Discussion On the Future Of the American Labor Movement
Time for A Grand Discussion At Last?
by Bill Onasch
There is perhaps a silver lining in Bush's momentous victory. Discussion of
issues vital to the future of the American working class, long simmering on the
back burners, can no longer be postponed. The scope and outcome of these
discussions at this make or break divide for our unions and social movements
will likely determine the fate of our class for a long time to come. It's
essential to try to get it right.
It's not going to be easy though to break from old comfortable routines. When
the AFL-CIO executive council met a week after the election they spent four
hours of their one-day schedule discussing how they performed during the
election campaign. They concluded they performed quite well. They heard remarks
from John Kerry consoling them and thanking them for their efforts.
What with this and that, they managed to squeeze in only ten minutes for
discussion of far-ranging proposals from the head of the federation's largest
affiliate, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) president Andy Stern.
AFL-CIO president John Sweeney allowed that Stern's program to drastically shake
up labor's strategy and structure "merited discussion." On the spot, Sweeney
announced the establishment of a Committee For Change. To demonstrate his
commitment to change Brother Sweeney appointed himself committee chair.
Stern, who has
fired several warning shots across the council's bow in the past, issued an
ultimatum: if there is not acceptable change by the council's February meeting
SEIU will bolt the AFL-CIO and will be taking a lot of friends with them. In
fact, one of his New Unity Partners, the Carpenters, already left the fed some
time ago. To help organize a public faction for this coming showdown battle
Stern launched an impressive web site,
unitetowin.org.
On the other hand, Tom Buffenbarger, president of the 700,000 member
International Association of Machinists, has warned his union will take a walk,
"out of self-defense," if Stern's program is adopted. Presumably Brother
Buffenbarger has friends and acquaintances willing to keep him company as well.
It's hard to see how a sharp split in the "house of labor" can be avoided.
While there have always been disagreements within the upper echelons of union
leadership their gatherings were long governed by a code similar to AA—what's
said here, stays here. The maturing crisis and frantic search for answers
started eroding that pledge of silence over the past decade.
Sweeney, ironically Stern's predecessor at SEIU, got his present position as a
result of an unprecedented election challenge to the last fed president, Tom
Donohue, a few years back. Donohue himself had been a loyal stop-loss
replacement of Lane Kirkland, a pleasant fellow who had become known among
staffers as the keeper of Jurassic Park. Sweeney's election ticket promised, if
you will recall, to reverse labor's fortunes by organizing the unorganized and
expanding political influence.
While fences
were partially mended and realigned after Sweeney's election this present tussle
appears to be headed—all proportions guarded—to a fight on a scale not seen
since the CIO split from the AF of L nearly seventy years ago. Under such
conditions debate cannot be limited to the tops, or even secondary leadership.
The ranks will have a rare window of opportunity to intrude as well.
Coming up on December 4 is a leadership gathering of US Labor Against the War
(USLAW), which has become an important organizing center within the labor
movement against the bipartisan war drive.
On December 10, the Labor Party's national leadership will also meet to assess post-election strategy. Armed with an excellent program, this vanguard formation has so far received mostly token support from some progressive unions. It will need to find ways to get more substantial union backing and to also start rooting itself among the unorganized majority in our communities.
These two
promising, but still fragile, formations will have to figure out how to
independently advance their programs and action proposals within the context of
the general debate about labor's future—while striving, of course, to avoid
getting mowed down in factional cross-fire.
Let's summarize some of the broad topics that need to be on our agenda.'
(For more elaboration on many of the questions raised in this article I would
recommend checking out the
Labor
Advocate Online Labor Day Special. For a critical look at the SEIU
perspective see
Reutherism Redux: What Happens When Poor Workers' Unions Wear The Color Purple.)
Political Future
In the 1930s, the leadership of organized labor adopted one of the two
major employer parties as their "friend." As late as the 1970s the unions had
some perceived clout in determining the nominal program of the Democrats and in
selection of key candidate nominations and government appointments.
