Re: [Marxism] Translation of Spanish union position on British strikes.

[Joonas Laine <jjonas@xxxxxx>]

Thanks to David for translating this!

> MCA-UGT [Metal, Construction and Similar workers section of UGT, one of the
> biggest Spanish unions] demands that British unions prevent xenophobic
> protests.
> 
> The Federation sent a letter to the Secretary General of Unite The Union in
> which we request not to give cover to the xenophobic and racist protests
> which are taking place and which have affected a group of asturian [region
> of Spain] workers posted by two subsidiaries of Duro Felguera in Nottingham
> county.

[..]

  > MCA-UGT reminded the British union that they are both responsible
> representative organizations, with an active participation in the European 
> and worldwide labour union movement, and both are aware that their strength 
> depends on the defence of democratic values, the exercise of solidarity, the 
> development of transnational labour union networks, and the defence of 
> collective interests, such that we cannot afford to participate in a certain 
> sort of discourse, and in simplistic and
> profoundly demagogic actions, which stir up hatred or put blame on the 
> weakest party: the worker, and which, in any case, do not deal with the true 
> origin
> of the problem

As far as I can tell, this is probably a good paper to nudge the British 
Unions to the right direction (or if their positions are good, keep them 
there). I can't judge to what extent the unions have been complicit in 
"giving cover to xenophobia", but I think the content of the paper is 
such that it would do good to deliver stuff like that to the Finnish 
Metal Workers Union (MWU) headquarters as well; even though they haven't 
argued for "Finnish jobs for Finnish workers" (at least I haven't seen), 
they're not doing very much in practice to help the situation either.

The MWU strike fund in filled to the brim, with three months worth of 
allowance for all 167 000 members, but there hasn't been a strike called 
by the MWU for any cause during my adulthood (the last 12 years). I 
think this would be one of those issues, definetely.

Last wednesday I attended the MWU Turku branch board meeting, and, among 
other things, the recession-related negotiations on layoffs were 
discussed. Much of the Turku branch activity concerns the Turku 
shipyards, presently owned by the South Korean company STX. What I've 
heard from the main shop steward of the shipyards, Jari Aalto, the place 
is probably the most international working place in Finland (maybe some 
construction sites are the same). The process of ship building has been 
sliced into smaller sections which are then sold to subcontractors, who 
in turn slice their section into smaller subsections and sell them on to 
subcontractors etc. At the end of the chain there's often some Polish, 
Estonian or Russian worker working 12 hours a day for a pittance.

Here's something from the MWU magazine, 09/2007.

"Work for one euro an hour. A subcontractor chain of even twenty 
companies. Five hundred new workers in the building site every month. 
Non-Finnish speaking workers swindled and being left without any pay at all.

"A chapter from a dystopian novel? A parody of a capitalist's wet dream? 
No, it's real life at Finnish shipyards."

[..]

"The foreign workers of the subcontractors are quite a challenge for the 
shipyards' shop steward organisation, says the main shop steward Jari 
Aalto. Subcontractor chains mean a lot of work for Aalto, the vice shop 
steward Lehto and the labour proctection trustee Ari RajamÃki.

Usually the shopyards shop stewards have not been in the business of 
helping non-unionised labour, but they have made an exception with the 
foreign workers of the subcontractors.

â In my opinion it's for our benefit too that the collective agreements 
are applied to them as well and that they have adequate working times 
and wages. If the firms can behave here as they please, there will be 
ever less work for Finnish workers, Aalto says.

Aalto feels that despite the employer's sweet words, Aker Yards [as it 
was called back then when it was owned by the Norwegians] is not 
seriously committed to respecting the terms of the workers.

â I haven't heard of a single firm which the shipyards would have thrown 
out on its own initiative because of unclarities. All cases have been 
the result of [labour protection board representative] Kristiina Linna's 
inspections and reports, Aalto criticizes.

If the subcontractor is big and important enough, it can do almost 
anything it wants, Aalto says. When the workers employed by the 
shipyards is in the minority, the tentacles of subcontracting reach 
everywhere, he describes.

