Labor Beat: Labor Notes Conference 2014

Speech excerpts from the Friday evening and Saturday morning plenaries of the April 4-6, 2014 Labor Notes Conference in Chicago. And before the speeches begin, a quick visit with the folks at the lit tables that provide much of the political ambience surrounding this biennial event.

Speeches by: Karen Lewis, President of Chicago Teachers Union, who delivers the welcome; Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes Editor; Stephan Chan, Union of Hong Kong Dock Workers, who led a 40-day strike in 2013; Tim Sylvester, President of IBT Local 804, UPS New York; Jessica Davis, Workers Organizing Committee/Chicago; Mark Dimondstein, newly elected President of American Postal Workers; Kimberly Bowsky, Chicago Teachers Union.

Mark Dimondstein, APWU President, dwelled on the attacks on the public sector unions, "along with this [privatization] drive of public services, from education, public transportation, public utilities, public hospitals, and public postal services...Privatization represents the looting of what belongs to the people. Privatization represents a transfer of wealth from decently paid union workers to the bosses and owners who thrive off of non-union, non-living wage jobs."

Dimondstein capsulized the basic strategy of the privatizers: "But since the people trust the Post Office, frontal privatization is not such an easy thing. First you have to degrade it, undermine it, not have enough people working the windows, have the lines long, close early, deliver mail late into the night, and people are going to be forced to look elsewhere. I compared it in our campaign to a lot of what's happened to public education in this country. Before you can destroy it, and move in for the kill, you have to undermine it and degrade it."

President Dimondstein also noted at several points in his speech that both the Republican and Democratic Parties have been leading the privatization attacks. [The political ramifications of such political observations were addressed later at the Conference at a featured session on Labor and Independent Politics. We videotaped that meeting and will delve into that footage in some future Labor Beat show.]

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"The concession stand is CLOSED!"