Unite to Spin

The AFL-CIO has been living in 'interesting times' lately. Andy Stern of SEIU has been the front man in pushing the AFL-CIO in a new direction, and joined by Terry O'Sullivan (Laborers), John Wilhelm (UNITE/HERE), Bruce Raynor (UNITE/HERE) and Doug McCarron (Carpenters), has formed the New Unity Partnership to forge a new agenda. NUP disbanded in January, so let's look at the postNUPtials, shall we?

When Andy Stern started singing lead for the "Gang of Five", he recommended a ten-point program for restructuring the AFL-CIO. Some of the points were the same old obvious observations and recommendations, easily recognizable to anyone familiar with labor organizing and rallying cries. Some were not, and instantly invoked the ire of various labor unions (notably the mechanical trades), grassroots union reformers, central trades councils, women, african-americans and other people of color, and affliated organizations.

Buried within the business-as-usual small talk, was an inherent agenda for corporate unionism. This was not stated outright by its protagonists, or course, and very little was said by the AFL-CIO. If you weren't already familiar with sources like Counterpunch, Labor Notes, Voices at Work, or various Carpenters reform sites like this one or this one, you've probably been missing out on the opportunity to seriously educate yourself. Anyway, a quick synopsis of recent events can be found here, with a short critique from the beginning over here. You wouldn't find these links at the AFL-CIO website!

Yet, in retrospect, The AFL-CIO may have been keeping mum 'till after Mother's Day. On May 9, 2005, the AFL-CIO released a new document, "Winning for Working Families" that outlines the changes that have already been taking place within the organization since the March gathering. And even the most terse reading demonstrates that many of the changes advocated by the Gang of Five have been implemented. Not all, but most. And in the humble opinion of this die-hard unionist, there is still a distinct absence of analysis on the real reasons multinational corporations are eating labor's lunch. I look at "toolkits" like this and wonder where the sense of history is.

The corporate model of unionism seeks to fight corporations toe-to-toe, playing their game, by their rules, using the same strategies, yet with far fewer financial and political resources. And then is going to wonder why we're not winning, not to mention not having any fun (nod to Saul Alinsky!). Has labor lost so much vision, that we even feel the need to use their terminology? Aaaiiiyy!

Back to the basics. Why do people join a labor union? More pay? Better benefits? More rights (and enforcement of those rights)? To be treated equally? Shorter working hours? Better working conditions? Job safety? Fairer promotional policies? Better life for their families? All that and more. But what originally inspired people to join unions, in the heyday of organizing? What inspired the founders of some of today's unions, and the firebrand organizers of labor's history? What did they do that convinced so many people with nothing---not a damn thing---living hand-to-mouth, deep in debt to the company store, with no legal rights to organize, to literally risk their lives for the union? Color me skeptical, but I don't think reformulating a bureaucracy had anything to do with it. The history of organized labor in the U.S. is passionate and colorful, filled with characters that were too bold for fiction. Mother Jones. Eugene V. Debs. Big Bill Haywood, Frank Little, Joe Hill, Father T.J. Hagerty, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Henry Miller, John L. Lewis, A. Philip Randolph, Cesar Chavez. The Molly Maguires. Haymarket. The Pullman Strike. The Eight-hour Leagues. Tompkins Square. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Ludlow. Coxey's Army. The Western Federation of Miners. Knights of Labor. The I.W.W. The Free-Speech fights. Sacco and Vanzetti. The International Longshoremen's Association. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Flint and the sit-down strikes. The Civil Rights movement. The Women's Movement. United Farm Workers of America. The lettuce boycott. Teamsters and Turtles. It's not like we don't know what moves people; what makes 'em get hit in their soul.

So why do we continue to model ourselves after our enemies? Why aren't we looking to our own history, our own heroes, and our own innovations for inspiration? While union officialdom seeks to emulate Big Business, our rank-and-file grows ever more disgusted with a top-heavy bureaucracy that leaves them with little voice and less influence. While those at the top busy themselves with restructuring and consolidating, the rest of us want more latitude, creativity, and response. A look at the past several decades of the corporate world shows that companies with the most top-down, autocratic structures were also those who lost market share. This is a war, got-damn it! Start fighting like guerillas! We need institutional structures that allow for mobility and command decisions made out in the field. We have problems global, national, and local in scale. We need the free rein necessary to motivate the rank and file. What do we need to do?

For starters, union democracy is crucial. The biggest part of the backlash against the potential mashing together of unions is the issue of union democracy (the second is the dissolving of hard-won jurisdiction). Mechanical trades' members immediately balked at the prospect of joining the Carpenters, as rank and file Carpenters are already fighting their autocratic union. Within the building trades, it's common knowledge that the Carpenters have the worst job and bargaining conditions amongst us. In my Local, we elect our Business Managers and other officers. Elect. They are not appointed from On High. That matters to us.

