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Friday, November 21, 2003 |
UTU guilty of raiding BLE on CP Railway
http://www.ble.org/pr/news/newsflash.asp?id=3843
CLEVELAND, November 21 -- An Impartial Umpire with the Canadian Labour
Congress (CLC) ruled that the United Transportation Union was guilty of
raiding BLE members in July when it encouraged BLE members to sign UTU
membership cards at the Canadian Pacific Railway.
"I have no doubt that the actions of the UTU were intended to constitute,
and in fact did constitute, a raid upon the membership of the BLE," wrote
The Honourable Alan B. Gold in his November 19 decision.
The BLE brought a raiding complaint before the CLC on July 8 following a
surprise attack by UTU representatives on the CPR property. Over the July
4 weekend, when the BLE's U.S. headquarters was closed for the
Independence Day holiday, several UTU representatives canvassed the CPR
property and requested that BLE members sign UTU membership cards.
The membership cards, however, were purposely vague in their wording and
many BLE members felt they were tricked into signing them. Later, most
signed revocation cards.
"We are pleased with the Impartial Umpire's decision," said BLE
International President Don M. Hahs. "From the very beginning, we
correctly called this UTU attack on our membership a raid, and now the
Canadian Labour Congress has agreed with us."
The Impartial Umpire agreed with BLE that the UTU's actions violated
Article IV, Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the CLC Constitution. Article IV
prohibits affiliates from organizing or attempting to represent employees
who already have an established collective bargaining relationship with
another affiliate.
He further agreed with BLE that the UTU intentionally tried to harm the
BLE's reputation in addition to trying to raid its membership.
"The evidence before me shows that the UTU acted in such a manner as to
bring the BLE into disrepute and to adversely affect its reputation," the
Umpire concluded.
The UTU's actions came at a time when the two unions were jointly
bargaining for a new contract with CPR under the auspices of the Canadian
Council of Railway Operating Unions (CCROU). The attack also came at a
time when the BLE was considering a merger with the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters, and many in the BLE viewed the UTU attack as an
attempt to derail the merger discussions. Ballots regarding a merger of
the BLE and IBT were mailed in October and election results will be
announced in early December.
However, the UTU was able to use the signed membership cards to obtain a
certification hearing before the Canadian Industrial Relations Board
(CIRB), seeking to become the single bargaining agent on behalf of both
BLE and UTU members.
The Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) conducted a hearing on
October 15, 2003, regarding UTU's request for certification at CPR. A
formal decision has not been released pending the outcome of a number of
outstanding issues.
As part of the hearing, a conductor testified that the membership wanted
the UTU to drop the foolishness of the raid on the BLE and get the CCROU
back to the bargaining table. The UTU also conceded that its own
membership cards were quite stale and out of date.
As part of his CLC decision, the Impartial Umpire noted the history of UTU
attacks on the BLE in the United States. In particular, he cited the
AFL-CIO resolution of February 26, 2002, which condemned the UTU's
constant raiding of BLE membership on U.S. railroads.
The February 26 AFL-CIO resolution stemmed from several failed raiding
attempts by UTU against the BLE, most notably on the Union Pacific
Railroad and the Kansas City Southern. In both cases, impartial AFL-CIO
umpires ruled that the UTU was guilty of raiding BLE in violation of
Article XX of the AFL-CIO constitution.
Following the November 19 CLC ruling, the UTU is now guilty of violating
"no raiding" clauses in both the CLC constitution in Canada and the
AFL-CIO constitution in the United States.
5:21:10 PM 
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=======================Electronic Edition========================
. .
. RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #780 .
. ---October 16, 2003--- .
. (Published November 13, 2003) .
. HEADLINES: .
. CHALLENGING CORPORATE "RIGHTS" .
. .
.
=================================================================
CHALLENGING CORPORATE "RIGHTS"
This week we introduce Mike Ferner (mike@poclad.org) and some new ideas
about challenging corporate rights. Mike served two
terms as an independent member of the Toledo, Ohio, City Council,
1989-93. Before that, he was an organizer for the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). From 1969 to 1973 he
served in the U.S. Navy Hospital
Corps. He is one of 13 individuals who make up the Program on
Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD).
>From 1970 to 1995, the environmental and labor movements in the U.S.
often focused on the failures of government to protect
human health and the environment. Today it is safe to say -- thanks to
POCLAD's work -- most of us understand that "the corporation" lies near
the heart of most major problems.