Over the last thirty years such influence has dwindled to the point it is hardly
visible to the naked eye. In 2004 labor and its allies had to accept a candidate
who shares the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, supports globalization—including
its manifestation in NAFTA, China trade, and Fast Track, all issues once
considered deal breakers—and, like Bush, favors the utilization of tax
incentives for employers as the primary answer to the challenges of health care
and jobs creation.
The most important concessions obtained from Kerry & friends were pledges not to
privatize Social Security, and support for "card check" to bypass vicious
employer contested NLRB elections. That about sums up labor's input in the Kerry
campaign platform.
Though little was obtained by labor much was given to their friends. Tens of
millions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of staff and volunteer hours,
went into what, of course, proved to be a losing effort. No "friend" in the
White House. Fewer "friends" in congress.
Reality
check number one: Democrats have proven not to be true friends but are true
losers.
Where do we go next?
Stern's ten-points lists a point, "Build New Strength in Politics." To say that
it is vague about how this is to be done would be a most kind diplomatic
statement.
What's needed, in my opinion, is discussion about how our unions can transform
the fledgling Labor Party into our political voice.
Our Shrinking Unions
The percentage of private sector workers in unions is the smallest in
living memory—now less than ten percent.
The working class—fueled by not only normal population growth, but also
accelerated immigration, and, above all, unprecedented entry of women into
almost every area of the workforce—is now bigger than ever. Still, even in
absolute total numbers, there are fewer unionized workers than at the time of
the AFL-CIO merger in the mid-Fifties.
This is not primarily because workers have been voluntarily leaving unions.
Decertification of existing unions is relatively rare and usually happens only
as part of a lost strike.
This dramatic drop in both numbers and percentage is explained mainly by the
massive job losses in traditional bastions of unionism.
At one time it was fashionable to speak of a "deindustrialization" of America.
But such a term is highly misleading. True, a few industries have nearly
disappeared from the American scene. Employment growth in the service sector has
out-stripped new factory jobs. But the U.S. is still a manufacturing power. Even
though the ranks of the UAW are greatly reduced more cars than ever are being
built in this country.
What has to be recognized and dealt with is a complex and relentless
restructuring of the American—and world—economy. There are several major
components of this restructuring.
Technology. Changes in the way things are made,
moved, and accounted for have made tens of millions of jobs redundant. The
steel, coal, auto, rail, printing, and many other industries require only a
small fraction of the number of workers that were needed even thirty years ago.
Outsourcing. Much of the work in manufacturing
formerly done in plants of major unionized companies, such as the auto industry
for one example, has been spun off into new companies, or contracted out to
small enterprises. Meat packers now ship mostly boxed meats to grocers, largely
eliminating the need for skilled store butchers. The exact same work is still
being done--but no longer under union contracts.
Domestic Relocations. A prime example is meat
packing. The traditional Big Four meat packers long ago sold and spun their way
out of existence. Most of the old big, unionized packinghouses went down the
tubes. The work formerly done in a handful of major centers has been spread
around widely scattered smaller operations now dominated by a few new corporate
giants.
"Independent Contractors." While trucking
operations have mushroomed Teamster over-the-road drivers are an endangered
species. The lion's share of this work is now done by workers who must furnish
their own equipment, be responsible for paying their own health care and pension
costs, forego paid vacations, pay the employer share of their Social Security
deductions, and in general accept great risks, while bidding for work. Many wind
up with net earnings less than what they would earn as unionized employees—often
much less. Most such "ICs" face legal, as well as economic obstacles to
organizing.
Offshoring. Manufacturing bosses have long used
the advantages afforded them by NAFTA and WTO on a prodigious scale to either
build their own plants, or outsource work, in countries where labor costs are a
tiny fraction of original unionized operations in this country. Other industries
are now following this example as well.
Reality check number two: traditional, incremental organizing efforts, even
if doubled, cannot keep pace with the loss of union jobs due to this ongoing
restructuring.
Where do we go next?
