Politics/EconomicsCanada: British Columbia: Petition vs Oil supertanker port for Chinese market?

As of this moment, obstructionists are trying to prevent an oil export port from being developed in British Columbia by waging a petition campaign thru the web facility Change.org.  The obstructionists in BC are a wing of the more general campaign to stop an oil pipeline proposed to carry oil crude (pre-refinement commodity) from southern Alberta thru the USA to Kansas City or some other hub to distribute it in the American heartland.  The reason for the obstructionists BC wingnut operation is a geostrategic manoeuvre of the war against oil and additional supply of the commodity from drilling in North America.  It's also a selfish effort to prevent job-creation (to build the port or the pipeline and maintain them), so that a "Green" utopia may prevail.  I wonder how many of the so-far 445 signers of the petition are laffing it up as they tour around in their automobiles, trucks, snowmobiles, lawnmowers, airplanes, and other oil-fuelled machines.  

Today, I signed a different petition circulated by Change.org -- to free Nigerian labour activists (petition sponsored by Damian Ugwu and Social Justice Advocacy Initiative, endorsed by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a total of 33 Nigerian groups (they are not listed, so I coudn't analyze them). 

Lamentably, one cannot tell from the info that Change.org provides whether there is a single Nigerian group among them that advocates a plurality of workers representation where unions get only proportional standing (no monopoly unionism) and are not tied into political cawzes that are not directly and only related to conditions of work, employment standards, workers health and safety in the workplace (checkoff of dues under anti-pluralist monopoly unionism where winner of the workers vote takes all representation power in its relation to the company, the government, and any damn political cawz that the elite or the unquestioning majority of members toward which they want to direct union-collected money -- paid by check of dues of all members).  This is how professional petition circulators deceive the public and benefit from ignorance regarding the cawzes which benefit.  Another nonprofit org that I support, Fairfood, recently tried to get me to sign a petition to oppose child labour in, if I recall correctly, coffee or tea plantation fields in developing countries.  But the problem of child labour where there are no schools, where HIV/AIDs has decimated the adult population, and other conditions is not solved by artificial pressure from the outside that the children working in the fields do not find to be in their own best interest.  Fairfood did not debate its move in the public arena of even its own supporters, as it assumed that the standards of Western industrial relations can be imposed everywhere else in the world, even under very different circumstances.  How about giving the kids who want to work a pay raise, allowing only a half-day's work per day, and increasing the number of adults and kids who get this more advanced daily income.  Maybe the governments involved coud forego personal income taxes on the kids, but then that woud de-incentivize adults from taking these field jobs.

Back to the building of oil-tanker ports in BC for the export of Alberta oil to China and the rest of Asia:  if the Americans don't want Alberta oil (ostensibly to protect the environment but we must ask what hidden agenda is functioning in the prohibition), then let the BC wingnutty envros come up with an alternative that doesn't cut down the job creation that otherwise woud accrue to the BC jobless (and jobless from other provinces as well), instead of keeping them perpetually on welfare handouts to the expense of all the taxpayers.  At the same time, the BC govt should insist that a cash deposit shoud be put in escrow to cover any expenses should a tanker spill its cargo onto the BC coastline.  Thus, emergency workers coud be kept in a state of readiness that woud lead to compensation for them (more jobs) should such a painful situation occur.  But, let's build the oil hub in the best location/s for a BC oil crude export centre.

Back to the oil workers in Nigeria:  what kind of unionism is the left and the "human rights" orgs promoting in Nigeria?  And:  did the charged unionists murder the police officer as the Nigerian govt charges?  We can't depend on the Left to tell the truth, any more than the ideologues of the Right.  We need independent verification, to which Change.org dec+dedly does not point us.

— EconoMix

— Change.org materials reposted by EconoMix, refWrite Frontpage economics / business columnistTweet #readEconoMix


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Tell Parliament: 

Keep oil supertanker traffic away from B.C.'s coastline

Targeting: Governments of Canada and British Colombia

Sponsored by: Dogwood Initiative

There are three proposals to bring more and bigger oil supertankers to British Columbia's coast, so that Alberta's oilsands crude can be shipped to China and Asia. If this is allowed to happen, most British Columbians would benefit little and B.C.'s resplendent coast would be threatened by oil spills. 

The Alberta and federal governments are pushing for these oil tankers. They're using a review process that's rigged in their favour. But B.C. has a history of defending its coast and an epic struggle is underway.