In POCLAD's view, "Giant corporations govern, even though they are
mentioned nowhere in our Constitution or Bill of Rights. So when
corporations govern, democracy is nowhere to be found.
There is something else: when people live in a culture defined by
corporate values, common sense evaporates. We stop trusting our own
eyes, ears, and feelings. Our minds become colonized. POCLAD invites you
to work with us to change this."
http://www.poclad.org
People are challenging corporate "rights" in many ways. In Pennsylvania,
attorney Tom Linzey of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is
challenging corporate rights in court. Take a look at
http://www.celdef.org . In New Jersey, legislation has been drafted. See
http://rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=324 and
http://rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=323 In Ohio, people are making
films, writing books, and much more. See, for example,
http://www.afsc.net/corp-dem.htm
History shows us that there is no silver bullet for these deep problems.
What did it take to end slavery, gain the vote for women, and get
working people what rights they've got? Education, pamphleteering,
organizing, ballot initiatives,
marches, demonstrations, protests, strikes, creative legal work and --
yes -- civil disobedience. Hats off to POCLAD and to
Mike Ferner! --Peter Montague
CHALLENGING CORPORATE "RIGHTS"
by Mike Ferner (mike@poclad.org)
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: "The right of the
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and
no Warrants shall issue,
but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or
things to be seized."
What has this got to do with a rail shipment of leaking radioactive
waste on its way from the Big Rock Point Nuclear Plant near Charlevoix,
Michigan to the nuclear waste dump at
Barnwell, South Carolina? Furthermore, what's it got to do with my
getting arrested recently, in Walbridge, Ohio?
When Consumer's Power Co. in Michigan had wrung all the possible profits
out of its Big Rock Point reactor, it shut it down and "decommissioned"
the 580,000-pound, stainless steel reactor vessel that had been
bombarded with radiation for over 30 years. Barnwell is the only place
in the nation that accepts
this kind of radioactive garbage, and Walbridge is on the CSX Corp. rail
line between there and Michigan.
As the train crept along its route through cities and farms, it leaked a
little radiation here and a little radiation there; none of it requested
by people or nature in its path; all of it
cumulative in its health effects. In Walbridge, it made an unscheduled
overnight stop, irradiating that village a little more than most.
Just how much radiation leaked from the shipment we'll never know, since
the only figures kept on it come from Consumer's Power Co. Even the
public's toothless lapdog, the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, can't find out without first getting permission
from the electric company. And that's where the 4th Amendment and my
arrest come in.
These days, many more people are becoming aware that over the past 100+
years, the U.S. Supreme Court has given corporations
an increasing number of Constitutional rights intended for
flesh-and-blood persons. They recognize the name for this nefarious
usurpation of our rights as "corporate personhood."
Coincidentally, it was lawyers arguing for a railroad company, Southern
Pacific Railroad, in an 1886 case against Santa Clara (Calif.) County,
who first succeeded in convincing the U.S.
Supreme Court that for purposes of the equal protection provisions of
the 14th Amendment (passed, by the way, to protect slaves freed in the
Civil War), corporations should be
considered legal "persons." With the floodgates so opened, one right
after another was extended to these aggregations of property in the
corporate form.
In 1906 (Hale v. Henkel), the Court nullified a grand jury subpoena
issued to compel tobacco companies to produce documents in a price
fixing investigation, saying it violated the companies' "rights" against
unreasonable searches and
seizures. In 1978 (in Marshall v. Barlow's Inc.), the Court said that
the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) could
not inspect the company's workplace
without first securing a search warrant.
So there we were in Walbridge, Ohio looking across 350 feet of private
property at the reactor vessel sitting in a CSX Corp. rail yard,
recording the slightly elevated readings registering
on our radiation monitors. We knew the radiation dose would increase the
closer we got to the cask, but to do so we would need permission from
the legal "person" known as CSX Corp. If
that legal fiction didn't have to let the NRC monitor it without a
warrant, it certainly wasn't going to allow me.
And isn't that the way the rule of law works? Grind up workers on the
job, bury the amber waves of grain in asphalt, irradiate the
countryside, send a generation off to war -- and by and
large, it's all legal. But try to see how much radioactive poison a rail
cask is leaking, and son, you're going to jail!
