Those that assert that the Labor Rising/Labor Combat integrated organizing and market development training is a train wreck certainly have no idea what a train wreck is.
What a Train Wreck looks like to any fair minded Building Trades person is the way the Building Trades has been run for the last few decades. Numbers = power, and we have neither.
These types of facts to political insiders = bashing of the trades. Of course it is to senior leadership. You have a vested interest. Here are a few. A paycheck that is never missed. A few pensions that are fully funded. Health and Welfare that is better than Congress’s. Never having to reach into your own pocket because you have reimbursed expenses and the vendors paying for everything.
This type of senior International leadership is highly unlikely to change – they are by definition ESTABLISHMENT. The very definition of establishment is resisting change and the status quo.
So this Blog is intended for Building Trades leadership at the state & local levels. It is also for independent and progressive District Councils leaders, Business Managers and the Rank & File of individual locals.
They are not the kind of men and women who generally take a flamethrower to the situation, but know in their hearts and experience, that is exactly what needs to be done. Time, money, votes and message are no longer on our side. The thinking that more endless power meetings at the best hotels around North America is going to change that, is entirely absurd to anyone that can read numbers.
The house of labor, which is the Building Trades, has long been in need of a complete renovation – however that time now has passed. The House of the Building Trades needs to be rebuilt, or this version of it will die! Every true leader and Rank & File tradesperson in the field knows this. Labor Rising knows this because our program is connected extensively with those in the field, and using social media.
If the Building Trades State & Local leaders do not move against these combined and coordinated attacks which now confronts us contained in the link below; then history will be a very harsh judge along with our Founders!
What is in the Red Print on the slide correlates highly with what is taking place in the trades now!
The clear majority of Building Trades Presidents, Secretary/Treasurer’s and Directors serve in a capacity of near exhaustion and endless retreats. On a day to day basis they deal with the steady erosion of Building Trades market share. They try to keep the trades from all the infighting. They try to find political & community help where ever it may be. They usually are underfunded and undermanned to do just one of those jobs listed above, much less all of them and far more not listed.
The State & Local Building Trades are the sole remaining entity that has the ability to change the way the trades win in the future. The Internationals are just to interconnected politically and NO ONE will step out-of-line. The culture has long been to punish and label any action that they do not endorse – period.
To the state & local BT officers, we can still win – however we do need to put a flamethrower to the totally failed system of how we have been trying to raise market share. That is what Labor Rising is all about. Structure along with the coordinated steps which require the will and tenacity to put politics, ego and title aside – and WIN!
Those politicians that run at the mouth latest spewing is that Labor Rising/Labor Combat will go away if we are given a big time job. We have a job, it is called teaching Organizing and it is the best job in labor. My/our lifelong pursuit of being part of an independent trade unionist Movement & Band of Brothers is but a ruse for title and money. To get “OUR” 30 pieces of silver – You tell on yourself Brother(s) Judas.
Those that I have had the privilege of defending labor and our families with, all have very similar traits. Most took fairly big cuts in pay when they became the organizer, especially years ago when an organizer was his locals first/second. Fronted their own money for publications and Newsletters to Rank & File to instill an activist foundation. Fronted the money for the research from 2007 till 2012 for the 474-page research document. Fronted the money to start the Labor Combat/Labor Rising program. Nearly 60 organizers in training have been subsidized or never paid for. Several of us now work with approx. 89 local’s organizers behind the scenes uncompensated right now. When we come out to train at the Building Trades, the fee equates to $50 hour and expenses. Organizing is a passion and not a job. If there is ever a passion that is screwed up because of big time money and a title – organizing tops the list. Organizers live in the trenches and not the Belt-Way. Our Founders, all organizers – where hardly ever paid.
We have been approached by 2 different senior International Officers of the 4 we have talked to; to perhaps consider a Train the Trainer course which went no-where, most likely because of my/our no-nonsense rendering of the BT numbers. Bashing to them. Bashing is a political word for when you have no solutions that work. Labor Rising has a pinpoint set of strategies to win. To date 146 Blogs have been written, most with precise numbers and detailed accounts. Not one BT International anywhere, or at any time has ever refuted our blogs. They have gone unchallenged. The silence now going on 4 years is deafening – have the BT NO winning strategy to raise market share?
We will all be listening very carefully to Brother Sean McGarvey’s Keynote at the upcoming Building Trades conference to see if he goes 4 years in a row without mentioning Organizing even once!
Anti-establishment sentiment is running strong in the trades membership, and if the existing trades leadership doesn’t want to fight for our rights as workers and as middle class – the conditions are perfect for a new trade movement. With 12% of the market, not that hard to transplant and jettison the good ole boy cargo, which is a measurable number of the 12%. The rest will look at accountable unions!
“if you see a good fight – get in it”
Danny L Caliendo
Organizer
Labor Rising/Labor Combat
