The UFCW's Dust_in the Wind
Just days before a union representation vote at a Wal-Mart store in Windsor, Ontario Dustin Magee, President of UFCW Local 102, is hanging out in the parking lot. The UFCW has been trying to organize the store for months and has just only succeeded in signing up 40% of the workers - the bare minimum required to get a government-supervised representation vote in Ontario.
The days leading up to the vote will be crucial. In order to get certified the UFCW will need to win 50% plus one of the ballots casts. With only 40% of the store's workers signed up, the UFCW is rolling the dice with a vote. Assuming a big turnout at the polls (which is likely in a high profile organizing campaign) their chances aren't good. The fact that they've applied for certification with only 40% after months of organizing suggests that's the best they think they can do. Any missteps on the union's part will cost them. They're hoping for a miracle - something big that might put them over the top.
Dustin Magee is about to go over the top - and off the edge of a cliff. Sitting in his UFCW van outside the store at around 5:00 p.m., the hulking UFCW President is keeping an eye on things. He observes two workers - a man and a woman - who are behaving suspiciously. They're talking to each other.
The radar in Magee's head begins to beep. Workers - future dues units - talking to each other - not a good sign. Workers shouldn't talk - only listen - to UFCW leaders. Beep, beep, beep...
One of the workers is holding some kind of paper. He's showing it to the other worker. Beep, beep, beep, beep. The radar signal is getting stronger and faster. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...
Paper - documents - written stuff - workers reading stuff - can't be good - must be anti-UFCW stuff - that guy is against us. He's the enemy. Situation critical. Inside his head, a siren begins to wail. Must stop him!
Dustin Magee storms over the top. He doesn't know who the workers are, what they're talking about or what's in the paper that they're looking at but he quickly concludes that there is only one explanation: The two must be conspirators in some malicious anti-UFCW plot. The man is trying to talk the woman into something she doesn't want to do. What other explanation can there possibly be?
Magee climbs out of his UFCW van and lumbers over, uninvited and unannounced, to where the two workers are talking. He's loaded for bear. Magee approaches the worker who's holding the paper. Sticking his beefy face in the worker's face, Magee demands to know what he's doing and what's in that paper that he's holding.
The worker tells him it's none of his business. President Magee gets agitated. He demands the worker's name. He grabs the papers out of the worker's hands. The worker tells him to give it back and pries the paper out of Magee's hands. Their hands touch. Magee claims he's been assaulted.
"You touched me! You assaulted me!" he hollers. Figuring that he now has an excuse to do a little assaulting of his own, he pushes the worker against a car. The worker pushes him back and tries to move out of his way. He pushes the worker against another car. Then UFCW President Magee raises his fist and punches the worker in the face, knocking him to the ground.
"Asshole!" UFCW President Magee exclaims as the worker lies bleeding on the ground.
Other workers, who were standing just a few feet away and witnessed the assault, gather around their injured colleague. They are shocked at what they've just seen. Some try to help the injured worker. Others go off to get help. An ambulance and police are called.
When police arrive, Magee tells them that the worker assaulted him. The witnesses tell a different story. "Fuck off", UFCW President Magee tells them, hoisting his middle finger - at the people who will be voting for (or against) his union in a few days time.
The cops, figuring that the guy lying on the ground bleeding was more likely to have been assaulted then the big unscathed goof who's upright, arrest President Magee is arrested and haul him away.
UFCW leaders promptly issue a statement claiming that President Magee was acting in self defense and that he's been "taken off the assignment".
If I was writing a story like that a week ago, I wouldn't write a story like this. It would sound too preposterous, too unbelievable - even as fiction. What union president would act so stupidly, so recklessly, just days before a crucial vote? Even among the hotheaded half-wits of the UFCW, there must be some vague sense that beating the crap out of workers in front of other workers isn't exactly going to endear them to your union.
But here we are. The disturbing scene I've just described is no fiction. It's real - a composite of very consistent statements from witnesses who saw it happen.
A few days later, the UFCW went down in flames at the representation vote. The margin was about 80% against representation by the-union-that'll-kick-the-shit-out-of you-for-nothing-in-particular. If they ever had a hope of squeaking through with a slim majority, Dustin Magee extinguished that hope in moment of senseless violence.
Up until March 3rd, Magee was a little known President of a little known UFCW local in the small community of Campbellville Ontario. His vulgar display of power - an unprovoked attack against a defenseless worker - has made him famous.
Inside and outside the Canadian union scene (because it's not a "movement"), eyes are popping and tongues are wagging. Heads are shaking. Itches are being scratched and fingers are clamped tightly over noses. Why'd he do it? Why'd he do it where he did, when he did, how he did? It's not so much that other union leaders care that some guy got his lights punched out (none have condemned his behaviour), it's how the whole unpleasant business will reflect on them that's got them cringing. Why'd he do it in front of other workers? In front of customers? In front of multiple witnesses?! Oh shit, made us all look like a bunch of jack-booted goons.
Even true believers are at a loss. They reach for the standard pacifiers - he was provoked, he was stressed out, he was set up, he was frustrated - but none of those work. He was... such an asshole.
It's pretty clear that he wasn't provoked. It's pretty clear that he didn't even know who the workers were or what they were talking about. It's pretty clear that he didn't care what other workers might think of his behaviour. It pretty clear he was... such an asshole. Oh how could he?
Even union reformers are surprised. The UFCW doesn't usually begin to oppress workers until after they become members. What got into Dustin Magee?