Aalto calls for better internal inspection from Aker Yards. It is 
impossible for shop stewards and labour protection board inpectors to 
run after 3 000 subcontracted workers' wage accounts.

â They wouldn't have to throw out many shabby firms before they would 
start cleaning up their act themselves. There would be pressure to get 
things in order so that they can stay at the shipyards.

Without support from the shipyards, the shop steward organisation is 
rather toothless, Aalto says.

â If a firm breaks the rules, but the shipyards does nothing, what can 
the shop steward do? When violence is out of the question, and talk will 
accomplish nothing! You can always strike, of course, but on the other 
hand it's not right either that the shipyard's workers would strike on 
behalf of the workers of some Estonian or Polish firm, Aalto says."
http://www.metalliliitto.fi/portal/suomi/ahjo/2007/09/artikkelit/?id=937

As far as I know, the MWU (unlike the Construction Workers Union, CWU) 
hasn't taken any role at all trying to make the situation better. The 
CWU has taken on work that in principle should be done by the state 
authorities (tyÃsuojelupiirit, labour protection boards), i.e. having 
people going around building sites (with union member money, of course) 
and asking (via translator) foreign workers about their contracts and terms.

When I've been reading the Socialistunity.com's discussion, I tend to 
agree with the Socialist Party view that some say is soft on racism, 
xenophobia etc. I think it's not quite so clear-cut. In various MWU 
local meetings I've witnessed the kind of comments that could very well 
be taken for bigotry, racism etc. and then challenged head-on for what 
they are; for example a few times I've heard the word "ryssÃ" which is a 
derogatory word for "Russian". I think that's very unfortunate, of 
course, but I can't see how that can be changed with lectures about 
racism etc. It's one thing to analyse the situation among fellow 
marxists or otherwise "those-in-the-know", and quite another when you're 
talking with people who have their arse on the line and who couldn't 
give a shit about theoretical besserwisserism or whatever.
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=3566

I'm just a junior member of the MWU local branch board, and I don't 
think I'm in a position to influence too many people if I lectured 
comrades on their "racist attitudes". I'm quite sure many of them are 
easily given to attitudes like that, but that's precisely the point.. 
that their's, on the whole, is not some throught-through ideological 
racism, but instead a function of the prevailing atmosphere and what 
they see (or think they see), i.e. Finnish workers (with Finnish 
collective agreements) being laid off from one door while Russians and 
Estonians (with who knows what terms) are brought in from the other. 
(I'm sure stories like this go around like wildfire based on one or two 
cases, hence the reservation.)

After one particular meeting where foreign labour was brought up in a 
comment, I talked with our branch's trustee and another "veteran" guy 
and asked their views on the foreign labour question, and expressed my 
worry over the practice of discussing the issue of non-compliance with 
collective agreements with "foreigners as the front issue", instead of 
"working terms as the front issue". They completely agreed, and I don't 
think it's so clear cut with most others either, who might be vulnerable 
to anti-foreigner attitudes if issues are discussed mostly in 
"foreigners in the front" style. But I also think it takes the right 
moment for intervention in a meeting on an issue like this, otherwise 
you'll come across as a "lecturer" kind of guy, and that just puts 
people off.

 From this viewpoint the Spanish paper is very good, as it certainly 
approaches the issue from the right side. The Italian workers paper 
(published by Rifondazione Comunista) which I linked to earlier was also 
good, though more abstract in a sense. The Spanish paper put the blame 
bluntly on the British state, which was right.
http://home.rifondazione.it/xisttest/content/view/4730/310/

Here's an account of a meeting from yesterday concerned with the oil 
refinery strike:

Speaking to a sixty-strong audience, Keith Gibson gave an interesting 
talk on the background to the dispute and how workers had argued that 
the strike was not a national or race issue, but one of class. The 
employer had sought to divide the workforce by keeping the Italian 
migrant workers on barges away from their local counterparts, and the 
media had played up the significance of nationalist elements, but he had 
been able to appeal to internationalist sentiment. When some people went 
to intimidate the Italian workers in the barges, strikers had broken up 
their demonstrations, while the BNP were chased off picket lines upon 
their arrival.
http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/02/14/report-on-oil-refinery-strikes-meeting/

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