Re: [OPE-L] Falling Fortunes of the Wage Earner

[Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 6:02 AM -0400 4/13/05, Gerald_A_Levy@xxxxxxx wrote:
>  > (a)  a contract that left them with a pay freeze for  last
> >  year and no definite increase for 2005...
> >  (b) reluctantly voted to approve a pay freeze in the first two years
> >  of  her union's three-year contract
> >   (c) unionized workers to accept a three-year  pay
> >  freeze, warning that the plant would be closed otherwise.
>
> >  For these contracts to be binding, someone had to have signed them
> >  freely. But who exactly signed them?
>
> (a)  Signed by representatives of the United Food and Commercial Workers
>       International Union and ratified by membership vote.
> (b)  Signed by representatives of Communication Workers of America
>       Local 3680 and ratified by membership vote.
> (c)  Signed by representatives of United Steelworkers of America Local
>       87 and ratified by membership vote.

So Jerry are you saying that this signing and ratifying was done
freely? Who exactly signs and ratifies freely so that the contracts
can be binding? I don't think you spoke to the questions that I (or
rather Pashukanis and Althusser) was raising.

Please keep in mind Andrew Brown's complaint...

At 10:04 PM +0100 4/7/05, Andrew Brown wrote about Mr. Solidarity:


>  This whole notion of my 'dogma', my 'deeming' this that and the
> other, seems to me to be a figment of your imagination since I am
> offereing arguments, not assertions, and am open to be persuaded I'm
> wrong (as are you). You have introduced 'superiority' and
> 'intelligence' and a host of concepts that I haven't, whilst not yet
> disagreeing with the key argument I have in fact made.



rb