Difference between revisions of "Uncharted.ca"

Independant news and views from activists in and around the labour movement.

With the release of the decision in UFCW v. Members for Democracy, a move to a new domain address went from something we had contemplated occasionally to a looming reality. We had 120 days in which to do it. We referred to it as 120 days to r-evolution, our-evolution.

The time had come to build a whole new web site. Five years after its initial launch, the MFD site was bursting at the seams. Our community was expanding and so was its focus. We never strayed from our mission, the empowerment of working people, but as we became more knowledgeable about what was going on around us, our awareness of the interconnectedness of workplace issues with broader issues of social and economic justice, grew as well.

It dawned on us that we live in a system where we are subject to control by multiple tentacles. Our institutions (employers, unions, judicial system, government) are all connected while we are all set apart. Though understanding the connections between the tentacles, their methods and their motives we can free our minds from their received wisdom about ourselves and our potential.

Institutions either control us or we control them. Either we make things happen or things will happen to us. Unions need democratizing but so do the other institutions that affect the quality of our lives - including the places where we work. Those institutions should enhance the quality of our experience here on earth. They should not exploit us, marginalize us or enable our enslavement by private interests. As awareness of the injustice of our marginalization grew, so did our interest in understanding the tools and techniques of oppression. And as our understanding of those increased so did the profound belief that it doesn't have to be this way. This expanded consciousness was reflected in the views expressed by our contributors and the range of discussion in our online forum.

We were no longer just about the UFCW (although the self-proclaimed "Voice for Working America" continued to provide a treasure-trove of new material about failed 20th century unionism); we were no longer just about unions. We were heading off into new directions and uncharted territory.

A new user-friendly site was created to house an even bigger, broader range of news, information and expression. Its name: uncharted.ca.

Five years ago, we urged our community to take back their unions and engage the future. Today, that message has been expanded and amplified. The future is uncharted. If you go there a free spirit you can create something quite different from our current reality. If you go there in the cage that is our current reality, others will build what suits them.

This message, we believe, is fundamental for people who want to change the present and create a different kind of society for the future.

... it is the nature of the oppressed to imitate the oppressor, and by such actions try to gain relief from the oppressive condition... The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not marginals, are not living outside society. They have always been inside the structure which made them beings for others. The solution is not to integrate them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become beings for themselves. Pedogogy of the Oppressed

On our new site, we will continue to inform, expose, educate. We will continue to provide a venue for discussion and the free exchange of views among people who work for a living. We will encourage people to publish their news and their stories and promote their interests. We will provide a venue where like-minded citizen activists can explore alternatives to the current order and take those tentative steps towards something new - where we can become beings for ourselves.

We will more actively encourage more contributions from our community - our writers, artists, thinkers, dreamers, survivors.

Our stories make us matter, define how we see ourselves and help us stake out common ground. We need not be marginalized and trivialized by the corporate media. Through the Internet, we have our own powerful media.

Welcome to r-evolution. Welcome to the uncharted.

History

Introduction

In 1997, a small group of members of United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), Local 1518, in British Columbia decided that it was time to challenge the ineffective leadership of their Local.

Concessionary collective agreements bargained behind closed doors and shoved down their throats earlier that year compelled them to question the motives and adequacy of their local union executives.

A grassroots organization called UFCW Local 1518 Members of Democracy was born.

In 1999, MFD ran an effective reform slate in Local 1518's executive election but ultimately lost under suspicious circumstances. Alleging ballot tampering, MFD challenged the election results. In response to the challenge, the UFCW seized the ballot box and took it away to Ontario. Thus would begin the first of two courtroom dramas between MFD and the UFCW.

With the UFCW steadfastly refusing to return the ballot box and no other recourse under Canadian law, MFD turned to the courts. A lawsuit demanding disclosure of the election results was filed in the BC Supreme Court later that year.

Members for Democracy

The original MFD website was launched in the spring of 2000 at the domain address www.UFCW.net. The domain address was part of the MFD message - "Giving the power of the union back to the members, where it belongs". The message and MFD's use of the UFCW acronym quickly drew the ire of the UFCW.

The web site's mission was to publicize the small grass roots group's efforts to democratize their union. The Internet allowed them to do something that had hitherto been impossible for rank and file members: reach out to other members of their local (scattered across BC) and to members of their union across North America.

Online they pursued their agenda, advocated for democratic unionism and, in a busy online discussion forum, engaged others - many others - in direct discussion and debate about their issues.

Despite the big ideas and bold intentions, the following year, 2001, almost saw the end of MFD. By the summer, lacking the funds to continue the court battle with the UFCW over the 1999 election results, MFD was forced to drop its lawsuit.

The same summer, one of MFD's founding members left the fledgling reform group amidst tragic personal circumstances and UFCW business reps hinted at a pending legal assault against the group. Amid much despair at having to give up their legal battle for the ballot box and the fear of being dragged into court by their union for expressing their views, members began to bail out. By July 2001, the small group disbanded.

The MFD web site was but one click away from disappearing forever. In fact, MFD did disappear, but only for a few minutes.

MFD Community

In the year that had passed since its launch, a community of sorts had developed around the site - one that almost immediately drew in a small but diverse, outspoken and, for the most part, intelligent audience. They came from all over the place to talk, swap stories, exchange views and express themselves. The common denominator seemed to be democratic unionism, or rather the lack thereof in the predominately business oriented labour movement of the time. MFD had become a watering hole, a haven for rebels, activists and people who wanted things to change and were tired of the conventional prescriptions. They were in no hurry to leave.

