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An Auto Bailout?
Latest News - Auto Workers Call for Rally at Auto Show Jan 11
December 9 - Auto Worker Caravan Shakes up Capitol Hill
December 4 - Detroit News Editorial - Cutting Auto Wages Won't Solve Big 3 Crisis.
November 21 - Abandoning autoworkers and their communities is not the answer.
November 13 - Listen to Mark Brenner on AM talk radio, Portland's KPOJ, discussing the auto industry bailout.
November 12 - Labor Notes' Mark Brenner tackles the auto industry bailout on Democracy Now!
Song of the Month
Los Lobos, Santa Isabel Children's Choir
De Colores
I work for a great Oz union after defecting from a shitty one who viewed Stern as the messiah, I had always presumed we'd taken the "union call centre" idea from them because it's one of our shittier ones.
It CAN be a useful resource if organized properly. My old union however simply had clueless 20 year olds answering calls and constantly giving WRONG advice, they also rarely bothered to contact organizers if an issue was bigger than an individual one, meaning possible organizing opportunities were lost.
If the phone organizers are used to simply answer quick queries (on entitlements/conditions etc) it can work, or if they are allowed OFF the phones to actually represent workers.
My old union would NEVER send a union staffer out to support a member in a meeting w/ management, the best they'd get was a young, inexperienced call centre operator phone conferencing in from Sydney (I'm in Melbourne) - and when I took time off to go an support a steward in my own time I got to listen to the phone organiser ASKING management for advice??!!??
Like many things it can be implemented really well but only if it's viewed from the prism of benefit to members NOT as a way to "free up" organisers.