If I never hear another empty paean to "diversity", it won't be too damn soon. We hear this rah-rah every time some labor official needs to find some friends, quick. Personally, I'm tired of the photo ops. Some of the suggestions by the NUP were quite hostile to the interests of african-americans, asian-americans, latino/as, and women. So far, the AFL-CIO has stated a committment to maintaining the size of the Executive Council to insure diversity. But it's not enough. The forming of the Women in the Trades committee in the department of the Building and Construction Trades is a step in the right direction. So far, that department still exists, and the AFL-CIO still has constituency groups and affiliated organizations. Black unionists are not taking this for granted, however. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that 55% of union jobs lost in 2004 were held by black workers. Out of all the union jobs lost in 2004 that were held by women, african-american women comprised seventy percent. Black union women lost 100,000 jobs in 2004. One year. One-hundred-thousand black union women.

If there is one thing the corporate world and the Republican party does better than we do, it is recognize, identify and develop talent. We are not doing this effectively at the local level for anyone, but certainly not for younger workers, women, or people of color. Many workers I talk to said that child care is an obstacle to coming to union meetings. Why not offer child care at union meetings, central labor council meetings, and political activities? Might just get more participants that way! We seriously need more involvement for the rank and file at the local level. We need to start recruiting more of our members into key organizing positions. Not everyone is able to attend constant meetings, but more people than we think are willing to get out and do grassroots, hands-on work. Central labor bodies have been critical in fomenting relationships with other community institutions. This is a trend whose time has come. We need to get local, as well as global, and rebuild the relationships that used to exist between labor and the churches, and other community groups.

Funny how here in North America we call our unions "Internationals". Few unions have actually taken concrete steps to build bridges between unions in other countries; a notable exception being the ILWU. We need to make inroads and have solidarity with union in other nations, and we should start right here in this hemisphere, and on the Pacific Rim. We need to organize across borders. The AFL-CIO is starting to do work of this nature with the Solidarity Center. That's good. But not everyone within our own organizations is on the side of the angels. We need to clean house.

*Gasp*! Did I just say that? Clean house? For real? You better believe it. Union corruption like "Labor's Enron" make us look like hell to potential union members, and doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the already organized. Autocratic practices piss off and drive away the membership. Our international reputation has suffered by pandering to post-McCarthyist "red scares". We try to emphasize solidarity, but then shoot ourselves or each other in the foot; for example, SEIU being the largest financial supporter of the Republican Governors Association. SEIU has donated $565,000 to the RGA, more than the National Right to Work Foundation! Meanwhile, 50,000 state employees in Indiana and Missouri lost their collective bargaining rights at the stroke of a pen when the newly elected Republican governors signed Executive Orders. We also have to pay attention to vulnerable others, as was not done here. C'mon folks, this is the labor movement. Let's keep some perspective here! "An Injury to One is an Injury to All"? "Which Side Are You On?" Damn!

We do have a pro-labor press in this country, but we need to access it more often. I listed some in the "Reading is Fundamental" portion of the sidebar to this blog; there are even more listed under "Solidarity Forever". Do yourself a favor; if you give a damn about alternative voices, since media deregulation in the Reagan Administration took away the concept of "equal time" on the publically owned airwaves, start subscribing to two labor-oriented magazines, and make one of them Labor Notes, which is written by rank-and-file union members who know which side they're on! We also need to start demanding more accountability for our publically owned airwaves. Places like Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Free Press, and the Center for Media and Democracy are good resources. The International Labor Communications Association, the Joe Hill Dispatch, and for radio, the Workers Independent New Service are also worth checking out. We need to be active in demanding a labor viewpoint in local talk radio. Right-wing blowhards aren't the only people with opinions! We can also work to creat our own media sources at the grassroots as a brother did here, online. Community access programming provides us with potential pro-labor airwaves, both on TV and radio. (Shout out for a local hand, brother Jim Hade, who kicks out the jams for us in central Illinois!) Let's get wired, brothers and sisters.

One department that is noticeably missing from the new AFL-CIO reorganization of departments, is the Health and Safety Department. What! With all workplace accidents on the rise? With OSHA practically on life support? That's another influence of the Gang of Five's ten-point program; no mention of safety, despite the fact that workers represented by each of the Gang are among those losing the war of attrition to workplace accidents. If you want a sobering look at workplace accidents, visit Confined Space every Friday, where you can read a toll of the weekly workplace deaths. Give yourself plenty of time. Another source for workplace safety issues is Worker's Comp Insider.

Last, but not least, I have heard absolutely nothing about the coming oil crisis from any of labor's heavy hitters, how that is going to impact organized labor, and what contingency plans we have to accomodate the coming changes. On the upside, it's a built-in wrench in the works for neoliberal globalization. It's also a built-in jab-in-the-side to the U.S. government to get busy and rebuild our infrastructure for future sustainability. We need high-speed rail, light rail, and communities that de-emphasize long commutes for work and shopping. We need alternative sources of power, and will need to rely increasingly on electric power. Yet the sound of chirping crickets is all I'm hearing from any of the Big Boys. Lots of posturing, low on substance.

One last note: seems like, just as I suspected, boxers ain't the only ones duking it out in Vegas. Check it out.