That's why I couldn't just stand there on the side of the road in
Walbridge, being a nice, law-abiding citizen. Nice, law-abiding citizens
had stood by the side of the road for the last 100 years and watched as
corporations became persons and
took 14th Amendment rights, and 4th Amendment rights, and 1st Amendment
rights -- and used them to run our society and govern our nation.
So instead, I turned to Kevin Kamps from the Nuclear Information and
Resource Service (or NIRS; see www.nirs.org and asked him if he wanted
to get arrested. He answered "yes" and attorney Terry Lodge said he'd
represent us. With monitors in hand, and carrying a banner that read
"End the Atom Age," Kevin and I strode through briars and mud towards
the train. As we suspected, our readings jumped as we got closer. But
when we reached the cask, the railroad cops were waiting with handcuffs
and hauled us away before we could get a final reading.
We will plead innocent to misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass and
demand a jury trial. We will see what our fellow citizens have to say
about the 4th Amendment, leaking nuke trains and corporate "persons."
There's a new tool we may employ in our defense, one that looks
promising for citizens who want to redefine what kind of commerce comes
to their towns. It's called the "Model Legal Brief to Eliminate
Corporate Rights." It is available on the
web at http://www.poclad.org/ModelLegalBrief.cfm and also at
http://rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=321 .
The Model Legal Brief was written by Richard Grossman, founder of the
Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD), Tom Linzey,
president of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
(www.celdf.org), and Dan Brannen, a Santa Fe (N.M.) attorney. The brief
begins with a "Preface" that lets activists know right off that this is
not your grandfather's legal brief:
"This Brief is intended to assist communities organizing to challenge
the United States government's gift of constitutional
powers to property organized as corporations. Accordingly, this Brief is
NOT about corporate responsibility, corporate accountability, corporate
ethics, corporate codes of conduct,
good corporate 'citizenship,' corporate crime, corporate reform,
consumer protection, fixing regulatory agencies, or stakeholders."
In the "Summary of Argument," the brief clearly states who's supposed to
be running the show:
"...[T]he people of these United States -- the source of all governing
authority in this nation -- created governments to secure the people's
inalienable right that the many should
govern, not the few. That guarantee -- of a republican form of
government -- provides the foundation for securing people's
other inalienable rights (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness)
and vindicates the actions of people and communities seeking to secure
those rights."
One of the brief's assets is that, while it undoubtedly will inform
legal decisions to come, it also becomes a useful educational tool for
today's activists by succinctly answering
the perennial question, "How did we get into this mess?" It makes clear
how corporations are supposed to fit into U.S. society, just how they
became insubordinate, and who contributed to their delinquency at key
moments.
"Corporations are created by State governments through the chartering
process. As such, corporations are subordinate, public entities that
cannot usurp the authority that the
sovereign people have delegated to the three branches of government.
Corporations thus lack the authority to deny people's inalienable
rights, including their right to a republican form of government, and
public officials lack the
authority to empower corporations to deny those rights."
"Over the past 150 years," Grossman, Linzey and Brannen write, "the
Judiciary has 'found' corporations within the people's documents that
establish a frame of governance for this nation,
including the United States Constitution. In doing so, Courts have
illegitimately bestowed upon corporations immense constitutional powers
of the Fourteenth, First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, and the
expansive powers afforded by the Contracts and Commerce Clauses."
It then cites chapter and verse of when and how the judiciary "found"
corporations in our governing documents. It's clear that human beings --
federal judges to be exact -- agreed over time with people generally of
their own social class --
corporate attorneys -- that greater rights should be extended to
property organized in the corporate form. I've described above how that
worked for the 4th Amendment. The brief gives
you the whole ball of wax.
The next three sentences of the Summary cut like a laser to the heart of
the problems facing us today. "Wielding those constitutional rights and
freedoms, corporations regularly and
illegitimately deny the people their inalienable rights, including their
most fundamental right to a republican form of government. Such denials
are beyond the authority of the corporation to exercise. Such denials
are also beyond the
authority of the Courts, or any other branches of government, to
confer."
And it ends with an appeal that, with enough organizing in the streets,
will once again be recognized in the courtrooms of our
land: "Accordingly, the constitutional claims asserted by the [x
corporation] against [y government] must be dismissed because those
claims deny the people's rights to life and
liberty, and their fundamental right to self-governance."
Such is our hope and our life's work.
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5:17:41 PM
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