Other than these two points, railway-ers or anyone else can strike as long and as often as they see fit.
(btw I merely touched the issue of the French unions' political colour; I could have spoken of the student or college unions, magistrate unions and many others whose hard leaning to the left leaves absolutely no doubt; by this, they decredibilize their own action and open the way for abuses from the side of the government; I found it extremely undemocratical for president Sarkozy to boast that "today no one notices strikes anymore"; this is were some unions' lack of reasonable-ness and politicking led: the Power is able today to frame any strike being so) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
The owners and upper management of large companies is almost universally to the right of whatever goes as "centre" in your political culture (which in today's political culture means that many of them are far-right cultists). Many if not most of the people employed in the police and military are right-of-centre. If unions did nothing more than mirror the ideological distribution of civilians who aren't owners or part of the upper management of large companies, they'd be left-of-centre. And surely, unions aren't supposed to represent upper management and owners...
As an aside, unions really actually aren't far left - most of them are to the right of where they were thirty or so years ago, but the Overton Window has become so fucked up in the meantime that they look bright red...
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
But I'm speaking of sensibilities. The word is very important. No one should get out of his role and act on its own sensibilitites rather than the role he has in society (police to protect the citizen, not be authoritarian, army to protect the country, not to use strength to rape women and burn villages and so on).
The turf for politics is the political parties and the democratical institutions. If others think they're more legit, they're no longer democratical. Do I believe democracy (in its present form) is the best way? I don't know. We can discuss that, but I'd rather have my union activate for my protection as a worker.
I agree with you about unions being framed red. This is why they need not do more PR and more framing back, but keep factual, irreproachable and bold, in our defense, not that of an ideology. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
And as an aside, I still think your idea of democracy would cause most of the Enlightenment thinkers who came up with the concept to spin in their graves if they could hear it. To give an admittedly extreme example: Were the electorate to decide - by duly amending their constitution - to impose apartheid or to remove the suffrage for brown people, it would be the moral obligation of all civilised citizens to work for the overthrow of this new constitution. Clearly, such anti-apartheid activists would be more legitimate than all the duly, legally and democratically elected officials of such a country.
We've had two recent economic summits in Wales to discuss the recession and how to tackle it and the strength of partnership the unions have with the Government is truly to the benefit of the whole population.
Where ValentinD says that unions should not be politically involved with anything outside direct workplace issues, we've shown here that the contributions of our unions during times like this is absolutely vital. It is the partnership arrangements that determine to an extent the role of unions in working with the Government. When Governments refuse to work with the unions, that's when we see real difficulties.
I guess another point I'd like to make is what is democratic about a system of governance that doesn't see a role for genuine open consultation and negotiation with NGOs, unions and other 'activist' organisations - the ones who have a far more in depth expertise of the issues affecting the groups they represent?
Understanding that with that expertise they can make links across sectors, themes and groups that go wider than any specific single cause remit is massively beneficial. Services fail when things don't align, when there are gaps that have been overlooked because the service design was developed by people with too narrow a knowledge base, unable to see 'out of the box' if you like.
So like you, I'm not convinced unions should stick to direct worker related issues, there are other things with relevance that it is important to include. Ad astra per aspera
Thirty years of uninterrupted rule by syndicalists and pre-Schröder Social Democrats will do that to a country :-P
Economic issues almost always touch employees' interest (there are so few true workers left today, that I kind of prefer employees).
But what would you say if your Welsh (ok, not a world economic power, but still, for the sake of example) went on strike Against Multinationals or Ultraliberalism - ie, for a clearly ideological issue. I can perfectly understand French post office employees on strike against privatisation, for instance. I cannot do the same regarding those on strike for the "preservation of the Public Service", which is a matter of public policy which in fact has only positive effects on them personally and on the respective service. They go on strike (supposedly) in the stead of the citizen, ie, opposing elections (by which people chose a non-left candidate). Hence they use their right for a kind of political coup (keeping proportions) which would not benefit them in any way. These are ideological attitudes to be avoided for their own credibility (and probably against the law as well). Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
But what would you say if your Welsh (ok, not a world economic power, but still, for the sake of example) went on strike Against Multinationals or Ultraliberalism - ie, for a clearly ideological issue.
I fail to see how going on strike against transnats is beyond the scope of labour rights. Some of the worst offenders on labour rights are precisely the transnats you don't want unions to strike against. One of the fundamental principles of all labour organisation is that abusing labour somewhere is abusing labour everywhere - partly out of an ideological sense of solidarity with the oppressed, but more pragmatically because slave labour abroad undercuts our bargaining position at home.
So dock workers refusing to unload a container of iPods because the factory they were produced in is abusive to its labour force is a strike directly against a company policy that harms the interests of the dock workers.
As for striking against neoliberalism, I can see various tactical and strategic problems - how do you know when you've won? What concessions would you demand?
But going on strike against a neoliberal government, on the other hand, is perfectly reasonable if you think the strike has a reasonable chance of hurting it more than it will hurt you. You'd support, I hope, a strike against an Islamic (or Christian) fundagelical government, even if it came to power through elections? And surely neoliberalism isn't any less noxious than Shari'a?
I can perfectly understand French post office employees on strike against privatisation, for instance. I cannot do the same regarding those on strike for the "preservation of the Public Service",
What's the difference between striking against privatisation and striking for preservation of the public service? I fail to see the distinction.
They go on strike (supposedly) in the stead of the citizen, ie, opposing elections
Bullshit.
Elections are decided on a fairly small range of issues - and the issues that unions usually strike over aren't usually among them. Further, during an election campaign, politicians will frequently make different - and conflicting - promises to different interest groups in society. Why shouldn't unions protect their interests when politicians try to undercut their own promises?
(Why people believe that a right-wing politician won't try to undercut labour rights and dismantle the public service is something of a mystery to me. But when you poll people, they apparently do. So, in a sense, when unions strike against the dismantling of the public service, they're just demanding that the politicians do what the voters apparently thought they were doing all along...)
These are ideological attitudes to be avoided for their own credibility (and probably against the law as well).
The Underground Railroad didn't have much credibility in the Confederacy either. Nor was it precisely legal...
At any rate, the internationalisation of labour interests can hardly be laid at the feet of the unions. If you internationalise capital, you internationalise labour interests. This is straightforward, generally acknowledged economics that no serious economist - left or right - disputes: In an era of globalised capital, doing offence to workers in China does direct and measurable harm to the hard and fast numbers on my bottom line in Denmark. Permit me to repeat: This is straight out of page 0 of any textbook on globalisation you might care to pick up.
So, if labour unions aren't supposed to defend the direct, measurable and extremely concrete interests of their members, then WTF are they supposed to do?