You can't eliminate and can't predict oil spills. They happen because humans make mistakes and machines break.

A single oil spill could devastate lives, livelihoods, cultures and wildlife on our coast.

There's no need to accept the risk. Far more jobs would be put at risk than created in B.C., and since oil is non-renewable we think it's better to keep more Canadian oil in Canada for our children to use if they need to.

Together, we can create victory for our coast. Sign this petition to stop more supertanker traffic along B.C.’s coast!

SIGN

Juridics: USA: Proposed anti-democracy union law may die on the docket

Congressional newspaper/webs+t, The Hill, reported yesterday (Michael O'Brien, Sept 14,2k10) that the Obama AFL-CIO consortium in the House of Representatives may not be able to muster the votes to choke democracy in labor representation, as it has planned.

Obama: Chances of passing 'card check' now are 'not real high'

By Michael O'Brien - 09/13/10 02:42 PM ET

Controversial "card-check" legislation doesn't have a good chance of passing through Congress, President Obama acknowledged Monday. 

Obama, during a question-and-answer session about the economy in a backyard in Fairfax, Va., said the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or "card check") likely doesn't have the 60 votes right now to make it through the Senate.

"The opportunity to get this passed right now is not real high," Obama said.

The president noted his administration is supportive of EFCA, though the window of opportunity to push through the union organizing bill has diminished over time. Labor groups had been hopeful it was one of the first items on which Democrats in the House and Senate would act after winning big majorities in the 2008 elections. 

With this fall's elections likely to give Republicans stronger footing in the House and Senate — if not a majority in one or both houses — the chances of EFCA advancing come next year are seen as fading.

Obama told the AFL-CIO in early August that his administration would "keep on fighting" for the card check bill, which Republican and business interests have rallied against. But the president also pivoted to note that many of the problems in organizing rules that EFCA sought to address might be fixed through administrative action. 

In the opinion of this observer, the card check scheme is a full-fledged totalitarian manoeuver to establish one philosophy of labour representation and to block permanently any really-alternative unions based on latent forces for change in the American workforce's system of unionization.  Read more ...

It's no secret that a nonsectarian Christian re-unionization of workers has long been advocated by refWr+t.  Certainly this horizon of hope is possible across the USA.  Opportunities to campaign publicly were offered by the tangle of events in the auto industry in recent years, where the hegemony of the UAW was not broken and opened to alternative unions (plural streams of representation at General Motors for its workers), altho the taxes of all Americans were deployed to keep the company going and its workers employed at public expense.  My guesstimate is that a Christianly-principled union coud garner upwards of 20% of workers'   votes at that company.  Closed shops must go!

Another situation occured at the un-unionized workplace of West Virginia workers where safety measures were in abeyance and the anti-union company was found to be complacent in protecting mineworkers, deep in WV's Bible Belt.  Surely, a Christian alternative union that excluded no one and forced no one coud have been powerfully and effectively offered to the miners who have long resisted joining the secularist United Mineworkers (I'm not trashing this union, because my grandfather worked under their auspices for year).  They're still good guys in my perceptions (altho I haven't kept up with the 60 years of internal developments in the UMW, since Grandpa Frank died of black-lung disease in the Pennsylvania coal region).  To have been brawt the Good News for WV's workforce still languishing unorganized and un-unionized in many of its mines, coud have made labor history.

Many other instances, especially in locations in America where the Christian demographic is relatively large, coud be listed.   A social-studies researcher coud wr+t a Master's thesis on the correlation between faith-commitment demographics and unionization / nonunionization patterns, locality by locality of h+ Christian presence, employer by employer in each locality.  I think such a study woud tell us something important about opportunities for a wave of pluralization of labor representation.  There is a very small Chrsitian labor union in the USA, the Christian Labor Association USA.

Christian Principles are in our founding and guiding philosophy, the CLA is not a church or a church-based organization. We accept and represent members of all faiths. Members are attracted to the CLA by its labor relations policies, its principles, its common-sense approach to workplace issues, and by the services it offers. We believe in justice in the workplace, whether it's about pay, benefits, work relations, or conflicts that arise, people expect and deserve to be treated fairly.  ... The CLA works to promote harmony between Employer and Employee. This makes us a unique organization. The CLA is a labor union, certified by the National Labor Relations Board and similar state and local agencies. Our right to act as bargaining agents for employees is protected by law. The CLA is not affiliated with a large international union, but democratically governed by its membership. The CLA promotes harmony among all workers. Our method of operation allows for the crossing of trade lines, eliminating craft disputes. The CLA realizes that the livelihood of the employer and employee is derived from the same source.