Stern uses broad strokes to outline ambitious plans for organizing that would
require expenditure of two billion dollars over a five-year period. Stern
advocates going after the biggest employers, such as Wal-Mart, and concentrating
on organizing whole industries. While such bold strategic plans and greater
commitment of resources are undoubtedly part of what's needed more is required
to overcome the pressures of restructuring and the obstacles of American labor
law.
Others, noting the difficulty at winning under NLRB rules—especially under a
Bush board—think we should experiment with other alternatives. These include
minority unions,
a common practice in parts of Europe, and learning from such past experiments as
the Trade Union Educational League of the 1920s. These too can be useful
options, worth a try. But success of such ventures has almost always been tied
to coordination with influential workers political parties—something we don't
yet have.
One observation, in passing: while picking strategic targets to give our work
some logical focus makes sense it's important to maintain flexibility in
recognizing opportunities. Some of the earliest victories in the upsurge of the
Thirties came in unlikely places. Most strategists of the time would not have
expected workers at the Auto-Lite sparkplug plant in Toledo, or delivery drivers
in Minneapolis, to inspire a forlorn nation's working class to battle once more.
Likewise, the small group of Black trade unionists who initiated the Montgomery
bus boycott, launching a mass civil rights movement and the career of Martin
Luther King, hadn't been part of any master strategic plan. We need to be able
to spot, support, and learn from inevitable initiatives coming out of local
struggles and adjust our plans accordingly.
Bargain Basement
Of course the principal objective in organizing workers is to bargain
with the bosses over wages, benefits, job security, and working conditions. Many
organizing efforts that clear the first hurdle of winning an NLRB representation
election fail to ever get a first contract.
Even long-established unions are facing the toughest negotiations that anybody
can remember. The famous one-word programmatic synopsis of AFL pioneer Sam
Gompers, "more," has been expropriated by the bosses.
Virtually every contract negotiation in America today features the employer
demand to shift more of the compensation package to paying for escalating costs
of health care.
Many want caps on employer contributions to pension plans, and/or shifts from
guaranteed benefit plans to 401(k)—such as the workers at Enron enjoyed. United
Airlines recently demanded total elimination of their employee pensions.
Where threats of outsourcing and offshoring are palpable, such as in
manufacturing, bosses turn the screws even harder often demanding wage cuts,
multi-tier wage structures, changes in work rules to allow them to get more work
out of fewer workers.
Though not nearly as frequently as they once did, sometimes workers stand up to
demands for take-backs by going on strike. Thirty years ago a token picket line
was usually enough to shut down an operation. The social status of scabs was a
couple of notches below child molester and such misfits were seldom seen.
But today is different. Many employers—especially when they are dealing with
relatively small units on a local level—are prepared to break strikes. There are
successful companies who will provide both professional strikebreakers and
"security" forces. Unions are forbidden by law from using some of the most
effective tactics such as sit-down occupations, mass picketing to block access
to the worksite, secondary boycotts and hot cargo embargos.
Some strikes are still won by the workers but too many are being broken. Every
defeat chills the frigid bargaining climate a few degrees more.
Lost strikes and give-back settlements of course make the task of organizing new
members that much harder.
Nonunion workers who benefited indirectly from standards established through
union agreements find this relationship can work both ways. When unions take a
hit wage levels for all stagnate or even decline.
Reality Check Number Three: Living standards and working conditions can no
longer be adequately advanced and defended solely through traditional collective
bargaining methods.
Where do we go next?
Stern's plan seeks to enhance bargaining power along several lines:
Concentrate on building union density in some key industries that are not as
vulnerable to offshoring and outsourcing.
Make the biggest employers such as Wal-Mart priority targets.
Seek industry-wide agreements, or at least common expiration dates for local
contracts within an industry.
These are mostly excellent ideas. During the ascendancy of industrial unionism,
from 1935-48, company-wide, sometimes industry-wide contracts were won and
transformed the lives of workers in the auto, steel, rubber, electrical,
meat-packing and other industries.
Such agreements have all but disappeared during the economic restructuring and
will not easily be reestablished.