Amid a flurry of e-mail and telephone calls over the course of a weekend, the groundwork was laid for a new MFD. Promising a broader scope for a more expansive community, MFD took on the mantra of engagement: engage others and engage the future was the war cry. And engaging others was exactly what MFD did.

The MFD message was simple: Fully democratic unions are essential to improving the lives of working people today and in the future. To that end, MFD sought to engage and empower working people by providing news & information, an outlet for discussion & debate, and, most importantly, support for those who would step up to challenge the status quo.

The Lawsuit

n February of 2002, almost two years after the original MFD website was launched, the UFCW tried to cancel their engagement by slapping MFD with a lawsuit alleging defamation and seeking a declaration that MFD's use of the UFCW's name "in connection with the MFD site" constituted "passing off". The suit also sought an injunction that would have restrained MFD from ever using the UFCW's name or acronym without the UFCW's approval and consent.

It was a bold but ultimately foolish move by the UFCW as MFD wasn't going offline without a fight. It wasn't going offline at all. Union reform activists were flocking to the internet, some setting up their own protest web sites, and their unions were quick to retaliate. Lawsuits or threats of lawsuits had forced many offline already. MFD wasn't going to be one of them.

As months and then years passed without a word from the UFCW, MFD's core members (or "contributors" as we had come to call ourselves) wondered if they would ever see their day in court. Unable to afford legal advice or representation, they decided they were going to keep right on rolling. If the UFCW ever dragged them into court, they'd go there themselves. There was something about being engaged, being creative, hanging out with like-minded others and expressing yourself that made you feel more confident and less vulnerable.

The Next Four Years

Over the next four years, in between bouts of legal paper-pushing with the UFCW, MFD continued to engage their audience and their opponents. Knowledge is power and MFD sought actively to make its community more knowledgeable about the people, organizations and belief systems that were hurting them.

Stories of corruption, including lengthy investigative features researched and written by volunteer contributors, shone a light on backroom deals and secret alliances which had always been kept secret from union members. Commentary, often scathing and never bland, about the sad state of mainstream unions and what must be done to turn things around, became an MFD staple. The troughers were exposed along with the warped ideology and the institutions that enabled them.

No one was safe. Frequent targets included unions like the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Service Employees International Union and its misguided leader Andy Stern, the United Steelworkers of America, the Canadian Auto Workers Union, the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, to name but a few. Not even Ken Georgetti, the high priest of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), and his American counterpart John Sweeney escaped unscathed. MFD went after them all and, in doing so, MFD grew. Soon MFD was engaging members from all kinds of unions. Steel Workers, Auto Workers, Pipe Trades, Hospital Employees, Office Workers... the list goes on.

Members from across North America weighed in with their views about what was really killing the labour movement: corruption, bureaucracy, autocracy, greed, neglect. Voices of dissent within the labour movement which had been marginalized and largely silenced for the better part of a century now had an outlet and they weren't shy about using it.

MFD advocated the evolution of workers' media and created a space where people were free to express themselves without censorship or censure for their views. Unlike the official labour web sites which censored views that were unflattering to mainstream unions and their leaders, freedom of speech ruled at MFD.

Freedom of Expression

Freedom of expression encouraged expression. Not all of it useful.

MFD suffered its fair share of conniving labour consultants, greasy lawyers, indignant union staffers, and executives. Trolls of various kinds showed up in our forum only to be disappointed as their efforts to disrupt the discussion fell flat.

Even union supporters initially questioned our motives and our commitment (criticism of unions being largely off-limits in union circles). To their surprise, many found that they had something in common with the rest of the gang: an interest in democratic unionism and a desire to see that concept put back into practice.

MFD encouraged people to understand the systems of indoctrination and brainwashing that kept them down and isolated and helped them navigate the manifestly unjust labour relations system. Fighters emerged, battles began, alliances were formed. Community happened.

During this same period of time we grew more conscious of our evolution as a community being part of something bigger. Many interesting developments were taking place in and around the labour movement. The world witnessed the Italian General Strike of 2002, the California Grocery Workers Strike in 2003-2004, the first unionized Wal-Mart in Jonquière Quebec in 2004, and who could forget the messy, and altogether impotent, break-up of the AFL-CIO in 2005?

As institutional unionism spiraled downward, union members were rising up. Health care workers, transit workers, auto workers and many others rose up in defiance of the state and their bureaucratic leaders. Other powerful institutions came under fire as large scale protests across the globe rocked the existing order.

It seemed to MFD that the times, they were a changing and, with that in mind, MFD was eager to change too.

Back in the Courts

In November of 2005, MFD's 5-year legal dispute with the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union came to an end in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. MFD lost the right to use the UFCW.net domain name but gained a valuable legal ruling and an impetus to take its next evolutionary leap.

In her ruling, the Judge stated:

It is only the bare use of the acronym UFCW in the domain that is objectionable. Should the defendants chose to use UFCW as part its of domain name such as using the domain name like ufcwmembersfordemocracy or ufcwmfd or some other name which incorporates but is not exclusively comprised of the plaintiff's acronym, this may well not amount to a misrepresentation.

The decision provided guidance as well as a precedent for other protest sites. MFD was given 120 days to move to another domain address and ordered to pay $100 in damages to the UFCW.

It was like music to MFD ears. Now free of the five-hundred pound gorilla and only $100 and a usable domain name poorer, MFD was free to get back to what they do best; engaging the future.

You can now find a number of MFD contributors doing their new thing here, their new home, uncharted.ca.

MFD would like to thank everyone who has contributed and participated at UFCW.net and hopes that each of you will continue to share your contributions, your visions, and your desire to engage the future with us.

Languages

English

Related Domains

External Links

• Alexa: Uncharted.ca
• WHOIS for Uncharted.ca