Us And Them On The Building Sites!

I assume all us workers know the old, “us and them!” saying, which sets out the divide between management and workers? Basically, there are 2 camps in every workplace. Us, the workers!(workforce!) And Them, the bosses!(management!)

The 2 have competing interests. The management want maximum productivity, for the minimum price. While us workers want, the maximum value, for production.

Every workplace, has its finacial deadweight, but most of this exists in the inflated valuation of the contribution of the top brass! The rest lies in the appointment of lesser individuals, who have better social connections to positions of importance. But they’ve no practical understanding of the requirements of the job!

Unrealistic targets/expectations, poor planning/regulation, often come down to simple incompetence. More often than not, the solution will be found by the workers, than the management.

(There are exceptions, but only in workplaces, that value practical experience!)

Workers, need to realise there own worth. Your an asset to a company, a number, their not your fuckin’ friends and they couldnt give 2 fucks for your best hard luck story. Money. Thats it! That’s all they care about.

Dont be fooled by faux concern, they just want to know if they need to replace you/ how much time do you require/ How this will impact them? Fuck all else! The reality is, you make them money and they pay you as little as possible to do it.

Over the last few years, almost all the previous gains made by worker’s have been wiped out. Our wages stagnated decades ago, not so at the top end though, there it has soared to unsustainable levels. Levels that have held back and diminished wages, benefits and conditions for the workforce.

All the above was facilitated by politicians, the industrial lobby and our own union leadership. Social partnerships were born and financial handcuffs bound the unions to the bosses.

If you look back to the hay days of the unions, the leadership were easily relatable to the membership. They were workers elevated through the ranks, through proven representation of the workforce. They collected subs in person and it was harder for them to avoid an earful from the workers on the ground!

Today our union leadership have more in common with the boss than the worker. Middle class, bureaucrats with no real knowledge of the work carried out by members. Most have never left the office, never said no to anyone above their paygrade and never walked a day in the shoes of the membership.

Today we find the labour movement in a surreal situation, where our worksite representatives are more “THEM!” than “US!” This has to change!

We need to get back to the days of fighting unions if we want to take back whats been lost, but we cant until such time as we have the representatives capable? To do that, we will need to either force the leadership in the direction we want, or to replace them! In either case we need to organise at the grassroots.

This is where we need to focus our attention. We need to become more vocal in what we want, we need to be prepared to backup that with activities that cagoule the leadership into action or threaten them with going out the door.

We need to put workers’ rates and workers’ rights before, the wants of the union leadership. The time for fuckin’ around is well and truly over. We as a class are in a war that we have been losing for decades. We’ve been fighting with one hand tied behind our back. We need to wake the fuck up and organise a fightback.

In short

To the union bureaucracy! Get busy, or get out To the membership! Get active. To the workforce! Join your union. It’s time to pick a side, Us, or Them?