One of Stern's New Unity Partners, UNITE-HERE, has made common expiration a
priority in hotel and casino bargaining. After a militant strike, what is by all
accounts an overall excellent contract was recently won in Atlantic City—but
without the common expiration with other contracts sought. Clearly the casino
and hotel bosses are treating this strategic objective as a deal breaker and are
prepared to fight to the knife to resist it. A bitter hotel lockout/strike is
currently in progress in San Francisco and hotel workers in Washington and Los
Angeles are on "strike watch."
(By the way, just how far we are from national bargaining is illustrated by the
fact that there are major cities—such as Kansas City—that don't have a single
UNITE-HERE organized hotel or restaurant.)
The desirability of the widest possible contracts was recognized early on in the
workers movement. The first national agreements in rail and meat packing date
back over a century. But the ability to get and maintain such contracts depends
mainly on the overall relationship of forces in the class struggle. The peak
period of working class mobilization under union leadership came to a close with
the passage of Taft-Hartley in 1947, followed by
defeated strikes in 1948.
While the strength of industrial unionism was largely based on working class
perception of it being a broad social movement, working for everyone's benefit,
few lasting social reforms actually came out of this period. Virtually
everything the unions won was codified in contracts for their dues-paying
members only—subject to attack at any time.
Once again we come back to politics. In most industrialized countries unions
have used, not spurious "friends," but their own political parties to
legislate much of what we have to negotiate with the boss for: health care;
adequate retirement income guarantees; paid time off; shorter working hours with
no cut in pay.
Just think how much easier contract negotiations could be if we won the
Labor Party's Just Health Care
plan. How about a law requiring a minimum of four weeks paid vacation for every
worker in the land? Wouldn't that speed up talks a bit?
And wouldn't it be reassuring to know that if we do have to strike that the boss
would be prohibited by law from bringing in strikebreakers—as is the case in
several countries and Canadian provinces?
A Fight With No Borders
Globalization is becoming well entrenched. We're not going to stop it by
lobbying for trade tariffs or organizing consumers to Buy American.
In fact there is no good reason for American workers to oppose a global economy.
There's plenty of work to be shared throughout the world to lift billions of
people out of poverty.
But Big Business is not looking to alleviate the world's poverty. They are out
to take advantage of the world's poor by paying them wages that keep them in
poverty and reaping far greater profits than obtainable in the U.S. That's
the problem with Globalization. It hurts all workers across all borders.
The only way we can defend against being pitted in the "race to the bottom"
with workers in other lands is by building a genuine international labor
movement.
This means a sharp departure from past practice of our labor leadership.
Since the Cold War many of America's unions have collaborated with employers,
the State Department, and even the CIA, in working for docile, "pro-American,"
sweetheart unions abroad. Even today the AFL-CIO has been seeking money from the
Bush administration to build a tame union movement in Iraq to support the puppet
government in Baghdad. Those responsible for these shameful practices must share
the blame for creating such an attractive alternative labor market that sucked
up millions of our former jobs.
We need to do the exact opposite. We need to assist those low-wage workers
producing most of the goods sold at Wal-Mart to build strong unions and
political parties, capable of drastically improving their wages, benefits, and
conditions. The more they win from our common employers the less we will be
forced to give back to the boss here.
Against War. The ultimate enforcer of
Globalization is the remaining super-power—the military might of the United
States. The bipartisan doctrine of preemptive war has nothing to do with the
security of the American people. It has everything to do with advancing the
global corporate interests of Big Business.
Thanks largely to the courageous and tireless efforts of USLAW, numerous union
bodies, including important national unions and state feds, have taken positions
opposing the unjust war in Iraq. On the other hand, there are unions that have
fallen into line behind the hypocritical "patriotic" appeals of Big Business and
their politicians. These divisions cut across the Sweeney and Stern camps.
But both camps pulled together to duck the war issue during the election
campaign in deference to their pro-war "friend" seeking to replace Bush as
commander-in-chief.
Even leaving aside the unjust character, based on lies, of this current war, the
war machine is an enormous, ongoing question for American workers.
