Strikes of various sorts

[sabotabby]

I support them and all that, but I do hope the CBC strike ends soon. It's killing my mornings. It's bad enough that I have to get up with a hangover. But I have to listen to this:

Bad pop music
Bad pop music
30 seconds about Gaza
Bad pop music
Weather report for Nunavut
Bad pop music

Ugh.

Speaking of which -- here's a not-so-hypothetical situation. Imagine there's a Canadian factory with a contract to manufacture and sell bullets to the US Army. Those bullets are going to be used to shoot Iraqis. The workers at the factory go on strike; their demands do not mention the war. Do you:

a) Support them in their demands because they're striking workers?
b) Do picket-line support for sure, but make sure to discuss the war with them in some way?
c) Don't touch this situation with a ten-foot pole. You wouldn't do strike support for prison guards, either.

And why?

Comments

[mcsokrates.livejournal.com]

why is it that bad pop music, which is normally somewhere between annoying and amusing, becomes the soundtrack to your impending death when one is hungover?

[sabotabby]

I can't really abide pop music at the best of times, particularly Canadian pop music. When hungover, I just feel very violent towards my alarm clock.

[mcsokrates.livejournal.com]

I can honestly say I ahve no idea what Canadian pop music is like, as the only Canadian music I really listen to is either out there indie rock (The Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene) or equally out there leftfield techno (Deadbeat, Akufen)

I do, however, wholeheartedly support the retaking of the pop music form by hipster revolutionaries like Annie, Royskopp and Goldfrapp.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Well I'm here!!! To remind you! Of the mess you made when you something something..

/me shudders.

Canadian pop music, bleck.

[lovableatheist.livejournal.com]

I'm bot so sure that I would put workers in a factory that produces bullets on the same level as prison guards. Prisons can be harmful to society just as much as bullets can and prison guards only help reenforce the prison system and do little to help the situation whereas factory workers can produce something other than bullets.

Anyways, it seems like a sticky situation. I think supporting them and bringing it up might not be a bad idea, but it depends on your approach. If you bring it up and talk about it in a way that makes them feel attacked (ie "don't you guys realize that you're making bullets used to murder people in an imperialist war motivated by greed and profit?") they may just see you as a crazy outsider who has nothing to do with their cause and they may not welcome you back to the picket line. On the other hand, you can talk about the labour movement in Iraq and how there's a high unemployment rate and how workers and unions there often protest and strike to improve their situation. This could, in theory, eventually lead to a discussion about the occupation and Canada's role in it (the bullets). I've never been on strike, but I'd like to think that if a worker in Canada is going through tough times with a strike and whatnot, he/she might find it a bit easier to relate to what workers in Iraq are going through. We can,t force our views on other people and make it seem as if some "outsider" is trying to influence their collective agreement. It would be too easy for the employer to turn that against us and any concern over what the workers are producing.

Or, if you're a single-issue kind of person and don't care about the working conditions of people here and fail to see that workers in Canada are being exploited by the same system as workers in Iraq, then you can side with the bosses and keep the workers out on the picket line for as long as possible by refusing to give in to their demands.

[emak-bakia.livejournal.com]

well said!

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

a) and b), with an emphasis on b)

Some of the workers at least are probably quite aware of what their factory produces and the appalling uses to which it is put, but they don't have the luxury of saying, "Ah, fuck it" and quitting their job. While most of the strikers are probably doing it mainly for economic reasons, there may very well be some anti-war political impetus among some. The fact that they are going on strike is putting far more of a kink in the war machine than a score of do-gooders holding an isolated candlelight vigil, or a a hundred people marching down sidewalks carrying placards with all the right (and several of the wrong) slogans.

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

Ok, I have to listen to the CBC on the internet, so I assume that's how everyone listens to radio.

I have to agree with dobrovolets. Would the answer be any different than that for a factory making HumVees?

[sabotabby]

I listen to the radio when I get up in the morning, and that's about it. I find it's not a good way for me to absorb information, generally speaking, but it wakes me up.

Would the answer be any different than that for a factory making HumVees?

Well, that opens up an entirely different can of worms. Awhile back, Buzz Hargrove went on a rant about how we need to bring more auto manufacturing jobs to Canada, etc., which managed to piss off a lot of activists who believe we should be doing more to curb oil consumption and the car population. I sympathize with that; I think unions need to take on more progressive politics beyond bread-and-butter demands.

