*Robert Anthony
The fact that 89 out of 100 workers in the US have no voice
in the workplace ostensibly through union representation was the clarion call
for this year’s biennial CWA convention – paid for with the collective dues
dollars of the telephone workers, health care employees, publishers, printers,
newspaper employees, public safety officers, and flight attendants that make up
the amalgamated representational mess that is the CWA, arguably one of the most
corrupt labor unions in America today.
Men
and women around the world have DIED through the years fighting for the right
to organize and belong to labor unions and have fought far more formidable
opponents than ANY labor union in this country faces today. Yet the language of victimization and blame
runs rampant throughout the labor movement, and it stands today as a distant
and fading echo of its former self – and much of that blame lay at its own
feet.
There
is no group that has raised this language of victimization and blame to an art
form better than the CWA flight attendant sector, formerly the flight attendant
association, formerly the airlines stewards and stewardess division of ALPA.
Stuck in the Jimmy Hoffa era of the 1970s when labor unions
grew into the corrupt, excuse-making machinery they are today, labor unions
must change their current path, or this country will soon face a day when that
89 out of 100 becomes 99 out of 100. No
amount of banner carrying, pin-wearing, ribbon tying demonstrations has
prevented the corporate greed and filthy excess that has repeated itself
throughout America’s economic history. For
America to thrive it must have a growing, robust middle class supported by a
vibrant labor movement.
But that labor movement CANNOT exist if it continues its
short-sighted myopia that has simply created another managerial class on the
back of employees already overburdened with excessive corporate layers. Yet that is precisely what has occurred at
the CWA-afa and what continues to occur. Members
who engage in vigorous debate and protest should be welcomed and celebrated –
not threatened with expulsion because certain individuals had their feelings
hurt and egos bruised. Debate is a true
democracy’s immune system, and the CWA-afa is incapable of accepting and embracing
that fact. Change must occur, because
current involvement is pathetically low.
Participation in local election results, which, in a time of volatile
change at American Eagle, for example, was 11% - hardly an engaged electorate.
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