their unions with radical activists who want to close down the stores by any means necessary? How does one do this when Northern California workers may go on strike soon and alienation could mean more scabs? How do you prevent a riot from impacting people who assume a protest will be legal and peaceful (and may have a lot to lose if they are illegal immigrants or have children at the protest) without alienating those who hate to see anyone policing the protest and telling people they have to walk on teh sidewalk?

4. Are union officials being paid too much? In the above posts there is talk of union fat cats driving SUVs. This seems like an issue that is much broader and has little to do with the current Safeway strike (turning anger away from Safeway executives and towards union leaders seems extremely counterproductive in the middle of a strike but its is a time when union leaders need the most support...)

5. How does one mix radical antiwar activism and union activism? Unions need community support so many unions take stands outside of labor struggles to get activists to help with their causes, but many workers in many industries may not hold the same views as the activists. Mixing activisms can help build protests but it can also undermine causes since workers may not like having their struggles be used for further causes they are not involved in (and perhaps dont agree with). As the same time, radical activists are the people who give energy to unions and without them many causes cant get won. The recent increased support by radical activists for union struggles could give new energy to the labor movement, but there will be a culture clash in that many unions still use nationalism (flags, proUS statements etc..) to rally their members.

I participate with many Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW) actions and was with folks at the Safeway rally and action to support the grocery workers. My experience with those of us from a few affinity groups that work with the DASW network was different than John’s account. At it’s last meeting, DASW discussed and agreed to support the grocery workers and formed a committee, since it is part of the domestic side of the war for empire and DASW is trying to find ways to unite anti-war and global justice organizing with community struggles for education, healthcare and community needs.

The several handfulls of us who came out and marched with Healthcare not Warfare and other signs and banners, agreed going inside Safeway might be a good idea, but also that we wanted to support the days march, protest and civil disobedience action--so we’d see if it felt right when we arrived. It was also a little confusing because someone from the Alameda Labor Council told one of us they did not want us to do any kind of support actions because they had it all worked out with the police, but both a United Food and Commercial Workers organizer and grocery workers from Southern California had really encouraged us to do supportive actions if we were moved to do so.

John seems like a good hearted guy and is very passionate about his beliefs. His reflections on his political differences with most of the committee has been consistently different from what I remember—but that is better sorted out face to face, not on the internet. So please John, let’s try to speak publicly for ourselves or our group and not for DASW or it’s committees.

DASW is a diverse network open to the everyone who agrees with it’s goals and decisionmaking and includes a wide range of folks who participate in actions and show up at meetings—priests, trade unionists, students, Democrats, farmers, socialists, anarchists, zapatistas, ecologists, feminists, pagans, artists, dancers and a some guys from labors militant voice.

The DASW Grocery Worker Support Committee is in discussion about how we can best support grocery workers and build support within anti-war, direct action and global justice movements: independent actions, joining pickets, art and theater, educating others in our networks, etc? If you have ideas of what would be most usefull or want to plug in please get in touch or get involved (actagainstwar.org).