Though conscription was eliminated thirty years ago an economic draft keeps the
ranks of the armed forces overwhelmingly working class. For some, facing bleak
civilian employment opportunities, the military is simply the best job
available. Others are attracted by offers of education that they could not
otherwise afford. And there is the National Guard who historically, in exchange
for helping their communities during times of natural disasters, could pick up a
little supplemental income for their families. The enlisted personnel of
America's mighty military machine are not primarily gung-ho warriors. They are
mostly workers in uniform, trying to get by, pretty much like you and me.
Only now they
are getting killed and wounded. Now many are returning home as emotional wrecks.
Now those aging Guardsmen are being pulled off their jobs, separated from
families. And now a lot of kids are finding catch-22s blocking that path to
college education the recruiters promised. This part of the working class
deserves the attention and support of the labor movement.
And during these times of cut backs in education and virtually all useful public
services shouldn't labor be concerned about the financial burden of supporting
the only super-power? Approximately forty percent of the federal budget goes to
paying the cost of present and past military commitments.
Allies At Home
Some of the old-school union officials see social issues as peripheral at best,
to solid, bread-and-butter objectives of trade unionism. If it can't be
quantified in the compensation package for dues-paying members it should be
addressed, if at all, by somebody else. It's little wonder such visionary
leaders are generally viewed, if at all, by most workers as peripheral, at best,
to progress for working people.
Other leaders see some advantage in winning sympathy and allies for organized
labor by supporting broader causes. But, over the years, they have been content
to see social movements steered more into lobbying and electoral support of
Democrats—just as they have done with our unions.
Reality Check Number Four: with nearly ninety percent of the working class
outside the ranks of organized labor we need to forge alliances with movements
fighting for social issues of concern to working people.
The heroic
battles that we like to recall that established industrial unionism could not
have been won without the sympathy, and often active support, of the
unorganized, and even the unemployed, in the community. Winning such allies
again is a prerequisite for winning new battles today.
Dark Days for Black Workers. Black workers were
represented far beyond their share of the general population in the industries
organized by the CIO. As a group, no one fought harder to achieve those proud
union victories. Few segments of workers benefited more from the growth of
industrial unionism in this country than African-Americans.
When the packinghouses closed, assembly lines stopped, and open hearths shut
down, many Black communities lost a huge chunk of their modest "middle class."
The net worth of Blacks has been plunging and is now half that of Latinos. These
deteriorating living standards in turn fuel growing social problems. All of this
has been made worse by government policies—from Reagan through Clinton right on
down to today—such as the War On Drugs, Three Strikes, and Welfare To Work.
But gone are the days when Martin Luther King and Walter Reuther marched arm in
arm in the streets, when genuine, and sometimes successful, efforts were made to
build alliances between labor and civil rights. One of the few bright spots in
an action that otherwise got very mixed reviews was the determination of the
recent Million Worker March to bring this question front and center. To be truly
united to win the labor movement must make these injuries to Black workers the
concern of all workers. This too must be on our agenda.
Reuther and King
Women's Rights Under Attack. Legal and social
rights of women are among the prime targets under the Bush "mandate." Last
Spring more than a million turned out in Washington for the March For Women's
Lives. The labor movement needs to educate around, and commit resources to this
important struggle of a needed ally.
Environmental Dangers. The labor movement has
found some common ground with environmental activists around shared opposition
to Globalization. But, too often, when push comes to shove, our unions have
caved in to the false choice of jobs versus the environment promoted by our
bosses. Clearly the Bush second term plans to ride roughshod over any opposition
to irreversible employer destruction of our environment. We need to make common
cause with the environmental mass movements and revive the perspective for
creating a Just Transition that can both guarantee good jobs and protect our
precious environment.
Let's Talk About It
These are just some of the important questions that require extensive
discussion. I haven't provided all of the right answers—I don't claim to have
them all. But you never get answers without questions. And you don't get
successful actions without intelligent discussion and at least working answers.
Lets get talking.
11/15/2004