There's plenty of pie, but who holds the knife?

Gregg Shotwell, a retired autoworker and author of Autoworkers Under the Gun: Live Bait & Ammo, examines what's at stake in a new round of contract negotiations.

I can understand the fear and trembling that union bureaucrats must feel as the guillotine of "right to work (for less)" laws scythes its way across the working-class consciousness. If workers aren't required to pay for services they don't respect, it's quite likely that deadheads will roll, and no one will miss the toll they charged for lip service.

If you want to predict the future, don't speculate, study the past. In light of the knowledge gleaned, examine the present. The history of the future is planted, not buried, in the here and now.

The fate of the United Auto Workers (UAW) hinges on contract negotiations. The UAW signs confidentiality agreements with their business partners before bargaining. This parody of confidence surrounds the rank and file in a cordon of silence, studded with omen and disdain.

At UAW bargaining conventions, elected delegates express their goals for upcoming contracts, but it's a dog-and-pony show. No delegate at a bargaining convention ever expressed interest in two-tier, or temporary, contract or flex workers. Elimination of cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) was taboo. Raises, rather than profit-sharing, was the standard placard workers carried since union time began.

Read more: http://socialistworker.org/2015/08/12/plenty-of-pie-but-who-holds-the-knife

Cross-posted in the Socialist Progressives Group.