CLA-USA has been around since 1931, but of course it has had its own internal development (amidst strong and hateful resistance from America's monopolistic unions which don't have room in their values and practices for a pluralization of representation so that cooperating multi-union representation can flourish, affording to each worker membership in a union formed on the basis of different life-principles in the sphere of work relations.  That woud entail inter-union negotiation in many places -- automakers, miners, airline workers, construction s+ts, docks and American-flag ships, industrial farms, you name the trade or profession -- as it occurs in the Netherlands, France, many other European countries, many developing countries.

Rather, in America (Canada, UK, Australia) unions woud rather retreat into arrangements that further curb democracy in workers representation, such as the Obama govt and the AFL-CIO masters have proposed.  May the pining legislation die on the vine!  May the True Vine prevail, also in labor relations in America.

-- Lawt

Politics: France: Winnipeg Free Press gives an entirely alternative understanding of immigrant voters in France

Pembroke Daily Observer carries an Editorial in Winnipeg Free Press May12,2k7) that records how h+rise-housing immigrants voted in the recent Presidential election in France. I noted the absence in the press of mention regarding how these districts voted, but I did notice what the Free calls "a bit of stone-throwing and car burning."

Sarko also did well among blue-collar workers, to the chagrin not just of the Socialist Party's regular supporters, but also of that 10% who voted for ultraleft parties in the first round (where now the enfeebled Communists took only 1.6% of the vote, as against the 20% of the national vote they once commanded in 1st rounds, before they came to the aid of the Socialists in the 2nd round).

In the bitter run-up to the final round of the French presidential election on Sunday, Socialist party candidate Segolene Royal suggested that a win for her right-wing rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, would bring an explosion of ethnic violence to France.

In the wake of Mr. Sarkozy's substantial victory, there was a bit of stone-throwing and car burning at the Place de la Bastille in [downtown] Paris, but nothing like the riots of 2005 that Ms. Royal was trying to resurrect as a fear in French minds, reminding them that as interior minister at the time, Mr. Sarkozy had referred to the rioters as "scum.''

In fact, in those areas, the banlieues, or immigrant ghettos of France where the riots took place, Mr. Sarkozy did surprisingly well when the votes were counted, taking 44 per cent of them. He did surprisingly well among blue collar workers between 46 and 52 per cent across the country. He won the support of the greater part of voters who had supported centrist Francois Bayrou in the first round of voting. In short, French voters stood French politics on its ear and confounded the pundits by breaking away from tradition all of those [who] are Ms. Royal's more natural constituencies.

The election result may rejuvenate France, which is in danger of becoming the sick man of the European Union. Mr. Sarkozy promised that change, with 100 days of action to implement economic reforms, including a longer work week. France's mandated 35-hour work week, the shortest in Europe, is widely blamed for its deplorable productivity rate and competitiveness, a dismal 27th in word rankings; its high unemployment; and its extraordinarily high debt-to-GDP ratio. Mr. Sarkozy promises to address all those issues, and his victory indicates that the French agree with him, at least in principle.

France would seem set for change but Mr. Sarkozy's triumph is also a boost for Canada and the Western alliance. France is naturally a major player, an integral ally in that relationship, but under outgoing President Jacques Chirac, it was a difficult, even a disagreeable one. Mr. Sarkozy is an unabashed defender of the alliance and an admirer of the United States, although no one is likely to accuse him of being America's poodle. Rather, he will try to keep America in step with France and France in step with America, even if that takes some serious double-stepping, enabling the West to present a stronger front in an increasingly fractious world. As a former leader of the Western alliance might have said, on both fronts, domestic and international, the news from France is very good.

That Sarko did "surprisingly well" among blue-collar workers, gaining an estimated 46 to 52 per cent of their votes nationwide, is a factoid worth meditating. This factoid suggests that a good chunk of featherbedded workers now realize that the country must become competitive soon. It would be most interesting to see what the Transport workers did with their votes, as they are among the worst blackmailers among unionized employees when it comes to demanding exorbitantly h+ wages. But France does have a much more entrenched viewpoint pluralism in its system of workers-representation, with parallel unions functioning on the same shop floor, and often bargaining nationally. As I recall, however, France does not have collective agreements with the force of binding contracts, but only "agreements" that settle a strike, etc.