[rote.livejournal.com]

If the factory isn't using replacement workers to keep production going, you might as well do whatever will take to keep it closed.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

I'm with a), and possibly b) providing there's a good approach. Like above, I don't quite agree with the prison guard comparison... I think a more likely comparison is forest industry workers on strike and eco-activists. Usually the two don't mix well, but there are situations where people got to talk together and form a united front. Before the shit hit the fan with the sale of the logging concession from Brascan to Weyerhauser, first nations people (the eco-activists of sorts) and forest workers on the island had reached agreement on some sort of good land management plan for the forest. I can't remember the exact details, but you get the idea.

From another perspective, anything that makes those bullets more expensive is good, so even just supporting those striking workers' demands for higher wages is good.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Probably b). We actually had a similar situation in Bristol, where some Rolls Royce workers were on strike. This plants makes conventional military aero engines. Not sure if any are currently being used in Iraq, but quite possiblyin some respect. Anyway, the local Respect guy was phoning round asking for support on the picket lines, and I was quite sceptical. "So, exactly how much solidarity were these workers showing the East Timorese when they were making engines for the Hawks to bomb them with? I didn't notice them downing tools then." But what convinced me to come out (for a bucket collection/leafleting etc.) was that the specific issue was the victimisation of a Union rep. That means something for the whole labour movement. I sorta felt that I couldn't really start the whole "so o you really think the arms industry is a good thing to be working in right now?" conversation on the first time out, and then I was off to Palestine, but theoretically I'd be intending to start the conversation in some way.

Besides, the longer they're out on strike, the longer they're not making the weapons... so maybe there should be an option d), support them so long as it doesn't look like they're actually going to win, thus ending the strike... ;)

[lemur-man.livejournal.com]

I only hear about 10 minutes of CBC in the morning on average anyway, but I have to say I'm not missing, cough, Andy, cough wheeze, Barrie, AHEM!, at all. Or that guy who may as well be Brent Bambury as far as his voice is concerned.

[sabotabby]

But they struck when he was on vacation! So my blessed few months with the Morning Show and no Andy Barrie have been disrupted. The selfish wankers could have waited until he got back.

[teapolitik.livejournal.com]

Ugh, after trying to explain why I'd choose a position somewhere between (b) and (c), I've decided that I feel cynical and would just stick with (c).

Because fuck short attention-spans that lead people to not see the causal relationship between "I manufacture weapons" and "weapons blow up brown people."

[maeve66.livejournal.com]

What dobrovolets said. A) and B) with a leaning towards B). I don't see the prison guards analogy. And I disagree with teapolitik (much though I appreciate his or her username) because I doubt that these people made a conscious choice to earn their bread by producing the means to off the oppressed. At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if there were indeed some folks on strike now who are open to viewing it as a strike that can have a political meaning (an antiwar meaning), short term. I think our anger would be better directed against bullet manufacturers rather than bullet assembly line workers. And in that way, the antiwar movement could both support the strike and decry the production.

[teapolitik.livejournal.com]

I do not underestimate the capacity for factory workers to be aware of the same information as I am aware of. In the hypothetical, we are aware that these weapons are being manufactured for oppressive purposes... and therefore that information is available to the workers as well. If they are ignorant of this fact, choosing not to inform themselves, they are not somehow less responsible for their role in it. Just as a person in nazi Germany planning train schedules or manufacturing Zyklon B would not be absolved of their role in the genocide they participated in.

Though I'm sure this will piss off a lot of anarchists, it is not only the very powerful who are responsible for the direction our culture takes us. Our participation, especially when we remain silent, most definitely puts us in a position of responsibility as well. I am not saying "fuck all those workers", either. But it is a choice of privilege over solidarity with the oppressed when workers in their position shrug off this opportunity to expose the role of their work in the oppression of others.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

Not me. I'm with the cops shooting rubber bullets at the strikers.

"Get back to work, bastards!"

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

that's LAZY bastards!

[sabotabby]

Lazy COMMIE bastards.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

Bring out the water canons amd clubs!

[emak-bakia.livejournal.com]

do strike-support for sure, and bring up the war issue. they're still workers, and they're not directly engaged in the oppression of others like prison guards. perhaps, like many people, they have just never take the time to think about their position in the military-industrial complex and they're taking home a fat paycheck, so they're happy. besides, maybe some of them feel the same way, and it would be a good way to get some discussion within the union going.