See who the women in the picture is at the end of the blog –
- Controlling employees is much easier than controlling members. Employees do what they are told, have a job, and think about themselves. A member belongs to a Movement that lifts the standards for all workers. They don’t have a job, they have a passion to balance the needs of capital and the needs of family and community. The trades leadership is jettisoning members asap and replacing them with recruited workers who keep their mouth shut. Leading a “MOVEMENT’ is flat out hard work to the IP’s of the last 30 years, especially when you can be an employment agency. Their checks and benefits are still the same – so why work hard?
- Yes, men and women. In organizations, the mission defines “what we do”, which in the Trades case is Value on Display. Value on Display provides employees at price points and conditions that management dictates, because they can! Success in an organization such as the trades means that everyone gets to stick around if they say YES to the IP du jour! Think of the time that it has taken to install Value on Display throughout all the trades. About 30 years to be precise. It is in all agreements at the Local, DC and International levels. It is a strategy for running a business organization. From recruitment to training. So, for 30 years those charged with oversite of senior officers have said yes for a price. The price isn’t always money. The business organization formally known as the Building Trades provides employees to companies; almost entirely on the company’s terms.
Why – because yes MEN have thought of themselves and their wants. All while shaking your hand and riding beside you on a bike. 30 years of YES MEN is a lot of people and why Value on Display exists!
- You get to be a victim if you’re an organization. No accountability to anyone! IP’s in an organization can blame economics, politicians, price, etc. and also act unilaterally to put down any semblance of Labor activism not conforming with Value on Display business strategy. Zero accountability. In MOVEMENTS, accountability is to a cause greater than any one individual. When it comes to making tough decisions, the cause is the top priority. The cause for the Building Trades Organization in the last 30 years is to be price competitive in a “race to the bottom” on behalf of company’s profits and dictates. VOD is a failure for 30 years in every way it can be measured. The cause for the Trades MOVEMENT last time it was successful was in defending workers’ rights and in obtaining a living wage, benefits and safe conditions. The difference between workers being in a middle class or becoming working poor is the heart of being either an organization or a MOVEMENT! Our IP’s for now 30 years have neither the soul or heart of leaders of a MOVEMENT! It is all about business and their needs.
- Business decisions “TRUMP” all decisions in an organization. Profit! Movements seek sweeping changes that balance what is right for labor and its workers and profits. The trades as a business organization lets business dictate to them that the Defined Benefit pensions of trades workers should be jettison. So, Value on Display (the IP’s) will comply. The business strategy of Value on Display has erased wages in massive amounts on jobs to be COMPETITIVE! It has erased benefits and conditions. It has erased Collective Bargaining Agreements, to be replaced with PLA’s which the IP’s claim is success. Value on Display and it collaborating with the very entities that want the trades gone has lost membership steadily for every year it has been around. Even in record construction periods!
- Organizations rule with an Iron Hand – case closed. Every aspect of the trades is controlled including any semblance of it being a democracy. Organization define success internally – just ask any IP how great their trade is doing. Movements define success as change that affects all in a positive way and with the members contributing all along the way. Think of the Fight for $15. The lowest wage workers as a MOVEMENT have done more in 3 years in more states and cities than the combined trades in 30 years. They have gone in completely opposite directions.
- Organizations give way to MOVEMENTS – but only when the employees work as members. When members challenge six figure IP’s/CEO’s that only appease management so they have enough bodies to have a seat at the table and a check. Employee or member? One carries with it the responsibilities of the future of the worker, their families, their communities and even the corporations’ future viability!
Understand that should you chose to be a member of a MOVEMENT – the work and even sacrifice of your actions mostly likely will not be seen by you. You are securing the future for your kids and their kids. That’s what our FOUNDERS did! Secure our future – and my generation of gotta get mine have allowed a once great movement to become a business on the brink of demise!
“if you see a good fight – get in it”
Malala Yousafzai 16 years old – first stood up to the Taliban when she was 11. A fierce and outspoken defender of a female’s right to education, the Swat Valley schoolgirl was shot and left for dead by them four years later aboard her school bus. The senseless act stunned the world, just as her recovery and continued activism — despite more death threats — have drawn many to her cause.
Malala is the Mother Jones of her country – as labor people should know, Mother Jones fought to get kids in school when companies thought they should be nothing more than cheap and expendable, as in dying, labor force. MJ was also one fierce advocate for workers’ rights! These 2 ladies represent what a MOVEMENT then and now looks like.
Employee or MEMBER! History will choose for you and your family if you don’t choose for yourself!
Danny L Caliendo
Organizer
Labor Rising/Labor Combat
