The Battle Has Begun....in the pages of the Daily Bulletin

Today's (Friday, April 10, 2008) Inland Valley Daily Bulletin features a Point of View submitted by three local managers with Caterpillar Logistics, a subsidiary of Caterpillar International, the multinational corporation that started off ages ago making tractors. This article is important because it is a parting shot by one side in a forthcoming battle over the future of the logistics industry in the Inland Empire.

The subject of their article is the alleged "theft" of an employee's right to a secret ballot union election. What they are actually doing is spewing a thoroughly discredited argument against the upcoming Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), working its way through Congress as we converse. Even the Wall Street Journal, no friend of labor, in its news section, discredited the argument they push. For a brief and thorough examination of the issue of the EFCA, check out the Wikipedia article on the EFCA at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Free_Choice_Act
And if you do so, please note that currently, it is the employers who get to choose whether their employees get to organize either by secret ballot or card check. What the two executives from Cat lament is a right that does not exist outside of the bad brains of right wing think tanks.

This battle over EFCA will barely be mentioned in the Daily Bull's own coverage of the Ontario Logistics Summit now underway at the Ontario Convention Center. Any mention of labor is going to be hard to find. The Bull's coverage is certain to be a rehash of talking points put out by the corporate players in the industry and by their devoted courtiers, many of our local elected leaders. As seen in the Daily Bulletin's surprisingly revealing front page article earlier this week, if the Colonies, the land-developer in Upland, could ensnare three current or former GOP county supervisors in their $400,000.00 web, can we imagine what the far wealthier logistics industry can do?

If the Daily Bulletin can do an expose on the contributions in this can of foul worms, maybe, I'll reconsider using the Daily Bull or the Bull, as a shorthand.

Getting back to my point, this battle will be over the future of organized labor in the I.E., and its attempts to organize the vastly unorganized and exploited laborforce in the logistics industry. The Daily Bull's portrayal of logistics mainly centers on the trucking and rail aspects of the industry, and their many problems to date. But the bulk of the workforce in this industry work on the warehouse end of things, and they are the target of the unionization drive soon to be launched by Warehouse Workers United, a joint effort of the SEIU and Teamsters. This effort could change the work environment in the I.E. and that, if it happens, will change the political balance in many local communities.

But this effort remains contingent on getting the EFCA bill passed and signed by Pres. Obama. Inland Progressives need to speak out and counter the lies being pushed by corporate America and their toadies. Our marching orders are clear: We need to put pressure on a backsliding Senator Feinstein, tell Majority Leader Reid to grow a spine in regards to the 60 vote majority rule, and taking back some of my unkind words from before, encourage Congressman Baca to remain a resolute backer of EFCA.