Here's what:
Dustin Magee is a product of the UFCW's manifestly sick organizational culture. He's the new generation of UFCW leaders. A guy whose family is part of the ruling elite within UFCW Canada, he would have grown up steeped in the UFCW's values - about the greatness of its leaders and their mission and the need to take workers to places where they may not want to go - for their own good.
"Leadership is taking your members where they don't want to go, and ultimately to be proven right." - Bernard Christophe, President, UFCW Local 832
The UFCW's nepotistic practices for filling important jobs put Magee on the fast track to a cushy job. Not just any old goon can be president of his very own union local at the age of 33 - and a special local at that.
UFCW Local 102, based in Campbellville Ontario is one of those special low profile UFCW locals. So low profile that it doesn't appear in the UFCW's online listing of local unions. But no matter. The special locals are good. They're used for all kinds of innovative purposes and that's why they're kept "in the family". And the UFCW's "family friendly" hiring program provides opportunities for guys with small brains and anger management problems that most employers don't. It's progessive in a regressive sort of way.
Dustin Magee's pedigree includes high ranking UFCW officials Paul Magee, the Executive Assistant to Michael Fraser, Director of UFCW Canada, and Theresa Magee, Executive Assistant to Wayne Hanley, President of the humungous UFCW Local 175. Fraser is himself, the nephew of former UFCW Canada Director Cliff Evans. Hanley is the son of former Local 175 President Bill Hanley. See how it works?
Dear little Lord Fist_leroy was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. One that was paid for by a lot of working people.
His reprehensible behaviour is the perfect chilling metaphor for the Canadian UFCW's relationship with working people. And he is the perfect symbol of the ugly, opportunistic, abusive and stupid - yes, breathtakingly stupid - face of the union that calls itself A Voice for Working America. It's the face that many UFCW members know all too well and one that UFCW leaders work hard to hide from the public.
Dustin Magee's bullying routine - Hey you! Whaddya think yer doin'? What are ya sayin'? What's that yer readin'? What's that yer thinkin'? You'd better stop it or we'll hurt you. See our fist? It's fulla money - your money. Siddown and shut up or we'll shove it down your throat! - is familiar to UFCW members who have had the nerve to talk about or do things that set off sirens in their leaders' heads.
Thanks to Magee's poorly timed assault, that dimension of UFCW culture is now going to become better known to many other people.
What compelled this spoiled UFCW brat-man to go into fist flailing attack mode at the worst time possible time, in the worst possible place, in front of a people who would be voting for or against his union in a matter of a few days?
When you are steeped in a delusional culture you come to believe things that aren't real. When you believe that your organization is invincible, that your mission is unquestionable, that your right to dominate others is your right, you step out on to the edge of cliff with a long drop. Sooner or later, you'll fling yourself off, thinking you can fly.
Three decades of leader-worshipping, business-partnering, member-muzzling, goon-squad-loosing culture has led the UFCW to the edge of the precipice where it latest generation of b_leaders is singing "We can fly!"
The two workers who got his attention simply by talking and reading some stuff could have been engaging each other about one of a million different things. Magee assumed they were up to no good because they were talking and reading some stuff. In UFCW culture, members only speak when spoken to. Members only say things that please their leaders. Members aren't supposed to read stuff in parking lots. Their leaders will tell them what they need to know. (And it would make immiment good sense, to someone immersed in the UFCW's macho culture, that a man talking to a woman must surely be trying to talk her into something. Let's face it: Why else do guys talk to chicks?)
But these workers weren't members - at least not yet.
It's quite possible that Magee thought that the vote at the store was sure to go in the UFCW's favour - the UFCW's a long track record of organizing defeats at Wal-Mart stores aside. But more likely he believed that they were as good as members because they should join the UFCW, they must join the UFCW. They are retail workers, so they belong to the UFCW in much the same way as the van he was driving.
That UFCW "value" - the belief that certain groups of workers are ours whether they want to be or not - is what propelled him off the edge of the cliff.
Dustin Magee had many opportunities along his path - from the moment he left his van to moment that he ploughed his fist into the defenceless worker's face - to stop.
- He could have thought better of confronting the two workers and stayed in the van.
- He could have stopped short and turned around when he saw that other workers were nearby.
- He could have walked away when the worker told him to go away or when he said he was not a manager.
- He could have stopped after the worker asked him to give his papers back.
- He could have stopped after the first time he pushed him.
- He could have stopped after the second time he pushed him.
- He could have stopped when he raised his fist.
He could have stopped any time he chose to but he chose not to. Why? Simple - he didn't feel like stopping. It felt good to intimidate, harass and assault someone who you feel is beneath you. It made him feel important. It felt right.
When you think you have the right to dominate people, how they feel about it or what others of their kind might think about it, is irrelevant. How it makes you feel is what matters. If your organization's culture legitimizes oppression, you're in the clear. You can flail away. It's for a good cause.
In the wake of Magee's goonism, the UFCW went down to a resounding defeat in the representation vote. UFCW leaders spun around and around - bemoaning the absence of democracy at Wal-Mart (while maintaining a studied silence about the absence of it in their own dictatorial organization). They proclaimed Dustin Magee's assault "self defence" and promised to fight for another vote. Seemingly oblivious to the damage that Magee has done to their cause, they want another shot. This is happens when you think you can fly.
Working people should watch the skies closely over the next few months. As the UFCW continues its efforts to acquire workers who don't like to be beat up in parking lots, UFCW leaders are sure to be falling out of the air in large numbers.